January 2010 RSS Feed

Patience is the Secret to Short Sales

Do you know how a real estate Short Sale works? It happens to be the number one song on the real estate top 40 chart, but not everyone listens to real estate radio every day and so the topic of Short Sales is still new to many.

A Short Sale, in real estate, is when a property is worth less than what is owed to the bank. If the home is sold for current market value, then there will still be a debt owed to the bank, known as a deficiency after the sale. In order for the sale to proceed, the lender and all other lien holders will need to approve any offer that is made before the property can actually close. The work involved in getting approval for a short sale varies from bank to bank and from one bank rep to…

December 2009 was much busier than December, 2008, with closed sales up 52.6% and only a slight decline of 4.2% in median prices. However, prices rose slightly when compared to November, 2009, with median prices up 1.3% in December. Inventory levels hovered at an almost stable supploy of 7.7 months of 11,597 active listings.

Looking back over the year, 2009 average sale prices dropped 12.2% compared to 2008 and median prices dropped 11.2%. Total sales volume for 2009 also dropped to $5.5 billion, down from $6.3 billion in 2008. It certainly was not an easy year for real estate.

If you would like further information or local market statistics specific to your neighborhood, please contact us.

All statistics are from Portland RMLS Market Action, December 2009.

Negotiating is not about winning and losing; it’s about getting the right deal for our client and it is what makes the Realtor most valuable.

My motto has long been, “The best results always happen to those who are best prepared.” The final price and terms of a deal are the end result of the negotiation, but it is the preparation and due diligence that dictates what is being negotiated in the first place. If done well, our client will have a solid basis for their position and a reasonable answer to any objection raised by the other side.

Is the price right? It takes a lot more effort than visiting web sites like Trulia, Zillow, or any of the others, to determine the proper price to ask or offer; it takes…

Year over year, this November 2009 was a very busy month for real estate when compared to last year. Closed sales were up 72.4% which is the largest percentage increase on record for this area. However, the seasonal trend is still downward with sales down 10.7% from last month of October, 2009.

Average prices are down 11.4% compared to November of last year and 3.6% compared to last month. Residential inventory for the Portland metro area is 12,697 which would take 7.1 months to sell at the current rate.

It would seem that prices are still on a downward trend but the pace of real estate activity has somewhat stabilized.

If you would like further information or local market statistics specific to your neighborhood, please contact us.

All statistics…