There are three certainties in life; Death, Taxes, and the Media will get it wrong. This joke happens to be all too true when it comes to Real Estate. It is not necessarily the media's fault that they get up and talk about something they know nothing about. I mean they have the charts, stats and facts right there in their hand, so how hard can it be? The fault lies in the information that the news reports. The information just so happens to be way behind, actually too far behind. Just how far behind you might ask? The average TV report and the information that Capital Hill used to determine they needed to lower rates, increase FHA limits, and vote on an emergency stimulus package is generally at least 6 months old, but are more often 9-months old. Even the leading media sources designed for the trained professional are behind. Just released in the February 2008 addition of REALTOR, The Business Tool For Real Estate Professionals magazine the final numbers for the disheartening month of November 2007 were released. So even the Business Tool for Real Estate Professionals is 3-months behind. All of these reports have been reporting losses except November did show the faintest increase of 0.4%.
This information is delayed so long before release for several reasons, first is because there is a 2-month grace period before closed Real Estate transactions are mandated to be reported, and after compiling these 2-months we get the official release about 3-months after the fact. The media and economists then read these statistics not as the month they were reported for, but as up to the minute reports and plug them into the complicated economic formulas they like to use to project the economy, but they require so much forward data that projections take place from 6-months back. Add their 6-month old trajectory with that of the 3-month old information and you get up to the minute information of events transpiring all of 9-months ago. This ultimately results in economists doing nothing more then hurting the economy. Short example just happened. The market IS already turning around on it's own, or rather it was, then the report of ‘we're heading into a recession!' gets released and that is a true statement if made 9-months prior to the release of this information, and then everyone starts acting like it which sends us from a recovering economy to an even worse recession. You also get these stimulation packages to assist/stop a recession based on figures almost a year old, so the stimulus package should have been given last year to be of any great effect, but I'm getting off topic. I've written pages and pages of documentation on why economists only hurt the economy and should just cease to exist for the betterment of society. The real reason we're here is to give you the latest and greatest way to actually project accurate up to the week information on the Real Estate Market.
The fact of the Real Estate Market for today is that if the home looks good and is priced right it will sell. The prices have hit as low as they are going to get, and in the next two months inventory will begin to balance out, only to then be flooded by the same ignorant sellers who believe the value of "their home" to be much greater then that of what anyone in the community is willing to pay. The re-listing of these greedy individuals will reflood the market and make appear that it is not going to recover after all. The news reports (That I project will be released in late May and early June) of the Market is stronger then ever, or return of the Real Estate Bubble, will change in mid to late July to Real Estate Boom to good to last, and again this information will not be pertinent to anything actually going on in the market. For those actually interested in what is going on in your neighborhood consult a Real Estate Broker in your area, and a great rule of thumb is, if the Broker can also assist you with loans then they are a crook and you should leave FAST.
There are accurate ways to get up to the week information regaurding your Real Estate market. The first is to look at how many people are searching for homes on the internet. Eighty percent of all Real Estate transactions closed in 2006 first started with a buyer searching for homes in their area on the internet. Starting Christmas day the average daily searches for single-family homes in West Covina, CA jumped by a factor of 4. Individual listings went from having 30 or less hits a day to 120+ hits a day, and this activity has been sustained through February.
This type of activity gives us a projection of what will come, as the average time between new searchers on the web to closed deals occures 8 -18 months later. So this jump is a great start to the market recovering and the sustained searching will keep the market fresh with motivated buyers.
The second way to get an accurate feel for activity in the market listing in the market you are curious about. Find three if you can, and as different prices as you can. For instance if you're looking for a 5bed/3bath home in West Covina find the lowest the highest and a middle priced home. Call the agent and ask if the home is still available? Then ask if there is any pending offers on the property? If there are no offers in to any of them that is not a good sign, and prices will probably drop. However you will find that in West Covina, the lowest priced homes have a battle for them, the mid-range prices are griping about the market being sluggish as no calls or interest is shown to them, and the upper priced homes are moving normally (within 60 days). We've written up 5 offers in the past 6 weeks for the lower level first time buyer range homes and found some steep competition. With 3-4 other bids in for the property and with one of them having 11 other bids on the home. The more bids per property also gives you the remaining competition in your market, looking in the same price range and for the same style.
Contact a Team Chacon representative today to start your home buying experience today.
Comments(1)