In spite of a rough economny and continued unemployment woes, home sales rose in 2009. According to the National Association of Realtors®, there were approximately 5,156,000 existing-home sales in 2009, which was 4.9 percent higher than the 4,913,000 transactions recorded in 2008. It was the first annual sales gain since 2005.
Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 6.6 percent to 3.29 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.2-month supply at the current sales pace. That is an increase from a 6.5-month supply in November. The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $178,300 in December, which is 1.5 percent higher than December 2008.
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Posted in NAR, National Association of Realtors, National+Association+of+Realtors, Real Estate, Real Estate Market, Real Estate Market Conditions, buyers' market, home inventory, home prices, home sales, home selling, home valuation, housing market, market, real estate news
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For sale by owner advertising has changed along with the real estate marketing landscape in general. Today’s marketing of real estate has expanded signficantly from a “sign in the yard and an ad in the paper”. Internet advertising allows by owner sellers access to distribution channels that circumnavigate the globe. What used to cost home sellers a good deal of money with very limited reach has now become far more cost efficient along with the ability to reach millions of potential buyers.
Bloomkey now offers for sale by owner sellers the option of several marketing distribution channels from which to launch a property marketing campaign.
- The Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, offers sellers access to the real estate agents and brokers in their local areas.
- The Broker IDX is a system through which brokers who own real estate websites show properties that are listed in the MLS to the public.
- Realtor.com, the nation’s number 1 ranked website, has it’s own set of distribution partners who receive and display property listing data.
- ListHub is a company that aggregates data from MLSs around the country and sends that information to leading real estate websites like Yahoo Real Estate, AOL Real Estate, Walmart, Vast and many others.
- Bloomkey has it’s own distribution partnerships with websites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Google and many others.
Companies like Bloomkey give by owner sellers a one-stop marketing resource for selling real estate. Instead of hunting all over the Internet for property listing websites, sellers can enter their property information and upload photos one time and have their properties appear on all of the major real estate marketing distribution channels. In fact, many of the leading distribution channels are not avaialble to the public directly. Companies like Bloomkey make marketing properties for sale an economical and time savings venture.
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Posted in FSBO, For Sale By Owner, Local MLS, MLS entry, Real Estate, Real Estate Market, Selling My Home, advertising, by owner, flat fee MLS service, flat fee mls company, flat fee mls providers, for sale by owner tips, fsbo guide, fsbo seller, home sale, home selling, home selling alternatives, list house, list property, mls entry only, sale by owner, sell a home, sell home, sell house, sell my home online, sell your home, sell your house, selling a home, selling a home by owner, selling by owner, selling home, selling in a buyers market, selling privately, selling your home
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Tagged by owner marketing, For Sale By Owner, fsbo advertising, home marketing, online real estate, real estate marketing, selling a home
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Home buyers have gotten a real boost from the government, but you better get started soon. The tax credit of $7,500 for ‘first-time home buyers’ ends July 1, 2009. The law defines “first-time home buyer” as a buyer who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase. For the purposes of the tax credit, the purchase date is the date when closing occurs, so it’s important to find the right home at least 60-90 days in advance to ensure that you meet the deadline. Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit. The tax credit works like an interest-free loan and must be repaid over a 15-year period.
Partial credits of less than $7,500 are available for some taxpayers whose income exceeds the limits. The credit becomes totally unavailable for individual taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income of more than $95,000 and for married taxpayers filing joint returns with an AGI of more than $170,000. The credit is refundable meaning that the home buyer credit can be claimed even if the taxpayer has little or no federal income tax liability to offset. Typically this involves the government sending the taxpayer a check for a portion or even all of the amount of the refundable tax credit.
For more information about the home buying tax credit for first time home buyers visit the National Association of Home Builders website for ‘First Time Home Buyers’ or visit the IRS website ‘Tax Credit to Aid First Time Home Buyers’
Hitwise shows how the real estate market is reflected in search engine traffic
On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their existing homes sales figures for July. Headlines covering the release talked about the surprising drop in this economic indicator. Once again, leveraging the power of our search term data (as we did here in our post about the monthly unemployment number, we weren’t surprised by the news; we actually anticipated this drop over a month ago.
In the chart below, I’ve superimposed the monthly data from the NAR on a Hitwise search term volume chart for the search query "homes for sale."
Click here to see the chart
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Real estate websites report marked increase in website traffic
Statistics have indicated that 80 percent of home shoppers begin their search online. comScore Media Metrix released its monthly analysis of consumer activity at top online properties and categories today. Among the top trends in April was the increased traffic to real estate sites, up 12 percent from the March, and up 23 percent from a year ago. Peter Daboll, CEO of comScore, says interest "ballooned" due to overal angst in the market and new industry web site innovations. As inventories and rates have risen innovations like flat fee MLS companies, discount realtors and home valuation sites have been the benefactor. This marked increase in real estate website traffic only proves the trend in the real estate industry is toward consumer control. This consumer control is attainable on both sides of the transaction. Flat fee brokers and discount brokers are providing expansive marketing advantages to home sellers in a cost effective while home buyers are afforded the opportunity to enjoy open houses from the comfort of their own PC via virtual tours and multiple photo showcases. The industry is changing and here are some numbers to back it up.
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Given anonymity agents report slow market conditions
Inman News recently opened the floor to real estate agents to report their current market conditions. As incentive for honesty the agents were given complete anonymity if so desired. The responses were nearly uniform from Portland, Oregon to Central Florida, inventory is up and sales are down. While the responses seemed bleak there is no real data that seems to back the slowing market condition. Home sales prices have not suffered as the median home price is up according to the National Association of Realtors and the uptick in inventory is not enough to be troubling. Although David Lereah, the NAR chief economist, is on the record as predicting price appreciation will drop to the mid-single digits. So Walter Molony, a NAR spokesman, has characterized the conditions as "neither a seller’s nor a buyer’s market…balanced is a better word."
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Home Sales in February Exceed Industry Forecast
After economists forecasted a drop in the annual rate, home sales experienced the biggest jump in two years indicating a surprising strength in the housing market. The 5.2 percent rise from 6.57 million in January to 6.91 million in February was the biggest jump since February of 2004 according to the National Association of Realtors. These figures are based on when a home sale closes not when a contract is accepted. So the warmest January on record, coupled with the dip in interest rates may have aided in increasing the sales figures for the month.
While the median and average sales prices have reduced from January to February, sales levels are much ahead of where they were just one year earlier. Last year posted a median sales price of $189,000 and an average sales price of $249,000 compared to a median sales price of $210,000 and an average sales price of $256,000 for February 2006.
Reports predicting the real estate market to cool off from the record pace of 2005 now seem a little premature.
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