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Did you see the Sunday Paper! Front page news – “It’s a good time to buy a house”.
I’m definitely seeing things heat up in Durango. I have a client who is looking to buy, we looked at a bankowned home last week (under $200,000), the second day it was listed and they said they’d look at offer after one week. Now there are three offers and the “highest and best” one wins. That’s a sure sign of the market turnaround being here when well-priced properties are fetching multiple offers.
And – since I’m working on upgrading the website I was looking through some or our previous blog posts and came across this one – as relevant as ever…
It is an awesome Buyer’s Market and everything is “on sale”, in Durango and beyond! But the clue is – you’ve got to buy something.
It’s ONLY A Buyers Market If You ACTUALLY Buy!!!
One of my friends called me the other day and in an excited voice declared, “I think I might need to look at houses…It’s a GREAT time to buy a house right now, you know!”
I”ve been preaching that all year, but hey, no one listens to me… I said, “Really? What makes you think that?”
“Well. I have a friend who just got a fantastic deal on a house and I think it might be time for me to think about looking!”
Ok, so which part of what I have been saying for months now did she miss? Apparently, the same part that ALOT of buyers are missing.
It’s been on TV; it’s been on the radio; it’s been in print and on the web…where hasn’t it been if you’re a professional Realtor and tuned in to everything real estate ever since they first uttered the words U.S. HOUSING CRISIS!
But here’s the thing… if you are just another economic-shell shocked human being wondering what happened while you were busy enjoying the last twenty years of your life, it may well BE the first time you are realizing it! After all, we all know sellers who still don’t seem to understand that a buyer’s market means that they, too, will not be seeing the profit from the sale of their home that their neighbors saw last year. What in the world makes us think those same folks are out there telling their friends and relatives that they just heard it’s a great time to buy a house!
Its human nature to think that, as long as your world doesn’t seem to be terribly different, then all those problems THE MEDIA is describing must be happening to other people! After all, if you hadn’t really saved that much for retirement, you might not notice that 401Ks everywhere have become 201Ks. If you’re just getting started thinking about long term career goals, job loss statistics are probably lost on you. And if your friends and family don’t have to sell their houses any time soon, you may not have heard that the prices sellers are getting for their homes are easily 10 to 20 to (gulp) 50% less (depending on where you are) than last year’s sellers got for their homes. Just as this past presidential election cycle was the longest in recorded history, so too, it seems to many of us, is the recovery from the housing crisis. But if you don’t vote…or don’t want to buy a house…who cares? It’s only a Buyer’s market if you actually BUY!
Let’s face it, those of us in the business are fully aware that we are in the army now…if we, as professional Realtors, can get some of this housing inventory sold, we will have begun to win the battle that will lead to winning the war! And if we can win the war to get the housing market back on track, we will win the war to get the whole U.S. economy back on track! We are the key! (How’s that for a pep talk?!)
So what do Realtors have to do to get buyers to see that this is serious business? The government is anteing up $8000 in tax credit to get some of you moving. In fact FHA is getting ready to let you use that $8000 as part of your down payment…without having to wait until after closing! Combine that with unbelievable, never before seen, never again to be seen in this lifetime, interest rates (which, by the way, are just as fantastic for those of you who don’t qualify for the tax credit) and you guys should be fighting to get on my schedule to look at homes! I mean full on, no holds barred, hair pulling,fighting!
Oh, I know you’ve called me and we’re trying to get together…but, what with your vacation and all…how ‘bout next month? I even know a lot of you are working with other agents because you’re looking at my listings and you’re even having your agents call me to see if anybody else is looking at the house you like. But what’s up with having your agent write up a preliminary offer, spend days verbally sparring with me and my seller before reaching a tentative agreement, and then I don’t see another thing in writing from you for two weeks?
Buying a home is not a spectator sport! It is a major and serious step toward achieving the American Dream. You’ve heard of that haven’t you? That’s when you get a pretty little piece of dirt with a cozy little roof over your head to come home to after a hard day at work! A place to call your very own and nobody (well except f or the HOA, and, of course, your Realtor when it’s time to sell) can tell you what to do there! It’s a place where you can paint the walls any color you want, invite friends over whenever you feel like it or get a puppy!
Give us poor Realtors a break… we’ve done all the work already, helping our sellers see that they need to provide you with a home in really great condition and at a really great price (no they aren’t happy about that last one but THEY trust us.) How can you go wrong?
So, my friends, we are here for you! We promise to show you opportunities you won’t believe are available! I promise to walk you through the process every step of the way and answer ALL your questions and teach you really COOL stuff about home ownership! I’m telling you there is a SALE, a REALLY BIG SALE on real estate right now and you shouldn’t miss it!
Claudia Williams
Owner/Ecobroker/Exchangor
Blue Ribbon Properties, 835 Main Ave #214, Durango, CO 81301
970 247 8388 (office), 970 749 3555 (cell), 970 247 8360 (fax), info@blueribbondurango.com
Connect with Claudia on facebook, buzztown, twitter, linked in and my blog articles
Be sure to LIKE Blue Ribbon Properties on Facebook!
Check out the New Market Snapshot to monitor the value of your home and get current local market conditions
Happy Leap Day!!! LEAP DAY only happens every four years and we want you to take advantage of this special day. Stop by Blue Ribbon Properties to claim your free hat, and start thinking about buying some real estate.
It’s a great time to buy real estate. The market is at the cusp of turn around, it won’t get any cheaper than this. Take the bull by the horn and start by signing up for our free market report – for Buyers and Sellers – to keep yourself apprised of the developments in our local micro market – www.durangohousevalues.com.
See yesterday’s article on the Housing Bright Spot: Pending Home Sales Rise, Market on Uptrend
Finally – we have Blue Ribbon baseball caps and would like to encourage you to stop by our office in downtown Durango’s Main Mall upstairs and pick one up, as a thank you for helping spread the word about us. For our very special clients, we also have fleece vests! Blue army style hats, and black traditional style hats. See photo.
 
Happy Leap Day!
Click Here for Fun Facts about Leap Day!
Today the Durango Discovery Museum is celebrating their 1st birthday! Their doors have been open a full year – can you believe it!?
You should go and check out the fun Birthday Bash today from 11:30am-7:00pm – Jugglers, Firedancers, Musicians, Cake and more! FREE admission!
Click Here for the Discovery Museum’s Webpage
Today is also our FAVORITE Real Estate Broker’s birthday! Claudia Williams! Happy Birthday Claudia! Hope you have the most wonderful day snowboarding with your family!
970 247 8388 (office), 970 749 3555 (cell), 970 247 8360 (fax), blueribbondurango.com
Very interesting article on Trulia about Home Ownership & Valentine’s Day…Enjoy this special day with all of those special “someone’s” in your lives!
Valentine’s Day for Real Estate: Trulia Says More Love for Home Owners
In a bit of Valentine’s Day pseudo-science (don’t shoot the messenger), Trulia surveyed men and women on their preferences in homeownership, styles of homes, amenities, and those same qualities they find attractive in potential dates.
The number of women stating that they preferred a man who owned a home was more than 15 times the number that preferred a renter. For men, the number who preferred a female homeowner was about six times the number who preferred a renter.
The study also found that although men and women had only slightly different preferences in home attributes, women had far more opinions. Female respondents chose far more home features as “important” to them as men did.
From the recap on the RealtorMag site:
“Home owners trump renters when it comes to finding someone to date, according to a new survey of 1,000 single people. More than a third of women and 18 percent of men would rather date a home owner than a renter, according to the survey, which was conducted on behalf of Trulia.
On the other hand, only 2 percent of women said they’d prefer to date a renter, while 3 percent of men said they’d prefer a renter.
Not only do both sexes prefer home owners, but they also prefer you live alone. Sixty-two percent of the singles surveyed said they prefer to date others who live alone and have no roommates.
And while the number of young adults who have moved back in with their parents has skyrocketed in recent months due to economic hardships, less than 5 percent of the singles surveyed said they would date someone living in their parents’ home.
What home qualities are the many singles who prefer ownership to renting most drawn to? The top vote-getters were the master bath, walk-in closets, and gourmet kitchens. They also gave high ranks to hardwood floors, outdoor decks, and home theaters.”
Click Here for the Article
Stacy Engle , Associate Broker
This is an interesting article we came across, and thought we would share.
Book Review: ‘The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending and Enjoying Your Money’ Author: Daniel R. Solin
Today’s post-recession, pro-consumer, anti-bank zeitgeist reflects a dramatic sea change in the world of personal finance advice. Gone are the days when the cable TV pundits whose eyes bulge as they holler hysterics about what, when and whether to buy, sell or hold are taken seriously as anything but entertainment.
All the rules of thumb (e.g., owning a home is good) have been revised and nuanced (e.g., owning a home is good if X, Y and Z, but renting makes more sense if A, B and C).
And there’s also been a sea change in how this advice is delivered. Instead of a once-weekly column in the local paper by a financial writer, these days there is a steady stream — flood, even — of advice-blog posts written by actual financial advisers and delivered in short, simple chunks right-sized for today’s shrunken attention spans.
Daniel R. Solin is one such expert/blogger, and uses the same pithy style, linking to complementary online resources as he does in his advice columns on HuffingtonPost.com and USNews.com in his new book, “The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending and Enjoying Your Money.”
Here are four of Solin’s smartest financial do’s and don’ts:
1. Don’t try to play the market. Solin practically pleads with readers not to base their housing or stock market investment decisions on their guesses as to whether the market will rise or fall, and when.
On real estate, Solin says to get aggressive about building equity by making conservative mortgage decisions and extra payments, when possible, rather than trying to sell at the top of the market and buy at the bottom.
And when it comes to the stock market, Solin exhorts readers: “Don’t just do something — stand there!” Solin repeatedly cites historical evidence that simply getting and staying in the market yields better results in the long term than what he calls “hyperactive” investing.
2. Do consider other options to a reverse mortgage to access fast cash in retirement. “Smartest” offers loads of Solin’s advice for retirees whose portfolios, plans and bottom lines have been adversely affected by the recession.
Rather than seeing a costly, legacy-draining reverse mortgage as their first resort for access to large amounts of cash, Solin first cautions retirees to get serious about whether anything but health, food and shelter are truly needs vs. wants (note: helping your children is not a need, in his book) and lists a number of more attractive, but less commonly considered options for accessing cash, including a “regular” home refinance or loan against a 401(k) or cash value life insurance policy.
3. Don’t confuse salespeople for financial advisers. Calling the investment industry “friend and foe,” Solin points out the sobering truth that 95 percent of actively managed funds fail to equal or beat their market indexes, yet the fees for investing in actively managed funds tend to be several times more expensive than for index funds, eroding whatever returns investors in active funds do attain.
Solin urges readers to be aware of the difference between an investment broker, who he says is more accurately described as a salesperson; and a financial adviser, who can take a look at your life and your money and help you set goals, pick low-fee investments, rebalance your portfolio, manage your tax exposure and manage your emotions.
Solin recommends that readers put together a trusted team including an estate planning attorney, a certified public accountant (CPA), and fee-only (i.e., not commission-based) investment and insurance advisers.
4. Do shop around. Solin likens our monthly income and expenses to our body’s metabolism. In the same way we gain weight over the years by consuming calories on autopilot, we can lose cash by having our insurance, investment and other expenses auto-debited, making it highly unlikely that we’ll notice when fees and bills rise.
Solin advises checking in on these items at regular intervals, and shopping around to see whether we can find a better deal.
“Smartest” makes a great effort to be comprehensive in terms of covering every area of financial life, but it doesn’t actually go deep enough to be the only book you need. Rather, it is a great start at giving you the rationale for getting motivated to grow up and get serious about your finances, and provides you with a primer and a road map for the work ahead of you.
With 40-plus chapters averaging a couple of pages in length each, “Smartest” feels rather like a collection of Solin’s blog posts; this will leave some readers hungry for more depth and detail, but will certainly appeal to many others who cringe at the density of a more traditional personal finance title.
To its credit, “Smartest” also does a good job of pointing out where you can find tools to execute Solin’s recommendations or learn more about a given subject online, mostly on the wildly popular and free, do-it-yourself money management platform Mint.com.
Generally, “Smartest” is written in plain English — though its approach is a tad bit imbalanced, getting a little bit in the weeds and detailed in the sections of his particular expertise and borderline vague and oversimplified in others.
However, if you are looking to start your proactive financial planning up again, after the trauma of the recession, or if you are just taking control of your finances for the first time, “Smartest” is a smart choice for the starter book you need to put your own personal money train in motion.
Click Here for the Daily Real Estate News Article
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Inman News®
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Claudia Williams
Owner/Ecobroker/Exchangor
Blue Ribbon Properties, 835 Main Ave #214, Durango, CO 81301
970 247 8388 (office), 970 749 3555 (cell), 970 247 8360 (fax), blueribbondurango.com
Connect with Claudia on facebook, buzztown, twitter, linked in and my blog articles
Be sure to LIKE Blue Ribbon Properties on Facebook!
Check out the New Market Snapshot to monitor the value of your home and get current local market conditions
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