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ARE YOU"STIMULATED"?

By
Real Estate Agent with DL Jones & Associates

I was only eight years old when the Jimi Hendrix debut album “Are You Experienced” hit the music charts in 1967. I don’t recall being very experienced at anything at the time, although I was pretty good at tree climbing, and driving my mom crazy. Still, I remember (thanks to my older brother playing the album about 67 thousand times) Jimi asking the cryptic question “So-uh, are you Experienced?.” I had no idea what Jimi meant (I’m not so sure he did either), but it felt really cool singing those lines and acting as if I was in on the psychedelic secret.

 

42 years later, I find myself asking a similar but equally cryptic question. “So-uh, are you Stimulated?” The big bad $787 billion bailout bill is now a reality, for what it’s worth. I’ve read so much about the goodness and the badness, the prosperity and the disparity, the hopes and the mopes, that I’m pretty much done reading. If anyone has this all figured out, I mean REALLY all figured out, I’m all ears. Barring that, I’ll do what I’ve been doing pretty much all my adult life- I put on my big boy shoes every morning, and go to work. That formula has seemed to do well over the years, even on the days when there wasn’t any work to go to.

 

I’m a tail-gunner of the baby boomer generation, so I’ve had first hand experience buying my gas on odd/even days during the late 70’s oil embargo. (I would always seem to run out on an “off” day and end up pushing my car to the pump). I worked construction in the early ‘80’s when mortgage rates were pushing 14%. I was blessed/cursed to start my own construction business just a few months before “Black Monday” in October of 1987. I was also laid off of my job on 9/11 (yes, THAT 9/11) which just happened to be the day after my third child was born. (Oh, and did I mention that I make my living selling real estate?) Good times…

 

When the country comes all the way back is anybody’s guess. Personally, I don’t possess the mental wherewithal to crunch the national numbers, so I like to keep it simple, and stick to what I do know, Anthem, AZ. Here are the numbers as of February 28th at 11:30 AM:

 

TOTAL ACTIVE LISTINGS IN ANTHEM:            433

HOMES SOLD IN THE LAST 30 DAYS:               71

HOMES PENDING SALE:                                134

MONTHS OF INVENTORY:                            6.09

 

What does this mean? If you ask me, SOMEBODY IS STIMULATED! Technically speaking, we are .09 months (of inventory) from calling Anthem a “seller’s market”. How long this continues or where it goes from here is any body’s guess, but with the FHA having just raised loan limits in Maricopa County from $271K to $346K, and interest rates below 5.5%, DUHHH!!! Add to that all the nifty incentives courtesy of Uncle Sam, I truly believe that in five years we will look at this time as the “golden hour” of home buying in Anthem and the nearby areas.

 

Most of the past dips in the road seem so long ago, especially now as we stare into another very scary and very uncertain time. If those times have taught me anything (and I sure hope they have) it’s that they don’t last forever, and good things do rise from the ashes of the down times- every single time. Another thing I’ve learned is that getting up and doing something, ANYTHING, is better than wallowing in the muck and mire of the crisis-du jour.

 

So, my fellow Americans, I ask you: “So, uh, are you Stimulated?”  I don’t know what, if any, of a piece of the $787B pie I’m getting, but I do know that there will come a day that we will look at this whole fiasco in the rearview mirror. I’ll leave the in-depth analysis for the smart people. My plan is to work my own stimulus package. It starts with lacing up my big boy shoes and getting to work.

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