Was January '12 the Humboldt Co. Real Estate Bottom?

Everyone is wondering when we're going to hit bottom in the real estate market.  I predicted this past February that January 2012 was going to be it!  Why?

The number of active homes on the market has been at normal or below normal levels since December of 2011.

And demand in the form of the number of homes sold has been very solid since August of 2011!  When supply is down and demand is up, it can't help but to support prices!

Humboldt County's average selling pricing had been bouncing around $250K for the last half of 2011, and when it hit a low of $225K in January '12, I thought, "this might be it!"  February's active listing numbers came in low, and the number of sold units remaind strong, and sure enough, our average price bounced right back up to the $250K mark.

The median sales price had been tracking in the same direction as the average price.  All this convinced me that our likely bottom would be January 2012.  So far the fundamentals continue to show support for prices. 

Low inventory is beginning to hold us back a bit on volume, which will continue to support prices.  So if we can get loan underwriting standards back into a "normal" mode, we should see some home prices rising back to levels where they were purchased in the last several years!  This will enable more homeowners who need to sell to do so, increasing our inventory.  We should then see prices start to stabilize, hopefully sometime next year!

So, should you buy?  Is now the time to sell?  Call me at (707) 499-7111, and we can make a plan to accomplish your real estate goals!

Great Humboldt County 3rd District Supervisorial Forum!

Mark Lovelace

Humboldt Association of Realtors had a great candidate forum tonight between two great people, incumbent Mark Lovelace and challenger Karen Brooks, who are both running for Humboldt County’s 3^rd County Supervisor seat!  Both candidates did a great job of fielding some tough questions and communicating many similarities, but also some key differences in how they would respond to upcoming issues in the County.

• Karen Brooks said that she would like to take the county housing element “back to the drawing board.”
• Mark Lovelace noted that “infill only works if that’s what the people want.”
• Brooks, when asked about the issue of  “shaded parcels,” said that the shading that the county did was “unethical and illegal.”
• Lovelace is working to allow landowners to file “non-industrial timber management plans” at less expense to enhance their ability to manage resource lands.
• Brooks is open to the idea of outsourcing many of the planning department’s permitting processes to local agencies.
• Lovelace believes that a key government role in the planning process is to “balance the property rights of an owner with the property rights of his neighbors.”

Karen Brooks

I am thankful that both candidates came out on a rainy night to give us their thoughtful, sometimes provocative answers to some tough county problems.  It was an entertaining and informative forum!  Thank you, Mark & Karen, for your thoughtful responses and willingness to serve!

Tacky Neighbors Can Cost You Money!

The three biggest factors in real estate values are 1) location, 2) location, and 3) location.  So the old saw goes, but this photo proves that the quality of neighbors has to fit in there somewhere.  I drive by this pick-up truck on my way home from our local grocery store, and cringe every time.  And when my children are with me, I often think about pointing out some feature in the clouds on the left side of the street.  Fortunately, our home is another half mile or so away, so this pickup doesn’t affect us directly.

I got a call recently from a friend who owns the property just across the intersection from this pickup.  They live out of the area and have been renting their home to tenants for several years now, and are thinking about selling.  We talked about a lot of the neat features they built into their home, and the extra large lot, and the huge amount of privacy, especially considering the location in the middle of town.  But she had no idea what was on the tail gate of her neighbor’s truck!  She was mortified!

When the home hits the market, I will be sure to give directions for other agents to approach from the opposite direction; at least the offending neighbor has the consistency to park on the same side of the street, all the time. But eventually some potential buyers will drive by and see the tail gate, and will instantly be turned off on the neighborhood, and consequently the home. 

How much of a price hit will we take on this otherwise delightful cottage?  Fewer interested buyers means fewer offers, which means more downward pressure on the price.  Is it a $5,000 hit?  $10,000?  $25,000?  It might even be worth it to “buy out” the tenant’s lease and make it worthwhile for him to move into someone else’s neighborhood.  Maybe yours?  Maybe mine.

Why I Love Humboldt County, California!

I Love Humboldt County, California!

A picture is worth a thousand words!

But just in case you missed some of them, let me repeat.  The mountains trail down right to the ocean, so we Eurekans can walk on the beach, often in the warm sun, and see snow in the mountain peaks inland a few miles.  I love the way big waves crash against our rocky coast and spray foam everywhere.  I love to walk the docks and quiz my wife about the different types of rigs on the sailboats.  I love buying fresh crab or fresh tuna off the fishing boats in the marina.  70% of the oysters grown in California are grown in Humboldt Bay! 

And the Victorian seaport of Eureka is a fabulous place to wander and look.  The architecture is epic!  The Carson Mansion is widely considered to be the most prominent example of Queen Anne Victorian architecture, and there are so many gorgeous examples of Victorian architecture in the Old Town area!  There are tons of cute little stores for shopping.  Great food in a wide variety of restaurants.  And lots of interesting people!  I truly love Eureka!

Humboldt County, California Real Estate Market Report - February 2012

Could January 2012 be the bottom of the bust?

Our inventory hardly ever goes down for three straight months at the beginning of the year, but that's exactly what happened January, February & March of this year!  This can't help but to give prices some support, and keep them from going down.

And the number of homes sold is not only running at "normal" levels for February, but has been solid for 3 months in a row - Dec '11 - 92; Jan '12 - 74; Feb '12 - 77!

And sure enough we see our average home prices back up into the $250,000 range, where it averaged for most of 2011.

 



And our median home price is flat at the $225,000 range. 

There's no real estate gnome that comes out to ring a bell signaling the bottom of the real estate market, but if it turns out to be Jan '12, remember, you heard it here first!

How to Sell a Listing for an Extra 5.5%!

I made my sellers an extra 5.5% on their sales price!

Several other agents had told my clients that they couldn’t sell their home for more than $500,000!  I thought we could!  My CMA (Competitive Market Analysis) indicated that we could sell for somewhere between $500,000 & $540,000, so we listed it at $539,000 and went to work.

My team prepared our standard Big WoW Marketing Package (www.6243Rohnerville.com) and put the home on the market.  Within 2 weeks we had four showings and 2 offers. 

The first offer, from buyers in Portland & Santa Cruz, came in below $500,000.  When I presented the offer to my sellers, they wanted to know everything they could about the buyers’ interest level, and when I showed them our custom website hits by city, with Santa Cruz and Portland at #1 & #2, they realized that our buyers were very interested in their property.  We knew we had a 2^nd offer coming, so we prepared a counter offer at $535,000 and waited. 

When our 2^nd offer came in the next day under $500,000 as well, we decided to continue with our counter offer to buyer #1, and let them know that we had received a 2^nd offer.  When our first buyers heard that there was another offer on the table, they couldn’t sign our counter offer fast enough!  We opened escrow, and after our inspection period and some negotiations for repairs, we closed escrow at $527,500!

After the initial photos and the placing of a home in the MLS, most agents rely on the price reduction as their main tool to sell a home.  Hence, most agents thought this particular home would sell for under $500,000.  By engaging the buyers’ hearts and minds with our Big WoW Marketing Package, we were able to coax an additional $27,500 out of their pocket!  That’s an additional 5.5% of the expected value of the home!

So if you truly want top dollar when you sell your home, Big Wow Marketing is the ticket!  Obviously, I can’t guarantee you a specific sales price, but I can guarantee you the best marketing available in the real estate industry today!  And it won’t cost you a penny extra!

I Made My Sellers an Extra 6.7%!

I made my sellers an extra 6.7% on their sales price!

My client had been listed before at $1M with a different agent. He was shocked when I told him his property was worth $750,000. He really wanted to sell, and he loved my Big WoW Marketing package, with it's custom website, but he said he couldn’t go below $850,000. I told him I would market his property at $849,000, and we’d give it our best shot. If it didn’t sell, at least he knew that he was getting the best marketing possible, and we could either reduce the price or try again at a later date.

After 9 months at $849,000, the perfect buyers appeared from Los Angeles. They commented on each of their visits to the property how beautiful the website (www.15500DyervilleLoop.com) looked and how it showed off the property. So when they brought a cash offer at $700,000, we knew they were really interested.



I presented the offer, and my Seller decided to counter at $800,000. The buyers countered us at $750,000. I told my Seller that this was probably the best deal we would be able to get, and that I couldn’t even guarantee that it would appraise for more than this, should the next buyer need a loan of some kind. $800,000 was as low as he would go, though. I made the best case I could to the Buyers’ agent, and hoped for the best.



In the meantime, the website traffic for the home took off! Our weekly average went up over 300%. I can just imagine the Buyers asking themselves, “$800,000! Is this place worth it? What do they see in it? Let’s go look at that web site one more time!” And every time they did, the views and selling features wormed their way into the buyers’ hearts and minds.



Bottom line - they accepted our $800,000 counter offer and we closed escrow. My Big WoW Marketing made my Seller an extra $50,000, or 6.7%, in his pocket. And it didn’t cost him a penny extra!

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything like a nail. If the only tool a Realtor has is a price reduction, the property seller is the one who gets beat on. Custom websites - with a 3-D custom floor plan, Virtual Tours with Hotlinks, and the unlimited ability to show off a property to a buyer- are changing the way we market properties. Embrace them, and put more money in your sellers' pockets. They will return the favor!