Home sales see first monthly gain in 6 months
May 21, 2008
I’m drinking my coffee and seeing what’s new in the world via my handy RSS Reader NetNewsWire, and I came across this interesting article on SFGate.com:
The Bay Area housing market displayed its first positive sign in months as the volume of April sales rose by its highest percentage in at least 20 years. Real estate experts, however, warned that the trough of the real estate downturn still could lie ahead.
Yeah, I know, it’s the Bay Area, not Santa Cruz - but what happened in Santa Cruz mirrored what happened in the bay area - namely, sales were up sharply, as reported in the Santa Cruz Sentinel in their article on Santa Cruz April 2008 home sales on May 14. They didn’t quote me in that article, sniff, although the reporter, Jondi Gumz, did send me an e-mail asking me to weigh in, I guess I replied too late in the day or my comments weren’t pithy enough - or both.
What it all means is that it looks like we are getting near the bottom. We are probably not be there yet - except in Watsonville, where we definitely are at the bottom. Unless there’s a big fat recession with big job loss, which of course would probably signal a deepening spiral further downwards. I think 2008 is going to turn out to be the Year to Buy in Santa Cruz. Don’t let it pass you by.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:59am
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That Keller Williams Kool-Aid
May 13, 2008
I recently completed a transaction as the buyer’s agent with an agent for Keller Williams. It was a short sale, and yes, it dragged on for months - we got into contract in January, and closed in late April. After all was said and done, the seller’s agent and I agreed to meet for coffee and to exchange some final documents and so I could get the key to pass on to my buyers.
You may not be aware of this, but Keller Williams agents are kind of messianic about their company. They love it over there. A few months back during the Watsonville REO tour that we had, I had met another KW agent, and she spoke in glowing terms of her company, and in particular about this training that they had, which was open to agents from any brokerage, not just Keller Williams.
So when I was sitting down for coffee with the seller’s agent, I started talking to her about Keller Williams and the training that they provide. Not surprisingly, she was very enthusiastic and encouraged me to come on down for the next training session they were putting on. I agreed to do so, and so yesterday I sat through 2.5 hours of training on getting listings, put on by a very able and passionate trainer.
As promised, the training was excellent. Honestly, probably better than any real estate training I have been to. There’s one thing in particular I took away from that training, which I want to share with you. If you are a seller, please sit down, pour yourself a nice tall glass of kool-aid, and listen to this.
Keller Williams has a pretty good pricing strategy. It’s simple, and it goes like this: price your home below “market price.” A good bit below. Like, 10% below. Then, market the heck out of it and wait 21 days before taking offers. The buyers will beat a path to your door so quick it will make the neighbors upset because obviously, you’re having one heck of a party and they didn’t get invited.
A home which is priced clearly below market value will attract multiple offers. There is good example of this every day, with these REO properties. The banks price these things low. They price them to sell. And they do, quickly, and usually with multiple offers. It is very common for these properties to sell for over asking price, often by 10%.
This pricing strategy is an excellent one, especially in a market like today’s. In an appreciating seller’s market, it’s not such a bad thing to over-price your property by 10% - sooner or later, the market will catch up to you, and you’ll probably end up getting that extra 10% if you wait long enough. However, when you are in a declining market, if you do not sell your home quickly, the market will probably pass you right on by.
In a declining market, people don’t want to buy for fair market price, because the market price is dropping, and next month, it’s going to be worth less than it was the month before. You need to list your property under fair market price, attract multiple offers, and sell it for the most the market is willing to pay for at the moment.
That’s a winning strategy, and it’s working spectacularly for the banks selling their foreclosure properties, and it is also working for sellers who price their homes to sell.
I’m going back to Keller Williams on Wednesday for another training. Not sure what it’s about. And yes, I know, it’s all a trap. They want to seduce you into signing up with them by providing world-class training gratis and showing you that there’s a better way to sell Real Estate. I have no intention of leaving Thunderbird Real Estate at the moment - I’ve long thought that my next step after Thunderbird would be to open my own brokerage (I’m a licensed real estate broker, after all). But if one day you see me sportin’ a mustache and talking feverishly about how great KW is, you’ll know how it all began.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:28am
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Santa Cruz Real Estate - What’s In, What’s Out
April 22, 2008
This morning I was frantically running off a few flyers for one of my listings in Watsonville (a great mobile home in an awesome park - check it out). I needed to do a few errands down in Watsonville before my weekly office meeting, and loading up the flyer box at this listing was one important thing on my list. As I was standing by the printer waiting for the job to complete, the managing broker of Thunderbird comes up to me and asks if I’d like to participate on a panel.
“Panel?” I said, “Sure! What panel?” You know me, I never look a gift horse in the mouth - if the boss is going to give me an opportunity to be in front of a bunch of potential real estate buyers, I’m there! She explained: “We’re putting on a discussion about what’s in, what’s out in today’s Santa Cruz real estate market. We’re getting a few lenders together and some of the agents in the office to do a public event. I’d like to invite you to come along and talk about foreclosures in Santa Cruz, because that’s what everybody is probably going to want to know about.”
Hey, sounds good. I know about all kinds of real estate aside from foreclosures, but I imagine they’ll let me chime in if I have something I feel needs to be said on another topic. Here are the topics slated for discussion:
- What is the current state of the mortgage industry?
- What loan programs work best in the current market?
- What strategies can buyers use to best position themselves to buy?
- What is the prognosis for interest rates in 2008?
- What do home prices look like now?
- What is a short sale and how do I buy a home through a short sale?
- Why is now a good time to buy?
- What are some ideas to help me sell my house now?
- How can I use the Internet to help me buy or sell a home?
You, dear reader, may have noticed that there’s no topic about buying foreclosure real real estate. Presumably that topic will be added to the next version of the flyer they are handing out.
The panel discussion will be held on Thursday, May 8th at 6:00 PM at Santa Cruz Title Company in Capitola - 1955 41st Avenue, just three doors down from Starbucks (behind the Burger King, Citibank, and various other corporate logos).
If you are interested in going, please call my office to sign up: (831) 475-8400. Or, just contact me and I’ll put you on the list. They say “Space is Limited, Call now to Reserve a Seat” - but I don’t imagine the fire marshall will be on-hand to shut us down if we should exceed the rated capacity from the room. But if you do register ahead of time, we’ll probably make sure there are enough cookies for everyone (no promises).
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:50pm
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Second Annual Santa Cruz Housing Expo
March 31, 2008
I hope they ramp up the PR effort on this soon, because the 2008 Santa Cruz County Housing Expo is set for April 12. I didn’t make it last year, but I hope to make it this time around. My brokerage, Thunderbird Real Estate, is going to have a booth, we’ll be talking about Green Building. And I’m not just talking avocado tile in the bathroom and psychedelic shag carpeting.
You can view the Santa Cruz Association of Realtor’s page about it here:
There are four “tracks” to this event, with multiple presentations per track:
The Path to Home Ownership
Invest for Success
“Green” Real Estate
Foreclosure (avoidance)
The Housing Expo is free to attend, and is being held at the Twin Lakes Church, 2701 Cabrillo College Drive in Aptos, from 10 AM til 2:30 PM.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:45am
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A New Way to Get Locked Out
February 21, 2008
I showed a townhome today to some clients . “What did the listing agent tell you about this place?” they asked. “Nothing,” I replied, “he didn’t call me back.” That’s not too uncommon, I explained - listing agents have a habit of not calling people back, at least 10-20% of the time. Often times, it’s because there’s already an offer in on the house, or it’s about to be withdrawn, etc. But in this case, I think I can guess. Stuck to a couple of windows, I found this sticker:
A nice service representative from Fidelity National Field Services, Inc. had dropped by to change the locks. Actually, they only changed one lock, the side door - they removed the dead-bolt, and added a second door knob in its place (weird, didn’t get a picture of that). There was also a slip of paper on the entry way floor saying that the field rep had come by, and that the owner should contact Washington Mutual.
Well that’s a fine “Welcome Home” isn’t it?
Actually, the townhouse was vacant, so I don’t think anyone’s going to get the message. But this explains why the listing agent didn’t bother to call me back - it’s probably not really his listing anymore, but it’s still on the MLS. Looks like there’ll be another REO foreclosure listing hitting the MLS in a few weeks or months. Sigh.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:03pm
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