During a recent real estate continuing education class a discussion started about how, in North Carolina, our listing agreement has been changed to include, amongst many other things, the option for the seller to advise intent to have a home inspection performed. This is a fairly new idea and one that is met with resistance by both some sellers and a few agents alike.

On first blush, all parties might agree: Why should the seller pay for something the buyer should do for themselves? It also is true that whatever home inspection a seller gets, no matter how thorough and from how reputable an inspector, the buyer’s equally reputable and thorough inspector may find different issues. But, frankly, there are “issues” and there are ISSUES. A good inspection at the beginning should reveal items that would most likely turn up through the buyer’s inspection and should rightfully be addressed. I’ve written on this before, oh so pithily. Let’s face it, you as a seller may be able to ignore the leak in the upstairs bathroom, but the buyer’s home inspector won’t. And neither will the buyer.

So, having your home pre-inspected can make very good sense for a seller. I’ve advised clients for years that, as exciting as the home selling/buying process is, what you don’t want it to be is made up of surprises. You want a nice, happy, uneventful transaction. There’s enough inherent adrenaline-producing steps in a smooth sale that no one needs extras. Finding out the crawl space shows a rotten floor joist is something you want to know before a freaked out buyer is demanding it be repaired. Any who wants a rotten floor joist, even if you’re NOT selling, right? This is your house, for crying out loud.

Also, when there are legitimate repair issues, better to address them, and be able to show prospective buyers what a conscientious homeowner you are and avoid the inevitable. Not only that, but it shows you have nothing to hide. Let’s all admit that one of the biggest challenges to the home buying/selling process is everyone’s fear of being taken. Anything a seller can do to show a bright light on things goes towards relieving the buyer’s anxiety.

Granted, there are situations where a seller simply doesn’t have the money to make repairs. But even then, knowing what lies ahead helps you plan accordingly.

Again, avoiding surprises is good.

In the Greensboro area, a home inspection will cost around $350, depending on the age and size of the home. Could be more or less. A good home inspector will provide your report in a very timely manner – within 24 hours – and it will be detailed with copious digital photos of all repair items. There will also be notes about what is not a repair issue but a “keep an eye on” issue.

By the way, above I mentioned that some Realtors don’t agree with the idea of the seller’s getting home inspections in advance. I have to say I feel the reasons some agents object are the types of attitudes that don’t enhance our image. Some think it’s a waste of their client’s money as the buyer will get their own. That seems short sighted to me, for reasons already stated.

But some agents feel (**shiver**) that they don’t want to find out anything that then becomes a material fact about the property which they themselves must then reveal to all parties.

This makes me sad.

The real estate industry has come a very long way from the caveat emptor days when buyers were on their own. Agents should be advising their clients – both buyers and sellers – of the best way to achieve their goals in the smoothest, most sensible and, yes, most ethical, manner possible. The vast majority of agents do. There are a few who need to consider getting into another line of business. Say, selling Ginzu knives door to door.

Back to seller: There’s really no downside to getting your own home inspection when putting our house on the market. A fairly small investment of money gets you a lot of information and can enhance your position in this very competitive market. Show buyers you have nothing to hide. Heck, you’d probably get your car detailed and have a tune-up in order to get the best price when selling.

Tune up your house.

_________________________________________________________

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.

The opinions I express here are just that – my opinions. The lovely gentlemen who own Yost & Little Realty have nothing to do with what I write. They tolerate me, but they didn’t raise me. So don’t blame them.

Our weekly peak at the three main types of residential properties for sale in Greensboro (single-family, townhouse and condo) shows us that not much has changed since last week. That is, roughly the same ratios.

• Single-Family – 2102 (72%)
• Townhouse – 439 (15%)
• Condominium  – 398 (13%)

Let’s get graphic:

Greensboro Actives & Pendings by Property Types*

* Data per info from Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service) after passing through the tortured “sort, subtotal, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v and other voodoo that I do so well.

Interestingly, to me at least, is that within these three types, the ratio of active to pending listinga is almost identical. For single/townhouse/condo, the percentage of active units are 85/88/85.

Sounds like my fat dog, Piper’s, measurements…

Again, these numbers are essentially unchanged from last week.

Since a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds  – or so wrote Emerson -  I’ll not dwell on this further. Just an interesting tidbit.

Since foreclosure activity is impacting real estate markets – and dominating news coverage – it’s helpful to look at the specific statistics for our immediate area. (Plus, it gives me something to do while I wait for clients to come back from the Witness Relocation Program or their undercover overseas missions or out from under their beds – not that I blame them for hiding out there!)

To that end, here’s some more data about new foreclosures that have come on the market in Greensboro. I’ve drilled down to information by zip code, property type, weekly historical data as well as the current status of foreclosures that have come on the market.

The news ain’t pretty, but the charts are colorful.

Here are the goods:

For Greensboro’s foreclosure listings during 12/1/08 – 12/7/08*:

Total new foreclosures listed: 21

• single-family: 21
• townhouses:    0
• condos:           0

by Greensboro zip code:

• 27401: 3
• 27403: 1
• 27405: 5
• 27406: 8
• 27407: 2
• 27408: 1
• 27409:
• 27410: 1
• 27455:

Last 12 week period:

As you can see, listings increased in the last week. *sigh*

And finally, what’s the status of foreclosures that come on the market over this 12 week period?

Total foreclosures listed since 9/15/08: 169

• Active: 112 (66%)
  
• Pending: 34 (20%)
  
• Closed: 23 (14%)

Status of Foreclosures Listed Since 9/15/08 in Greensboro

And of those they break down by property type:

• Single-Family: 136 (82%)
  
• Townhouses:    18 (11%)
  
• Condos:           13  ( 8%)

Foreclosures Listed by Property Type (9/15/08 - 12/7/08)

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

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.

]]> http://caseydurango.com/2008/12/12/weekly-foreclosure-statistics-for-greensboro-12108-12708/feed/ 0 http://caseydurango.com/2008/12/10/what-type-of-houses-are-for-sale-in-greensboro/ http://caseydurango.com/2008/12/10/what-type-of-houses-are-for-sale-in-greensboro/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:34:17 +0000 Casey http://caseydurango.com/?p=307

As promised in my previous post, here is a breakdown of the listings in Greensboro, NC by property type. To be clear, for these purposes, I’ve collapsed cluster homes and modular – not to be confused with manufactured  (or ‘mobile’) homes – into the Single-Family category.

One might predict, and one would be correct, that there are far more single-family houses for sale in Greensboro than either townhouses or condominiums. Or even as these two categories combined. We’re just a ‘suburby’ type of city.

Of the houses on the market -’actives’ and ‘pendings’ combined – the  numbers fall out thus:

• Single-Family – 2111 (72%)
• Townhouse – 448 (15%)
• Condominium  – 391 (15%)

And for the graphical fix:

Greensboro Actives & Pendings by Property Types*

* Data per info from Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service). At least, my download, copy, paste, sort and subtotaling of it.

There is so much data available these days about housing on the market, it can be overwhelming. Let’s drill it down a bit.

Having examined the foreclosure activity in Guilford County I wanted to show the non-foreclosure listing figures. We’ll look at the the various cities and towns in Guilford County and will break down listings by property type :

Communities:

• Greensboro (largest city and county seat)
• High Point (2nd largest and home of the International Home Furnishings Market)
• Summerfield
• Jamestown
• Oak Ridge
• McLeansville
• Stokesdale
• Brown Summit (also written and Browns Summit)
• Whitsett

Property Types:

• single-family homes
• townhouses
• condominiums

So much to see! Off we go…

As of today, the total number of non-foreclosure listings in Guilford County is 3940. Most are in Greensboro (2295) followed by High Point (786). The rest of the numbers shake out like this*(Click on the pie wedge to see the number of listings):

Breaking down the numbers for the types of properties on the market in Guilford County it looks like this:

• single-family (3051)
• townhouse (526)
• condominium (363)

* Data is compiled from my reporting from the Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

You may have, just maybe, heard a news story or two (thousand) about the economy. In broadcast journalism, the practice of coining a few catchy phrases and repeating them ad nauseum, has become the rule of the day. You know what I mean. One begins to wonder if certain words can be uttered without certain others. Try to say “downpour” without saying “torrential”, or “controversy” without “firestorm of”. Or “credit” without “meltdown”.

Go ahead. Just try.

But the thing is, there can be downpours that aren’t torrential and not all credit is in meltdown.

There is mortgage money to be loaned. And the lenders want to make you these loans. They don’t make money unless they loan money. (Commercial credit, now that’s another creature and is not to what I refer here.)

The catch is that you have to have a job, a decent FICO score and some money to put down, none of which is unreasonable if you want to borrow money. And it’s the way it always was up until things got wacky in the lending world, what with the “no doc” loans, borrowers with FICO scores lower than their bowling scores and 0% down.

But things are mostly back to normal in regards to lending requirements. And rates are great. My friend and colleague, Christie Caldwell, sent out these rates a couple of hours ago.

Assuming a purchase price of $250,000 rates looked something like this, using the FICO/LTV/Interest Rate model:

• 680/95%/5.50%
• 680/90%/5.50%
• 680/80%/6.00%

• 700/95%/5.50%
• 700/90%/5.50%
• 700/80%/5.875%

• 720/95%/5.375%
• 720/90%/5.375%
• 720/80%/5.50%

• 740/95%/5.375%
• 740/90%/5.375%
• 740/80%/5.50%

If your FICO is below 680, you can still get a loan, but you’ll be looking at paying more for ‘points’. And a gold star to the first one to see where things may seem a bit odd in this. [HINT: put down more, pay higher rate?]

Keep in mind that rates can change frequently. As in, several times a day. But these are good guidelines for where things are in general. Also, a borrower’s rate will be impacted by the amount financed, debt/income ratio, etc.,

Again, these numbers are a guide for today. Around noon. Before I go get another cup of coffee.

Just know that the torrential downpour of news items covering the firestorm of controversy about the credit meltdown may be missing some of the facts regarding mortgages.

This is a most excellent question, and one about which I’ve been wondering myself. In Greensboro and surrounding areas, the selling price to asking price percentage has historically been in the 95% to 97% range. For buyers coming from other parts of the country, paying that close to the asking price has sometimes been really hard to swallow. Like, “50 peanut butter covered saltine crackers with no milk to wash it down” hard to swallow.

But them’s the figures. Or at least they were the figures until the current..unpleasantness…started.

So, surely buyers are getting to knock off 10, 15, 20 percent off prices and getting deals. Right?

Not so fast, Grasshopper. Let’s look at some figures for the year and half or so:

In Greensboro (and I’ll be looking just at Greensboro for these purposes, to keep my brain from breaking trying to pull data from the multi-county area that comprises the Triad MLS) the averages for CLOSED properties are:

June 1, 2008 – November 30, 2008* (the most recent 6 months)

• Average List Price:       $177,310
  
• Average Sales Price:     $171,527
  
• Sales/List Percentage:      96.7%
  

June 30, 2007 – May 31, 2008 (the 12 months prior to that)

• Average List Price:       $179,819
  
• Average Sales Price:     $174,969
  
• Sales/List Percentage:      97.3%
  

First we can see that the List/Sales price percentage is nearly the same. Second we can see that list prices in the most recent 6 month period are lower than in the preview 12 month period.

So, what gives? What’s with all the desperation and angst in the market we keep hearing about?

Well, it’s out there. Just not necessarily in the Greensboro city limits. If you read my earlier post you know that in the whole of Guilford County, of which Greensboro is the largest city and county seat, average prices have fallen more dramatically. But even with that the average sales/list price came in at about 95.5%

One reason for this is that there is another variable and that’s the original list price of houses. As homes have remained on the market and inventory has increased, sellers have reduced the asking price of their home. In the aforementioned time frames we see the following:

June 1, 2008 – November 30, 2008 (the most recent 6 months)

• Average original list  price: $191,138
  
• Average final list price:       $177,310

June 30, 2007 – May 31, 2008 (the 12 months prior to that)

• Average original list  price: $186,437
  
• Average final list price:       $179,819

Thus, we can see that sellers have – on average – already reduced their asking price by about 7% recently before hitting the number that produces a sale whereas a year or so ago, all other things being equal, that owner would have reduced by only about 4%.

All this having been written, it is clear that while some deals are being made with great price concessions being made by sellers, it’s still not fire sale time. Not in Greensboro, anyway. Other parts of the country are experiencing very different trends.

Just know that low-balling an offer may get you a deal. Or it may get you an irritated seller who feels they aren’t interested in being reamed and won’t deal with you. One never knows.

Each transaction is unique to the individuals involved. There is no absolute in the purchase or sale of a home. It’s exciting and traumatic and scary and exhausting for those on both sides of the table. And keep in mind that there are humans involved. Some in not so great a place.

Be nice. And if you can’t be nice, be humane.

* Again, all data is pulled, compiled and possibly jacked up by me, but I’ve tried to keep it as clean as possible and is all from Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service).

December is upon us (Yikes!) and November 2008 is history. What do we have to show for it in regards to real estate sales*  here in Greensboro and the surrounding communities in Guilford County?

Looky:

There are couple of outliers showing here, like the very low Days on Market for the very high Average Sales Price for the Stoney Creek Community. There was one property that closed, and it was on the market only 8 days (congrats, Stoney Creek homeowner, whoever you are!)

The overall numbers for Guilford County are:

• Total Closed Properties: 197
• Average Closed Price:  $160,685
  
• Average Days on Market:  96

And how does this compare to last November? Let’s look, shall we?

The overall numbers for Guilford County for November 2007 are:

• Total Closed Properties: 465
  
• Average Closed Price:  $180,342
• Average Days on Market:  89

Frankly, I’d rather look at November 2007′s numbers than 2008′s. But this is reality, not whatever dimension certain extreme northern state governors occupy, so we must face facts. Fewer properties closed last month than the same month one year ago. And for a lower average sales price. But still, properties did indeed sell. About 48% fewer, but still. (Now, if only the membership of the Realtor®’s association would drop by the same percentage. But I digress…)

What’s a homeowner to do?

If you don’t have to sell right now, don’t. Many folks like to “test the waters” to see what their house will bring. It’ll only hurt your feelings. Sit tight for a few months at least.

If you do need to sell, get with a good real estate agent in an established company – one with resources to market your property to the fullest and with sufficient staff and agents to make appointments as plentiful as possible. (It can be a challenge for small companies to have staff available to make showing appointments with you and if agents can’t show your house they can’t sell your house).

Then look at the numbers realistically. Properties do sell. But they need to be priced properly, clean, free of odors – let a fresh nose sniff around for you – and ready to be shown at a moment’s notice.

Finally, don’t take it personally if someone ‘low balls’ you on an offer. Once you list your house it ceases being your home and becomes a product for sale. Thick skin is required.

If you’re a buyer – have at it. There’s inventory, great rates on mortgages and plenty of people who want to sell you their house.

Now, after looking at those numbers, please excuse me as I need another cup of coffee – or something.

*All information per MY interpretation of Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data and is decidedly unproved and unscientific.

Recently our daughter, Lindsay, married a grand young man, Patrick. Happily, they’ve started their lives together and immediately wanted to put down roots. After a bit of travel, much research and balancing options like job, climate and the all important access to me, they decided to remain in Knoxville, TN, where they have lived and worked for the last year or so. They’re just over the mountains from us – about 4 hours by car – and that’s great. Of course, not as great as if they had given in to my not-very-subtle requests that they move to Greensboro and buy a house next door.

Why, oh why, would a young couple not want to be next door to me and Mr. Durango? That’s a question for another day.

The point of this already rambling post is that Lindsay & Patrick have been working with a Realtor in Knoxville to whom I am grateful for guiding them so well. Also, this agent has a kicking website. Patrick was so pleased he wrote up props for her on his well read blog.

Understanding that it takes an artist to create but real genius to steal, I’m boosting some of her ideas. (I advised her of such and she said she was cool with it. Thanks, Suzy)

I’m irritated with myself for not having posted more stats before. Not that numbers are the be all and end all of research, but it does give one a framework from which to build.

All that having been written, let’s move on to some data:

Stories about foreclosures are all over the news and have been for a few months now. While Greensboro and surrounding areas in Guilford County haven’t been clobbered as have some other regions of the country (California, Michigan, Florida we pass along our good thoughts for things to improve soon) there have certainly been properties that have been taken back by the lender and put up for sale.

Looking at 2008, below are the number of listings of single family houses that were listed each month*”

Single-family houses listed as foreclosures in Guilford County 2008

*All info is pulled from the Triad MLS (Multiple Listing Service) for Guilford County only, single-family houses.

Well, that’s icky to see.

But the good news is that most of these houses (that is, those listed this year) have SOLD.  When we overlay the properties that have closed (that is, all papers are signed and new owner takes possession) it looks a bit more positive:

Showing foreclousures that have closed. Look at October!

Below, we can see the trend of foreclosures that are now “pending”. which means the seller and buyer have come to agreement on terms and the sale is awaiting final closing.

As you can see, there were few that went under contract during the first months of the year but the number has increased precipitously in the last couple of months:

Adding the number of properties that went under contract each month.

What does all this tell us?

First – There are many, many people who have been through some really rough months. They are more than stats on a chart. And we should all hope that our country never goes through this on the present scale again.

Second – There are many motivated sellers out there. And banks are included in that as they have no motivation to own these houses.

Third – LOTS of buyers are stepping up to take the opportunity to buy.

And keep in mind that these foreclosures are only a small percentage of the houses currently on the market. There are plenty of great buying opportunities out there. Interest rates (hovering below 6% this morning) are good.

Suffice to say that this is a Buyer’s Market like none we’ve seen in decades. No joke. If you have decent credit and the hankering to own a home, start your engines.

If you’re in the Knoxville, TN area and need a Realtor, call Suzy Trotta. And if you see Lindsay & Patrick, newlyweds and new homeowners, tell them to give this ol’ woman a call. I miss them!