Inventory going up...again!

I got an email yesterday from a reader asking if I was ignoring the available housing inventory since I had predicted it wouldn’t start rising until late February or early March. I have been watching it closely and although we are still below where we were as of the first of the year the number of homes now on the market, according to my friends over at HousingTracker, has been going up the past few weeks. We started the year with 13,199 homes on the market in the Sacramento area and hit a low the following week of 12,218. Since then it has increased by 464 to 12,785 on January 29. This is still a decrease of over 3 percent from January 1st but for the past week we saw it grow 1.09 percent or by 138 new homes on the market. I can always count on hearing about my off predictions!

For the agents I have been talking to, showing activity remains strong and this morning I met with Brad L’Engle of Comstock Mortgage and he has had more activity this month than he normally sees in January and is feeling pretty good about the outlook for 2007. If you are looking for a lender or just some great tools and resources about mortgages take a look at bradlengle.com.

What was that?

Did I really use the term, "end of the week?" I clearly forgot the business I am in. This week just runs into next and and the days keep coming. Sunday turned out to be another busy day as I showed a few houses and presented an offer. Notice I didn't say fax an offer. I actually met face to face with the listing agent and walked her through my clients situation and the offer they are making. I personally believe the agents involved in a transaction should have a working relationship and open communication. Most of my recent rants have involved agents who believe sending a fax is communication .

An offer is exactly that, an offer and the fact that I hand delivered it does not necessarily give it greater probability of being accepted but at least if there is a question or concern I am confident the seller's agent knows I am available and ready to help. This working relationship will become more important if there are counter offers and as the transaction moves through the the various contingency periods and finally to the close of escrow. Agents working together in the interest of their respective clients get homes bought and sold with as little stress on our clients as possible.
BTW, I wrote the above entry today using the Zoho Writer, an on line word processor. It is pretty cool!

End of a busy week

Over the past few days I have been showing houses to my new clients who are moving here from Virginia. They are a nice family with two twin daughters. It has been fun showing them some great houses and watching the interaction between the girls. Makes you wish you had a twin. My sister and I are close but don’t come close the symbiotic relationship between Emily and Nora.

Earlier in the week Michael and I had the pleasure to meet with Marie Taylor of Taylor Strategic Marketing. She is a very interesting person and had some good suggestions for us to think about when it comes to my business. During our conversation Marie mentioned that 51 percent of adult women live alone. As a Realtor I have had so many more single women clients than single men, so my interest was peaked. I love the Internet, a quick search and I found a recent article, “Real Estate: Who is buying now,” published on CNNMoney.com.

The article confirms Marie’s point; the real estate market is changing. It goes on to point out how our demographics and social norms are changing the real estate market. The average home buyer today is very different compared to buyers of the past. It is an interesting article and worth reading and thinking about, especially for us in the real estate business.

Time to hit the road and find the more traditional family a great home!

BTW, Congratulations to Blaine and Kara on their wonderful new home!

Offer: Why waste the paper?

When I am representing a seller and get a low offer I am not offended. I just read a post by one of the other consistent Sacramento bloggers, John L, and he was babbling about sellers thinking they are in the past and buyers making offers in the future. What he was saying is true; often sellers want to price their home for what their neighbor sold for last year even though prices have come down. Buyers on the other hand seem to want to add on another year’s worth of decline to their offers. Our job as Realtors is to find the ground in the middle where both parties can agree. Sounds easy right?

Here is my latest rant, we received a well prepared offer on one of my listings, okay, not that good especially in regards to pricing, the offer was $25,000 or 5.9 percent below the asking price we had just reduced to. Still the offer appeared to be in the realm of negotiating. The ones that are 90 percent or less of the asking price are almost impossible to find a middle ground. We countered back with reasonable drop to show a willingness to negotiate and asked for a response the next day. My first hint this was going to be “Twilight Zone” experience was the buyer’s agent who told me his buyer was not available until Tuesday because she works. Must be a tough place with no lunch breaks or time off for over 72 hours! We waited; they eventually countered back with no courtesy call from the agent and only came up a few thousand dollars.
Before we could respond I got a message from the agent saying his client wanted rescind her offer because she could not afford the higher amount.

This is a recurring rant about agents who don’t have any common sense or lack the ability to pick up the phone. Why waste time, emotions and paper on proposing deals that have no chance. Had the agent called me and said we looked at you house, my client loves it but can only afford so much I would have told him, don’t write the offer but I will call you if we get into a position where that price will work. Making a low offer with no room to negotiate is a waste of time. This is especially true when the house has just been reduced and relatively new on the market. This agent is not doing much more than sitting on his name!

Hang in there Ms. Seller! You have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood and the right buyer will come along.

Rocklin

Recently I have written about the Sacramento real estate market, “Down Year for Sacramento Real Estate.” From a broad review in that article I focused closer to home and wrote “Roseville Real Estate Review” in my previous Rocklin & Roseville Today column. Today I complete the series with “Rocklin Review.” I know these are not the most entertaining articles but I do believe they serve as a foundation for understanding our local real estate market and where we may be headed in 2007.

For those of you who sent me an email about Kevyn and Dave and their honeymoon trip to Argentina, thank you for your interest. They arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday and the last I heard were headed to the Southern most city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. Again, if you are interested in tracking their progress, send me a note at juliej@jalone.com and I’ll send you the link to their travel blog.

Roseville Review

The other day I used my Rocklin & Roseville column to review the Sacramento real estate market, “Down Year for Sacramento Real Estate.” Today I have posted “Roseville Real Estate Review” where I share sales numbers and median price information about the three zip codes that make up Roseville. Later in the week I am planning on the same review for Rocklin.

It has been a pretty good week here, with an offer being accepted on my Melrose Drive listing in North Highlands and another in the negotiation process. I have also added a very nice couple from the Washington DC area to my list of active clients. They will be here later this week to start looking for home for their family in the Sacramento area. In addition we have been enjoying having Michael’s daughter Kevyn and her husband Dave here the past week. They left bright and early this morning for their delayed honeymoon trip to Argentina. The trip sounds wonderful and they have created a travel blog to keep us all up-to-date. If you are interested in taking a look, shoot me an email at juliej@jalone.com and I will send the link.

Final Real Estate Review for 2006

The numbers are out, the Sacramento Bee and others have published stories and I have dedicated my column at Rocklin & Roseville Today to our Sacramento real estate market in 2006. How you feel about what happened last year may depend on how the local real estate market impacted you. If you had to sell your home in the second half of the year, it probably had a pretty negative impact as buyers disappeared and Realtors kept asking for a price reduction. On the other hand if you were a buyer, the story was different. If you are interested in looking at it in more detail take a look at “Down Year for Sacramento Real Estate” or on my real estate news page.

More Houses for Sale

For the first time since August of last year we have seen a week when more houses have come on the market than were sold or taken off. HousingTracker reported a one week gain in Sacramento inventory of 247 homes to a total of 12,465 as of January 15. Over at Bubble Market Inventory Tracking, where they monitor Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo Counties, the inventory was reported at 12,150 as of January 14 which is an increase of 528 from the start of the year.

Last week I said, “My current thinking is we will see inventory continue to decline but as we move into late February and March it will slow and may even begin to build by the end of the quarter.” Those folks who removed their houses from the market during the holidays have come back faster than I anticipated.

National news front

In their latest forecast for the US real estate market the National Association of Realtors (NAR), expects sales to decline 1.2 percent while price appreciation is expected to grow 1.5 percent. See “Home Prices Expected to Rise, Sales to Drop Slightly” or “Gradual Rise Projected for Home Sales” on the NAR site for details.

The reports of improvement in the national real estate market continue to flow as the Mortgage Bankers Association reported the volume of applications for loans to purchase homes rose 16.2 percent compared to the previous week and is at the highest level in nearly a year. The volume was up about 3 percent compared to the same time last year. For more information see, “Mortgage applications surge”.

I enjoy reading about the national trends but understand real estate is a local business and our market here in the greater Sacramento area is showing some positive signs but not in full recovery. As the author of the following anonymous comment posted on another blog points out there are people who feel we have not seen the worst.

The folks hoping that we have found a bottom and now breathing a sigh of relief
at some of the recent news that sales have picked up and inventories are coming
down are not seeing the big picture. I would submit that the sales spike last
quarter was our first Suckers Rally. People who know that November/December are traditionally weak sales periods jumped into the market thinking that it should
be the bottom and that things would rebound in the spring. These are people who
are still generally optimistic on the value of Sacramento real estate... they
are also Suckers.

Talk to a human

I came across a cool website the other day and thought I would pass it along. It is gethuman.com and is all about how to get a live person when calling an 800 number. Let me know if you like it – juliej@jalone.com.

Fun in Yuba City

I love my job! Right now I am working with a young Yuba City couple who are getting ready to sell their condo and buy a house. Several years ago I helped Randi find this great bachelor pad and she has enjoyed it but now that she has met, fallen in love and married Tony it is time to find a family size place. Last weekend we did a whirl wind tour of the area and looked at tons of homes. There are some great houses in their price range and when the time is right it will not be hard to find one for them.

It was fun watching Tony and Randi get excited about the houses we were looking at. After the tour we returned to the condo and did a detailed walk through to determine what needs to be done to prepare the property for the market. We developed a punch list of tasks and discussed where best to spend money getting it ready for the market.

I got a call from Randi earlier this week letting me know she and Tony were hard at work getting ready to paint and completing some of the tasks I suggested be done. They really do have a nice condo and with a few updates and some paint will market well.
Getting to help clients who want to help themselves is a pleasure and although Yuba City is a bit of a drive for me I love working with Randi and Tony.

Disposable Agent?

My friend, colleague and team member, Traci Butler, just experienced one of the most demoralizing aspects of being a caring Realtor. Here is what Traci told me, “This is a friend and neighbor who I keep in contact with socially and genuinely like. I had no idea they were thinking of moving. We had discussed her willingness to refer me and I expected that if she were ever to move she would contact me.”

If you want to hear the rest of the story, check out my column today, “Realtor’s Nightmare” over at Rocklin & Roseville Today. Traci is a great agent and has some interesting observations.

Is this the agent you want?

After agreeing to a purchase price on one my listings I received a fax from the buyer’s agent. It read as follows:

Before faxing over the counter offer #2, I am to request 3% commission.
With the market condition, we can help our client to find quality home for lower
price, plus 3% commission. We did our best to sell your home, and ask for
only half percent more. Would you rather pay $x,xxx extra, and close it
within 30 days?

Please fax over your adjustment of 3%, so we can
move forward.

Since when does the agent dictate the terms for his buyers and apparently without their knowledge? Clearly, in every profession there are low life participants who only think about making an extra buck even if it hurts the client they are supposedly serving. By the way in this case the scum sucker is a lender who is making a second fee for putting the loan together.

New Year but not much new

It is a slow news time for Sacramento real estate. There are a few articles out there predicting how the market will perform in 2007 and you can read about the great or disastrous year ahead and everything in between. Interest rates remain stable, inventory continues to decline and there are some wonderful homes on the market.

I am working on an offer on one of my listings. Unfortunately, I believe it is from the kind of buyer I refer to as a “bottom sucker.” They generally ask a Realtor to make offers on multiple homes at a percentage of asking price. They do not even go look at the house unless the seller shows interest in accepting the offer. They are looking for situations where they can take advantage of a desperate seller. I wish the seller’s agent would pick up the phone and ask if my buyer is willing to consider accepting an offer $60,000 below asking and pay all closing costs. We could have saved time and a ream of paper.

By the way, my husband Michael and I hosted a dinner last night for a favorite client and my friend, Robin, who referred her to me. Michael loved being with three fabulous women and we had a great time. Even though the Roseville Melting Pot is easier for us and it is owned by the same family as the one in Downtown Sacramento, it is no where as good in terms of food and service. I also noted it was not as busy as it was when if first opened so I must not be the only one who feels this way.

Welcome 2007

A brand new year full of promise has arrived. I have been reading several articles indicating the Greater Sacramento real estate market will be pretty much the same as it was in 2006. My optimism does not allow me to agree with that point of view. I am not predicting any magic recovery for our market but I do believe we will see increases in sales activity, inventory returning to lower levels and by summer even some modest price increases that will be called a trend.

For me personally, I am confident it will be another good year. Our small group of real estate professionals is coming together well and this will be a year of growth for us both in terms of size and customer service. I also know that I will meet many people during the year and some of them will become friends. At the same time I realize I will have some of the same frustrations I have experienced in the past, agents who serve themselves more than their clients and people who say one thing and do another.

All in all the New Year with hopes and promise are exciting and I am happy to be here.

By the way, we are working on Julie’s Newsletter for January and it is not too late to sign up to receive the first edition of 2007. Remember this is not one of those, how to sell your house newsletters and you won’t find any cheese dip recipes but it is full of interesting stories and fun facts about the current month. If you would like to be added to the mail list, please click here. There are no obligations and we won’t spam you!