It's been said hear on AR that Tax payers will be repaying the Real Estate Tax Credit for generations. That may be true. It's also been said that it artificially manipulates the housing market and is doomed to fail!

Look, the market has been manipulated since congress allowed the mortgage interest deduction and the Real Estate Tax deduction. Should we also eliminate those? What's the difference? Other than the tax credit is going to be short lived in relation to the interest and tax deductions.

There are precious few homes on the market in South Orange County under 500K that are not short sales. I blame (credit), the tax incentive. Homes have been selling very rapidly on the low end here. I put in an offer last week and had to compete with 25 other offers!! $8000 isn't a huge incentive, but for someone thinking about buying, it may just be enough to help them make up their minds.

Is the tax stimulus artificial? Nope, buyer's really get the money.

We've rewarded many financial institutions for making bad investment decisions. Who in the world came up with the idea that it's ok to lend to a buyer that has nothing down, and oh yeah, believe whatever they claim as income (stated income). Maybe those institutions should have been punished (of course many were).

What about those that have lost their homes. We allowed many of them to be forgiven debt on Short Sales without taxing them. Should we not have done that?

We are in a real pickle here folks. Maybe we should have just let the whole thing collapse and let the cards fall where they may. That would be true capitalism, right?

The way I see it, buyers today are the good guys, they are the ones willing to purchase homes while others point the finger and complain about how things should have been done. It's the courageous home buyers today that are going to get us out of this jamb and get our economy rolling again. Personally, I feel they deserve a reward in the form of a Tax Credit, in fact, I for one think it should be MORE.

Bottom line is, we have rewarded a lot of groups that made poor decisions. Without buyers, there wouldn't be a Real Estate market. A small incentive, if nothing else, to show that our nation applauds them for being courageous, is well worth the cost.

All you need to do, is accumulate 49,800 points or more, then just write ONE MORE Blog, and yep - you too will hit 50,000 points. Sorry, I don't know of an easier way....

Wow, I guess I have done a lot more Real Estate blogging than I thought.

Thinking back, the one thing that helped more than anything else is the fact that I type about 100 words a min. And you thought I was going to say something profound.

Thank you Active Rain community - this has (and continues to be) a great ride!!

Paul McDuell

Besides being a Realtor, I am also a Microsoft Certified System Engineer.

Early this year I installed Windows 7 - I am one of Microsoft's Beta testers.

I have to say, that I really like Windows 7, but there WERE some challanges for me.

Mainly, some of my peripheral hardware was not supported with the 64 bit version of Windows 7

My high speed Fujitsu scanner was one, and my color laser printer was another.

Not being able to use those two devices alone would have kept me from moving to Windows 7.

If you hardware is new, purchase within the last year or so, you should be fine.

Note that there is an and on called Virtual XP that will allow you to run XP at the same time you are running Windows 7, so if you have unsupported hardware, you can run it under XP - but wait, you also have to have a computer whose motherboard and CPU supports Intels virtual mode. Mine is pretty new, and it does not.

The absolute most important things that had to be supported were Winforms (online contracts), and Docusign (online e-signatures).

I'm please to say that both of those applications work great.

Should YOU move to Windows 7 -

If you are due for a new PC - then for sure get Windows 7

If you want to keep your existing PC - but it's been a couple of years since you installed an Operating System, then you are probably due. Might as well upgrade to Windows 7.

If your are running the 32bit version of Vista, you can do a UPGRADE to Windows 7 without having to reinstall all of your applications. Same goes for the 64 Bit versions.

You CANNOT upgrade from the 32bit version of Vista to the 64bit version of Windows 7, I know, because that was my situation.

Finally, I just want to add that I was not able to install the final released version of Windows 7 on my machine, it would NOT install, and I am NO novice. What I had to do was install the 64bit version of Vista first and then UPGRADE that to Windows 7. What a pain, but I have a unique system with lots of hard drives and a RAID system. You probably would not have that issue.

OK- test questions - do yo know why they called it Windows 7????

Because that's what it is....

Windows 3,

windows 95,

Windows 98

Windows Millinium

Windows XP

Windows Vista

and Finally, Windows number 7!

Actually, there many other versions too - Windows 2, Even Windows 1, released in 1983 (I used it).

Plus lots of other versions, but those above were the widely accepted versions.

Let me know if you make the plunge to Windows 7

Paul McDuell

My wife loves to decorate for the holidays - especially Halloween.

She likes to dress up (usually as a witch).

This year we'll be handing out treats to the trick or treaters coming to our door.

My costume is simple - one of 3 latex masks - Weir wolf, Gorilla, or scary old man (heck, I don't even need a mask for the last one - LOL

The problem I have is my masks scare the kids - sometimes too much. So I put it one for an hour, then just enjoy handing out the treats.

What will YOU be doing on Halloween?

We had a new short sale come on the market. The clever listing agent only allows showing for one weekend. He publishes the dates and time in the MLS, and clearly states that if you are interesed, you must view it then. All offers were due by 5:00PM Monday.

He was asking for Highest and Best offers.

Why is this a good idea.

The seller isn't bothered with having to show the property, it's only shown Sat and Sun.

The agent only has to hold one open house, well technically 2.

The open house creates a lot of traffic, getting those interested, enticed to make a more substaincial offer.

The listing agent also states in the MLS that the "seller" will make a decision by Thursday. Ok, so the seller making a decision doesn't really help that much, but if it helps a potential buyer make a decision, then it's a good move.

Some banks will only consider one offer at a time. Getting the Highest and best offers, then submitting THE absolute highest and best offer to the bank should greatly increase the odds of getting a short sale approved.

He has made a believer out of me. I'll handle my next short sale listing this way.

Oh - how many offers did he get? 18!!!!

Now, please cross your fingers for me and my client, because we were on of those 18 making an offer.

Paul McDuell - looking for comments.

Nothing to see here folks - Just noticed that I had 199 blog posts, and figured I would make it an even 200.

Interest in Rancho Santa Margarita Real Estate continues to increase. Foot traffic at open houses is the best I have seen in years.

Some have said it because the tax incentive is coming to an end, but I don't think that fully explains it. There are too many investors paying cash, and certainly most of those are not first time buyers.

Have we reached the bottom?

Have prices started to climb?

I did a quick comparison of sold condos for 3 different time frames in Rancho Santa Margarita. I looked at condos from 900 to 1200 square feet. I pulled sales data from the three following time frames:

12/1/2008 through 1/31/2009

1/1/2009 through 3/1/2009

9/1/2009 through 10/18/2009

Anyone who is working in this market can attest to how it's changed over the last 9 months. We have gone from a lot of bank owned properties, to almost none.

We are seeing HUGE demand in this sector with several offers on every condo that is reasonably priced, and is not a short sale.

We are seeing several ALL cash offers.

We are witnessing FHA, first time buyers being forced to the sidelines as investors swoop in and grab these homes at bargain prices.

In the first time frame above, the Median selling price per square foot was $256.34. That dropped to $252.30 for the second time frame. Prices have since risen to $254.29.

While the price increase seems insignificant, extrapolated over a 12 month period equates to a 1.5% increase - which in my opinion equals healthy growth.

I try really hard to avoid Short Sales.

It's not because they are so much work.

It's because my buyer's get their hopes up (even after I have done my best to educate them on the perils of short sales), just to be crushed when they don't get the home.

If my clients insist on going after short sales, here is my advice.

Figure out what the place is REALLY worth. Offer 10 to 15% below it's value.

Get the offer in VERY early - within hours of it hitting the MLS.

Make sure the buyer is prepared to pay something to the holder of the second.

If the buyer does offer something to the holder of the Second, do it through Escrow.

Anything else is probably not legal.

Paul  

Here we go again:

Blue skies

Sunny

Warm

Low Humidity

No Rain in the forcast

ALL YEAR LONG!!!

(shhhhh - keep it a secret)

By the way - how is your weather?