What is the Story Behind the Story? Today it was reported in the Review Journal the housing market is still in disarray with the traditional doom and gloom remaining on the horizon for the foreseeable future. What they did not report is that closed sales are increasing every week since January. The number of homes closed in the last 30 days ending on 3/17/2008, are 44% higher than those on January 7th – less than 90 days ago. Pending sales today are 89% higher than on January 7. Pending sales are the indicator of whether closings will be up or down in the coming 30 days. The market is active and there is more energy in the market today than in the last 12 months. Is it sustainable? We’ll see. My bottom line is the media tells only the story that sells. There are positive signs in the Las Vegas market and few know about it. When the others find out, will a new rush be on?
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March 21, 2008 at 7:07 pm
[...] At the beginning of this week, there were over 17,700 single family homes available and another 4700…. Half of them are vacant; almost one in 5 is a “short sale” where the mortgage balance is greater than the purchase price. These people need to sell their homes, and they need to do it quickly. Just short of 1 in every 10 listings is bank-owned (REO), and they account for over half our sales! That isn’t because banks are underpricing, and it isn’t because repos are necessarily nice places to live. People are getting into bidding wars on these properties, and eventually paying more than asking price in many cases! And then other bank-owned properties have sat, gathering dust, for months upon months. [...]
March 24, 2008 at 10:04 pm
You know I was following a property that was sold at the REDC auction back in December 07…. We were negoitiating with a bank for a similar property in the same neighborhood. The buyer that won the auction on this particular property paid $45,000 more than we had gotten the bank to take on the other property the month before. That’s right I said more, and not just for a few dollars more…If you also take into consideration that this buyer also had to pay an additional 5% auctioneers fee and closing costs, you can see why it is important for you to get an agent today and go make bids on some of these REO homes and skip the auctions. I am sure the buyer that won the home at the auction still thinks he got a great deal, and they really did. If they had had an agent they would have known when to quit bidding though.