Has Your Market Slowed to A Crawl or Died?

The leads have slowed but it's my own darned fault.   I've neglected the local side of my lead generation and now I have to play catch up.

Shame on me.

Hey Jim -

Brace yourself. Our market crash lasted 3 years. We are just now emerging, but Naples, FL was also the 1st to crash. Our prices are pre-boom 2003 levels and units match that year as well. "Lord I pray for one more real estate boom before I retire!" Will we ever see this again?? Greetings from Paradise.

Hey Jim...Maybe change what you are doing, and take a break and charge your batteries. Our market is slowing and I started doing Opens and meeting people, This is the only time the public comes to us, and they need you. My market is slow ,but you know what there were 300 homes that Sold in September.

Maybe a little Zig Ziglar motivational Tapes will help, stay positive sometime it's just in our minds, go see Past Clients....and Turn the TV Off.

Good Luck my friend have a great week!

Our internet leads are off, probably about 30 percent. Only buyers we are actively working now are all $500K+. Happy we at least have that working. Co broker in Destin has investors coming out of the wood work, yep, cash buyers...

Just the other day, I spoke with an out-of-town potential buyer who believed that nobody could get a loan. She literally meant nobody. Why? Because CNN told her so.

I corrected her assumption by telling her about the closing that I had the day before. FHA is still backing loans.

This really made me think about the power of the media. Perhaps, sound bites should be "banned" and the full story required for the protection of the economy.

The fall is usually our busiest time and it is dead.  I have been doing market reports for my blog thisw week and inventory is high and pendings are way off.  I have gotten a bunch of new clients this month but they are all one to two years away from purchasing.  Maybe I will have a good business next year.  Until then its time to keep plugging along, networking and working smarter.

The market in Bergen County, New Jersey is doing pretty well overall.  Volume is down but besides that we are pretty consistent overall.

Wow.. what a wealth of information here about how our business is acting in local markets.. I'm in Manhattan Beach Ca.. Sales have slowed and are off about 30% from the top of the market in 2005.  Prices have fallen about 10% which is significantly less then other areas in LA County and the state of CA.  Laurie Manny is about 15 miles south of me and our markets are totally different.  We are both beach communities but the median income in my area is much higher so we have weathered the storm better. 

Overall our market is slower but fairly steady.   We are losing agents and I expect to see more drop along the way.  Our markets needed the winnowing of agents as there were too many who didn't know  what they were doing and  were not willing to learn. 

My business is internet based and I have seen things slow a bit but overall I'm doing fine.  My clients are well qualified and I am closing sales. 

For what my 2 cents are worth.  As a member of one of the largest past bank failures in history, this is what I witnessed.  We became concerned when the news started naming banks who were merging or having trouble (like our bank) but things kept going.  But when a well known community bank failed and was taken over by the Feds, everything came to a halt. And I mean everything.  Nothing like it. Folks don't handle bad news about their banks very well.

Jim,

Here in Spartanburg SC our sales are down by 24% for the same time 1 yr ago. Everyone here is feeling the crunch. You can look back at history and see almost the same trend as the Presidential race nears. This to shall pass...

LONG BEACH CA HOME SALES THRU 9/30/2008 AS COMPARED TO THE SAME TIME PERIOD FOR PRIOR YEARS:

YEAR          HOMES          CONDOS          2-4 UNITS          5+ UNITS

2008          1237               499                 195                      52

2007          1380               714                 258                      68

2006          1795               924                 464                      84

2005          2304              1184                664                     239

LET THE NUMBERS SPEAK

California, tire kickers like mad, 7 offers and no buyer yet,,,more of the same.  But change is on the horizon.  T

Jim,

Las Vegas has its share of investors and first-time buyers still looking at property at the lower end of the market, but overall there seems to be a lull in activity right now. Wall Street troubles have spooked many. There are still mortgage lenders willing to make loans, so the marketplace is alive.

Jim,  Our market has been slow all summer.  Most of the buyers are low end bottom feeders or just kicking tires looking for the bargain.  One of my listings withdrew this week because they are convinced they can't sell.  Another talked about it but agreed to leave the listing active.  Another is renting his place because we haven't found a buyer yet.  In general everyone is lamenting the slow marketplace. 

We are one of the few boards in the Nation that offers free education to our agents.  We recently had to cancel a CRS class for lack of interest.  Is it a sign that even the agents are so discouraged that they don't care anymore. 

I sure hope it doesn't completely die this winter or we will all starve.  Layoffs, cutting back hours, all signs of bad times.  One of my clients asked me if I had heard the news that morning and I told them I refuse to watch it anymore because it is all Doom & Gloom.  Is there nothing positive happening anywhere worthy of reporting?  I guess not!

Jim - Where are you???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Slow here in Colorado Springs Jim but I would say that I have been working primarily with first time home buyers.  Many of them are getting "spooked" with everything that is going on with the economy so they are more reluctant to buy right now.

My web traffic is down quite a bit recently on all of my sites.

If there is one thing that's clear from all of these responses, it's that real estate really IS local.  Our primary focus is in a relatively small rural market, but, against what the general economic conditions might portend, our business has literally taken off since Labor Day.  We're getting new listings, phone calls, emails, web registrations and offers, and we'll close a transaction this week. AND we just got our first AR referrals this week. Our web traffic is through the roof. We have changed a couple of things in the last few months: we've made our website more user-friendly and customer-focused; we're advertising more, not less; and we've branded all our signage with our picture and look-and-feel that stands out in the crowd. We thank God every day for blessing us and our business - we know the source!  Bless y'all...