Real Estate market conditions…not so local after all!

Picking up a newspaper this morning far from home… a screaming headline “Fourth-quarter home sales fall in 45 states” of course caught my attention. I was curious to read a firsthand local slant on the real estate market. Sales were down in New Hampshire for the last quarter as well … except for the last month in December, which was the best December for us personally in many years. Then January hit and it started to get really busy for us in Hampstead. Many of my fellow REALTORS said the same thing…it was if someone turned on the buyer tap. Interestingly, New Hampshire was one of the states that did not report their fourth quarter sales figures to the National Association of REALTORS but I know we were way down as well. It was a miserable 2007 real estate market for many in NH. This local (Florida) newspaper reports that something changed the first week of January and suddenly they got busy. In New Hampshire prices are down, interest rates are excellent…all the ingredients are there for the making of a most excellent spring buyers market plus we’re already seeing multiple offers. Real estate agents in Southwest Florida report more sales in the 1st month of 2008 than they’ve had in the entire previous year and that sounds just like my New Hampshire real estate market.
Spring market in New Hampshire has started early this year and I think it’s going to be a pretty good one in more ways than one.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Professionalism in Real Estate

Professionalism in Real Estate…sometimes I just have to wonder.

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I wrote a purchase offer on a Bank Owned home. This home has been on the market for 3 months and has had a $20,000 dollar price reduction.  After writing up the offer I called the listing agent to let her know about the offer, she wasn’t in so I left a voice mail message. 5 hours later I called again and left another message.  As of this morning I still have not heard a peep from the listing agent. I know the offer can’t be presented to the Bank until Monday morning…but how about a courtesy call back? I have to wonder…is she really representing the best interest of her client?

If you’re thinking of listing your home for sale, ask your agent about their procedure for follow up calls, how accessible are they to co-brokers? Do they have an after hours contact number on their business card? In this market cooperation is crucial.

About a month ago I called an agent whose voice mail message said that he would be returning all calls on Monday …I left a message anyway and thought to myself how nice that he could take 3 wholes days off. Monday came and he never returned my call. I still haven’t heard back from him…my buyers went on to buy something else.

Popularity: 5% [?]

REALTOR murdered while showing a house

A few days ago I wrote a post about REALTOR safety. It is a subject I feel passionate about and one that I think is largely ignored by my peers. Yesterday I found a blog post written by Fred Carver who talked about the recent murder of a co-worker. It gave me chills reading about this very tragic death of real estate agent Lindsay Buziak. She had received a call from a potential customer who wanted to see a particular upscale home right away. The customer wanted to purchase a home by the end of the day. Lindsay like so many other agents would do… set up an appointment to show the vacant high priced home. She apparently told some people in her office that she felt uncomfortable but still she went to show the property. It was the last time that she would ever show a house… she was found dead..murdered in that home. How very sad. Please be careful out there and don’t take chances. Check out this weblog REALTOR Safety 911 and be sure to watch this video, I posted it the other day but really think it’s worth re-posting.

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Prudential Verani’s January’s advertising advantage

Prudential Verani’s January’s internet advertising statistics are as follows.

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You’ll notice that total sessions and page views are up from December.

Page views per visit and absolute unique visitors visiting our site are also up.

Also up are more inquiries about our listings on our website.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Congratulations to the Giants

Not much else to say…

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You never know what you’ll find on YouTube…

Popularity: 8% [?]

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