Merry Christmas
Should I Wait For Spring To Sell My House?
No. You shouldn’t wait. The house from the picture had two offers yesterday. On one of the worst days of this stom in Portland offers still came in. If you are waiting for Spring it is because you don’t think houses sell now.
Talking to a friend who is using another Realtor, it happens, he asked my advice on a question. He is buying a house in the $500,000 range and several of the homes around that home are currently pending. This has all happened in the last 2 weeks.
I have two points on this subject.
- Homes sell all year round, though not so much lately.
- You only need one buyer and you never know when that one buyer could walk by.
I sold a home a year and a half ago and I don’t believe it would sell for the price it did if this one buyer hadn’t of come through. Especially if you have a different style home, you need to have the window of opportunity open as soon and long as possible. I expect this January to give us a flood of listings which is historically typical. This January though I believe that there are many people waiting through the holidays to see where we stand as an economy. If their situations are different they will try to sell their home whether it is a usual sale or a short sale.
Freezing Temps and Your House
This is a view from my listing on Canyon Ln when I checked on it Monday. Everything checked out fine but I overheard something last night that I hadn’t thought of at the time. You may not know you have a broken pipe until the pipe thaws. So as today warms up a little bit in some areas you may want to double check.
UPDATE: Right after I wrote this post this was found at Allison’s house -
If you look to the right of the left handle you will see where it is disconnected. At first we thought it was sheared off, which in retrospect doesn’t make sense, but the ice actually pushed the pipe off the connector. If this hadn’t of been found by the time it thawed, the garage would have filled with water for a long time before it would have been noticed. As you can see from the icicle she left the water dripping but if it was cold enough that it created this huge icicle then the water wasn’t dripping fast enough. Also she should have run water through the pipes in the morning and night to flush them out.
Working with old 1950’s pipes wasn’t the most fun either but it was surreal to see this open pipe clogged with ice though it was dripping ever so slightly that left me concerned it would just flush at anytime. Check your water sources to make sure they flow. If not figure it out before it thaws and causes damage.
I talked to a friend who owns and manages apartments and he said that it was very true. The biggest problems show up afterwards usually. Another friend of mine had a leaking from under his house but was having trouble locating the source. The burst pipe happened while he was out and his neighbor called the water company to shut it off. He finally found the problem to be a sprinkler line that was too close to the surface and it burst.
Lots of areas to think about and a good reminder to know where your water shut off is located. Here are more tips from amwater.com.
Before cold weather sets in:
Know what areas of your home, such as basements, crawl spaces, unheated rooms and outside walls, are most vulnerable to freezing.
Eliminate sources of cold air near water lines by repairing broken windows, insulating walls, closing off crawl spaces and eliminating drafts near doors.
Know where your main water shut-off valve is. If a pipe freezes or bursts, shut the water off immediately.
Protect your pipes and water meter. Wrap exposed pipes with insulation or use electrical heat tracing wire; newspaper or fabric may also work. For outside meters, keep the lid to the meter pit closed tightly and let any snow that falls cover it. Snow acts as insulation, so don’t disturb it.
When temperatures fall below zero:
If you have pipes that are vulnerable to freezing, allow a small trickle of water to run overnight to keep pipes from freezing. The cost of the extra water is low compared to the cost to repair a broken pipe.
Open cabinet doors to expose pipes to warmer room temperatures to help keep them from freezing.
If your pipes freeze:
Shut off the water immediately. Don’t attempt to thaw frozen pipes unless the water is shut off. Freezing can often cause unseen cracks in pipes or joints.
Apply heat to the frozen pipe by warming the air around it, or by applying heat directly to a pipe. You can use a hair dryer, space heater, or hot water. Be sure not to leave space heaters unattended, and avoid the use of kerosene heaters or open flames.
Once the pipes have thawed, turn the water back on slowly and check for cracks and leaks.
When you are away:
Have a friend, relative or neighbor regularly check your property to insure the heat is working and the pipes have not frozen.
Also, a freeze alarm can be purchased for less than $100 and will call a user-selected phone number if the inside temperature drops below 45 degrees.
Map Based Foreclosure Search Of The MLS And Other Goodies
After opening up the search page you can toggle to search for short sales and foreclosure homes. It uses keywords and an algorithm to pick them out of the RMLS.
Another fun search that should yield a list of motivated sellers is this one.
You can search by days listed and, this one surprises me, you can search by the price drops. Transparency grows and grows in real estate. Nothing proves this point more than the recent decision of the RMLS to allow addresses to be shown in IDX feeds.
There are some agents that don’t want addresses so easily available to the public but I disagree. I don’t want to represent both sides of a transaction because it means I really represent no one and I don’t that is explained very well to the clients.
Will Home Prices Bottom Out In September 2009?
As anyone who has visited here with any kind of regularity will know, I am not a fan of prognostications. Someone high up in the banking industry told me that by th eend of the year rates should be right around 7%. They are not. He says that rates should actually be lower now as the 10-year bond is at a historic low.
For years everyone has been crowing that interest rates will go up and they haven’t by much and are back down. There are so many outside factors, specifically the government, that it is hard to say what will happen.
So why am I giving some credence to Jerry Johnson of Johnson Gardner when he says that September 2009 will be the bottom? The first reason is because I have heard him speak and so far he has given good reasons why we haven’t fallen as hard as most other cities. The second reason is that 9/09 is not far away and if doesn’t happen it will hurt his credibility with his clients who need his projections.
Would I bet the “house” on it? No. He uses the now famous Case-Schiller Index which has become the go to numbers chart for the real estate industry. His forecast is Portland specific.
I have four buyers right now. Two need to sell their homes and one needs to decide what to do with their existing home. All remarked at the low interest rates which may help fuel some activity. The buyers are those that I would consider to have “secure” jobs with no fear of being laid off.
Of course time will tell and we can only hope there will be some stability in the housing market as it is important for the health of the economy right now.
Thoughts On Real Estate Right Now
I have been slow to post and the posts that I have done are posts on The Blazers and other non real estate things. There has been almost no good news. Where I can easily post about the importance of demossing your roof or talk about not plugging all of the foundation vents because that can cause mold, they almost all seem trivial when daily I hear of friends being laid off, others missing payments and close friends being foreclosed on because they felt so ashamed that they didn’t contact someone to try a short sale or loan modification.
I have noticed that posts are down on some of the real estate blogs that I read and there are very few heartwarming stories. I have had a failed short sale which seems partly due to no one listening to me that there was a deadline but they were all very dissapointed and desperate two days later when they wanted to write an offer. Three of them wanted to write an offer.
There are other depressing stories and unfortunately I hear these more than the ones where everyone is doing fine much like a therapist who must feel everyone in the world has emotional problems. I did have a client contact me to ask how I was doing and said that she had two neighbors that seemed to sell their home. I did have an agent ask to see one of my expired listings because, “it exactly fit what her client was looking for.”
A bright spot, which I will probably talk about later if it continues, is how low interest rates are right now. If you look to the right you will see the chart. You can look at the week, month or last three months. I don’t expect this to really matter except for the people that already are looking. If you aren’t looking, I doubt you will change your mind during the holidays.
I feel that the first 6 weeks of the year will set the tone for the year (barring any unforseen events or government actions). I have had showings on homes that hadn’t really been active and I showed my $775,000 listing yesterday. That person will see 4 homes Sunday, with someone else as I don’t do dual agency.
So I will get back to writing here and on the Portland Real Estate Network, writing about useful hints and practical ideas for people in tough situations that I hope will help many people as we get through this rough time. Lastly, one thing I learned, or was reminded of this holiday weekend, only ask questions that you want to hear the answers. I asked my grandfather about the Depression. Enough said.
New photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/mukluk
Previous photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/seatbelt67/502255276/sizes/s/ which was nice but there was some confusion so I took it down.
Mike Rohrig
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