February 12, 2010 Real Estate Market Report
I. Market Report-All Residential.
A. Week-to-Week Under Contract. For the week ending February 12, 2010, 49 residential listings were placed under contract by Columbia area agents. Of these, 37 have Columbia mailing addresses. This compares to 43/34 respectively for the prior week, which is an increase of 14% overall.
B. Anecdotal Evidence of the Market. I may be overly optimistic, but during those very cold days with snow on the ground, you probably wanted to stay home by the fire, but not so with homebuyers. There were a number of appointments made to show houses. Maybe it was because the kids were out of school or some did not go to work, but people were looking at houses and from the looks of paragraph A above, 92 buyers found homes in the past 2 weeks.
II. Another Huge Savings.
We are happy to report that we are within 2 weeks of closing another sale with a savings of 11.24% off the asking price for our buyer clients--and nearly 25% off the original price. To accomplish this, we used time-proven techniques, starting with an Exclusive Buyer's Agency Agreement and we take our fiduciary responsibilities to our client seriously.
We would be happy to do the same for you, as a Buyer or to get you more as a Seller. If you allow us to count the amount of money we can save you on the loan, concessions such as closing costs, Home Protection Plan, repairs and allowances on the contract or during inspections, we will guarantee 10% savings and put it in writing.
Working with an experienced agent with a proven track record will save you more money than you will ever pay him or her. If this were not true, we would not have a job. Look at it this way, "Would you rather have the experienced agent working for you or for the other party in your transaction?"
III. The Deadline Approaches
In spite of the amount of news coverage and advertising by the National Association of REALTORs and others, we find that there are still people who either do not know about, or misunderstand the so-called "Tax Credits" which may be available to them. It is $8,000 for "First-Time Homebuyers" and $6,500 for "Repeat Homebuyers."
It's easy to understand the confusion when a "Tax Credit" is really a Tax Refund, a "First-Time Homebuyer" isn't really someone who has never owned a home, and "Repeat Homebuyer" doesn't really have to sell the current house before buying the next. What is abundantly clear is that this money disappears at the end of April if there is no contract to purchase in place. You have another 60 days to close it, but it has to be under contract by April 30th.
If you buy and you qualify, this money will be available to you in 2009--even if you have to amend your 2009 Tax Return. This is a nice chunk of change which could be used to fix up a home which could be bought for less because it needs work (while prices are low anyway) and finance it while interest is at record low rates. Opportunity knocks. Are you listening?
