Real Estate News
by Peter Giardini
| September 29, 2009
For many real estate investors, these past several months have brought a welcome sigh of relief as homeowners have come into the market in truly satisfying numbers. In many parts of the country the steady downward slide in prices has tapered off and we have been seeing what may be the bottom in terms of further price declines… or NOT!
Are Some Hyping Up the Real Estate Market Too Soon?
The numbers throughout the Summer have been promoted with great fanfare… the Schiller-Case Index and National Board of Realtors proclaiming that prices may have bottomed out and the worst is over. Great news if you can believe it!
While I am delighted that prices have stabilized and even increased in some markets and that home sales over these past several months have been solid and even matching sales volumes from 2005…I have been troubled and what I haven’t been able to put my finger on is this…
With all of the homes going into foreclosure, when will this inventory start to pull this “current” housing recovery down? This Bloomberg article is not good news… and suggests that we have a long way to go before all of the current and projected foreclosed inventory can be absorbed.
So the million dollar question is this… How long can lenders continue to hold their REO inventory?
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Commentary
by Tom Koziol
| September 25, 2009
After you read this post you will realize the “new” is really the “old” but, in the end, who cares. At least according to me.
We’ve all seen headlines that read: Existing home sales dip in August or words to that effect. Truth is, those headlines aren’t news anymore. They used to be but used to be has become the norm or maybe I should say the numb.
To add more numb to this post, we all have read articles telling us real estate practitioners and investors are expressing frustration with what they consider slow action from banks. That is, banks aren’t releasing inventory fast to satisfy the demand.
My question boils down to what do they really expect from institutions that have moved, on a historical basis, extremely slow. It is merely business as usual.
On the other hand, given a red-hot market has poked its head out of the ground we should expect business not to be usual. We should demand those institutions with a home inventory to get off their duffs and start moving the product. A home is no different than any other retail product, other than the sales price. When demand flares up, release the inventory and satisfy the demand.
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You’re sitting down to write a property listing. You know my first rule of marketing: Make it personal. But how do you do that – and stay within Fair Housing guidelines?
There are a multitude of economic indicators to use as a barometer of the economy. Many are extremely complex, while others are fairly simple. One of the more unusual ones actually seems to make a lot of sense. Look at your underwear drawer!
An 
God, I hate cliches. But such is the case with a freshly minted 
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
A Quiz You Can’t Fail: How Will You Make Money in Real Estate
by Tom Koziol | October 23, 2009As everyone knows, the real estate market is in the tank – at least that is the overall perception. On the other hand, we all have heard that there are people who are still making money in real estate. At least they say they are.
If it is true that people are making money, here is a quiz that should be a no brainer. By the way, this quiz won’t be graded. Not by me at least. You may decide to give yourself a grade just for grins.
The Setting
Lets say you live in a housing market that has been described by a national real estate forecast service as the country’s “weakest housing market.” It is projected to have the biggest decline in value in the next 12 months among all housing markets in the nation with a 12 percent median price dip for both new and existing single-family homes.
In making its determination, the forecast service looked at 260 metro areas using more than 50 variables, including housing supply, population trends, unemployment and inflation. And, speaking of unemployment, your area has just seen a full one percent spike upward.