“The new normal is remodeling as an alternative to buying and trading up,” says Susan M. Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at Wharton University of Pennsylvania. “This points to a more sluggish housing market,” she adds. Indeed, homeowners spent $130 billion on renovations last year, up 3.1% from 2012, and such spending is expected to rise 8% more in 2014, says Stephen Melman, director of economic services at the National Association of Home Builders.
Others say homeowners have an eye toward selling, however. “Often times, a person will remodel a home to put it on the market or get it ready for the market,” says Steve Brown, president of the National Association of Realtors. In fact, pending home sales rose in March for the first time in 9 months, according to the NAR. “The Pending Home Sales Index,” based on contract signings, rose 3.4% to 97.4 from an upwardly revised 94.2 in February, but is still 7.9% below March 2013 when it was 105.7. “We look forward to a healthy, stable housing market for the balance of the year,” he says.
Looking at the numbers it seems that the remodeling business is doing quite well these days. What's keeping them so busy? A lot of this work is coming from sellers getting their houses ready for the market, and a large bit of the rest is coming from people opting to remodel and save money. A quick remodel can often be a much cheaper way to change up your living space/life style while adding equity at the same time. Check out this article from Marketwatch.com and you be the judge. Seattle housing prices on the rise according to the latest S&P numbers out last week. Does this mean that we are in a sellers market? Quite honestly I think its anybody's market, but I know that buyers need more help than ever with negotiations. Check out this article I found on Seattletimes.com. Tuesday’s release of the Case-Shiller data came a day after a positive report from the National Association of Realtors: Pending home sales rose in March for the first time in nine months, buoyed by more homes being listed for sale. So the numbers are showing a really slow start to the spring buying season. The lack of inventory has driven prices up and created a very competitive buyers market. Click the link below to read more about it in the article I found on housingwire.com. “From a regional standpoint, sales were weak in the South and West, down 3.0% and 3.7%, respectively. Sales in the Midwest and North, on the other hand, were up 4.7% and 9.1%, respectively,” noted Sterne Agee chief economist Lindsey Piegza. “Bottom line, demand for housing remains uneven after months of heightened sales activity earlier in 2013. Now against the backdrop of minimal income growth and a still-tepid labor market, demand continues to wane. How many times have you heard real estate and good investment in the same sentence or even paragraph? Not many in the last several years but check out this article I found on bizjournals.com A 2011 Gallup poll found that gold was the most popular response, but gold prices dropped significantly after that. Lack of inventory! I Found a great article on housing wire.com about how the tight inventory is holding back the housing recovery in the Pacific Northwest. Brokers are reporting rising prices on fewer sales in March. Check it out. Compared to last year, closed sales were about the same as twelve months ago, with 5,753 completed transactions, just slightly above 5,745 closed sales in 2013. Okay here we are, heading into the 2014 spring real estate season. It seems we are entering this season with a rather interesting problem. Lack of inventory; too few selling and buyers that are starting to not be able to afford what is for sale. Because of the competitive market that we are in buyers are having to look at lower price points. A recent report from the MLS ( multiple listing service) shows housing prices in the metro puget sound area up in march from a year ago and according to the S&P/ Case-shiller index there has been a more than 12% jump in the average home price on a national level. The reason for the jump in pricing is due to the lack of inventory we are experiencing. We need sellers! Buyers hang in there, the numbers are starting to trend the other way as we roll into this spring season; we are seeing higher numbers of listings coming on every month. Happy Masters week!!
Huh!? Check out some of the top 10 best downtowns for 2014. I came across this list/article on the livability.com web site and I have to say I was pretty surprised to see some of the cities they have listed and not see some of the cities that might immediately jump my head. Take a look a the list.
Truth of the matter is... depending of what type criteria you use to filter the downtown cities and how many different types. You can pretty much skew these things in any direction you would like. With that being said, It seems that they did use some pretty good ranking criteria to come up with this list. Here are a few criteria used: Population growth, retail growth, office vacancy rates, population gains, downtown accessibility, unemployment rates etc. Check out the whole article @ livability.com THE COMMISSION !!!
Maybe you’ve read about brokers who offer to cut their commission, or promise to refund money after closing. Limited Service Brokers may make those promises, but the truth is that some lenders won't close on a transaction where a broker is returning money to the buyer, and (worse!) many sellers won't reduce the list price of their home because they know that buyers represented by a Limited Services Broker might get money back after closing. Either way you look at it, it’s a lose-lose situation for buyers looking to buy a home. But, wait, there’s more: • Buyers represented by Limited Service Brokers pay 101.80% of list price (on average) • While Buyers represented by Coldwell Banker Bain Brokers only pay 99.10% of list price (on average) So, on a final sales price of $500,000, a Coldwell Banker Bain Broker obtains (on average) a final sales price that is $10,000 less than a Limited Service Broker. Wow! Not sure about you but that seems like a pretty big number to me. A Limited Services Broker may promise to give you ½ of his commission (1.5%) after closing, but on a $500,000 final sales price, that’s only $7,500, which means that you’re still underwater on the transaction, having paid much more than you should’ve, all other things being equal. For some ideas on why some Limited Services Brokers do so poorly for their clients, it might be helpful to look at things from their perspective: • What if I asked you to do your job for half of what you are being paid right now? • Would you still be doing it? • And, if you decided for some strange and unexplained reason that you would work for ½ of your wages would you do it with as much enthusiasm or professionalism? I’ll bet that you answered, “no,” to each of these questions. Real Estate Brokers work on commission, which means that if we don't close we don't get paid. I’m glad that I’m a Full Service Broker, because I like spending time with my clients, getting to know them and their needs, which I couldn’t do if I was a Limited Services Broker. Some of my clients find the right home and close their transaction in a month, while others take longer; it’s all part of the job. But the biggest part of what I do for my clients involves my expertise in negotiations, time management, and dedication to making my clients happy, all of which are necessary to get to a successful closing. Whether its banking, financing, computer tech, construction or any other business that you can think of, "Project Managers," the professionals who are responsible for implementation and coordination of all these important projects, again you know, the ones that usually command extremely high salaries. Well if you really think about it this is exactly what we do as Real Estate brokers. We earn our commissions with negotiations, overcoming transaction problems and coordinating all the service providers required to get our clients to the closing table. We know all the Federal, state and local disclosures and requirements. They can be different for every deal we go through, and getting through them can be as tricky as walking through a minefield. But guess what, we hold your hand and walk you straight through, because we have the map! How about all of those financing and inspection contingencies, who pays for this and who pays for that? Are there penalties? What happens if appraisal comes back less than expected? Again, just one more of the challenges that we are there to help guide you though. Title services, escrow, attorneys, movers, stagers, photographers and all the other services involved, who takes care of all these? We coordinate all of these services; knowing when, who, where and why, and holding everyone accountable to help make sure everything is done on time! Woo Hoo! The Seattle Seahawks win their first Super Bowl. What an exciting time to be a Seattlite. The fan support in Seattle is as good as it gets. I have lived in several different cities with huge franchises and I have never seen anything like it. The 12 th man is alive and well in Seattle. Congrats to our city, its a great time to live in Washington. So if anyone is trying to do so give me a call! I can make things happen.
Ha, so it appears that the state making the fastest climb up the millionaires per state rankings might just be the last state that you would guess! They say this state doesn't have a Saks 5th Ave or a single Tiffany's and the nearest BMW dealer is a six hour drive from the state capital "Bismarck", you guess it yet?
Welcome to North Dakota… our 39th state admitted to the union on Nov. 2nd 1889. With a population of 699,628 back in 2012 has jumped 14 spots up the list of millionaire households per capita. This information was released by Phoenix Marketing International. About 6.15 million millionaire households are spread across the US according to their findings. It seems there were around 53,000 more millionaire households in the US from 2012 to 2013. Not including the value of the Real Estate, that puts 1 in every 20 households in the US having more than $1 million in investable assets. Want to read more check out this article. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/01/16/where-are-the-u-s-s-millionaires/?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond |
AuthorJason Moon Real Estate Broker with ColdWell Banker Bain. Seattle, WA Archives
November 2019
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