When a house sells there are many many people who benefit from the sale of that house. From the

Realtor and the bank and the respective attorneys to the electric company, gas company, grocery stores

who are now supplying the food to the new homeowner to the insurance company who has written the policy

for that home. I could go on and on but I think you understand what I am trying to convey. So this integral

piece to the puzzle of our economy must be in place in order for the cycle to move. I was very glad and

relieved to hear that our government has not only extended but has also expanded the tax credit to

people who have owned their homes for at least five years as this helps the home owner who has owned a

first home to put it up for sale and then buy up to his next house therefore allowing a new home buyer to

buy his house and he will move on to buy another home. /This will feed a lot of people. We are all

connected and affected by what we do. If everyone could just really get that and do the next right things,

well

could you imagine?

I hate to remember last November but I do remember last November.  I was scared, worried, and completely quiet in the way of customers or clients.  All the financial woes were rearing their ugly heads and nobody was certain where the economy or our country was going----

Today I feel hopeful and grateful that I made it through the year.  My company has been very supportive of us through this period of time and has been constantly giving us food for thought to help our business.  I am happy to say that I am getting new people from my web site, my companies web site and my warm market.  This time of the year when it usually starts to slow down, it is not so slow I think in part to the extended and expanded first time home buyers credit.

It definitely is different.  I have observed , as in life, that the people who were able to adapt have done ok and the people who were unable or unwilling to adapt are gone.

The lesson in the experience for me has been "when you get lemons make lemonade".  "When you are not sure how to make lemonade, refer to the directions"

I am very grateful this year to also be a member of Active Rain.  I must say that a large part of my encouragement came from posts I have read that inspired me or comforted me or challenged me.  Thank you Active Rain family for all your support

just saw a listing on our MLS with a cap rate of 8%. Now I am sure that pretty much everyone that might

be reading this blog knows what they are getting for their money in cd's and t bonds etc. So why is this

listing still on the market? If the owner is correct and this is truly giving a cap rate of 8% where are the

 investors. The thing with real estate is, everyone needs to live somewhere just like everyone produces

garbage and everyone leaves this earth at sometime. That is why those respective businesses are usually

good to get into. So why has this listing, in a great location not sold. You tell me!

It's funny that several years ago when the feeding frenzy on real estate was with us and the prices were rising and rising you couldn't stop someone from buying real estate, fighting in bidding wars and now with prices down, rates at historical lows and a great $8,000 tax credit being given, people are sitting on the fence wondering what to do.

Donald Trump said it on TV the other night.  This is the best time to buy real estate!  So what is everyone across our country experiencing?  What price point is selling?  What great tools are agents using in behalf of their clients.  What is your experience with short sales and foreclosures.  I would like to know. 

Sharing is everything.

Finally someone talking about a four percent mortgage rate

http://www.foxbusiness.com/video-search/m/21829995/4-5-mortgages-a-possibility.htm

This is a link from Fox Business News.

We need to get everyone included in this. Refinancing, new homes, homes in trouble. If we want to get a real stimulus going we need to do just what they are talking about in this video.

We, as Realtors, need to talk about this to everyone we can talk to. The gentleman in this video , a banker is talking about how the banks are at capacity in the filings of refinancing. Sooooo maybe you will need to hire some more people to fill the need to respond to all these refinancings and new home purchases with a mortgage rate of 4%. Imagine giving jobs to people to help people move money. What a concept.

What do you think?

A couple of days ago I copied an articfle which I thought was not only interesting but positive for our industry.  Now I see this article which I have copied also which leads me to this question:

JUST WHO CAN WE BELIEVE WHEN IT COMES TO STATISTICS?

The existing home sales data which was released to the market earlier was a "half empty, half full" set of data. The market seemed to take it as just full and left the empty part behind.

Home resale rates rose 5.1% in February to an annual rate of 4.72 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. In the same breath, the organization said 45% of the activity was foreclosures or short sales.  Because of the huge discount that most buyers get when they buy homes in foreclosure, the average price of a house fell 15.5% to $165,400.

The increase in the rate of home sales was viewed by many as the beginning of a bottom in the housing market. The slide of nearly three years has been blamed for a great deal of the collapse in the banking and credit systems.
But the rise in sales does not represent a bottom at all. It is more likely that any movement of buyers into the market will cause desperate sellers to offer homes at lower and lower prices rather than hold onto houses that they cannot afford and may not make money on even if they could hold them for another decade.

Most data that the government and national business associations will put out over the next several quarters is likely to appear two-edged, at least at first. Housing prices cannot go to zero, so, at some point, the rate at which home values are dropping will slow. Resale rates may go up, but buying homes which have been in foreclosure for months is an incorporeal piece of information. If buyers start to purchase homes on the normal economic basis of being a transaction between private buyer and private seller then the market will have something to celebrate.

The rise in the dual nature of data is where the analyst's ability to forecast gets more difficult. When unemployment, consumer confidence, GDP, manufacturing, and capital expenditures are all falling simultaneously, it is hard to find optimists, but they will grab even the slightest bit of ambiguous information and claim that the recovery is underway.

In the next quarter, the rate at which people are losing their jobs may slow, but average wages will probably drop sharply at the same time. The effect of fewer people losing jobs while those who are working make less is no clear sign that the economic world is getting better. GDP numbers which are significantly influenced by dangerous trends in inventories like the Q4 2008 figure defy clear interpretation.

Recently analysts covering the manufacturing sector said that so many factories are shut here and overseas that the businesses are eating through inventories. That is being interpreted as good news because once inventories move close to zero, factories will have to increase production to replace them. That analysis glosses over two possibilities. The first is that the economy is bad enough that inventories may not drop at expected rates. Low demand may cause them to decrease much more slowly. That could push back a renewal of manufacturing activity for months. It is also possible that some factories will simply be out of business and the sources of goods for replacing dwindling inventories will have gone away. The normal supply chain in some industries may be severely disrupted in a way that will take several quarters to repair. Retooling or replacing factories is unlikely to be a quick process.

From the middle of last year until a month or so ago, the interpretation of almost all economic information was negative because the data was unidirectional. That is changing. There are sign posts which point in two directions. It is likely that neither road sign is entirely right. In many cases both are wrong and making predictions about how the recession is going actually becomes more difficult and not less.

As per Ken Sweet of Fox News on Monday March 23, 2009:

The number of existing homes sold in February unexpectedly rose last month, an industry trade organization said Monday, as distressed home sales continued to remain the dominant force in the nation's impaired housing market.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the number of homes sold rose 5.1% to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 4.72 million units in February up from 4.49 million annualized units.

The jump in sales was much better than what economists had predicted, who were expecting existing home sales to fall to 4.45 million units. The data helped boost stocks broadly, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average up nearly 300 points.

While the increased sale of homes is a welcome sign to Wall Street -- as many believe that the housing will eventually lead the nation's economy out of this recession -- the bulk of February's sales were distressed purchases. The average price for a home sold was $165,400, down 15.5% from a year ago.

"Because entry level buyers are shopping for bargains, distressed sales accounted for 40% to 45% of the transactions in February," said NAR's chief economist Lawrence Yun in a statement.

As it has been for the past couple months, existing home sales were stronger in the West than the rest of the nation -- primarily in the struggling housing market of California. Existing home sales in the region were up 2.6% from a month ago to 1.2 million annualized units, and are up 30.4% from a year ago.

In the Northeast, sales rose 15.6% to an annualized rate of 740,000 units and are down 14.9% from a year ago. In the Midwest, sales were basically flat -- up 1% -- to 1.04 million units.

In the struggling Southern market, existing home sales rose 6.1% to an annualized rate of 1.74 million units, according to the trade organization.

I read posts of Realtors in  California and several feel that their market is bottoming out.  We are usually about three months behind California as per my oberservations so can that mean that we are bottoming out and on our way to leveling off?

What do you think?  This weekend our office's phone was busy and we had walk ins.  A great sign.

 I know Spring officially is here on March 20th.  Other than the date I am so happy to be seeing true signs of spring.  Our office calls have picked up and walk ins, those wonderful walk ins are back.  People look for Robins, I look for walk ins.

This has been an especially hard winter.  Not just the snow and cold and ice and sleet.  The economy has created a river none of us have walked into before.  But I have hope, thanks to the walk ins.  I would like to take some time to thank them and to tell them just what they do for this real estate person.

Like the first crocus who push their cute faces out to the sun early walk ins are the adventurers of real estate.  You know they have been thinking and planning this and they are as excited as I am for the adventure.  They are ready with information, maps and a beautiful pre approval.  They have driven up, or driven over tested the local B&B's, motels or campsites, have enjoyed an early breakfast and are "ready for the hunt".

I am ready as well.  I know my inventory.  I have all the resouces to help my new clients to have a positive real estate experience and I am excited as I have gotten what the walk in and the Realtor wait for---

THE HOPE OF A NEW LISTING!!!!! A home that will match someone. A place that when you bring your new client/custiomer there you know it fits as they run their hand along the mantle of the fireplace or stand on the deck looking happily out at the landscape.  There are not too many great feelings like the feeling of success when you have been the matchmaker of a person or persons to a home.

Walk ins, call ins, web site newbies, I love them all.  Welcome.  You're right on time.

I had the privilege of being asked to come to do a listing presentation for a beautiful 1820 Le Fevre Farmhouse.  Now I consider it a privilege whenever anyone trusts me with one of the biggest and most expensive and most personal things they own. I especially appreciate it when it has a long history to it.  The wife and husband and I talked about all the aspects of putting their home on the market, we went over my CMA and what they could do to ready the home.  I asked them if I was in competition with many other brokers and this is what made my day.  They said they had one other real estate person over who they knew quite well and they they did not demonstrate an interest in their house like I did.  THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON IN SELLING SOMEONES HOME. This precious commodity is someones life, their blood sweat and tears, the place all their family events happened.  This home represents a lot of the time, all the money they have, their biggest investment.  We are entrusted, as stewards to convey this property to another person/persons and that is a responsibility not to be taken lightly.

Each home has its story.  How the home owner found it.  How they saved the money to buy it.  I knew one homeowner who wanted to finish his basement.  He was going to the racetrack for the first time and his wife told him to bet on a combo with horse number one.  He was so flustered at the track that he bet on the wrong horse without knowing.  The horse he thought he bet on ran dead last with the two other horses he had coming in the right order of second and third.  His friend asked him who he bet on and looked at his ticket and lo and behold he had the right combo with the wrong horse bet to win enough money in that triple to well afford to finish his basement.  Each home and each homeowner has their story to tell of their home.

 The 1800 farmhouse has a long history to convey.  I will make it my business, as the steward for this home to convey all of the history and documents that these owners have entrusted me to convey.  I will do all the things necessary to market this home appropriately to effect a sale.  Someone will come along who falls in love with this home and its history.  I get paid for doing this.  Who's got it better than me? 

Saturday was an insane day for me.  It was my daughter's birthday and I had promised her we would spend time together and of course as soon as I said that everything broke loose.  So, trying to find enough time in the day for clients and family, which is always a hard balancing act in this business, I ran and did and showed and ran and----wait, what is that smell in the air?  Smells familiar. Some good thoughts from long ago permeate my brain.  Could it---- is it----  Is that the sweet smell of Spring?????? And just as fast it was gone.  But it was undeniable.  It was Spring. How exciting.  It has been a long winter.  I really look forward to Spring and warmer weather.  And that smell was wonderful.  Dirt, fresh unfrozen dirt with flowers ready to pop out and trees ready to bloom and fishing season just around the corner.  Yiiippeee!  Hang in there girl!  it's just around the corner.