CASEY DURANGO. Greensboro Realtor®.

Ok. Now I’m really getting kind of excited. I’ve written posts over the past few weeks were the data was encouraging. I keep waiting for the big let-down. After all, the headlines in the national news just keep getting worse. As my friend, Chrsytaline Love, says - It’s just the awfullest mess.

But if one reads the entire article, one sees why what we’re seeing in the Greensboro housing market may not be that outlandish. That is, the somewhat good news may not be an aberration. There are varying levels of awfulness, depending on geographic region, and ours is different than others.

What I’m getting at is that, wonder of wonders, for yet another week, the number of listings on the market in Greensboro have declined. And the average list price has increased. Wha..?

Indeed. Check it out. This reflects the number of properties on the market (active and under contract) as of today*:

And Here is the average list price of those properties:

And the average list price in all the zip codes was up from the previous week. Some were at their highest point in the last several weeks:

(Ain’t that purty?)

So how can all this be? Honestly, I’m not sure. And next week the bottom may drop out. But if we look carefully at the article cited above and read all the way to the end, we’ll see that the glaring and horrific economic headline betrays a bit more moderate news:

November’s pending home sales index was dragged down by worsening market conditions in key regions. In the Northeast, the pending home sales index dropped 7.2 percent ……. 6.7 percent to 74.2 in the Midwest…..In the South the index declined 2.2 percent ………in the West it was down 2.4 percent….

So the numbers are bad in general, but not so bad in the South. Greensboro is in the South. And if all of the South only had a 2.2% decline in pending sales, is it not possible that certain areas (like, say, maybe GREENSBORO) had less - or even had in improvement?

I’m just asking.

Okay, enough pontificating. Let’s get back to the numbers:

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS). It doesn’t include For Sale By Owner properties.

OMG OMG OMG.

I pulled sales stats for the month of December and saw - dare I write it down? - some truly, for real, not for nothing, GOOD NEWS.

First, it looked as one would expect. That is, when comparing December 2008 with December 2007, the number of sales is down. But the number of sales compared with November are UP.

So far, not all that hard to predict and not glowingly upbeat:

But then, there are the figures about the average closed prices for the same time periods. Here things get more interesting.

The average closed price for the month of December 2008 was higher…yes, higher…than the average closed price in December 2007.

“Huh? What’s that, you say”, you might rightly ask. Well, here it is:

In case you missed that last point:

The average price was only $477 higher, but, hey, this the great real estate meltdown of 2008. Any improvement is an improvement. And this was the only month of the year where the average closed price was higher than the corresponding month of 2007.

And for the cherry on the Optimist’s Cake, the average days on market for properties that closed in December was lower than for December 2007.

Wow. This is all GOOD NEWS.

Now, I’m not one to pull only the good data and ignore the bad. Never wanted to be a cheerleader for the sake of cheering.

“Blunt as a spoon” is the way some have described me, with no compliment intended.

But this is better than expected.

Yes, there were fewer properties that closed. But can it be that we are nearing the bottom in regards to price decreases? Have we found the limits of sellers’ tolerance for pressure?

If so, then it is only a matter of time until buyers will find that the idea of  ‘waiting another month or so and the prices will be even lower’ is not going to serve them well. And then is when we may seem some real changes in the real estate market.

As oft repeated on this blog, Greensboro isn’t southern California or Florida or Michigan. So our recovery will probably come sooner rather than later. We just weren’t as impacted as other areas in the first place.

So my little charts aren’t to indicate that the tide has turned for the Big Picture Economy. Just for out little corner of the world.

Maybe.

For now.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS). It doesn’t include For Sale By Owner properties.

Tags: Greenboro housing statistics, Multiple Listing Service, sales comparison

Behold one scary mother of a chart:

That’s what numbers looked like during The Great Depression. Most of us, thankfully, were not around during those truly miserable times. But many of our parents or grandparents were. Listen to some of the stories. It’ll make you feel much better about our current state of affairs.

Things were bad, man. Bad.

Famous Dorothea Lange photo. They really had just sold their tent for food.

Poor meant having just sold your family’s tent to buy food. Not like now when poor means having to scale back to basic cable.

Granted, being flip about the struggles some folks today are experiencing is not right. There are real hardships and if one feels totally miserable that misery isn’t mitigated by the fact that someone else’s total misery was experienced differently.

But we must remember that things - as awful as they were during The Great Depression - got better. And they’ll get better from where we are now.

But when? Many of us would like to know. We can deal with ‘the bottom’ if we just knew where the sucker is.

So, today’s poll is: When do you think things will improve?

Take the poll. Maybe we’ll see that more of us look forward with happy anticipation rather than dread. And that in itself may make the rest of us feel better.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

Tags: The Great Depression, Weekly Poll

There was a drop in foreclosure listings in Greensboro for the week ending 12/28/08.

Christmas meant offices were closed and that surely can be a reason. I guess kicking people out of their homes isn’t everyone’s idea of a great holiday tradition.

But there were fewer foreclosures listed over the last 12 week period compared to those previous. Again, the holidays may be the reason. Could be other factors. As always, I am just trying to give accurate numbers in this morbid weekly watch.

And we watch because, as I’ve written before, until there is less inventory on the market in real estate it will be that much longer before we can start thinking things are turning. And foreclosures, particularly, with the downward influence they have on prices of surrounding homes, are a segment of housing we truly want to see reduced.

So, here you are:

The week’s new foreclosure listings were 4 compared to the previous 11.

And the breakdown for Greensboro’s foreclosure listings during 12/22/08 - 12/28/08*:

Total new foreclosures listed: 4

• single-family: 4
• townhouses:    0
• condos:           0

by Greensboro zip code:

And if we look at those zip codes comparing the most recent 3 weeks:

And here’s where it really looks promising. I’m not holding my breath that it will continue to improve at this rate, but for now it looks better. The numbers for rolling 12 week periods show a decidedly downward trend.

And what about what’s happening to those foreclosures that have come on the market? Are they selling?

Here’s what the numbers tell us:

Of those 148 foreclosures listed in the 12 week period ending 12/28/08, their status are

• Active - 109 (74%)
• Pending - 30 (9%)
• Closed - 9 (6%)

And how do those numbers stack up against the previous rolling 12 week periods? What a good question! Thanks for asking.

So we see that the most recent 12 week period leaves us with more properties still active and fewer closed. That may improve as often real estate closings are piled into the last couple of days of the month. (For and explanation of why this is, keep watching this blog. I’ll be getting into the nuts and bolts of looking, buying and closing in regards to real estate)

For the very visual of us, here are the numbers all graphified:

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS). BTW, Yeah!!! It’s 2009!!!!!

Tags: Foreclosures in Greensboro, Greensboro housing statistics, Multiple Listing Service

There have been times when I’ve been glum. There have been times I’ve been numb. And certainly times I’ve been dumb.

But I’ve almost always been hopeful.

This made for a level of scorn when I was young and my peers became sophisticated and jaded as only over-educated and under-experienced 20-somethings can. It has also lead to some particularly cynical people thinking I was “putting on” my optimism.

Recently, though, hopefulness has come less easily.

Possibly this has happened due to realizing that - contrary to my previous assumptions - the forces of gravity have not decided to spare me. Maybe it’s being the mother to mostly-fully-cooked children, thereby eliminating a portion of my identity for the last couple of decades.

Or maybe it’s been the spirit-drubbing news over the last year or so.

I mean, honestly. It’s been like a lousy screenplay. All that’s been missing are locusts and frogs raining down upon us.

But then I see a post from John Robinson, editor of the News & Record, and realize that there are exciting and energizing forces all around us.

Or I think about how our next president looks to be more than just Not-The-Current-One but to truly have a plan, a brain, a heart and a soul. The real deal.

And sometimes it’s just something as simple as looking up from my notebook to see my youngest, home from college and full of hope himself,  goofily looking at me over the screen like some modern day Kilroy.

You just gotta love that kid. He’s great. All our children are.

And I can’t help but be hopeful. It feels good to be back.

Tags: Greesboro News & Record, John Robinson

Let’s see what the numbers look like for currently listed properties in Greensboro this week.

There are a few more listings on the market this week than last *sigh* but few than the two weeks previous to that.

This week, 2871 houses on the market. Last week 2847. That’s 25 (.9%) more.  Again, still compared to 4 weeks ago were down from 2980 which is -108 (-3.6%)

For those of you who aren’t regular readers of this blog (?!!?) I’ll explain why we smile when there are fewer properties on the market.

One of the many problems with the economy is the distressed state of the housing market. And one of the many problems with the housing market is the large inventory of houses for sale. Too many houses for sale leads to prices which are stagnant at best and truly distressed in harder hit areas. This makes everyone  -  even those who aren’t trying to sell their houses but only live next door to someone  trying to sell their house  -  feel distressed.

[And you know, Dear Reader, that by "distressed" I mean "stinking like a huge pile of steaming crap from an ox with Irritable Bowel Syndrome who had asparagus and a dead skunk for lunch". But every once in a great while my children read this blog and I don't want them thinking their mother is a Potty Mouth.]

The average listing price has declined a bit, now at $228,009 down from last weeks $228,720. Again, this is an improvement over 4 weeks ago when the average listing price was $225,417, but it’s down nonetheless.

For the week of December 30, 2008:

• 2872 - Total properties for sale in Greensboro
• 2543 - Active Listings (89%)
• 329 - Pending Sales (11%)
• $228,009 - Average List Price

Of these listings, they break down by property type like this….

… and  by Greensboro zip codes ….

… and the average prices in those zip codes ….

… and, finally, the weekly average list prices within the zip codes …

As always, if you have any questions, comments or a good joke shoot me an email. I’m a full time Realtor, I love what I do and I’d be thrilled to hear from you.

* Data per Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service) as of 12/23/2008. Isn’t it 2009 yet?!

Tags: Greensboro, Greensboro housing statistics, housing market, MLS, Multiple List, Multiple Listing Service, Triad MLS

Treadmills at the Bryan Family YMCA in Greensboro, NC

Arghh. January is coming. And we know what that means.

Resolutions.

We all know that resolutions are about as effective as those no-sew mending glues advertised on infomercials.

But it always just seems right to try for a fresh start with the beginning of each new year.

And has there been another year in recent history that we wanted to be rid of more then 2008?

So, this week’s poll asks “What goals do you hope to reach in 2009?”

Choose as many answers as you wish.

And fear not the implements of modern torture you might find when you venture into the gym.

I’m sure the walls are thick enough to muffle your cries and cursing.

Tags: Bryan Family YMCA in Greensboro, New Year's Resolutions, Weekly Poll

Here’s the weekly update on new foreclosures that have come on the market in Greensboro. As in previous posts, the information is drilled down to zip code, property type and weekly historical data

The numbers stayed relatively flat comparing the week’s new foreclosure listings (11) to the previous (10). But keep reading for some GOOD NEWS.

Here’s how it breaks down…

For Greensboro’s foreclosure listings during 12/15/08 - 12/21/08*:

Total new foreclosures listed: 11

• single-family: 9
• townhouses:    0
• condos:           2

by Greensboro zip code:

And if we look at those zip codes comparing the most recent 3 weeks:

The aforementioned good news comes when we compare “rolling 12 week periods”. The numbers for those 12 week periods show a downward trend.

Could this be a result of the holidays? Maybe, but unlikely. Misery doesn’t take holidays.

Could this be a result of a foreclosure moratorium?  (Citibank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac advised they would halt foreclosure proceedings on homeowners in specific circumstances into January 2009)

Again, maybe. It’s hard to know how many of those owners fall under requirements set out by those lenders.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter why. If it is a result of the moratorium, great. It’s helping the inventory situation, which helps all sellers, as well as helping those borrowers who have a reprieve from foreclosure.

If the reduction in the number is just the natural result of what is inevitable - that is, that the housing market will reach ‘bottom’ and start turning upwards from there - even better. That may be wishful thinking, but I’m a positive type of gal.

Time will tell. Keep checking back with this blog and we’ll see whether I’m a cock-eyed optimist, or just cock-eyed.

Good or bad, you’ll see it here.

If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

Tags: Citibank, Fannie Mae, Foreclosure Moratorium, Foreclosures in Greensboro, Freddie Mac, Greensboro, MLS, Multiple Listing Service

For the 2nd week in a row there are FEWER houses on the market this week than last.

Last week there were 2939 houses on the market. This week 2864. That’s 75 (2.6%) fewer. And this follows last weeks drop in listings on the market of 41 (1.4%).

This is moderately good news. Now, it can be argued that listings often are taken off the market during the holidays, but this year that may be less true.

Why? Because most properties that have been listed over the last several months are being sold because the sellers needs to sell, not because they think it would be a hoot. These sellers still need to sell.

And the prices? After last week’s slight uptick, there was a very slight down tick this week, ending up almost exactly in the middle. The average list price as of 12.23.08 is $228,270, compared to $230,757 on 12.16.08. The week prior to that the average list price was $225,417.

Some more details:

For the week of December 23, 2008:

• 2864 - Total properties for sale in Greensboro
• 2534 - Active Listings (88%)
• 330 - Pending Sales (12%)
• $228,270 - Average List Price

Of these listings, they break down by property type like this….

… and  by Greensboro zip codes ….

… and the average prices in those zip codes ….

… and, finally, the weekly average list prices within the zip codes (some up, some down)…

We’ll take a closer look at specific zip codes in future posts. Also, we need to break out foreclosures from non-foreclosures. But for now we’ll take solace in the fact that there has been a drop in inventory in Greensboro and prices are remaining fairly steady.

Small steps, small steps, as we look for the fabled “bottom” and hope for the turn back upwards..

* Data per Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service) as of 12/23/2008. Ho, ho, ho.

Tags: Greensboro real estate prices, Multiple Listing Service, weekly Greensboro housing statistics

This was what the fridge looked like AFTER a full day's worth of eating.

We are a fortunate family, and on so many levels. And we were all able to be together this past weekend as our newly married daughter came with her husband for a pre-Christmas visit, our older son took the train from Raleigh and traveled into the lovely Depot in Greensboro and our youngest is home for break after his first semester at college.

And we are doing okay throughout this frightful economic time. We all have jobs (except for Mr. College Student. His job is … college), we have roofs over our heads, we’re healthy, and we have food in the fridge.

Lots of food.

Too much food.

Buñuelos cooking in a cast iron dutch oven

We did it again this year and over bought and over cooked for the gastric needs of the family. Celebration is great.  But this was almost obscene.

It happens every December. The yummy treats baked by our daughter who has just started her own baking business, the great foods prepared by my Colombian husband (arepas, buñuelos, Sudado de Papas, arroz con aliños, beans, patacones. Ahhh patacones…..)

One gallon of my husband's fantastic salsa

But even as the jeans are swapped out for elastic waist pants and we swear we’ll be ill if we take one more mouthful of anything, there is something so great about our holiday rituals.

This leads to this week’s poll: How do you approach the indulgences of the holiday season?

Take the poll. It won’t burn many calories, but it might be the only thing you do this month that won’t impact your carb count.

Tags: Greensboro, holiday eating, Weekly Poll