The State of the Real Estate Market

Somewhat like the President of the United State's State of the Union Address, this blog is a commentary on the state of our housing market locally.

If you are reading this we thank you for taking the time to do so and welcome your comments and feedback.

The market:
Shortage of inventory! Sure there are homes for sale but really less than 2 months of inventory! Houses are selling rather quickly. There are signs the $8000 credit for first time home buyers will be extended to June of '10, a good thing but still that is not a long time and the first time buyers are clambering to buy now and take advantage of this!

But they are still cautious and not willing to over-pay for a house. If the house is apparently over-priced, shortage of inventory or not, they will pass on it! In the boom times any house sold, location or condition issues or not. Now? Not so much; people are cautious to be sure!

Are prices rising? A tad bit....for sure we are bumping along the bottom.....with spikes and valleys to be navigated and now it seems like a spike is happening.

If that shadow inventory mentioned in our newsletter starts hitting the market we could see this rapidly change to a valley caused by softening prices caused by increasing inventory. But we just don't see that here in Pleasant Hill; not so much!

Short sales continue to be a thorn in our side. We have four we are working on right now. The biggest problem is the lack of response to phone calls and emails to the bank processor assigned to the sale! Just today a co-agent on a transaction wrote a very cute email to the processor saying things like "I know you are over-worked, under-paid, deserve a raise, a massage, a facial, but can we hear from you?" and by gosh she did! The processor told her ours is one of 300 files assigned to her and that cute email moved her to the top of the list! For now on, cute is IT! I am going to wow those processors with cute and appreciative e-mails to get their attention!

One processor told me I was one of 65 voice mails she had to plow through. Most have voice mails promising a return call within 72 hours. I feel for those folks; they are SO over-burdened and over-worked!

But that being said we have closed a few rather successfully and look forward to closing four more this year!

Call us with your real estate questions or write a comment to this post! Love to hear from you!