Chelan Real Estate Blog

Google’s Mobile Places and Lake Chelan Real Estate

Lake Chelan's Number One (1) Real Estate Agent — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:10:45 +0000

Android Phone users will have a dedicated “Places” icon on their mobile phones that will be able to find nearby places and will include local reviews of those places. While there have been concern over aggregation of data before, Google intends to aggregate this information from existing review sites.

Regardless of the ethics behind it, chances are that Google will win a lawsuit allowing aggregation and mobile searchers will use Google Maps instead of Yelp, hurting Yelp’s traffic. Yelp will find a way to fight this or a way to adjust and this will be swept under the rug because of Google’s sheer size.

That said, this all changes mobile search by putting reviews at the finger tips of consumers. They walk into a listing you have and decide they need to check in on Foursquare, leave a review of the house (and maybe a review of you) on Yelp and tell everyone on Twitter about it. Reviews aren’t just star ratings systems anymore, but crowdsourcing of opinion, creating an overarching opinion that serves as a review. – Agent Genius

Manson Community Council Meeting Tonight

Lake Chelan's Number One (1) Real Estate Agent — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:28:50 +0000

Tuesday the 27th of July at 6:00 p.m. the Manson Community Council is holding a regular meeting.

“Sidelined” home sellers another source of potential housing inventory

Lake Chelan's Number One (1) Real Estate Agent — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:26:27 +0000

“Sidelined” home sellers, those who are waiting for the market to improve, are another source of potential housing inventory. Many of these potential home sellers have been waiting 3 years to sell their homes. Some of them can no longer wait and are entering the market at the first signs of market stabilization.

The Lake Chelan area has seen increased sales so far in 2010, but still has a big inventory of homes on the market. There are a bunch of new homes coming on the market to join the others that have been languishing, in some cases for years.

“The number of people coming back on the market as sellers is moving up,” says Pat Lashinsky, chief executive of real-estate brokerage ZipRealty, Inc. At the same time, “buyers are looking, but they’re not buying,” he says. The inventories of unsold homes increased in June, according to the National Association of Realtors, to 8.9 months of supply at the current sales rate, up from 8.3 in May.

In a survey by real estate website Zillow.com earlier this year, some 7% of homeowners surveyed said they were “very likely” to put their home on the market over the next year if they saw signs of improvement in their housing market. That would translate to more than 5 million homes.

“What’s going to happen to the household that wanted to move three years ago and didn’t want to sell into a declining market?” says Michael Fratantoni, an economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. “There’s a lot of those folks out there, and once we start getting a couple months of good news, there’s going to be a flood of listings from these people.” – WSJ

Optimistic headlines say New Homes Sales are Up!

Lake Chelan's Number One (1) Real Estate Agent — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:31:39 +0000

And, new home sales are up, from last month’s record breaking drop and the lowest level ever recorded. What other direction did they have to go?

Yes, new home sales jumped 23.6% in June according to the National Association of Realtors, but that was after a 36.7% decline in May. After all of that, new home sales are still hovering around record lows.

So, it is great news that new home sales are up, but it isn’t the euphoric news some of the headlines make it sound like. July sales numbers are where it will get interesting!

After Fixing Finance, Feds to focus on Housing

Lake Chelan's Number One (1) Real Estate Agent — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:24:05 +0000

Responding to the collapse in home prices and the glut of foreclosures, the Obama administration is preparing an overhaul of government that could diverge from the emphasis on home ownership that has been the previous focus of government policy.

Almost nothing excites me less than another “fix” from this administration. All of the fixes from the government to date have gotten us to where we are, a market completely controlled by the whim of government. What may be even scarier is that housing is still where a majority of Americans have their most wealth tied up. If someone wanted to reduce the wealth of our country, what better market is there to attack than the real estate market?

I am a free market advocate who would like to see a reduction in regulation and subsidies. But we have a government that has an insatiable appetite for spending and appears to be looking at every place that wealth may be kept, from equity in homes to retirement plans, to fund their agenda.

The administration had floated various ideas including an end to the home mortgage deduction through various channels.

The administration’s narrower view of who should own a home and what the government should do to support them could have major implications for the economy as well as borrowers. Broadly, the administration may wind down some government backing for home loans but increase the focus on affordable rentals.

The shift in approach could mean higher down payments and interest rates on loans, more barriers to lower-income people buying houses and fewer homeowners overall, government officials said. But the change also could pave the way for a more stable housing market, one with fewer taxpayer dollars on the line and less of a risk that homeowners will not be able to pay their mortgages. And it could spell changes throughout the financial markets, as investors choose new places to put their money if the government withdraws incentives for investing in the U.S. mortgage market. – Seattle Times