There is no question that the housing industry is in a pretty sorry state right now.  No one has the money to buy a home, and thus people who are selling their homes often find that they remain on the market for months, if not years, at a time.  That also means that the prices for houses currently on the market tend to fall quite drastically – and you might be in a position to take advantage of that.  However, you need to keep in mind that the rules are changing when it comes to qualifying for a loan.

The first thing you need to be concerned about is an appraisal.  You need to make absolutely certain that any property you are thinking about buying gets proper appraised.  That way, you will have a more accurate idea about what the home’s true market value is.  You will also be able to pick out any discrepancies told by the person selling the house.  Banks also appraise the homes they have.  They like house to appraise at a value equal to or greater than the amount of the loan a buyer is requesting.  That way, the risk of default lowers significantly.

It seems that the waiting is paying off because not only is D.C getting their act together, but we have also seen a small jump in the sales in the Western region of the country!   Although, despite this jump, the entire market is underperforming.  In the past decade, we have added in about twenty-five million people to our population and the ability to afford a house could not be higher for most people but the household formation is much, much lower than expected. 

Obama really does have his hands full if he expects to jump the real estate market into gear for the spring and summer months – we have to wait and see, but our newest president definitely has his hands full and if he wants to make sales, he will definitely have to work fast! 

Everywhere in the world, people are dropping the cost of their homes and losing all sorts of money – even with the bailout, it simply does not seem to be helping.  Obama is tightening those purse strings in the white house, but let’s hope that he can save our great country!

It seems that in this day and age with everything seemingly going downhill; it is nice to finally witness something that seems to be going right.  The real estate market as you may already know has been plummeting down for a while now, but things are looking better!  Foreign investors in a lot of real estate here in the states definitely expect to spend a whole heck of a lot more here than they did last year, which is definitely a good thing!

According to studies now-a-day, investors are planning to increase their investment activity by about forty percent, spending about seventy-three percent of that in the US!  One of the top places that these investors are looking at is D.C, which is fabulous for the US as D.C. wholes about $371 billion dollars in real estate in the United States!

So keep your chin up everyone, we will get out of this and the real estate market will jump back up, just you wait!

It’s true, everyone knows that it is bad out there, every single person knows that with the amount of foreclosures, the amount of hud homes and the amount of people abandoning their homes is up and the economy is in pretty bad shape.  What I did not realize is that it is all across the board and has finally reached its way to Hawaii.  The number of Hawii’s homes that have been foreclosed on has doubled during the third quarter last year.  There are about 313 properties that are currently being foreclosed on.

It’s terrible, I mean I live in Michigan and I am constantly seeing foreclosed homes, but I had no idea that it was as bad as it really is.  Hawaii estimates that for every 1,345 households, one of them is going to be foreclosed on and that is absolutely terrible.

Well folks, hopefully things look up with changes being done in the white house and hopefully there will be no more blogs about how bad it is.  Here’s to hopin’ folks!

It is pretty obvious in this day and age that the real estate line is going down hill, not everywhere but most places, so if you are one of the many people that are forced to sell their home and relocate, this blog is for you.  There are quite a few home repairs that will not only help out your homes value but will also help to sell your home that much faster.

Firstly, decluttering your home is a fantastic way to ensure that whoever is looking at your home can get the full view and feeling of your house.  Making sure that every inch of every room has no clutter in it and is completely clean is a great way to attract potential buyers and ensure that they can see everything about every room in your house.

Make sure that if anything needs to be painted, you go ahead and paint it.  Ensuring that the backyards as well as the front yard of your house look great is a good place to start too.  Appearance is everything when you are trying to sell your house, especially in these tough times!

When you are faced with the reality that you have a bad location for your office and your business is suffering, there is really a simpler answer – relocate.

Office relocation is very easy to say but very difficult to execute. It needs some deep thinking, planning, and a ton of hard work.

Here are some practical reminders to help you pull it through:

Knowing when it’s Time to Move

If you decide that you want to relocate now, then you must have thought about it around 5 months ago. You can also check on the performance of your employees and see how it weighs against the location of your business. Investing in new space might cost you in the short run, but make you loads more in the long run!

Reduction of expenditure, bigger office space, and market opportunities are other things that may convince you to look for alternatives or move to another office.

Call for Help

After deciding that you really need to move, you need to prepare for the actual relocation.

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Michigan has been hit from all sides, whether it is from the number of foreclosures happening all the way to the auto industry.  There is some good news for Michigan though, Ann Arbor has finally begun to swing its way toward normalcy as all of the foreclosed homes are driving up the pending sales statistics.  Although sales have continued to drop, the pending contracts from buyers have surpassed year over year just in the last five months.

Ann Arbor is a fantastic place for either a family or a college student to settle down.  With it being a college town, there is a lot for this tiny city to offer anyone and everyone and it is no wonder that the real estate is picking up in this amazing city.  Economically, Ann Arbor is the best place to be also because it is one of the hold cities that has held onto its jobs.  Many people who have been employed in Ann Arbor have no fear of losing their job and in this day and age – that is freakin’ amazing.

More to come on the real estate news in the next blog folks … stay tuned!

So ladies and gentlemen, with the way that the economy is today, everyone is definitely all up in arms about the real estate business.  Well, in this post+, we are going to explore one of the strongest housing markets in the United States to maybe put some of your minds at ease!

First up!  Little Rock, Arkansas is holding strong in these tough, tough times.  While Little Rock is not completely out of the woods with the recent housing downturn, they are doing far better than some of the other cities around the United States.  For instance, they have had just over two hundred foreclosures in the works as well as many developers scrapping new housing projects and some sales activity that has come to a standstill.

There is some hope for the future though!  It does not look like Little Rock is likely to fall more than about 1% by the middle of this year, so that is definitely good news.  I’ll keep you posted, stay tuned folks!

The median prices of properties in Manhattan are up by 5.9% at $900K but the volume of sales for condos and co-op plummet by as much as 9.4% in the 4th quarter of 2008.

The Q4 sales of co-ops and condos, according to a real estate report, are tallied as 2282 compared to 2007’s sale of 2518. Prices of the properties went up a notch from a median of $850K in 2007 to $900K in the Q4 of 2008.

The average sales price was around $1.49 million in 2008 while in 2007 the figure was pegged at $1.44 million. On a per square root basis, 2008 prices are notably higher by 0.3% at $1180 from $1183 of Q4 2007.

Year over year median prices of three bedroom, one bedroom units, and studios slid a bit down. The prices of two bedroom and four-plus bedrooms increased.

A 14% drop in terms of sales was also experience in the Manhatten real property market comparing the Q3 and Q4 of 2008.

The high end market in Manhattan was also affected by the credit crunch, specifically when the federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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