So, the story goes that coal miners would carry caged canaries into the mines with them.  Canaries, being very sensitive to toxic gas, would cease singing as the gas levels rose to dangerous levels.  Thus the phrase canary in a coal mine.

I have maintained for some time now that Michigan is the canary in the housing coal mine for some time now.  Our housing market peak was late 2004/early-mid 2005.  We then saw the market decline from mid 2005 till present.

A lot of what is currently griping the nation’s housing market is a mis-perception.  Especially as that perception applies to the Ann Arbor real estate market.  The perception is that homes are not selling and cannot sell no matter what is done with the quality, price or marketing of that home.  The reality is that well-priced, great quality homes sell even before their nearest foreclosed competition.

Of the 5 buyers this year that told me, “We only want to look at foreclosures, because that’s where the values are,” only one of them actually put an offer in on foreclosed home.

As a Realtor®, I have been working with buyers and sellers in this changing market for a few years now.  It is with some bemusement that I have been able to counsel agents across the country on how to handle the depreciating markets that they are now experiencing.  Bemused, because what they are now experiencing, Michigan went through a few years ago!

I guess this article from Yahoo! exemplifies just how rough things have gotten across the country.  Michigan has been dealing with all of these issues for some time now, except maybe the recession thing, but we sure battled the perception of a one state recession!  These are the nine items they believe will cause the 2009 housing market to continue to flat-line:

9 Housing-Market Head Winds for 2009

1. Recession (Started 12/07…in 2008 we sold MORE real estate than in 2007!)
   
2. Higher Unemployment (still over 93% of folks are employed!)
   
3. Consumer Confidence (perception v. reality: “we’re fine, but my neighbor….”)
   
4. The Underwater Effect (sellers that need to sell, will and do)
   
5. Tighter Credit (Been in place for nearly all of 2008. Not a new issue for 2009.)
   
6. Slowing Household Formation (those households still need a roof over their head!)
   
7. Radioactive Effect (Investor money has FLOODED into SE Michigan in last year)
   
8. Foreclosure Sales (Michigan no longer leads in new foreclosures, not over with, but slowing)
   
9. Subprime Mortgages (This goes hand-in-hand with Underwater Effect)
   

Well, since Michigan has been in this housing market longer than the majority of the country, and we’ve been dealing with most of the nine issues above, here are my reasons you should be in the Michigan housing market NOW:

1. Lower Prices: With housing prices as low as they are, getting into a bigger home than you could afford a few years ago is possible.  “The time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets,” Baron Rothschild;
2. Mortgage Rates: With 30 year fixed rates hovering around the 5% mark, the combination of price and rates is great!  But when I point this out everyone says, “Yeah, but who can get financed?”  There’s that perception thing again.  Perception is that it’s really hard to get financed for even a car these days.  Reality is that in the span of an hour waiting for my oil to be changed, I saw 4 cars get purchased via financing.  Did I also mention that 2008 was my best year in real estate EVER? If no one could get financed, how did that happen?
3. Inventory: Choices, choices, choices!  Want to look at only foreclosures? We got ‘em.  Want to look for 3 bedroom, 2 and a half bath homes on the Old West Side of Ann Arbor? We can do that too!  Whatever you are looking for, I’m confident a property matching your needs is out there.
4. Upsizing: If you own a home that is getting too tight, you should consider entering the market.  The potential scenario you could experience is that for the same amount you purchased your home, you could purchase something larger.  That means more square feet for the same dollars!
   

What are your thoughts about the 2009 Ann Arbor real estate market, or even the national market?

_{Todd Waller
734.564.7465}

Periodically, my Google Reader pulls up some great stuff on real estate from across the globe.  AgentGenius highlighted this video and I simply had to share it with you.

For Ann Arbor Home sellers it is vital to ensure your home has the best quality, price and marketing system in place.   Having these three points taken care of, and your home will sell.

The video below simply discusses some tips regarding the quality of your home for sale.  Remember, you are trying to make your home as attractive to potential purchasers as possible!

Happy New Year from Team366

So, the end of the year is upon us and many folks take this time of year to reflect on what’s happened the year prior.   2008 will go down in the history books with a few notable events.  Not least of which is the Presidential election that has FINALLY ended and the near collapse of our financial system.  Gas prices, just a few months ago, were over $4.00 a gallon and now can be had around Ann Arbor for about $1.55, or so, a gallon!

Oh, but wait, this is a blog about real estate….Did anything of note happen in 2008 with regards to real estate?  Well, here’s a quick list of things that happened in the Ann Arbor real estate market:

• The University of Michigan announced it’s intention to purchase the former Pfizer facility;
  • Will create 2,000 jobs across the next 10 years and increase U of  M’s wet lab research space.
• Combined Residential and Condo Sales prices declined at nearly 1% per month in 2008;
• Nearly 4% more real estate was sold in 2008 than in 2007 (through the end of November);
• Real Estate Video became THE marketing tool for property;
• The mainstream media recognized, finally, that the housing market was rough for sellers;
• Real estate marketing dollars are flooding to online avenues;

What did I learn in 2008?  Well, here are a few lessons this real estate agent learned:

• When looking at foreclosures, expect to find ANYTHING;
  • 4 foot long strands of mold are NOT fun to bump into!
• Reverse offers for your selling clients make everyone’s day;
  • that’s where my selling clients make an offer to some interested purchasers.
• Technology in real estate will NEVER overtake real estate skills in getting transactions closed for clients;
  • Technology simply automates routine processes. Clients are different from transaction to transaction.
• Many agents were desperate for a transaction this year;
  • The frantic requests for feedback and near breaches of fiduciary responsibility were the tip offs!
• No matter the marketing system, great price wins out every time!

So what does 2009 hold for the Ann Arbor area real estate market?  Tough to say.  If anyone has a clear crystal ball on this subject, I’d like a peek please, mine’s kinda murky!

The data shows strong trends towards lower prices in 2009, but it is my belief that prices will bottom out in mid/late 2009 for the Ann Arbor real estate market.  Number of units sold will continue to trend up and new listings will continue to fall and then plateau to “normal” levels.  Again, I think this will happen mid/late 2009.

Ridiculously low interest rates have shown to push buyers off the fence.  So, if low interest rates are the standard for 2009, expect well-qualified, first time homebuyers to hit the market.  This means, of course, that first time homebuyer homes will be the property of choice to be selling in 2009, along with foreclosed properties.  I talked about the changing face of Ann Arbor real estate earlier.  

What do you think will be happening in real estate for the year 2009?  Any predictions for the Ann Arbor market?  Drop a comment and let’s start the conversation!

image source *SallyM*

Ann Arbor area sellers know that selling a home has gotten more difficult, but many sellers, let alone agents, have been unable to quantify just how difficult.  Perception being reality, it used to be that all you had to do was plant a sign in the yard and mystically the buyers would appear to purchase your home.  Perception still being reality, it appears as though “For Sale” signs have sprung up like so many mushrooms.  

Unfortunately for us, these “funghi” have yet to run their course.  The question remains, “Why is it so difficult to sell a home these days?”

My broker recently sent out a very descriptive flyer ([download#4]) on the changing face of real estate in Michigan.  Historically, we used to see the following as a breakdown of the yearly closed real estate transactions:

	As you can see, traditional ‘seller want to sell, buyer want to buy’ transactions made up 90.5% of all of Real Estate One’s transactions in a given year.  Short sales made up 1%, Foreclosures 2.5% and about 6% of Real Estate One’s transactions were leases.
	Currently, the breakdown looks like the pie chart to the right: 50% of our business is now Bank Owned or Foreclosure transactions, 16% is Traditional Retail and Short Sales and a full 18% of the transactions are Leases.

“Gee, thanks Todd!  I knew things were rough, now I know the percentage that things are rough!”

It’s important for sellers, or soon to be sellers, in the current market to know EXACTLY what they are facing in this marketplace.  We have been browbeaten into believing that nothing is selling and that the housing market is filled with nothing but doom and gloom.

While this post may fall into that same category in your mind, let me make it clear that this is simply the reality of the marketplace at the end of 2008.  If you are in the position of having to sell your home right now, this is what you are facing.

Although traditional owner occupied homes make up a majority of the current homes available for sale, the majority of the homes being sold are bank owned or fi nancial hardship related sales. This puts downward pressure on values and causes pricing to take a more signifi cant roll in marketing.

It cannot be stressed enough: If you have a home with great quality and a price that is on par with the foreclosures and short sales in your area, your home will be the next one to sell.  If not, you could be trying to sell until those distressed properties aren’t on the market anymore.  The only “problem” with that strategy is that those homes will likely be used as comparables in any appraisal done on the sale of your home.

So, to catch a ball rolling down hill, which is easier:

• Run up behind the ball to catch it, or
• Get in front of the ball and let it whack you in the shins?

As our housing prices continue to decline you need to be in front of the curve to get your home sold first.  Of course, couple that great price with a great marketing system and the game is over!

Todd Waller
Team366 | Real Estate One
734.564.7465
Search for Homes in Ann Arbor
Visit Team366.com

Presented here is a discussion/breakdown of the housing market in Washtenaw County, home to Ann Arbor, Michigan and the University of Michigan.  Covered in this presentation are numbers simply about homes/single family residences.

Ok, so this is my first attempt at narrating a housing stats package from Big House Data.  Please be kind!

Any feedback is greatly appreciated and don’t forget to let us know what accounted for the giant spike in listings mentioned in the presentation!

Looking for homes in the Ann Arbor area?

Drop us an email to learn more about our Listing Syndication System at info-at-team366.com. Learn how we quantify your home’s visibility on over 1,000 websites.

Todd Waller
Team366 | Real Estate One
734.564.7465
Search for Homes in Ann Arbor
Visit Team366.com

Say “I’m a Realtor(R),” these days and most folks in Michigan will look at you with sympathy.  The response is typically, [low whistle], “Wow, so um, how are things this year?”  Here in the Ann Arbor real estate market Team366 has not only kept our heads above water, we’ve doubled our business this year!

One of the reasons we’ve been able to increase our business is our ability to advise clients.  A recent re-posting of a subprime mortgage post from a year and a half ago seems darn near prophetic.  The post ends with these two lines:

This subprime implosion will force lenders to ensure their buyers have good credit and good documentation to back up a mortgage. This all translates into a tightening of the underwriting requirements and a “liquidity constriction.” [ed. emphasis added]

And what have we seen this year?

The tightening of lending standards, the tightening of the purse strings of the banks, and a general unwillingness to move the real estate ball forward until SOMETHING shakes loose.

On the heels of reposting that article, the RSS reader threw out another gem of an article from this past weekend about loan modifications.

Photo Courtesy of iron fillings

Is this that something?

Loan modifications could be the answer to many homeowner’s problems.  But is this the answer to our current housing debacle?  Does renegotiating the monthly payment and/or interest rate on a mortgage ensure that the housing market slows its decline more quickly?  Does this simply delay a bottom to the market?  Is it a false bottom?

This author believes that if the terms of a mortgage CAN be changed, that it goes a long way to easing homeowner anxiety.  It will definitely assist in keeping families in their homes.  As pointed out in the article, the current loan

modification programs that the FDIC is currently utilizing simply defer principal amounts and allow rate modifications to slowly snap back to the original over 5 years.

[originally posted June 27th, 2007.  This post garnered crazy hits, for obvious reasons.
It seemed a decent post to blow the dust off of and re-examine as Bill Gross was bang on
a year and a half ago.]

The subprime blowout is not over?

So, cruising around today on the RSS feeds and bump into this little beauty of an article on Inman News. Nevermind the icky feeling I get seeing two sumo wrestlers practicing their sport, there is something special about an article that describes how the most recent housing boom was somehow influenced by mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) as “six-inch hooker heels.”

As written about earlier this year on this blog, the subprime mortgage market is like a briarpatch. You may know exactly what you are looking for, but the density and tenacity of the “wait-a-minute” vines quickly cause one to loose track of what it was they went into the briarpatch for in the first place.

The odd thing about the stand out phrase, is that it is not aimed at how attractive the subprime mortgage product was to the consumer….and attractive it was! That descriptor is used to describe how attractive MBS and CDOs were to ratings agencies looking for a better return on their money.

So is the subprime implosion over? A recent discussion with a financial planner at Merrill Lynch revealed they believe it to be overhyped and therefore not nearly as large as predicted. And then there is Bill Gross, the manager of PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund, and the originator of that wonderful descriptor. Here’s his take on the subprime market from the article:

Gross says that using the current default rate of 7 percent on subprime mortgages — which he says equates to total losses of between 3 percent and 4 percent — “the holders of some BBB investment grade subprime-based CDOs will lose all of their moolah because of the significant leverage.” And if subprime total losses hit 10 percent, he predicts, “even some single-A tranches face the grim reaper.”

At the end of the day, home buyers still have a lot of inventory to look over. Interest rates, while they have shown their desire to inch up, are still near historic lows. This subprime implosion will force lenders to ensure their buyers have good credit and good documentation to back up a mortgage. This all translates into a tightening of the underwriting requirements and a “liquidity constriction.”

For more on this topic or questions about real estate, contact Team366 here.

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Following up on a recent post about creatively aggressive means to sell a client’s home, I recently bumped into a post about real estate advertising moving it’s dollars from offline to online locations.

The numbers from the article:

Now with the downturn in the overall real estate market, the total real estate-related ad spending including not only ads placed on the web but in newspapers, television, radio and direct mail, is projected to decline by 2.2 percent in 2008 to $31.6 billion. But Borrell is predicting an 11.3 and 5.1 percent growth in online advertising for 2008 and 2009 respectively.

By 2013, they expect the internet will capture 33.1 percent of a projected $35.3 billion real estate-related ad spend. Compare that to the 2005 numbers of a 19.6 percent share of the $29.9 billion spend and you can see the impact online advertising is having on the real estate industry.

Holy smokes!  That’s a lot of jingle moving out of print ads and into online ads!  Of course, the 500 pound gorilla in the room that many brokers are struggling with is whether or not online marketing works.

Here at Team366 we’ve been focused on online marketing for over 2 years.  We push our clients’ homes to the “corners” of the internet with content property offerings.  This means that our clients’ properties can be virtually “tire kicked” before a purchaser even darkens the doorstep!  The use of hi-res photos, narrated walk-through videos means that purchasers for our listings are simply confirming their initial impressions before they schedule an appointment!

Ann Arbor area home sellers have felt that there was something missing in the “usual” approach to marketing their home for sale.  We call it the MLS lottery: put property in the multiple listing system, hang a lockbox on the door, plant a sign and wait! There is just too much left up to chance in this approach!

Team366′s sellers have found our proprietary Listing Syndication System (LSS) to be a cornerstone in the marketing and sale of their Ann Arbor area home.  Our LSS features over 1,000 google indexed backlinks to information on each clients’ property.

Marketing homes takes a LOT of work!  Our LSS ensures that 100% of the potential purchasers for your property know about it and can find it.

Todd Waller

Realtor, Co-Founder
Team366.com
@toddwaller -twitter

Yesterday, the Ann Arbor News had an article about the Ann Arbor area real estate market and how the current price points are averaging out to the year 2000 price points. In plainer English, this means that today, on July 11th, 2008, you can buy a house for about the same price as the same home in 2000!

For some, this is reason to yabber about the collapse of the housing market, the credit market, housing affordability, you choose the topic. Team366 simply knows that we have been all over this trend for a year!

If you had been following our blog in August of last year, you would have bumped into this article:

August 2007 Ann Arbor Area Market Report

Or, if you were trying to stay warm this past winter by spending time in the warm, soft glow of your monitor, you might have read this post:

January 2008 Ann Arbor Area Market Report

Any way you slice it, Team366 is ahead of the times!

Want to sell your home or condo? Check out how we utilize Real Estate Video and a listing syndication system to push your property to over 500 Google Indexed links!

Drop us a note at info-at-team366-dot-com or twitter Todd (@toddwaller) for more information!