Huntsville Houses
We in Huntsville are currently in a buyer's market for homes for sale. While the national economic downturn and soft real estate market has effected sales of Huntsville houses, we have not been effected to the degree that most of the country has. Houses dim many parts of the country are selling well below their sales price of two years ago while in Huntsville houses prices have remained stable except in a few instances.
There is a much higher incidence of foreclosure houses and short sale houses than has been seen in recent memory, overall our housing market is still quite healthy. Low interest rates, Federal tax incentives and projected Huntsville job's growth have all contributed to Huntsville having decent sales of houses.
Moody's recently named Huntsville as the second top city for job growth. As more well paying jobs move to Huntsville demand for Huntsville houses will continue to increase. As new jobs and workers move to the area more service jobs will also become available, further increasing demands for houses in Huntsville.
Our office is already seeing signs in increased sales activity. We have recently had multiple offers on two of our listed houses . Multiple offers on listings have been unheard of for the past two years. We have four personal closings on houses set for this month and it looks like all of the closings will hold together.
The two Huntsville market segments where sales of houses is still quite slow is upscale homes over $300,000 and houses located too far outside Huntsville. During Huntsville's house building boom times two years ago upscale builders and out of area investors flooded the local market. Many of the out of area investors did not do proper due diligence and made horrible purchase decisions. Many investors purchased houses far outside the city . They were promised rents far above what the local rental market would bear and promised high appreciation rates in neighborhoods that were not selling at all.
The actions of a handful of dishonest real estate brokers caused the financial ruin of many investors who purchased houses locally. We have documented cases where realtors actually entered in inflated rental numbers in the local Huntsville MLS on properties they managed in order to entice investors to purchase their listings. The rental amounts entered into the MLS far exceeded comparable properties and in the cases where we had conversations with the owners of these houses they conformed that the rental amounts entered into the MLS were far more than what the houses actually rented for.
From experience complaints to the Huntsville Better Business Bureau and the Huntsville Board of Realtors are wasted effort. The Huntsville Better Business Bureau can only post unresolved complaints and few buyers of houses ever consult the Better Business Bureau . Far to many rely on their realtor. When the realtor is the listing agent and the property manager there is no independent source to check the information provided.
The Huntsville Board of Realtors is a member supported organization. It is not in their best interest to alienate their members and they have little incentive to exercise the limited authority to discipline member realtors.
The investors we had contact with who were led into the purchase of Huntsville area houses through misleading information were so demoralized and tired that they were not willing to take action in the courts for compensation. Our hearts go out to these investors.
Conversely, who work with a large number of investors who have purchased Huntsville houses. We were careful in our selection of properties and have been able to keep their properties rented. Appreciation has been poor in most cases but a few houses have see 3% annual appreciation even through the current slow market.
Huntsville Space and Rocket Center. Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. contact Philip Winburn for permission to use.
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