Different economists and “pundits” are making all sorts of different predictions about the economy and how soon or not we’ll recover.  What about the housing market?

Oh, if only I had a crystal ball.  Likewise with housing, I can’t predict how fast or what shape the “recovery” will take.  After a long time of all of us–including myself–thinking we had dodged a bullet with regard to home prices and activity, we have seen a serious decline in home sales, along with the fall of Lehman Bros. and the general “tanking” of the economy since September.  In many, many ways, all real estate is local, yet we have only to look around us to see that we, too, are affected by national trends.  Heck, this spectacular economic decline is more than national–this is a once-in-a-lifetime global event that few if any predicted.  So perhaps the most productive way to look at things is not to gaze into crystal balls or flip tarot cards, but to look at the facts at hand and search ourselves for how we want to act.

Continue Reading »

Once again, I was watching Barbara Corcoran on the TODAY show, the real estate diva extraordinaire , was it Christmas morning or the day after Christmas?, (yeah, okay, I confess, this realtor is obsessed with real estate 24/7), and she was talking about what a fantastic “Buyer’s Market” this is.  To paraphrase Ms. Corcoran, she was going on:  “Never, never, never have I seen such an extraordinary Buyer’s Market…never have the stars been so alligned…giving the Buyer everything he or she could want…in all my years in real estate, the conditions for the Buyer have never been better…you’ve got low prices, motivated sellers, near-record low interest rates, first-time homebuyer tax credits, huge inventory…everything the Buyer could possibly want is there for the taking…this is Their Time.”

Continue Reading »

The latest RMLS “Market Action” for November was published a week ago and, not surprisingly, the figures are grim.  Here are the highlights for homes in Portland Metro:  

Comparing November ‘08 with November ‘07:  

* Closed sales dropped 39.9%

* Pending sales dropped 31.7%

* New listings dropped 20.2%

* Average sale prices dropped 10.5%

* Median sale prices dropped 7%   Continue Reading »

 I understand this is a Buyer’s Market, and everywhere I go I see tons of “For Sale” signs for homes that seem to sit on the market month after month.  Why would anyone want to sell in this kind of market?

Last week in Part I, we discussed the varied reasons why some homesellers would sell their home in this “buyer’s market,” and those reasons chiefly centered around the “need” to sell, one way or another.  In this article, we’ll discuss the reasons why some homesellers would still, despite the market conditions, choose to put their home on the market to sell, based on their wants rather than needs. Continue Reading »

I understand this is a Buyer’s Market, and everywhere I go I see tons of “For Sale” signs for homes that seem to sit on the market month after month.  Why would anyone want to sell in this kind of market?

Well, you raise a good point:  this surely is a Buyer’s Market and one not hospitable to Sellers.  By all means, if it’s “neither here nor there” to a particular seller and they could just as easily postpone their plans to sell until the market stabilizes, with no other considered interest or need, than my advice to that seller would be to do just that–postpone the sale until it makes more sense.  However, there are a number of factors that justify a sale from the Seller’s point of view.  First, consider those reasons that apply to sellers who need to sell their homes. Continue Reading »

My partner and I are thinking of selling our home.  Should we put it on the market now or wait until after the Holidays are over?

Well, you’re not giving me much to work with here.  I wish I knew more about WHY you are thinking of selling your home?  Are you itching to buy another and need to sell your’s first?  Do you have to sell your home to bring in some $$$ or because you are relocating?  Is the home just too big or too small or in an area you’re not fond of and wish a change?

Here’s the thing–in a “normal” marketplace, people will often me ask me “when is a good time to sell your home?  Can we sell a home during the Winter or should we wait Continue Reading »

I’ve heard about a tax credit for first time homebuyers. How does this work and who’s qualified?

As I’ve been saying for at least the last year, this is a Buyer’s Market par excellence–in all my years working as a Realtor and having seen all kinds of markets, I’ve never seen a market this predisposed to the Buyer. My advice to anyone thinking about buying a home and still sitting on the fence–get off the fence and buy, buy, buy! Here again are just a few reasons why it’s a great time to buy: Continue Reading »

We were due to close on our first home purchase early next week, but just found out that our insurance policy will cost us over a thousand dollars a year!  This will strain our budget even more than we expected and we’re having jitters about this.  What should we do?

It upsets me to hear that you “just found out” the cost of your hazard insurance.  Your Realtor should have urged you to find out what your policy would cost early on, during the home inspection period, and your lender should have been talking about this with you earlier, and not just days before your scheduled closing.

Even pre-dating the housing crisis Continue Reading »

Well Sunday marks the end of daylight savings time, so be sure to set your clocks back 1 hour this Saturday night–and enjoy the extra hour’s sleep!  It’s become commonplace to remind folks to “check your smoke alarm batteries” at this time as well, but the end of daylight savings always makes a good marker to get your home ready for Winter and the coming cold weather.  Here’s some basic Continue Reading »

Well, the latest RMLS figures just came out last week, and the first sentence of the montly “Market Action” report sums it up:  “While sales activity in the Portland metro area continues to slide, the slope of the decline leveled off a bit in September.”

Comparing September 2008 with September of last year 2007, pending sales are down 11.7%, closed sales down over 12%.  The average home’s sale price is down 5.6% compared to last year, while the median price similarly fell 5.8%.  In $$$ figures, that means the average home price Continue Reading »