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There are many ways all of us can give back to our fellow man and our community. I joined our city running club about 20 years ago and now participate in a few races from the 5k to the ultra marathon each year. All the races are usually donating to some worthy cause and it feels good, especially after the race is over, to know that a great deal of the monies are going to a charity who needs help.

Yesterday, I participated in a little 5k race locally and was very pleased to be part of the 285 other race/walkers helping to raise funds for the IWK. We all know it is heart lefting to see the amazing things the folks at IWK can do to make these little children recover.

So when you see the next race in your community advertised, think of joining the fun. Think of the good you can do for your friend, neighbour and community. Also, as you prepare for any given race you will be pleasantly surprised as to how will you eat and how good you feel after a little 5 mile run to get in shape. I know when I train for a marathon, I never feel more alive than when I complete a 10 or 20 mile training run. No, I don't expect you to do this but you could start by walking a half mile for a week, then 1 mile for a couple weeks, then walk/run the mile for a couple weeks, then run the 1 mile all the way. Then after a week of running the mile once a week add a half mile each week until your up to 5 miles. Then enter your first 5k race and run it easy. No one says you have to run to win. Just take it easy until you have run a few 5k and 10k races then you are ready to run what ever you want up to a marathon or even an ultra marathon.

Now you see I just gave you a free training schedule which would be very do-able for just about anyone. Obviously, if you are older or much over weight it would be prudent to get a check up with your doctor before doing any real strenuous excercise.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I'm that old guy coming into the finish line in 25.54 minutes. Wow, how you do slow down when you get over 65+++. But the real important thing to note is if an old guy like myself can do it, I can only hope I can inspire you to at least give it a try. The worst thing that can happen is you will become healthy and maybe even be like me who almost never gets sick and has never been injured in 20 years of running. I know it is hard to believe but as my fellow runners who I am sure will confirm. Anyway, check out our running website; www.anb.ca.

It's been a pleasure running this race and a joy sharing with you a way to become inexpensively healthy, happy and most of all a wonderful feeling of self-gratification in sharing your time and money to so worth while causes from building gymnasiums for your school, soccer fields, ball diamonds, playgrounds, hospital equipment, serving at your blood bank, heart and stroke, diabetes fun drives, lung association, to cancer research, etc. etc. The list just goes on and on. So Folks the next time you give don't just give $20 but get personally involved. You will be so happy you did. Giving is always better than receiving!!!

 

Wow! what a fantastic year we are having in the City of Fredericton. Listings are up in March 17% over last year @ 663 in total. Year over year listings are up 13% @ 1544. Again it looks very much like this growth is going to continue even in the face of substancial interest rate hikes. The market here in Fredericton is so strong that it is the #1 commodity that everyone wants to aquire. So vendors get your home on the market now and take advantage of this super active boom time.

If we think listings are strong so far this year, wow, look at sales. This month sales have jumped 47% over last year for the month of March. Year over year sales are up a whopping 45%. This represents a total dollar volume of $36,666,334 for March sales and a year over year volume until March 31,2010 to $73,661,770. If this trend just holds to June 30, which I think it will, we will do even better than we did last year.

So Buyers and Sellers we are definitely in a Prosperity Market, which means that both buyers and sellers, are in a win-win situation. Even with this last interest rate hike, interest rates are still @ around the 4% range. A far cry from the 18%-24% rates through the 80's. Now is the time for serious soul searching People. Make that quantum leap now and lock your rate in for 5 to 10 years and the next surge in interest rates won't even affect you. The sun is out so take advantage and enjoy your home shopping today. Wait not ! Act today, for tomorrow is a long way off!!!

Phil Booker, Booker Realty, Real Estate Fredericton Oromocto CFB Gagetown Tweet,tweet; Oh, but it was so beautiful early this morning. There is something surreal about running in the last snowfall of the year---so refreshing! Don't you think?

 

 

Phil Booker, Booker Realty, Real Estate Fredericton Oromocto CFB Gagetown

 

Tweet, tweet; Oh, but it was so beautiful early this morning. There is something surreal about running in the last snow of the year---so refreshing! Don't you think?

When a seller lists their home on the market it is natural for them to list for the highest possible price they can expect. Of course in the beginning of the listing the vendor and the real estate salesperson are quite optimistic of  their expectation of receiving the list price. Now, in a perfect, world one can only hope that this listing price is attainable.

However, as time goes on and the market changes ever so slightly, maybe everyones expectations are remaining rather over confident in still trying to obtain the original listing price. As an example, say the property was listed on May1,2010 but 2 months goes by and the vendor finds himself missing selling his home in the hot Spring season and now he is facing the very busy summer season when most families go to the cottage or on a long holiday, and just are not around to buy their home. What do they do?

The home is in excellent shape, staged very well and in a good location. So what is the problem? Both the vendor and the agent know but neither are necessarily prepared to admit it. Well Folks, this is where tough love comes in. It is the agents responsibility to suggest to the vendor that maybe we really were too optimistic in our expectations as to what your home would sell for. Thus, Mr. Vendor, I dislike saying this but as the market has cooled of late, we would be smart to reduce the price to see if we can attract some buyers in say the next lower category; i.e. if the home was listed for $325,000 it is likely one would have to reduce the asking price to at least $314,500. After 60 days on the market one really should have received at least one offer. Otherwise, the hand writing is on the wall. The property has to be overpriced and to delay any longer would only result in reducing the price even more at a later date when the market is even much slower. Of course, there is another option, if the vendor is not in a hurry, he could always wait until next Spring and try again. The danger with this school of thought is that the market could take a substancial downturn a year later.

Well folks, it is really not a perfect world so we must adjust as we experience the hard knocks of reality by seeing the results of our own decision process in the making. If we are unable to own up to making a mistake sooner then later, we could end up " reaping what we sow".

 

 

Spring has really sprung. Real estate listings are up a wooping 10%, year over year. This is up from 1% last month. A healthy inventory like this assures the market will stay lever without great expectations of fearing inflation. Which means that sales can bounce along with a healthy increase without creating a steep price escalation. This trend looks like it will continue into March and April at least. Wow, what a year we are having already.

Speaking of sales would you believe they are beating January's wooping increase of 39% over last year to a 42% year over year for February. Ironically, the expectation is that this looks like it will continue from now until at least June. Sales in the Fredericton/Oromocto area have been running at an all time high now for 10 years with no abating in sight! Wow, what a fantastic market.

Sellers get your home on the market now so you can feel really confortable in getting a decent price for your existing home so you can move up to a larger one or down to a smaller one. Or maybe you just always wanted to move out to the country or into the city. Either way now would be a great time to make the move. Good luck to you all. Also, remember, as I write this, interest rates are at an all time low of 3.64%. Wow!!!

 

Staging a home is not about cleaning, painting and repairing the home for resale. This goes without saying. Staging is all about the aesthetics of making your home attractive in relating to the buyers senses. i.e. sight, touch,  sound and feel. Staging is about developing a dream world. An unbelievable Wow, Honey, finally this is the home I dreamed about. If you can stage your home with these goals in mind, the home is already sold as soon as the buyer enters through the front door. It's all about their feeling of excitement in seeing themselves living there. This is an opportunity for your Stager to subliminally create an atmosphere of emotional longing and belonging in the buyers expectations of who they are. Not easily accomplished. But if you are able to differentiate your property from the competition your bound to expediate your sale.

As a real estate Broker of many years I have learned to respect the vendor's expectation of home value. My belief is that if you honestly asked any vendor what they think their home is worth, before you show them your objective opinion, they will be very close to market value.

In todays Information Age we all are much more educated on most everything than we had ever been. Let's face it, most sellers talk to their next door neighbours and find out what they sold there home for last month. Unfortunately, their neighbour sometimes exaggerates there selling price by  off-handedly suggesting  that they got their price. Thus, the information might not be accurate.

So to get an accurate Market Value the vendor/seller relys on their real estate agent's professional evaluation of their home. When the agent uses the Comparative Market Value approach to value the vendor can easily relate as it shows what 5 homes sold in his neighbourhood for in the past 6 months to a year.

Now that the vendor is armed with an objective opinion of market value he is ampily prepared to price his property at market value.

The value of pricing his home at market value is crucial for the following reasons;

     (1) The highest and best price is usually realized in the first 2 to 6 weeks of the listing's exposer on the market.

     (2) If property is over priced it will stay on the market for a longer time and buyers will believe there is something wrong with it. Thus, the vendor will have to start reducing the price.

     (3) Lots of times, over priced listings lose the best market time (Spring) for selling when the buyers are out in force and anxious to buy.

     (4) Vendors will be able to tell if their home is over priced as their next door neighbour's homes will be selling all around them.

     (5) Lastly, vendors need to keep in mind why they are selling in the first place, because some reasons for selling and moving on can be a lot more important than getting an unrealalistic price for their home.

So, sellers, hopefully, after reading this you will be successful in marketing your home for;

     (a) The highest and best price.

     (b) In the shortest possible time.

     (c) With the least inconvenience to you, the vendor.

Wishing you all a successful selling season in 2010.

This fantastic winter with very little snow helped us get off to an amazing start for January 2010. Our listings are only down -1% for month of January. I expect that the listings will stay quite consistant throughout the first half of this year and remain around the 1% to 10% increase. This should bode well in us maintaining a prosperity market, it least in the first 6 months.

Sales are skyrocketing to an unprecedenting 41% in the first month of 2010. Wow, we never had it so good. Ironically, there seems to be no slowing down. It appears that sales will continue to remain at the 30%-40% mark throughout the first half of this year. Buyers as listings get scarcer properties will become more expensive so bounce into Spring and buy now before the price start escalating.

So vendors now is the time to sell. That means making the move now! Times will never be better to get the highest and best price for your home or investment property. We don't know what is going to happen in 2011 but this year is " Boom City ". Be smart act now, you will be glad you did!!!

Predicting real estate listings, unit sales, and dollar volume in any economy is difficult at best. However, it is possible to a degree, depending on how well you have studied your market area over a reasonable amount of years. Of course none of us wish to be wrong or appear to not know what we are talking about. Well, that just happens to be the Dark Hole we enter when we take the risk of predicting anything.

The important thing is that it doen't matter whether you are right or wrong but what you can share with others and what you can take away from the experience. So lets review the results of my predictions for 2009 and have a peek at my ----PREDICTIONS FOR 2010.

 

(1) Employment will remain strong in Fredericton throughout 2009?----Yes, I was right and I take from this that I can predict that employment will continue to remain strong throughout 2010. That's real good news if I am right again.

(2) Interest rates will remain strong at aroung the 4 to 5 per centage range. Yes, that has certainly held well. In fact it even stablized at closer to the 4% range. What we can take from that is it appears it will remain at the 4% range throughout 2010. Certainly at least until June 30,2010. The latter part of the year is a little more unpredictable due to global volitily.

(3) Immigration will remain as strong as it was in 2008. Yes, that has come to be. Again, because there is this great interest in the Province bringing in immigrants to New Brunswick it appears that this trend will continue thoughout 2010 just as strong and maybe even stronger than 2008 or 2009. 

(4) Independent Mortgage Brokers will flourish as conventional banks tighten up their lending practices. No, that did not happen. In fact the banks must have read my predictions because they actually loosened up there lending practices to the joy of many promising buyers. Which I might add assisted greatly in affording the very successful market we enjoyed throughout 2009. Let's hope they continue this school of thought. Because of our strong economic economy I believe they will be happy to lend unabated throughout 2010.

(5) Appraisers will flourish as homes values drop. No, homes values not only did not drop but they went up a whopping 10% over 2008 prices. I expect this will change in 2010 and prices will be about the same or go down slightly to about the 5% range.

(6) Smaller and more conservative priced homes will sell much faster than big ticket homes. Yes, that did turn out to be true. However, I don't think they did because of a tighter economy but because they would have anyway, because there are predictably more buyers in the smaller price range historically. For 2010 both smaller priced homes and expensive homes will sell will throughout the year.

(7) Location, location, location will not be as much a factor to buying as most consumers will only be too happy to pay less for a home farther from the city center. No, this did not happen as predicted. Mainly, because gas prices went down quicker than expected and the market remained strong throughout the year and in fact there was no change in purchasing locations from 2008. People just continued to buy in the same geographical areas  they purchased in 2008. This trend will continue throughout 2010.

(8) Listing portfolios will increase and sales will decrease proportionally at about 10% as there will be less buyers on the market throughout 2009. No, wrong! The opposite happened. Listings decreased at -6% by year end and sales increase at a plus +4% by year end. I really love to be wrong here. However, I should point out that units did decrease by only -1% by year end. My predictions here for 2010 is that listings will be down about 20% by year end and sales will be down about 20% also. The reason is that condo building is about at an end and the market will cool as government projects come to a screaming halt. Sorry, but this is what my crystal ball tells me.

(9) Condo sales will remain strong as consumers will opt for condos over single family homes. Yes, this did happen and this trend will continue throughout 2010 as there are a lot of condos which did not sell in 2009. The good news is that this over supply of condos will furnish sales for the first quarter of 2010. Thus, helping us to get a good early start in sales for 2010. Condo building will continue to lesson throughout 2010.

(10) Cottage sales will suffer as consumers look to conserve their disposable income. Yes, there were very little cottage sales throughout 2009. However, because the global economies appear to be strengthening, cottage sales should be stronger throughout 2010.

(11) Commercial real estate sales will suffer as lending institutions will be reluctant to finance commercial buildings. Yes, right! Commercial does remain difficult to finance. Howver, again with our strong economic expectations for 2010 I believe this will be a new shining light for 2010, in that commercial will be a way for banks to dispose of their great over supply of cash which they have little market demand throughout 2010.

(12) Credit will be tight. No, wrong! In fact, other than in the first quarter of 2009 credit was not tight at all. The loosening of credit in the last 3 quarters of 2009 really was a beacon of light to an otherwise recessionary 2009. Great going Banks for all your help in fording up our economy for 2009. I expect this to continue throughout 2010.

(13) Builders will build as much as 40% less homes for 2009 as compared to 2008. Yes, right! Builder were scared in 2009. In fact, they mostly would only build custom homes(meaning they only built pre-sold homes) for buyers. There were practically no spec. homes built compared to 2008. My prediction is that that will change throughout 2010 as our strong economic outlook will bolster the builders confidence to build more spec. homes throughout 2010. We will see!!!

(14) New construction in apartment buildings will be almost totally dead for 2009 as supply has all but caught up to demand. Yes, this turned out to be quite accurate as there was little demand for tenant accomodation. This trend is expected to continue throughout 2010.

(15) The number of real estate salespeople will start to dwindle as we enter 2009. Yes, this was true early in 2009. However, it came to a sceaming halt as the ecomomy strengthened and salespeople realized that it might not be such a bad market after all. In fact, we ended up with almost as many salespeople by December 31,2009 as we had at December 31,2008. I believe this will not change much throughout 2010. In fact, until we experience a down market the sales force for Fredericton will be constant.

Well Folks, there is my synopsis for 2009 and my predictions for 2010 all in one. Let's see how it plays out as we experience 2010. I take this opportunity to wish everyone every success in this new 2010. Good luck to all, Phil. Booker, Booker Realty, 717 Woodstock Rd., Fredericton, N. B. e3b-5n8.