After spending a fair amount of time working through taxes with my husband tonight, I totally let loose and camped on the sofa.  Woo Hoo!  I scanned the channels for good movies, found nothing appealing, and worked my way through the regularly scheduled offerings.

As usual, I gravitated to the DIY and abundant real estate oriented cable shows.I'm thinking that with all this programming, and I suspect the audiences would not be there if there were no interest, we are in for a huge upsurge in activity when the fear factor in real estate evaporates.  Just my opinion....

Anyway, I clicked on one show that shall remain nameless but in looking at the description, "A Charming Home Has Been On The Market For Over A Month," I immediately thought, "In what market!!!!???"

Real estate is local, and I know I am preaching to the choir here, but if people are watching these shows and believing that one month on the market is a catastrophe, well, we are all incompetent real estate fools!  One month may introduce buyers to the property, excite real estate professionals to the property if price and condition are ideal, but to call in emergency help?  Hmmmm, seems a bit extreme to me.

I am selling in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I gladly accept your pity.  :/  However, I am seeing a huge uptick in buyers right now but urgency can hardly be described as their motivation.  Choice is still so huge in the market that decisions are difficult, even for those who carefully whittle down their showing preferences to just a few properties.

Sellers are generally realistic and motivated.  I spent Saturday evening presenting to sellers my plan for making their property more palatable to buyers.  It involved furniture moving/elimination, cutting holes in walls, new doors, new kitchen counters and eating areas, more landscaping (if spring ever comes to Michigan), and the addition of more baths.  I had lain awake one night thinking about how to get their property to sell and arrived that day with floor plans and enthusiasm.  They couldn't have been more delighted.  My ideas had been in their minds already to some extent, but at much more cost.  We actually moved some furniture that night and I bet the other transformations are well on their way.  Sometimes perception is NOT reality, and that is all I see their problem being - there is much more space than meets the eye but solid walls do not convey that. 

So back to those cable TV shows.  NAR has had a great ad campaign running for a long time now, talking about real estate being local.  It couldn't be more true.  National news does not represent local reality, good, bad, or otherwise.  Consult a local realtor for the real story.  Forget about cable TV.