Prudential Survey Shows Optimism Among Americans

July 26, 2011 1 Comment

Americans Believe in Real Estate

The majority of America’s potential homebuyers and sellers — 68 percent — believe that the real estate market and property values will recover in the next year or two, according to a new survey by Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, a Prudential Financial, Inc. company.  This exceeds the 47 percent of Americans who expected house prices would rise in a similar survey conducted in April 2010, underscoring a more bullish outlook for the real estate market today.  In addition, 86 percent of Americans believe real estate is a good investment despite the market volatility of the past few years.

The national survey reveals that six in 10 respondents are more interested in buying real estate (58%) and are optimistic about buying given the momentum of the economic recovery (59%).  It also shows that although the price of many Americans’ homes declined during the recession, 89 percent recognize they can also buy a new house at a lower price.

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The Most Important Time in Selling Your Home – Week One

September 11, 2010 Leave a Comment

OK – so you’ve decided to sell your home and buy one that suits your lifestyle better than your present one. You may want a house with more bedrooms for your growing family or perhaps a condominium to get away from shoveling snow during Central PA’s winters. Whatever the circumstances, perhaps the most important decision you’ll have to make in determining how successful you will be is setting the price on your home, and in most cases, this is where sellers end up shooting themselves in the foot.

It’s human nature to want to price a home high to attract that one buyer that will magically appear and fall all over themselves to give a seller anything they want, but we all know that these buyers are a figment of the imagination. In other instances, sellers set their price too high anticipating that buyers will automatically try to offer something lower. For some reason, sellers have it in their mind that every home ever offered for sale has sold for something less than the original list price.

In the past, when a seller put their home up for sale, all they considered were what comparable properties similar to theirs sold for in the market. While this is certainly a good idea, it is by no means the only thing to consider in this hyper-competitive market we’re in today. Read more of this post

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The Difference Between Short Sales, Foreclosures and REO’s

September 8, 2010 2 Comments

  
Practitioners in the real estate industry sometimes throw around acronyms and terminology that we understand, but in many cases our clients do not.

Here is a prime example: short sales, foreclosures and REO’s (Real Estate Owned).  I found this short video clip that does a great job in explaining the differences.  The guy in the video is Spencer Rascoff, the COO of Zillow.

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What’s Really Happening in the Real Estate Market?

September 2, 2010 Leave a Comment

The national media is constantly bombarding its readership and viewership with stories that will scare the you know what out of you.  Here’s a slideshow that presents facts on what is happening right now in the real estate market.  No fluff or unsubstantiated wild statements.  Just facts!

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Home Prices Continue to Strengthen Nationwide

September 29, 2009 Leave a Comment

 

Another month – another positive sign!  The Standard & Poor‘s/Case-Shiller home price index rose 1.2 percent from June to August which reflects a positive trend for the third month in a row.

Before we all go off the deep end and declare “happy days are here again”, we should probably temper our enthusiasm just a bit.  David M. Blitzer, the committee chairman for the Case-Shiller index said, “We do need to be cautious in coming months to assess whether the housing market will weather the expiration of the federal first-time buyer’s tax credit in November, anticipated higher unemployment rates and a possible increase in foreclosures.”

Stay tuned – - -

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What Baby Boomers Really Want in a Home

September 23, 2009 Leave a Comment

The term ‘Baby Boomer‘ gets thrown around a lot in the world of advertising.  It seems like everyone is trying to sell to this segment of the population; including the real estate industry.  Economic statistics show that baby boomers account for 28% of the population, but over 77% of all financial assets in the United States.  This generation also accounts for more than 50% of all discretionary authority in private organizations as well as in government.  But do REALTORS® and builders really know what baby boomers want in a home?  Do they know what features they want?  What locations are preferential?  How much money they’re willing to spend?   A new survey conducted by the MetLife Mature Market Institute and the National Association of Home Builders entitled 55+ Housing: Builders, Buyers and Beyond was just released that sheds some light on these very questions.

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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Central Pennsylvania Construction and Real Estate But Were Afraid to Ask

September 4, 2009 1 Comment

The Central Penn Business Journal (CPBJ) just published its Fall “Construction & Real Estate” report.  CPBJ claims it’s the beginning of the end after more than a year in recession for Central Pennsylvania.  CPBJ focuses on why the construction and real estate industries are key economic indicators and what effect the federal government’s stimulus package has had on the mid-state.  You’ll read about companies that got creative to weather the recession and the state of our region’s commercial, residential and rental real estate markets.

Lots of good ‘stuff.’

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How To Explain the Accuracy of Zestimates® To Consumers

August 15, 2009 Leave a Comment

Image courtesy of Flickr

I remember a couple of years ago when Zillow first hit the real estate scene.  Consumers embraced the web site almost immediately because of the web site’s cool, on-line tools.  One tool in particular caught their fancy:  the Zestimate.  This single, funny-sounding word would grow to strike fear in the heart’s of REALTORS® everywhere.

But what is a Zestimate?  A Zestimate is an estimated market value of a home based on Zillow’s proprietary, mathematical formula.  The home data they compile to generate a Zestimate home valuation varies by location.  Some geographic areas provide all the data Zillow could hope for, but others are lacking such key things as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or, in some cases, the square footage of the home.  The theory says that the more data Zillow has, the more accurate the Zestimate.  They even made it easy for users of the site to help them improve accuracy by incorporating edited home facts into their Zestimate calculations.  In some areas, Zillow can’t produce a Zestimate at all, but they do have some basic information on the homes.

Why did REALTORS® dispise Zillow?  Because they claimed that the tool that produced Zestimates oversimplified the valuation process and gave inaccurate results.  Regardless, Zillow shot up the popularity charts and in no time at all it was firmly entrenched as one of the top ten real estate web sites in the world.  REALTORS® looked at the new kid on the block as a threat to their own personal fiefdom as experts on property valuation.  They exclaimed, “How dare they hand out FREE property estimates!  They’re misleading consumers.  Why can’t consumers see that the accuracy of  Zestimates is atrocious?”

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