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
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This month’s Washtenaw County Homes Report is out!  Directly from the Big House Data Executive Summary:

For the three years of data reflected on these charts, September 2007 is the lowest average sales price for the combined home and condo market in Washtenaw County.  The good news, and there are silver linings here, is that properties are selling, and that the twelve month moving average trend line for sales is flattening!  This indicates a momentum shift in the positive direction for closings compared to the prior twenty four months.

If you are a buyer in this market, you have never, and likely will never, see this kind of market again!  High inventory, prices readjusting to normalcy, a historically low cost of money and hungry Realtors®.  Buy NOW!

Ouch, lowest average sales price in 36 months!  Team366 stared at the numbers and realized that so far this year, 20.6% of the listings on the market have sold.  Compared to last year, when 30.1% sold across the same time frame, that represents a nearly 32% drop in the likelihood a listed home will sell.  So right now, an active home has a one in five chance of selling!

Now, of course, this assumes an average home, at an average price, with average marketing!  Team366, with the help of these stats, and our professional marketing system, is selling 65% of our listings this year.  Give us a call at 734.330.2392 to learn more.

For now, let’s see some charts!

Average List Price – Washtenaw County Housing

The average list price for housing listed in September was $237,517. For the three quarters of 2007, the average list price is down 3.5% compared to the first three quarters of 2006.

As you can see, the average list price has been diving (according to the 12 month moving average trendline) since March of 2007.  This is an encouraging trend to see as the market adjusted and continues to adjust, to the Pfizer withdrawal combined with the general readjustment of real estate values.  This means that sellers have learned that price is a factor in selling homes.

Average Sales Price – Washtenaw County Housing

Now there is a price drop!  Wow!  The average sales price for September 2007 was $194,938. Year to date, the average sales price is down nearly 6.25%.  Year to date, the average sales price is $224,566.

While this is an amazing number compared to the prior 36 months, when the average monthly volume is down only 8% and the number of closing are down only 2.5%, the market is not presenting itself as dead, by any stretch of the imagination.

Number of Listings v Number of Closings – Washtenaw County Housing

This chart shows that 2007 has been a banner year for listing homes, while the sales have remained relatively steady throughout the year so far.

This chart shows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when most folks list their property.  If you need to sell your place, and are afraid of listing during the winter, look at this chart again and examine where your home will be able to gain the greatest exposure on the market with the least amount of listing competition.

There are some great reasons to list during the winter time, and fewer new listings hitting the market is one of them!

Technorati tags: Buyer Insights, Seller Insights, Market Statistics, Big House Data, Team366, Ann Arbor, Homes, For Sale, Marketing

As pointed out by this blog back in April, the subprime mortgage market implosion has been a direct result of collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s).  While at the time it was simply a point of pride that Team366 had figured out what was happening to many upside down home owners in SouthEast Michigan, our gut instincts were backed up by former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan.

On October 2nd, at a Bloomberg hosted event in London, Greenspan pointed to the CDO’s as a reason for subprime market implosion.  From the Bloomberg article:

“People always say it’s the subprime market that created this crisis,” Greenspan told investors at an event hosted by Bloomberg LP in London. “It’s the subprime asset-backed market” which did, he said. “As a consequence of that, there’s going to be some rethinking about collateralized debt obligations.”

“The Wall Street firms were under real pressure to supply asset-backed securities, and the Wall Street firms were pressing the lenders to give them more raw material,” Greenspan said today. “Credit standards just went straight down, and applications for subprime mortgages soared. The consequences of that are evident.”

So what are consequences for the Ann Arbor housing market?

 Credit standards are tighter than we have seen in the past 4-6 years.  To qualify for a near zero down loan, your credit score will need to be stellar.  Consequently, we are also seeing the return of higher down payments to purchase a home.  The days of $5,000 down on a house may not be entirely behind us, but they sure are becoming a less frequent occurrence.

Even in this market of high levels of inventory and a near historic low cost of money, homes are still selling!  People still need to buy a first home, upsize because the family is expanding, or even down-size as the family moves out.  As the charts from Big House Data continue to show, there is nearly 85% of the same level of sales happening this year, compared to last…that’s means that less than one out of five buyers have disappeared from the market.

Call Team366 today to learn how you can benefit from today’s real estate market.  As challenging as it appears, it is a great time to be in the market!

 Rubbing the sleep from my eyes this morning and slurping on the first cup of java before the boyos awoke, I began to read my email off my phone.  There was one email that stood out.  In fact, it gave me so much of a jolt that I nearly didn’t need any more coffee today…..almost.

The President of Operations at Real Estate One is Dan Elsea.  His email to the company was frank but optimistic about where we are as a company and as sales professionals in a rapidly changing market.  Specifically the following quote:

Overall, we will appear to “bounce” off the market bottom over the next six to eight months as we work through the mortgage market stabilization and our local economy settles down. Predicting the true market bottom is difficult; we won’t really know it until after a recovery is well on its way.

Also, year to date, the number of leases has risen from nearly 6% of total units to 12%, reaching close to 20% for the month of August. The percentage of leases, like the percentage of vacant homes, are indicators of the direction of the market. For vacant homes, the percentage is running in excess of 40%, with a stable market in the 20-25% range. When both percentages begin to fall, our market will be on the rise.

So the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train after all, but then, this blog has never advocated a doom and gloom attitude on the housing market.  In fact, we continue to recommend to anyone considering buying, that they buy and buy frequently!  This is the market within which to make your money!  Never before have we seen the combination of the high level of inventory and the low cost of money.  If you want to make sure that your purchase now will pay you dividends down the road, now is the time to buy.

If you are a seller, things are not as bad as everyone wants you to believe.  Yes, prices are down, inventory is up and competition for the buyers in the market is fierce.  But Team366 has a proven marketing strategy that ensures your home is seen by all who might be looking for it.

In addition to our own marketing strategy, Real Estate One has its own proven track record.  In fact, here are the stats for our company for August 2007:

Sales Volume for August: $221 million dollars                 

Number of Homes Sold/Leased: 1,392

Number of Mortgages, Title and Home Insurance policies provided to our clients: 524

We had our listings shown more than 16,000 times

We had over 5,000 buyers visit our open houses last month

We had another record month of visitors to our web sites, over 110,000

Combining Real Estate One’s winning track record and Team366′s professional marketing strategy is a powerful way to ensure your home is seen and sold!

If you are a buyer or are considering selling your home in this market, give us a call at 734.330.2392.

 1:50 pm – Sign Plantings and Hello/Good byes

Signs are placed and directing interested parties to the Team366 Real Estate Chat: Eastside Edition.  For those keeping score, this chat is being held at 2827 Bellwood, Ann Arbor.

As I pulled into the drive the homeowners were packing up the kids and dogs.  We exchanged a few pleasantries about the recent success/demise of U of M football and they vacated the premises for two hours.

From the photos taken today, you can see this home is a delight to hold  open!  Sunlight and late summer breezes are the capstones today.

2:18 pm – Eric and Stacy

 For those doubters in the A2 Cyberland, or SE Michigan Cyberland, that anyone shows up to Real Estate Chats or open houses these days….Look!  I found a couple!  Eric and Stacy were kind enough to let me photograph them as pictorial evidence that people still do walk through homes on Sunday afternoons.

Eric’s smile, I’m convinced, was not only a result of being out and about with his lovely bride, but also the fact that they had just come into the finest home currently for sale on the EastSide of Ann Arbor!  They tell me that they found our Real Estate Chat as a result of looking online….Imagine that!

2:25 PM – floodgates opened!

Hmmph…no attendees to open houses or their sexier counter part, Real Estate Chats!

As I was wrapping up the last entry about Eric and Stacy, four more groups of folks walked through the front door!  Apparently the combination of a U of M win, wonderful weather and a beautiful house cause folks to go through open houses!

The groups thus far through the real estate chat have ranged from first time home buyers, to folks downsizing.  And three of five attendees learned about our real estate chat as a result of information from the internet.  I even got a pat on the back for my camera and voiceover work on the walkthrough for Bellwood.

One highlight of the mad rush was Grace.  I introduced myself to her party as follows, ”My name is Todd.  While you are here, feel free to ask any questions you may have.”  Grace’s immediate response, “That’s a funny name, Todd While You Are Here.”

I like Grace!  That’s my kind of humor!

2:55 pm – I thought I was going to get a nap!

Three more sets of interested lookers. 

So far:  seven folks found us online, and one via the newspaper.

As I publish this post, another attendee chuckling that this is not a pre war or post war home, but a home built during WWII.

3:35 pm – I get to take a breath and have a cookie

One of the things I enjoy about being a Realtor(R) is the ability to talk with and meet a variety of different folks.  Grace was a blast to talk with out of sheer humor.  Another attendee regaled me with stories of his friend, a state trooper in Kentucky. 

I can see the bottom of the cookie plate!

3:50 pm – Even Other agents get in on The Chat Goodness

That’s how good we are!  Another agent thought they should stop by and check out Bellwood this fine day!  I suspect the agent was trying to get a feel for the competition in the Darlington Subdivision, but all I know is that this agent found us via the internet as well!

So, for the day, ten potential buyers through the Chat.  Of the ten, eight found the Chat online, one found us via signage, and only one admitted to seeing our open house ad in the paper.  All in all, a great day!

If you are looking for this kind of internet coverage on your property, drop me an email at info-at-team366[dot]com.  I would be happy to explain how our professional marketing system encompasses the new and old media to expose your home to 100% of the potential buyers for your home.

Best home fixes to reduce water bill

By Paul Bianchina

If you’re looking for a way to reduce your utility bills and do something good for the environment at the same time, it’s worth taking a good look at your home’s plumbing fixtures. Older fixtures can waste a lot more water than you may realize, and a few simple changes can often make a significant difference.

TOILETS
The toilet can be one of the largest water users in your home. While toilets manufactured after 1994 are mandated by law to use 1.6 gallons of water per flush, most toilets manufactured between about 1980 and 1993 use 3.5 gallons, and pre-1980 models can use as much as 7 gallons of water every time you press that handle down.

One of the most obvious ways to save on water usage is to replace your older toilets with a new one. After some initial problems with the low-flow toilets of the mid-90s, when the reduced-water flush got a bad rap from not handling its waste disposal chores very well, manufacturers made significant design changes that greatly improved the operation of most toilets sold today.

In Europe, most new toilets feature a dual-flush technology that is really quite efficient. The toilet has two flushing buttons on the top of the tank: one button activates a 0.8-gallon flush for the removal of liquid waste, and the other activates a 1.6 gallon flush for solid waste. At least one manufacturer, Caroma USA (www.caromausa.com), offers these well-designed toilets for sale in the United States.

If you have an older toilet that’s in good working order but is wasting water with every flush, consider retrofitting it to use less water. One way to do that is with the Controllable Flush (www.controllableflush.com), which fits most toilet tanks and mimics the action of the dual-flushing European toilet. The no-tool installation is quite simple, and involves the removal of the old flush handle and lever arm and replacing it with the new components contained in the Controllable Flush kit. Pressing down on the handle and holding it for a few seconds allows a reduced flush of about 1.5 gallons, suitable for the disposal of liquid waste, while pressing the handle up raises the flapper valve up in the conventional manner, allowing for a full flush.

Toilet dams, available from many plumbing supply retailers, reduce the interior dimensions of the toilet tank so it holds — and therefore uses — less water with each flush. The typical toilet dam can save a gallon or more of water with each flush. The low-tech method of inserting a brick in the toilet tank, which causes the tank to displace less water, is not recommended — the brick can deteriorate and damage both the toilet and the plumbing lines.
You also want to be sure and check your toilet for leaks. If you hear your toilet running when not in use, you can check for leaks by simply putting a few drops of food coloring in the tank. Check it after about 10 minutes, without flushing, and if any of the food coloring has appeared in the bowl, you have a leak that should be fixed as soon as possible.

FAUCETS AND SHOWERS
Retrofitting your kitchen and bathroom faucets with an aerator is a great way to save water. Aerators introduce air into the water stream, which allows for good pressure with reduced water usage. Aerators are available for just about any type of faucet with internal or external threads, and simply requires screwing the aerator in place.

Aerators are marked with their water flow in gallons per minute (GPM). An aerator with a flow rating of 2.75 GPM or lower is typically considered low-flow, which will save both water and the energy required to heat it. It is estimated that a low-flow kitchen faucet aerator can save about 3 gallons of water per day in the average household, and a bathroom faucet aerator can save 2 gallons or more.

Replacing your old showerhead can be a real water saver as well. Here again, low-flow showerheads utilize air mixed with the water to improve pressure while reducing water usage, and still results in a shower spray that is invigoratingly strong. Look for a showerhead that uses 2.5 GPM or less, which are available in a wide variety of styles, including ones with pulsating massage action.

And finally, fix that that drip! In addition to being noisy and incredibly annoying, a small faucet drip that totals only two tablespoons a minute wastes about 15 gallons of water a day.

Copyright © 2007 Inman News – Paul Bianchina

Let June be no different then the months before!  It is time for monthly housing statistics from Big House Data!

From the Big House Data Executive Summary:

The effect of the Pfizer relocations will be felt for a time in Washtenaw County. Anecdotally, the post-buyout list prices are particularly aggressive. With this aggressive pricing, Pfizer is
selling their properties, but the non-Pfizer owners in those neighborhoods will be dealing with lower property values as a result if they decide to put their property on the market. This
anecdote goes a long way to emphasize the power of the convergence of price and quality. Obviously, the prices on these Pfizer relocation properties is such that the market is responding favorably and snapping them up before competing homes that, comparatively, are over priced.

List Price

The average List Price for housing in the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors was $227,645.  This is a roughly $20,000 increase from May.  It may be that the initial Pfizer relocation sell-off hangover is nearly over.  A few more months will show us for sure if this is the case

Sales Price

The average Sales Price for housing jumped to $221,784 in the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors.  This means that an average home in Washtenaw County cost an average of $221,784.  Interesting when compared with June 2006 and June 2005 with average Sales Prices of $247,086 and $249,129, respectively.

Number of Closing v Number of Listings

Here’s a new chart for regular readers of the Team366 Blog.  This is a three year trend of the listings (red) to closings (blue) per month.  The associated twelve month moving average trend line simply shows the momentum that the market currently has.

Refrigerator staging, No, Really!

In the Ann Arbor Market, we’re not unused to vacant homes on the market.  Like a lot of the SE Michigan area housing market, there are many vacant homes on the market.  So it’s not unusual for an agent to have the home staged, that is, to bring in furniture and accesories with the expressed purpose of highlighting the space and layout of a property.

But now I’ve seen it all!  Care of our friend Marueen of miOaklandCounty, is this dandy of a post:  Refrigerator Staging.

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Holy Smokes!  So, Eric and I put our noggins together, form Team366, give him access to a blog and off he goes!  Sheesh. 

Well, welcome to Ann Arbor’s #1 Source for Real Estate Information.  You’ve obviously landed on our website since you are reading this, or you’ve bumped into us via a syndicated feed.  In that case, simply type blog.team366.com into your address bar and you will be taken to the Team366 blog!  It’s that easy.

As Eric pointed out earlier, Team366 is committed to High Tech and High Touch real estate with an eye on improving the world around us.  To that end, keep checking in on this space for future announcements. 

This weekend features three Real Estate Chats and Open Houses from Ann Arbor to Chelsea.

Check us out on Facebook (Eric & Todd), YouTube, vFlyer and the web as a whole!  As Team366 breaks out new real estate marketing techniques to the Ann Arbor real estate market, you will be sure to learn about it here.

To learn more about the Team366 experience, drop us an email or fill out our contact form, and Team366 will be in touch with you shortly.

Let’s face it, this market is a home buyer’s paradise.  High levels of inventory and near historic lows on mortgage rates are causing buyers to “fall off the fence.” Maybe not in record numbers, but buyers do exist in this market.  Big House Data’s recent monthly release points out there are roughly 16% active buyers in this market than last year.  This loss of buyers in the market and the inflated amount of inventory only exacerbates the perception that nothing is selling in this market.  The flip side to that 16% loss of buyers is that there are still 84% of the numbers of buyers in this market compared to last year.  So, yes, Virginia, homes are still selling!

This article from MSNBC.com points out that across the country, new home construction is in decline, yet the Midwest is up about 15.5%.  I would be shocked to learn that Michigan registered in the positive for new home construction, but it is encouraging to see that our region of the country is putting more “sticks in the air.”

With that mixed news, here are a few pointers on buying and selling in today’s market.  Of course, we’re a little biased on whom you should work with, especially in the Ann Arbor market.

Buyers steps to purchasing a home in this market:

1. Call Team366 for a quick assessment of your housing needs;
2. Get pre-approved;
3. Review list of properties provided by Team366;
4. Schedule showings;
5. Buy that special home for you!

Seller’s steps to selling a home in this market:

1. Call Team366 for a Highest Price Analysis of your property;
2. Review our Direct Path Professional Marketing System;
3. Sit back and let our Market System cause your home to be sold;
4. Close on your home!