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According to FoxNews.com, there have been reports that we are entering the worst new housing market in nearly 20 years.  If you want a more staggering number, new house starts are down over 38% from the previous year. This amount to a great amount of homes not being built. One of the statistics that strikes me odd is the month to month changes we are coming across. If you are down 10% one month, the next month you are down 8%, these are compiling numbers. So in essence (if I do the math right) say there are 100,000 homes built in December, January there are 90,000, and February there are 82,800 homes being built (8% less, but 17.2% less that December) and it continues in a downward spiral. Not a good thing.

 Numbers can be confusing, but one thing is very obvious right now, the market is in horrid shape, and there is no sign for change anytime soon. There is news of Bush trying to infuse the market with money, basically giving us a rebate for taxes paid, and cutting payroll taxes on a temporary basis. The market/ economy is not strong, and even when there are signs of good market health, there is a huge drop off or correction shortly following.  Expect a follow up article on that issue in the next couple of days.

I ran across an article on MSN giving some suggestions on how to upgrade your home.  The article seems to be decent, with a different way of looking at things than your normal fix it first articles.  The article is actually from bankrate.com, but since I don’t want to take the time to find the same article again, here is the link to the MSN version.  Read on if you just want the highlights.

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Snow is typically not a reason for a lack of recent posts. So we’ll claim its the holidays. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a very promising new year.

 Back to the post. The new construction housing market actually spent more this month than the month previous, ok so it was just .1% more, but anything at this point is a positive. The previous month recorded a .4% drop. The increase is due in large to an increase of monumental size projects such as schools, power plants, and factories according to bloomberg.com. At this point in time I would imagine that moderately priced new construction will begin to pick up to make way for the spring season. Where this article resides from  (Belvidere, IL), there has been a recent increase in land/ lot sales, and construction companies building quite a few spec homes, or homes that are speculated to sell upon completion.

Now there isn’t much room for error with these newly constructed homes, in fact, this time last year as I was looking for a new home to purchase on the “good” side of the city, the new construction was reasonably priced at $199,900. This year the prices have indeed dropped. The same house with the same amenities is now $187,900. Whether the materials are actually less expensive is a mystery, but somehow they have managed to pull out about 7% of the value of the home and lower the price to entice growth and home sales. ALSO….. Continue Reading »

In an article by the National Association of Realtors, although slightly biased, they announced the following on December 10, 2007: 

“The National Association of Realtors’ index of pending home sales climbed 0.6%, the second month in a row the number has increased. The latest figure, which measures contracts signed in October, was ahead of economists’ forecasts of a 1.0% fall. September’s reading was revised up to a 1.4% increase as well. “We’re not likely to see any further collapse at this point,” said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp, who had actually fore-casted a gain. “I’m not optimistic about the outlook for the housing market, but we’re scraping bottom in the fourth

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It looks like more people are spending more time online. From October 2006 to October 2007, the amount of time an average user spends online has increased by 24.3%.

I would think that this means it is becoming a better idea to advertise your house online.

Chart provided by Complete.com

In addition to getting your house ready for sale, finding a good real estate agent is important. The Boston Globe has an interesting article on things to consider when selecting an agent.  The market isn’t as spry  as it has been in recent history, so there are definitely some general skill sets you should look for.  I have included some highlights from the article after the break.

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Kevin Drum, an analyst on CBS.com had this to say: 

“Last year I speculated that when the housing bubble burst, prices would decline by 10-20%, with the high end of that range being more likely than the low end. Aside from fellow bubble pessimists, most people at the time thought that seemed pretty ridiculous. But here’s what the LA Times says today:

No one knows how severe the slump will be, but economists and real estate experts interviewed by The Times, and who were willing to make predictions, said prices could fall 15% to 25% before turning back up.

Most said values would continue falling through at least next year, and some thought the market wouldn’t reverse course until 2010. Continue Reading »

There have been millions of attempts to write clever ads about homes in the classifieds.   Have you ever read an ad that said “3bed/2bath” and thought instantly that it was the home for you?  Your ad needs to be different and give proper descriptors to your home, but that is hard to do with 3 lines of abbreviated text. Continue Reading »