Lost Contract

It seems like transactions are becoming more difficult in a time when everyone should want to make them work. This past week one of my buyers had to pull out of a contract to purchase a home she wanted to buy. When we first found the house I was not able to find other sold homes in the area that supported the price the seller wanted. We eventually negotiated a price but told the seller’s agent it was still not supported by comps in the area and if the appraisal did not support the price, we would ask for an adjustment. Naturally the response had all the right buzz words and we were assured the sellers wanted the deal to work.

The appraisal came back at essentially what the sellers paid for the home a little over a year ago but was $15,000 below what we had agreed to pay. Per our earlier warning, we asked the sellers to adjust their price by $10,000. We thought this was a reasonable request and would lead to a satisfactory resolution. I was a bit surprised when the sellers refused to negotiate further and asked for a release of contract. In this market where buyers are few and far between, to get that close to a sale and lose it seems foolish but then again, there is always information we don’t have.

I wish these sellers good luck, my buyer and I are back out today looking at more homes and there are plenty of them out there.

Bury the Saint?

When things get bad for someone it seems there is somebody who profits. When I lived in Alaska high gas prices were good because oil drives the economy there. With the real estate market slow and sellers having a difficult time finding a buyer, I just read sellers of religious merchandise; particularly St. Joseph statues have shot up.

Instructions packaged with the St. Joseph statues variously suggest burying one upside down or upright, in the front yard, backyard or near the "For Sale" sign, facing the home, the heavens or the street, and saying a prayer or making a simple request for a buyer.

Who knows, I may send “To believers, saint moves homes,” a recent story from the Chicago Tribune, to my sellers.

Savvy Buyers

According to the latest Trendgraphix analysis, “Savvy buyers take advantage of record inventory.” The report is more encouraging than I had expected with the last two weeks of August virtually dead for me and most of my colleagues. Take a look at my column at Rocklin & Roseville Today, “August Results Look Encouraging,” to get overview of what the report detailed or take a look at the September 18 press release on my website, www.jalone.com.

National Market News

According to testimony submitted by the National Association of Realtors at a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing on the economy the NAR president, Tom Stevens, said, “After five years of outstanding growth, the housing market is undergoing a period of adjustment and becoming more and more of a balanced market between buyers and sellers.” For more details and some specific predictions see my column at Rocklin & Roseville Today, “Realtor Forecast is Down.”

Chocolate for Everyone

Today is Chocolate Day in honor of Milton Hershey’s birthday on September 13, 1857. Milton was the founder of Hershey Chocolate. Having something chocolate today does not sound like a bad idea!

I am starting to feel a bit more optimistic the past few days as I have noticed some of my listings are getting showings and I have several new buyers to work with. Best of all, my long time clients and proverbial fence sitters are in contract! They have wanted a house for so long and now finally have found the prefect home; well actually they found it again because we lost out to multiple offers over two years ago. In addition I have noticed the number of sales and pending sales shown in the 24-hour Watch on MLS is starting to grow and best of all homes going off the market because they are sold, expired and/or moved to inactive is now a larger number than the new listings.

Have a great day and if you know someone who is thinking about buying or selling a home, please let me know. I love referrals and have a fun way to reward you for them.

September 11th

With the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, many of us still struggle to come to terms with that fateful day and how it changed our lives and continues to impact Americans every day. Some have made peace; some have found hope or causes to follow; while others still struggle with the why and when it may happen again.

To those that died that day and those that lost a loved one and to those that went in harms way to help – you all make us proud to be an American and we will always remember, respect and honor you

Other Item: Last week I was in a bit of a hurry updating my blog and used some information I found on another Realtors website. I have been reading John Lockwood’s blog, “Sacramento Real Estate Blog” for a long time and have found it a good source of information. John had posted some early results and this was what I used in my blog. Well, first I should have run the numbers myself because there were a couple of errors and second I should have linked back to John’s site and given him credit for the research. My apologies to John for not letting my readers know where the information came from.
By the way as John points out the correct median sold price for Sacramento was $362,400, down 4.6 percent from $380,000 a year ago.

Summer is Over

I can feel a new energy level in the air as well as smell the smoke from the Ralston fire! My column today at Roseville & Rocklin Today is about inventory levels and some increased activity in our local real estate market. With Labor Day behind us we are starting to see inventory growth slow down and actually start dropping. Take a look at the column by following this link. If you do, please leave a comment or shoot me an email, I would love to have some feedback.

Some August Results for Sacramento

I found some early August results for Sacramento County. According to MLS the median price paid was $404,062 which is down 3.9 percent form last August median of $380,000. The volume of sales declined dramatically, down 52.5 percent to 1,130 homes sold. In August the per square foot sold price was down 2.8 percent. Of note is the rapid increase in the number of expired listings. This August 1,085 listing expired compared to 346 last year and almost equaled the number of homes sold.

In other news the Sacramento Bee ran a story yesterday on the National real estate market, “Home prices rising after 2Q slowdown.” The story points out U.S. home prices continued to rise in the second quarter but showed the biggest slowdown in decades.