Real Estate Investing

October wasn’t a good month overall for real estate, except for the buyers who snagged thousands of great deals thanks to the sliding house values we’ve seen this past year.

According to the National Association of Realtors and as reported by MSNBC.com, existing home sales dropped by 3.1 percent in October.

Nationwide sales of existing homes fell more than expected last month, as economic fears made buyers leery even though prices plunged to the lowest level in more than four years.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million units in October, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.14 million in September.

My own sales in October are typically strong, but like the rest of the country they too were down somewhat in 2008.

Following this same pattern, new home construction has also slowed to where it was 50 years ago,

Construction of new homes plunged last month to the lowest level on records going back nearly 50 years as U.S. builders slashed production while Wall Street nosedived.

While the “experts” are saying the decline is unexpectedly large, I view it as a necessary evil to level the market.  The number of houses available now far exceed the number of buyers.  This is one of the reasons home prices are dropping - ye olde supply v. demand economics are well into play.

On the flip side, fewer sales at mega stores like Lowes and Home Depot, fewer jobs for workers at these stores and at construction sites, few manufacturing jobs making nails, light fixtures, etc. have trickled down and is causing our economy great pain.  But reflecting to 50 years ago, home sales did recover then… and they will again.  Patience, grasshopper.

Photo by Lee Coursey through Flickr Creative Commons.

What thoughts have been in this head of mine these past few days?  The headline says it all:  Red Convertibles, Twilight, and Foreclosures.

Red Convertibles

My daughter is in the first Christms parade of the holiday season tomorrow and her baton twirling school needed to find three convertibles for the “queens” to ride in.  Real estate offers so many opportunities for people willing to be involved in their community, stay connected, and be generous with your time.  I think that I volunteer so much helped me in my efforts to locate two red convertibles for the team within 10 minutes.

Twilight

What teenage girl isn’t talking about the new movie “Twilight” released to the big screen at midnight last night?  I confess I’ve read all four books in the series and am looking forward to the movie.  I thought I was going to miss tonight’s show because I have to pick up a red convertible, but my friend and the fellow agent who owns it just informed me that he’ll drive it up to Springfield, Tennessee for tomorrow’s parade.  He’s a great agent!  That’s as close as I can come to making it real estate related, but I’m all aboard the Twilight bandwagon!

Foreclosures

Finally, foreclosures have been on the minds of hundreds of thousands of people.  It looks like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to offer some relief to homeowners nearing foreclosure over the holidays. 

Fannie Mae said about 10,000 households would be affected, while Freddie Mac said the changes would affect about 6,000 borrowers who are facing foreclosure. The change does not apply to vacant homes.

I’d like to see more than 16,000 families helped but unless a moratorium is announced by the Feds, it’s unlikely that others will be spared the trauma of eviction.

On that note, I caution you to be wary of the video in which former Vice President Candidate Sarah Palin pardons an Alaskan turkey this weekend.  Have a good one!
 

Convertible photo courtesy of szlea through Flickr Creative Commons.

Twilight photo by Brewed Fresh Daily, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

I just read about an agent whose mummified body was found 24 years after an open house - with a plate of hard cookies still sitting on the counter next to his open house flyers. 

Captain James Dangle with the Melbourne Police department said, “It appears Mr. Mackerel died of heart failure during an Open House some time in April of 1964. His Open House flyers and a plate of cookies were still on the kitchen table, untouched. It’s absolutely bizarre that no one found him before now.”Captain Dangle is pretty sure twenty four years sets a world Open House record. He plans to contact representatives of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not to find out. “Hey maybe they’ll come to Melbourne and do a show about it. You just never know.”

Then I started laughing at the obvious joke.  Had he disappeared in 1964, it would’ve been 34 years (not 24).  Some people love open houses, some hate them.  My feelings are mixed.

If it’s a new construction home with an Internet connection, I love them.  I’m able to get a lot of work done and sometimes even get to meet people coming to tour the home.  If it’s an existing home, I’m not crazy about them.   People don’t come often enough to justify my intrusion into someone’s schedule, sitting in their private space.  I feel awkward if I sit on the couch and mess up their pillow arrangement.  And God help me if I have to use the restroom.  That’s when sheer paranoia strikes!  What if someone rings the bell at an inopportune time?!  What if (and I shudder) there’s no toilet paper*?

What do others think of open houses?  Mortgage News Daily writes a hilarious yet brutally truthful review,

First, open houses can be monumentally boring. Agents who used to hate crossword puzzles have completed dozens on strangers’ dining room tables while praying that at least one customer would show up. Alternatively there can be chaos and an agent hard pressed to keep track of five or six different groups of customers with unruly children and poor manners. Murphy’s Law of Open Houses decrees that 115 minutes of a two hour open house will lend itself to watching a playoff game but mobs of visitors will arrive within a ten minute period. This usually happens when the agent has turned off the lights and music and has started to lock up.

Actually, most of my open house customers do come strolling through about 5 minutes before closing time.

What do you think? Are open houses worth it? 

*Reason #3 that I keep toilet paper in my car … right after reason #2 - I have chilluns.

Cartoon from Agent Advantage Learning Center.