Is Inventory a Problem?

     Answer to the title of the post: YES, it is a problem right now, so I think it's time to share some more information on where exactly we stand with the current market conditions. Are houses selling? Are people buying? Buy or Rent? All of these are good questions are deserve some answers so here we go! Home prices are definitely on the rise but the only question is how fast are they going to rise and how high will they go. I am not a fortune teller so I do not have those exact answers for you, however I can say that prices are moving up. The fact of rising home prices is causing a problem in many markets around the country. There was such a collapse in 2006 that mostly everyone lost value or equity with the dramatic drop in home prices. Therefore, a lot of people's mentality right now is to sit and wait it out and hope for prices to come back so they do not have to take a loss. These "would-be" sellers need to overcome their negative equity which statistics show is the main issue when deciding to list the home or not. Nearly 10.8 million home owners were underwater at the end of june. A lot of owners are even moving and buying a new home without selling their previous home, instead they are renting it in order to earn some income while waiting on the increase in home prices. "Many [would-be sellers] are waiting for prices to increase more before they can sell, and some sellers are keeping their current homes as a rental investment and buying without selling," Tom Avent, a broker-owner at Tom Avent Real Estate in Fresno, Calif., told Inman News.

     This is causing the inventory in many areas to be very low, especially QUALITY inventory. What I am seeing happen now with the market is unlike anything seen in a long time. Now you might say, well this guy is young, how much could he actually have seen happen in his career, and that is a valid point. However, I make it a point to do my research everyday, not only on current conditions, but past trends and analysis. Not only that, but I am privy to much more information due to the quality of agents that work here in the office with me. With that said, I want to share not only my thoughts, but the thoughts and opinions of seasoned agents as well. A crash like the one we went through is unlike anything seen in the housing market before. That is why we are experiencing new trends, statistics, reactions, feelings, etc. As I said before, sellers are very reluctant to put their house for sale due to the losses they will have to take, resulting in very low inventory. This low inventory is holding back the market in a big way, because for the first time that many can remember, a lot of buyers are giving agents their criteria for a new home and advising them to keep an eye out for anything that may come on the market because there currently is low quality inventory. I have seen over the past few weeks that if a home of good quality comes on the market it will sell in no time.
     Redfin conducted a survey of 816 home owners or "would be" sellers and eight out of ten believe that if they wait another year or two they will receive a good amount more for their home than if they were to sell right now. Only a measly thirteen percent believe now is a good time to sell. Contrary to popular belief, it actually is a seller's market in many areas right now. "Many sellers are still not aware of how strong our market is," Charles Roberts, co-owner of Your Castle Real Estate who serves as a director on the Denver Board of REALTORS®, told Inman News. "They still think it's a bad market to sell. Our job is to inform them about the market and explain to them that with a rising market, it has become a strong seller's market and to walk through their options." “Now it doesn't mean prices are skyrocketing like past cycles, but with the chance of multiple offers, it makes the process more appealing,” Lopez told Inman News.

     Now that we are seeing extremely good conditions to buy, we are seeing buyers all over who want to purchase a home. This means more bids on properties and possibly even a bidding war which could earn the seller's some extra profit on the sale. However, the people who are on the fence about selling should really move forward and consult a real estate agent (like myself!) in order to get an informed opinion on what their next move should be, or more specifically WHEN their next move should be.

NJ Holds 3 Out of the Top 10 US Suburbs

     Onboard Informatics, a Real Estate data collecting company, together with Caldwell Banker Real Estate ranked the top ten Suburbs in the US. There were 11,000 suburbs included in the study with the focal points of the study being proximity to good schools, amenities, safety, and commutes. Three out of those ten suburbs are located in New Jersey (only state with more than two suburbs ranked). The top suburb on the list, Cherry Hills Village, comes from Colorado with almost a 100% home ownership rating. Cherry Hills Village is approximately ten miles from downtown Denver and provides residents with a short average commute time of 20 minutes for those who work in the downtown area.

     “Suburban communities continue to appeal to people of all ages, especially as many suburbs are seeing more diversity and re-energized downtown communities,” says Budge Huskey, president and COO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate. “Residents can have it all in many of these suburbs: Great access to recreation centers, schools, and a feeling of community, while only being a short distance to the city.”

The top ten list is as follows:

1. Cherry Hills Village, Colorado
2. Clyde Hill, Washington
3. Haworth, New Jersey
4. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
5. Wolf Trap, Virginia
6. Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey
7. Indian Hills, Kentucky
8. East Grand Rapids, Michigan
9. Rossmoor, California
10. Huntington Woods, Michigan

Source:Realtormag

Stay Real ~ Fact Time

Horse racing is one of the most dangerous sports. Between 2 and 3 jockeys are killed each year. That's about how many baseball players have died in baseball's entire professional history.

Could the Name of Your Street Get You More Money?

     The well known real estate search engine Trulia has come out with a survey providing information that shows the endings of the street names, such as "park", "place", "road", etc., have an affect on the home prices. According to the survey, address located on a street suffix of boulevard, place, and road accumulated a higher average price per square foot than homes located on a street suffix of drive, avenue, or street. Trulia found that the street suffix boulevard is the most popular (in terms of generating the highest price per square foot) coming in at an average of $117 per sqft, while the suffixes lane and street generated average price per sq ft of $101 and $86 respectively. Although there are many more significant components when coming to an asking price, this is definitely an interesting bit of information.

New Customers for US Real Estate

Hey Everyone, hope the weekend was good to all of you!


     As we are all aware of this, our housing market in the United States has taken quite a big hit these past years; led by the burst of the housing bubble, as I have explained previously in my posts. Overall, the US economy has not been fairing too well either creating a loss of jobs and less money to be spent. This has opened up a huge opportunity for foreign buyers in US real estate. “Foreigners purchase for a variety of reasons: trophy homes, desire to put money in the U.S. for safety, desire to have a place to visit for vacation, desire for a rental unit,” Jed Smith, an NAR economist, told NBC News. “These
factors … tend to dampen the effects of changes in total overall cost." Opportunity coupled with financial ability and desire is creating an influx of foreign buyers. 

     Now that I have explained the "why" it is time to find out the "who" question. There are two main countries pursuing US real estate right now, both holding their own amidst the worldwide economic problems, and both dealing with the US frequently; these countries are China and Canada. Canada for obvious geographic reasons and China because they own most of the US debt due to the fact that their economy is currently being supported a lot by the US economy; that is until they become economically independent (but that's another story all in itself). These countries currently have strong economies and have found "gold" in US real estate.  Canada and China are the main foreign powers that are capitalizing on the low real estate prices in the US, while mexico and the UK are also in the mix. Foreign purchases in the US have increased 24 percent since 2011. From March 2011 to March 2012 the Canadians captured the largest US real estate market share in terms of foreign purchasers, being responsible for 24 percent of all foreign purchases in the US. According to realtor.com the Canadians are focusing on Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando (all vacation spots). On the other hand, the Chinese account for 11 percent of foreign purchases, but they are targeting the opposite side of the US; mainly Los Angeles and San Francisco. The targeted homes for UK consumers have a median size of 2,342 sqft (American median home size 1,854 sqft) so they may perhaps be coming to the US real estate market because of their interest in McMansions and larger homes, which the US has plenty of. “The rest of the world might make fun of Americans for our big portions, big homes, but it turns out that most foreigners look at bigger homes than what most Americans look at,” Jed Kolko, Trulia chief economist, wrote in a blog last week.

source: nbcnews