Resale Numbers Dissappoint – but…  HAMP was a Success!

NAR released the July home resale numbers, and as predicted, they fell significantly.  The fell far below analysts expectations, and even farther that I predicted in my Coffee on Monday.  Here are two graphs that illustrate the results (once again taken from www.CaluclatedRiskBlog.com)

This first one shows home sales by month (resale homes only):

Existing Home Sales Slump in July

You can see the trend was clearly down until early 2009 when the administration stimulated the housing market with the tax credit.  Sales spiked in November of 2009 with the scheduled expiration of the tax credit and then again early this year with the real end of the tax credit.  Now, we have resumed the downard trend.  Based on August numbers in the San Diego market so far (I know, small sample size), it looks like things may get a little worse (July sales were down in San Diego 20% from a year ago and I think August will be down about 24%), I will look at the numbers more closely in next week’s Coffee. 

With the combination of slower sales and more homes being put on the market by builders (new construction spurred by the short term rise in demand), banks (more aggressively processing foreclosures), and individuals (summer season sees more homes offered for sale), inventory as measured by months of sales, spiked:

Nationwide Inventory Jumps to over 12 months

Ouch, that’s a big jump.  Inventory rising that quickly in one month is a bad indicator.  Plus, as foreclosures will continue to be put on the market, this number could grow to 14-15 months.  Inventory levels over 6-7 months usually result in lower prices.  Fortunately, we are in much better shape here in San Diego with inventory levels still under 5 months.  However, significantly lower sales levels in August will drive that number up.

I found an interesting article about a meeting at the Treasury between top players there (including Geitner) and several prominent bloggers.  You can see the article here.  The blog this is taken from is www.interfluidity.com.  The interesting part was when they addressed HAMP, you know, the Home Affordable Modification Program.  While it has been considered by most to be a failure, the Treasury thinks it was a success because it basically pushed the foreclosure problem down the road 3-6 months so the banks could recover.  The argument was that if all the homes had been foreclosed on instead of going through the delay, the system might have failed:

The conversation next turned to housing and HAMP. On HAMP, officials were surprisingly candid. The program has gotten a lot of bad press in terms of its Kafka-esque qualification process and its limited success in generating mortgage modifications under which families become able and willing to pay their debt. Officials pointed out that what may have been an agonizing process for individuals was a useful palliative for the system as a whole. Even if most HAMP applicants ultimately default, the program prevented an outbreak of foreclosures exactly when the system could have handled it least. There were murmurs among the bloggers of “extend and pretend”, but I don’t think that’s quite right. This was extend-and-don’t-even-bother-to-pretend. The program was successful in the sense that it kept the patient alive until it had begun to heal. And the patient of this metaphor was not a struggling homeowner, but the financial system, a.k.a. the banks. Policymakers openly judged HAMP to be a qualified success because it helped banks muddle through what might have been a fatal shock. I believe these policymakers conflate, in full sincerity, incumbent financial institutions with “the system”, “the economy”, and “ordinary Americans”. Treasury officials are not cruel people. I’m sure they would have preferred if the program had worked out better for homeowners as well. But they have larger concerns, and from their perspective, HAMP has helped to address those.

It’s an interesting take, and correct from the standpoint that it helped the system.  Isn’t it interesting that when the politicians sold it to us, they emphasized the saving of people’s homes rather than saving the system.  Also a sidelight to watch is  now that the stimulus is over, we are seeing the foreclosures that were delayed by HAMP start to be processed just as demand is falling.

Monday Morning Coffee

New Listings Plus Home Sales Data out Tomorrow

Good morning,

I hope you had a nice weekend.  Mine was interupted by something called the Security Tool virus.  A bundle of joy that took 5 hours to fix (of course, I didn’t fix it – luckly, I have a client who is much more familiar with network security who spent a good part of his weekend fixing it.  Thanks Marc!)  I did find time to work with Cori and make our first ever batch of jam from our tree (golden nectarines).  The good news is it tastes good and the jars sealed.  The bad news is it didn’t jell, so we have lots of golden nectarine sorta jelly runny stuff.  Oh well.

This week, the big real estate news will come on Tuesday when the National Association of Realtors announces the Existing Home Sales for July.  Last month was off a bit as the affect of the tax credit started to appear.  This month, I expect it to be off a lot.  The “experts” are predicting a rate of 4.65M annual sales (June was 5.27M).  I think that the number will be closer to 4.0M – in which case the stock market will probably react negatively as a number that low could be seen as a strong indicator of a double dip in housing.

We do have two new listings this week, but they aren’t the two I thought we would have (there is also a home that fell out of escrow:

• A 2 bedroom condo in Point Loma.  This home will be vacant in a couple of weeks and I will get photos and more information to you then.  We have not priced it yet as a lot can change by the time we get ready to go on the market.
• A 3 bedroom home in Sabre Springs with open space behind it.  This is on a sought after street and will be a great home.  We are going to need to paint it and do a few touch ups, but it is a relocation, so it may take a week or two to get going.
• The home we had fall out of escrow is  a short sale on the north side of 4S Ranch.  It is a 4 bedroom homes with almost 3,500 sf of living space.  The approved price for the short sale is $700k with a credit to the buyer.  It fell out of escrow – this is a good one – because the family buying it lives in China and the wife can’t get to the consulate in Beijing to sign documents and won’t be in the US for a couple of months (arrghhhh!)

That’s it for this week.  Enjoy the Coffee!

Time

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day.

Rich people can’t buy more time. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend on another day.

Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.

Success depends upon using it wisely – - by planning and setting priorities. Time is worth more than money, and by killing time, we are killing our own chances of success.

Author Unknown.

Have a Great Week!

Scott Voak

Good morning,

I hope you enjoyed the weekend.  It was a nice mix of work and play (although if you had told me 30 years ago I would have call working in the yard “play”, and I think I would have told you you were nuts – right Dad?)  We started thinning out our spaghetti squash and I weighed a couple of them and realized that one plant was giving us about 75lbs of squash, which is about $110 worth of food from one seed.  I thought this was pretty cool until I realized we have to eat another 55lbs of squash to get this benefit.  Why can’t they make steak plants?

I took a look at some new data on mortgages and foreclosures from Fannie, Freddie and FHA.  I posted the information (which came from CalculatedRiskBlog.com) on the site yesterday, so I won’t bore you here.

Although the market is slow, we are continuing to receive offers, and are actually having some success getting a few into escrow.  I should have 2 small, detached condos in the 4S area to tell you about next week (although photos will be a week later).

That’s it, enjoy the coffee!

Birds And The Wisdom They Impart

by Elisabeth Folino

 
This morning, listening to the birds greet a beautiful sunny winter’s morning, it occurred to me that rain or shine the birds always greet the mornings in exactly the same way. They always start it singing with all their might, greeting the day with their beautiful songs and just getting on with the business of living life fully. One can learn so much by watching them.

I like to feed the birds on my balcony; I live in an apartment and can’t have any pets as it is against the rules. I mainly get sparrows and speckled turtledoves, a couple of pigeons and in summer, I get regular visits from rainbow lorikeets. All are fun to watch and all bring joy to my heart. Watching them is relaxing and a form of meditation for me.

The other day, one of the pigeons had got himself stuck in my balcony railing. I thought he was dead. It made me so sad and then, when I went outside, it started to struggle. My heart was filled with joy; it was not dead just exhausted from the effort of trying to free himself.

As I approached the bird, he got more frantic so I soothingly told him not to struggle. He froze, perhaps in fear. I like to think that he could feel the vibration of my not wanting to harm him. I gently placed my hand under him (he was so light) and I lifted him up to set him free. He flew up to the roof of my flat and watched as I put the usual seeds out. Low and behold, after his ordeal, he came right back down to my balcony and ate his breakfast with the rest of the birds.

Why am I sharing all this? Well, for one, it was amazing to actually hold a wild pigeon in my hands even if it was for just one second and I just had to share, but I also could not resist sharing the lesson that this situation brought my way.

Life is full of obstacles; some very real, like the bars holding the pigeon back, and some are imagined but we struggle against them till we are exhausted. Sometimes the answer is with a friend. All it takes is a little lift, a little guidance in the right direction and away we go, free again to soar just like my little feathered friend.

The biggest lesson however, from all this, is how my little feathered friend recovered from the situation. He didn’t sit on the roof looking down at the evil balcony that had tried to trap him; he didn’t relive the frightening situation over and over again. Nope! Down he came to eat his breakfast and live the life he was meant to live.

We can learn so much from birds. They truly know how to live in the now. I believe the lesson here is that sometimes life is hard and we get stuck but often help, in the form of a friend, can set us to set us free. Remaining free, however, is up to us.

Another thing that I have noticed is that while feeding, some of the birds are rather aggressive and tend to chase away the others trying to keep all the seeds to themselves. The funny part is that they can’t chase all of them away and that while they are so busy chasing the others away, they are missing out.

How often do we do that in life? Instead of just getting on with a job, we watch and criticize others only to find that while we have been busy trying to assert ourselves and prove how good we are, that all of a sudden a quiet achiever has managed to do the job and reap the rewards we were so trying to reap.

Isn’t it amazing how so many life lessons can be found just by observing nature’s creatures!

Have a Great Week!

Scott Voak

Updated Government Foreclosure Data

This week, the government released some updated foreclosure date from Q2.  These charts are re-prints from a blog I subscribe to called CalculatedRisk.   It can be found at www.CalculatedRiskBlog.com  I highly recommend it as the person who runs it does a pretty good job of assimilating different economic data.  Even if I don’t always like it, which brings me to the following charts:

Government Guaranteed and Owned Foreclosures

This first chart shows that Fannie, Freddie and FHA are now the proud owners of almost 250,000 homes (this is not all the foreclosures, just the ones taxpayers are on the hook directly for).  The number is increasing as banks are processing more foreclosures for people who just don’t qualify for a loan modification. 

This next chart taxes it a step farther and is really what caught my attention, it shows how many people are upside down on their mortgages.  This is important because if the economy were to go into another recession, these are people who have less incentive to hold onto their homes.  I look at it as the worst case, since anyone with positive equity would try to sell and avoid foreclosure. 

Almost one-third of homeowners are underwater

 The number are scary – 30.6% of homeowners under water and a total of almost $2.4B under water (this is just the portion of their loan in excess of the home value).  Also, these are first mortgages; more people are under water if you consider their second mortgages also.  But, it’s not all bad.  The next chart made me happy I don’t live in Nevada!

Negative Equity by State

Ouch.  California doesn’t look as bad as some of these other states.  And, for those of us in San Diego, we’re better off than most of California.

 Combining all three of these charts, it is evident that the housing recovery is tenuous at best.   Combined with the slowing pace of sales after the tax credit expiration I believe it is cause for concern.

San Diego July Home Sales Fall with Tax Credit Expiration

A quick look at the July sales number shows sales fell of pretty much as expected due to the expiration of the federal home buyer tax credit.  Before going into this years numbers, I need to wipe the egg off my face and make a correction:

I always try and look at the sales numbers as soon as the month ends and then go back a month later and re-run the reports.  The reason for this is that while agents are supposed to update closings within 48 hours, it doesn’t always happen.  Well, last July, I forgot to do that.  In previous posts, I have been using a sales number for July of 2009 of about 2,900 homes – based on available data on August 1, 2009.  The true number should have been updated to 3,424 homes sold in July of 2009. 

Ok, now that that embarrassment has been cleared up, here are the numbers for San Diego Home Sales in July:

July 2009  -  3,424                        July 2010 – 2,342 (this number will likely rise by 200-300 over the next week)

Year to date 2009 – 19,555         Year to date 2010 – 19421

You can see our year to date number does not look bad at all.  That’s because the first half of the year benefited from government stimulus that is now gone.  Sometimes it is easier to see things graphically:

San Diego County Home Sales and Inventory

 As you can see, the homes sold (yellow line on the bottom) took a bit of a dive as expected and you can see the inventory rising a bit.  If you look back at the Active Homes over the years, you see the treand of inventory increasing mid to late summer.   Of course, last year was an exception as the tax credit kept demand strong while the banks held back foreclosures and still had not put in place good processes for handling short sales.   The one factor you don’t get out of this graph easily is the underlying rate of change; in other words, “How fast is the inventory situation changing?”  By looking at how fast things are changing, we can get an idea if this is a typical “seasonal” change or if it is potentially something more.

Change in Inventory Levels for San Diego County Homes

A couple of explanations:

• Months of inventory is calculated by taking the number of homes on the market at the end of the month and dividing it by the average sales rate over the last 12 months.  This avoids extreme spikes and valleys in the summer and over the holidays, but also makes changes slower to appear.
• The blue area plat is the % Change in inventory over the previous year.  Numbers above zero means that inventory is growing and numbers below zero mean that inventory is decreasing.  Since the numbers are compared to a year prior, this data starts a year after the inventory data.

The key thing I see with this chart is how quickly inventory is changing after the tax credit expired.  In March, inventory was still falling at a rate of 46% (over the previous year) and in July, it rose 27%.  So, while the inventory level is not worrisome at this point (4.4 months), we should watch next month to see if t continues to grow (it is up 50% compared to the end of last year).

Monday Morning Coffee

July Sales Numbers for San Diego

Good morning,

I hope you had a great weekend.  It’s getting late, so this is going to be quick (and no, I did not destroy anymore of my rear yard installing the drip system this week). 

 July numbers for San Diego home sales were low, as expected.  However, I had made a mistake in not updating my numbers for July 2009 (agents take awhile to change escrows into sales and I had not updated my numbers in mid August of last year).  So, instead of 2900 homes sold last July, there were 3,424 sold in San Diego.  Against that number, July 2010 looks pretty sad.  Total sales for July of this year were 2,342 (this will probably increase by about 200-300 as agents finish reporting).  Still, that’s off 32% from last year and I am hoping that we end up less than 25% down by the time the dust settles. 

 Active listings increased from 9,372 last year to 12,840 at the end of July.  This is up about 650 from June – most of the increase due to a lower sales rate rather than an increase in listings.

 I will do a blog post that breaks it into much more detail later, but as I said, it’s getting late!

 No new homes for sale this week, but we do have a rental coming up.  If you know someone looking in the 4S Ranch area, we have a 3 bedroom condo with a view in Sitella available almost immediately.  I will be taking photos Monday morning and it should be online by the afternoon.  Please get ahold of me if you are interested.

 That’s it, enjoy the coffee! 

 Thinking “Out Of The Bag”

Many hundreds of years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the merchant’s beautiful daughter so he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the merchant’s debt if he could marry the daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified by the proposal.

The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would then have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become the moneylender’s wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven. If she p icked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the merchant’s garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick her pebble from the bag.

What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her? Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the moneylender as a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking.

Read on…

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.”

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution, sometimes we have to think about them in a different way.
 

Submitted by George Wachirah — Kenya

Have a Great Week!

Scott

New Home Sales and Case-Shiller Numbers Easily Misunderstood

This week, two important real estate numbers were reported that had a positive spin put on them that wasn’t really warranted. 

First, New Home Sales were announced for the Month of June by the Census Bureau.  Last month, the May number was reported at 300,000 homes (on an annualized basis) and the forecast was for the sales rate to be at 310,000 homes (annualized) in June, providing an average for the two months of a 305,000 sales rate.  The June number surprised to the high side, coming in at 330,000 which helped spark the market on Monday.  The problem?  The May number was revised downward to 267,000 to provide an average for the two months of 298,000 homes, LOWER than the forecast.  I don’t know why the initial forecast was off by 11% for May.  It could be that since new home sales are calculated when the contract is signed and not when the sale closes, many of the sales cancelled.  If that’s the case,  I would think that the Census Bureau would have allowed for that.  It’s a pretty big mistake, and hopefully we don’t see it again next month.  I like the fact that the government was able to put a positive spin on a negative number, but surprised that the press didn’t question it at all.

The second number was the Case-Shiller Home Prices Index that was released on Wednesday.  The 10 city composite was up 5.4% and the 20 city composite was up 4.6% compared to a year ago.  Case-Shiller is a great index and tool for tracking the real estate market and I know a lot of large banks and investors rely on it because it actually looks at sales of the same home over different periods rather than a median which changes as the size and type of home change.  This makes it a very reliable number.  The weakness is that it is not able to track recent trends.  The reason is that it is a 3 month moving average with a 2 month lag.  In other words, the numbers that were reported up on July 27th were the months of March, April and May – the end of the tax credit when people were paying more than homes were worth to capture the tax credit.  We won’t see the result of the end of the tax credit until the July, August, and September numbers come out in late November. 

So, while I welcome the good press for the real estate market, tread carefully; there was more to the story.

Monday Morning Coffee

A Sink Hole in San Diego or Why I Have to be Good at Real Estate

Good morning,

I hope you had a great weekend.  Ours was a little slow with only one open house and activity generally slow, Cori and I actually were able to see a movie – Early Grammy betting tip: Salt will not win best picture.  Those of you who have read the last couple of Coffees will remember that I am slooooowwwwlllllyyyyy converting our “spray everything including the side of the house” sprinkler system to a drip system.  Well, it slowed down again this week when I discovered a small sink hole in my back/side yard. 

Now, I am brave enough to try and conserve some water and be more efficient in my application thereof, but when it comes to undermining the integrity of the hardscape in the backyard, I draw the line.   So, I called the gardener in (he is not the same that installed the original system) and fortunately the problem was that the initial contractor did not use much glue at a specific joint and the increased pressure from capping some of the sprinklers caused the joints to slip out.  He quickly fixed it and there should be no more problems…unless there are more joints with insufficient glue. 

Hmm.  I think I will proceed slowly.

Speaking of slowly, how about that real estate market?  This morning, the Census Bureau is set to announce the number of new home sales in June.  When the May number came out is was 30 something percent under last year and increased the worry for a double dip recession.  Well, if you want to sound smart this morning – it’s going to be low again.  So show off at the coffee machine and predict about a 30-35% drop from last year with  the numbers being close to May of this year (the reason is that the tax credit sucked all the demand into the early part of the year).    The residential resale side is really slowing also (at least in San Diego).  Last July, we sold about 2,900 homes throughout the county and last month it was just over 3,000.  Right now, with five workdays to go and sixteen behind us, we have 1,591 closed.  My guess is that we close about 2,350 for the month which would be about a 20% drop from last year .  I expect the homes in escrow will be about the same at the end of the month as last month, indicating the liklihood that August will bel slow also.

With this slowdown, there are some good opportunities for patient investors – and there will be more coming down the line.  I think the end of this year will provide some excellent opportuntites for investors looking for one or two properties in San Diego.  For people buying a home, I don’t think there is a problem buying a home now, as long as you are planning on staying several years.  Yes, the market is going to go down a bit, but if you have found the right house for your family, there is no guarantee it will be there once the market falls a little, and these rates are incredible.

No new listings this week, so time for the Coffee:

A Healthy Life

  by: Jaye Lewis

I’ve never been an athlete. I’ve never been much interested in sports, ever since I stopped playing touch-football with the boys, when I hit puberty. I’ve tried tennis. I hit the ball too high, too long, and way over into left field. I’ve tried softball. Thank goodness that ball is “soft” and big, because it felt just awful when it hit me in the eye. I tried running, but I couldn’t get anyone to chase me.

I tried swimming, but even though I float like a cork, and have had numerous lessons, I can’t seem to get over the idea, that I’m really going to drown. Finally, I settled on walking, and for a number of years, I walked 3 to 5 miles a day. I realize that there is an Olympic sport referred to as “walking,” but when I tried that, all I succeeded in doing was throwing my hip out.

I’m definitely NOT an athlete, but I make do, especially in my “mid-life” years. Which brings a question to my mind. When did I hit mid-life? I remember when I hit thirty. I had to visit a grief counselor, because I knew my life was over. I remember forty. I had to see a grief counselor, the day after my first child graduated from high-school and moved out of the house, because I knew my life was over. I remember forty-four. For some reason I thought my life was over. Then I hit fifty, and I was all excited, because I was able to join an organization called AARP. My husband was, especially, excited because he is younger than I, and he got to join, too!

Fifty became the magic age. I knew that as long as I was in good health, in this day and age, I probably had a good fifty years ahead of me. Then came the asthma. O.K., I had that much earlier, but it only became life threatening after fifty. Then came the firbromyalgia. O.K., I had THAT earlier, but it’s not life threatening. Then came the arthritis, and, more recently, at fifty-five, came the diabetes. Somewhere, along in there, I became very interested in pharmaceuticals, and, finally, one day, I became free.

I began by noticing the sunsets, and I had the time to stop and really wonder, at the beauty and the magnitude of it all. Then I moved onto the sunrises, and I quickly found out that if I wasted the early morning, I missed the loveliest part of the day. Then I began to notice how grateful I was to be able to witness the changing of the seasons. The first whisper of spring; the rustling of the leaves beneath my feet, in the fall; that first breathless covering of a winter’s snow; and in the summer, all the flowers, and the buzzing of a bumblebee.

When illness would hit me, I found that I, actually, enjoyed the solitude. A time to reflect, gather my thoughts, and pray, at leisure. I found that I was “experiencing” this mid-life season, and I was no longer missing every moment, shackled to the chains of worry, and what “might” be. I found that worrying about tomorrow, only served to make me overlook the blessings of today.

It’s not always easy. A few loads of laundry, and a pile of dishes can take an entire day; but then I don’t push myself a lot. So, I forget to make the bed, as I watch the rosy glow of dawn meet the rising sun. I have time to walk our little, wooded acre with my little dachshund straining at the leash. I get to read the “signs,” with my Happy Dog, sniff the air, and gaze out at nowhere, studying the sky, with the same intensity that my little dog studies the ground.

I get to meet the day, every day. I get to say “good-night,” to the sunsets. I’ve studied a lot of sunsets, in the last five years, and I’ve never seen two that were alike. I get to know my Creator as I never have before, and I’ve gotten to make MY mind up, about the mysteries of life; and I have grown certain, that all this was no accident.

I feed the birds, and I take great delight in their multicolored hues, especially in the spring. I drag a chair to stand on, so that I can fill the feeders to the brim, myself. I say a little prayer, as I wobble, a little cock-eyed on the chair, and I laugh, at myself, and all the pretensions of my younger life. I take great delight in my life. I thank God for all the precious little things of every day. Friends. Family. Neighbors. And health. A health of the soul. For I have come to understand what real health is, and when you have REAL health, then you truly have everything.

Have a Great Week!

Scott

Monday Morning Coffee

Battle with the Drip System  (or why I should stick to Real Estate)

Good morning,

I hope you had a nice weekend.  It’s been nice to have the sun come back out the last week – although it feels like it is trying to make up for lost time.   In the further mis-adventures of Scott and the drip system, it seems like there was a bit too much pressure and on Wednesday morning while James, the pool guy, was cleaning the pool and I was about to jump in the shower there was a loud “pop” as one of the valves failed.  James almost ended up in the pool (it sounded like a gun shot) and pieces of the valve ended up in opposite directions 30 feet from where they were supposed to be – and I ended up at Home Depot again.

On the real estate side, things continue to slow down.  In July of 2009, we closed over 2,800 homes in San Diego County.  So far this month (11 of the 21 business days completed) we have closed 1,008.  The number in escrow is also down, from over 7,000 to just over 5,200 this year.  Call volume is also down significantly just when it should be picking up for the summer.  I am more solidly in the camp of – another dip in real estate and just hoping it bounces back early next year.  This could be great for investors as rates remain low the forth quarter could bring some great opportunities.

We don’t have any new listings this week, so let’s skip straight to the coffee -

Lessons Learned

Author Unknown

Have a Great Week!

Scott

Monday Morning Coffee
Real Estate Slowdown Ahead

Good morning,
I hope you had a great weekend – and for those of you who extended the 4th of July weekend into a weeks vacation – congratulations. Now, get back to work:-)

The market has definitely slowed, which has allowed me to get to a couple of projects around the house. We had planted a few vegetables and we have a spaghetti squash and butternut squash plants that have taken over the side yard and are about to try and break into the house. This made me finally tackle the sprinkler system in the yard – trying to convert it to a drip so I stop wattering the house and patio. Of course, only when I got to Home Depot did I realize that I did not even know how much I did not know about what I was trying to do. Four trips back and forth and eight sprinklers (about 40 to go) have been transitioned to drip or capped off – and only three of them leak.

But I digress from the main point, and that is that the only reason I have time to do this is the market has slowed down. Two weeks ago (I took last Monday off too) I said that things felt like they were slowing down. In July of 2009, we sold over 2800 homes. So far, 6 business days into a 21 day month, we have 475 sold. Now, the homes in escrow have increased by 300 so far this month, which might indicate that closings will ramp up at the end of the month, but I still think we could be down by about 20-25%. I hope I am wrong, but it sure feels slow out there. It is moving to a buyers’ market and I think now is the wrong time to try and squeeze every last dollar out of your home if you are selling. The risk/reward of holding out over the summer is not in the sellers favor right now.

That said, we have three great listings to tell you about – should have been four, but we bucked the trend and sold one of them last week:

3 bed townhome in 4S Ranch. This home is in the Gianni complex on the north side of 4S Ranch and is impeccably updated. Walking distance to Monterey Ridge, the Gianni complex is very popular for young families with elementary aged children. The home is priced at $429k.

South 4S Ranch View Home – This is one of two homes we have on Lone Bluff Way. This home is 4 beds, 3 1/2 baths, almost 2,900sf and a great view of Black Mountain. The yard is big enough for a pool. It is priced at $720k and we have 2 offers in. It will likely be gone by Monday evening. So if you are interested, let us know ASAP.

4 bed with loft – This is the other home available on Lone Bluff Way. It has a bedroom dowstairs as well as 3 beds and a large loft upstairs. It is over 3,200 sf of living space on a great cul-d-sac on the south side of 4S Ranch. Asking price is $745k.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the Coffee (and tell all your friends to help the market and buy a house!)

This week’s edition comes because of those darn books you read to 4 year olds. You know, the ones you can’t get out of your head. Interestingly, there is sometimes more to learn from children’s books than from “adult” books. So, here is some wisdom from Theodore Geisel:

• A person’s a person, no matter how small.
• You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
• Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
• Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.
• If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.
• And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed.
• Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
• All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot.
• The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
• Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.
• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
• I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you
• I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you
• I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

By Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss).

Cmon, I can’t be serious every week,

Scott Voak