The Massachusetts Real Estate Guy

NAR 2008 Profile of Homebuyers & Sellers - Results...

Would you look at this report?

Pretty bleak for the newspapers, I'd say.  Also, VERY BAD for Homes & Land, Catalogue of Homes, The Real Estate Book, and all those other publications that just LOVE to siphon valuable marketing dollars from agents & brokerages not just locally, but pretty much ALL over the country. 

The numbers from NAR  pretty much confirm similar informal studies from Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and my own personal observations. A couple of years ago I spent all this crazy money on Catalogue of Homes & the local paper, the Telegram, for 18 months.  When I sat down and look at the numbers, the agents I was working with and myself tabulated over 40 sales, NOT ONE from any publication, including the above mentioned.  It was then that I decided to focus on what REALLY works and stop the insanity of spending money, time, and energy on what doesn't.  I increased my internet coverage substantially since then and minimized or eliminated print ads.  I can also feel a little better about directly doing my part to save a couple of trees and NOT contributing to the waste disposal problems.

So, here is another chart ...

This chart tells me the internet is a time saver the public, whether they be buyers or sellers.  When a buyer prospect gets the information and likes it, they act on it.  Period.  This is NOT rocket science.  They may not of course buy the property, but they at least go see it.  Or drive by.  I suspect when gas prices hit the ceiling they do the virtual tour thing more. 

Only 2% bought directly from sellers?  In spite of the internet,  it can't replace real estate agents, and I really can't visualize myself being replaced by a computer, no matter how hard I try, because I know the work I do.  Now I know some of you out there hate agents, and yes, I do agree, there are some agents you wouldn't want to work with. I probably wouldn't want to work with them myself.  A good chunk of sales 7% may be classidied as For Sale by Owners but in reality are sales between friends and relatives.  This study has that number at 7%. Add that to the 2% and around 9% or so is pretty much what you hear a lot of studies saying is the amount of homes sold by owner.  So, basically, that means that around 90% of the real estate sold nationally is handled by real estate agents - Realtors (R).

Pretty good numbers for us Realtors, wouldn't you say?

So, if an agent's only answer to sell your house is  "I'll advertise it!", look at the charts above.
Draw your own conclusions.  Odds are we'll sell your house, not the magazines and newspapers.

An easy way to understand what's happened with the mortgage industry.

Thanks to this post here from Lani Rosales @ AgentGenius, I saw a great video on a simplified version of why we are having all these mortgage problems we are.  Here is the video; it's really good to watch. 

The Mortgage Banking MeltdownTechnorati Tags: Mortgage Meltdown, AgentGenius, Worcester

Sneak Preview of the "New Look" of our office.

By now I'm sure some of you readers are aware the office I'm with, Coldwell Banker, @ 196 Park Ave, in Worcester, is undergoing a makeover.  The renovations are scheduled to complete in the 2nd week of December and the construction is actually slightly ahead of schedule.  I don't have any "before" shots (didn't think of it), however, here is a shot of a preview sent to me via email by "Kathleen", one of the office admins. 

Cool, eh? 

I suppose we're just one of many examples of renovations I've been seeing lately. Here is another example, scheduled to be completed at the end of this upcoming spring, 2009. 

and here's the second trailer (bootleg, I guess) from Youtube. This is a really nice trailer, for all you Star Trek Fans... I suppose everything worthwhile eventually gets an update.. I'll be posting more pictures next week from at least one of these renovation jobs! PS.. The following picture is NOT a sneak preview of our new office!

Some Stats I like looking at when pricing properties.

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage really has a great tool when pricing property that I really enjoy using, that being the "Absorption Rates".  Although this tool is EXTREMELY valuable and possibly the best way to advise seller clients on the strategy needed to sell their property for the maximum possible price at the best time, you'd be surprised to see how many agents DON'T KNOW what this is.  As a matter of fact, if you are presently in the market, have some fun with this.  Call your agent and ask him or her to quickly provide you with an absorption rate study as soon as possible.  And see what happens.

So, what are absorption rates?  Simply put, absorption rates measure the time (in months for the current market conditions) it takes for the real estate inventory in a certain area to completely turn over.  It's a strong indicator of how long it takes to sell a house, and whether we are in a declining or inclining market.  Properties that haven't sold (expired, cancelled, failed to sell) aren't supposed to be included in the mix, and only properties actively for sale and closed sale properties are looked at.  To me, the numbers at the absorption rates also give me a strong indicator of fast my fellow agents "get it" in terms of the current market, speaking as a whole, of course. 

A couple of days ago, I asked the office admin to get me the Latest Absorption Rates for ALL properties in Worcester.  Within an hour, I had the studies emailed to me in pdf format. That's service!  I used to do these myself when I left Coldwell Banker a couple of years ago for a short period of time, and I can tell you, these things would take a while. Also, I could never get them to look as nice.  So anyway, I had them and I am going to only post the absorption rates for single families, multi families, and condos.  Here they are;

 

Download WorcSF11-12-08.pdf (0.0K) Download WorcMF11-12-08.pdf (0.0K) Download WorcCondo11-12-08.pdf (0.0K)

So, what's going on in Worcester? 

In a 12 month period, we had 870 single family homes sell.  At the time of the study a couple of days ago, we had in Worcester 698 single family homes for sale, all types at all price ranges.  We have in Worcester a 9.63 month supply of homes available. 

A couple of years ago we could have found months where the absorption rate was measured in weeks.  A friend of mine from Arizona told me sometimes they would measure Absorption rates in days...

To have a home in the market for 9 months nowadays is a very bad idea. There is NO reasons why.  If you really need to sell, price it competitively and move on. 

Look at these figures. Post your question or comments. Or contact me privately.  With Absorption Rates you can REALLY get a feel of the market.

Real Estate Downfall...The Movie..

I saw this video here at Agent Genius and My God, I was laughing so hard. As the poster at Agent Genius says, it REALLY is worth watching the 4 minutes... I found the URL and well, here it is... enjoy!

Soft "Corinthian" Leather ... The 1975 Chrysler Cordoba

My first car... I miss the Cordoba.. Maybe if gas goes down to 99 cents I'll consider finding one and driving this again... although it wasn't really that bad on the gas..  Oh, well...

NEMoves Mortgage now part of Buy Worcester Now.

Even though I don't see this fact reflected on their site, NEmoves Mortgage is now able to participate in the Buy Worcester Now Mortgage Incentives Program. 

Why am I blogging about this?  NEMoves Mortgage is part of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, that's why.  I make it a strong point to recommend ALL my clients and consumers to NEMoves Mortgage.  I like the way they do business and I can honestly and sincerely say they have done a great job for my clientele.   They're very good.

Just to reiterate, the only reason I recommend NEMoves Mortgage is because I am impressed with their loan officers and their service. If someone gets a loan from NEMoves Mortgage because I referred them, I get NOTHING. ZILCH.  NADA. Not a flat penny.  So, that's NOT the reason I recommend them. The only reason is 'cause I like the results, and I presume most of my clients do, too. So, if you need to apply for a loan, you can just follow the link here, and speak to Ralph Berthiaume. If you're closer to the Framingham area, you can contact Beth Buckman.

Coldwell Banker - Park Ave voted Best Real Estate Office in Central MA by City Living Magazine...

The office I am affiliated with, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage of Park Avenue, just got voted by the readers of City Living Magazine through an online survey as the best real estate office of Central MA.

Although I've been affiliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage for a combined total of over 8 years, I have been affiliated with other offices, having left Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage for 2 years between 2004-2006; I can tell you; it is VERY hard to beat the level of service the company provides to both the agents and to the consumers.  You may be wondering WHY it may be important for a real estate company to provide a high level of service to the agents. I may write a separate post for this topic some day, but let me just say, here and now, that with the services my office provides to me, I am more able to TRULY focus on delivering my very best to my clients and customers, without having to worry about performing the business duties of the business.  One example is signs.  Y'know those white post Coldwell Banker signs? I list a home and my office installs the signs. When sold (or whatever), my office takes the signs down. As an agent, I can drive ANY kind of car I want to because I don't have to wonder about which car (or worst, SUV) I have to buy that will be able to fit the signs. I no longer have to "lug" any signs around.

That may be but one small example but it's certainly one of many.  An agent in today's rela estate enviroment has to both ENJOY his or her career and BE ABLE TO AFFORD BEING in their career.  As an agent with over 25 years of experience in real estate, I call it as I see it, and I have to say, I can certainly see how my office provides the best service around, and I guess the readers of City Living Magazine think so, too...

To get the pdf version of this article (and actually, the whole magazine), please follow THIS LINK.

This President is COOL!

I haven't been saying much about the presidential race; really, I don't know what to add to what's already been said by the candidates, the media, the winners, and the losers. As for how President-Elect Obama will intend to straighten out "Our Long National Nightmare"  I frankly don't know yet, not because he hasn't said anything BUT because I haven't had the time to fully sit down and read what he said. I of course hope our national real estate problems and foreclosures will be tempered soon, but I can tell you the the way to do it is NOT to try to artificially "pump" up the market and bring back prices quickly to pre-2004 levels.  Rather, I would prefer the prices STAY AFFORDABLE as they seem to be now. Maybe we are in the bottom; we probably won't know until 4 to 6 months AFTER the bottom takes place.

What I really, really like about this president is his general approach. He "gets" it, plain and simple. It doesn't matter to me what party he is, whether or not he's democrat or republican; the man "gets it", plain and simple. I found a website I HAVE to share with all of you; a "put your money where your mouth is" website.  A website that makes me, at least, feel, this president can get on a "personal" level with the voters.  You have to understand this campaign was the first I've seen that utilized "Web 2.0" tools like Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. Of the two sides, Obama's group was FAR MORE effective than McCain's.  Even reknowned marketing expert Seth Godin had some good observations about Obama's strategy. 

Whatever the solutions are, you can be a part of the solution by visiting this amazing website, change.gov.  Unless I've missed it. I've never seen a public forum with blog content from the President directly (as direct as it can be). You can actually go there and suggest your solutions or state your problems directly to the Obama camp. This is truly an inspiration in itself.

I don't have any answers. I honestly think any help is better than none, and when the real estate market on a national scale rejuvenates (it seems to me that Massachusetts is getting better and better as the foreclosures are being moved), the economy will pick up, but the economy and the real estate market have to "pick up" together.  So, go to change.gov, check it out, and if you have anything to say, say it!

Buy Worcester Now - Meet The Lender

I just got this noticed emailed to me...

The City of Worcester

presents

Meet the Lender

Tuesday, November 18

5—7 p.m.

NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center

674 Main Street, Worcester

Buying a home? Looking for the best mortgage? Attend this one-stop shopping opportunity to meet 14 different lenders. Learn about Buy Worcester Now, affordable mortgage products with below market interest rates, first-time homebuyer assistance, homebuyer courses, lead paint assistance, down payment assistance, purchase and rehab loans, and more.
Participating Lenders: Bank of America, Bank of Canton, Bay State Savings Bank, Commerce Bank & Trust, Commonwealth National, DCU—Digital Federal Credit Union, Flagship Bank, Grafton Suburban Credit Union, MassHousing, Sovereign Bank, Southbridge Savings Bank, Spencer Savings Bank, Webster Five Cents Savings Bank, Worcester Credit Union
Call 508-799-1175 for more information.