Real Estate News for Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

I don't know if this sends chills down anyone else's spine, but according to the Chicago Tribune, the number of Realtors decline for the first time in a decade. With that we have plummeting stock prices. Mortgage lenders are filing for bankruptcy or shutting down. There are layoffs at homebuilders and banks. Plus, soaring foreclosures and loan defaults. Now let's add real estate agents to the mix. The NAR ended 2006 with nearly 1.4 million members, almost double the roughly 716,000 it had in 1997, but expects 2007 to close with 1.3 million, a drop of more than 4 percent. On top of that, foreclosures are still on the rise. California and Florida are the leading states for that. In other news, it looks like activists are trying to get more stringent lending criteria for the mortgage industry. From what I can see, the biggest thing standing in the way of buyers and sellers closing deals with each other is the financing. Buyers are having a difficult time getting loans. We may have to go back to FHA insured and VA guaranteed loans. If you are a buyer, be sure to save yourself some time and grief by going to a lender before you look at homes. You don't want to fall in love with a home, only to find out that you can't get financing for it 20 days after your offer has been accepted by the seller. You could risk losing your deposit! It's a tough time in real estate, but I love my job. I meet the nicest people and it truly makes all the work worthwhile. Let's follow this up with a cheesy picture of me in my office, shall we?




~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
Toll-Free: 1-877-TINAJAN
tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
www.tinajan.com

Real Estate News for Sunday, August 12th, 2007

Foreclosure notices hang on a county courthouse wall in Pontiac, Mich.

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Home sales will hit a five-year low this year, as wary lenders cut back on loans for many borrowers, according to the National Association of Realtors. They predict homes sales to climb from 6.04 million in 2007 to 6.38 million in 2008. Meanwhile, foreclosures nationwide have risen 58%, according to RealtyTrac. California led the nation with the highest number of homes receiving foreclosure filings and the number of homes receiving notices. Lagging home sales and flat or decreasing home prices have made it more difficult for homeowners who fall behind on payments to sell their homes and clear the debt, spurring the rise in foreclosure activity.

Yes, the market has changed, but as a real estate agent I've adapted and changed with it. For other agents out there, here are two sentences of wisdom. Adjust your focus and get back to the basics of the business. Keep your tenacity and listen to the negative hype with a grain of salt. I've been meeting more new people and increased the number of people I contact regularly. There's more follow-up with each contact as well. Everyone is getting more service and attention from me than ever before. It's hard work, but it pays off in the end.

~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
Toll-Free: 1-877-TINAJAN
tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
www.tinajan.com

Real Estate News for Monday, August 6th, 2007

I was reading through my daily real estate news articles and found some interesting tidbits for my blog. The New York Times had a fun article about internet house valuation called, What’s My House Worth? And Now? The author talks about her constant obsession with her home's fluctuating value from different websites such as, EAppraisal.com, RealEstateABC.com, HomeGain.com, CyberHomes.com, PropertyShark.com, Zillow.com. It's a comical view on the inaccuracy of those internet valuation sites. I'd say it's worth a quick look through.

In celebrity real estate news, Mel Gibson has just sold his Malibu home for $30 million. The home is 7,000 sqft with 155 feet of beachfront property, 6 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a gym, a library, an office, an elevator, a lagoon pool, a cabana, a bar and a wine cellar. The Malibu deal preceded Gibson's sale this month of his 28-room, Tudor-style mansion on 76 acres in Greenwich, Conn. The selling price of the 13-bedroom, 16,000-square-foot estate was reported by Bloomberg News as $39.5 million. And in May, Gibson bought a 400-plus-acre agricultural and cattle ranch in Costa Rica for $25.8 million, according to La Nación, a Costa Rican publication. Gibson appears to be quite the real estate money-maker.

So is anyone else interested in Bravo's new house flipping show? I haven't had a chance to take a look at it, but sources say that "Jeff Lewis is a very scary man, and he isn't scary solely because he treats his employees like dust mites or consults a psychic to assist him in the running of his business or sends his cat, Monkey, to an acupuncturist. No, Jeff Lewis, a Los Angeles real estate speculator who is a native of Orange County, evokes a chill because he is so leveraged, a man balancing multiple mortgages like bricks on a noodle." Now who could turn down such a disaster of a show?! It'll be like watching a train wreck, complete with shudders and cringes of pain.



Hiring in California was hit by a bad case of June gloom last month as the effects of the real estate slowdown seeped into the job market, according to data released yesterday by the California Employment Development Department. Economists pinned the blame for slow job growth on the local housing market. In the past year, home sales declined 24 percent, meaning less work for mortgage and real estate brokers. And applications for residential-construction permits have declined in nine of the past 10 months, meaning less work for builders.

There is a sunny side to real estate though. Delinquencies in California's commercial real estate market hit a 5-year low, in contrast to the residential market that is reeling with a record number of defaults. Just for your information, a loan is considered delinquent if the mortgagee is two or more payments late.

For new homebuyers, I read a great article with a checklist of things that would be helpful. The first thing to do is to talk to a good lender. It saves you time because you know what you can afford.
I can't stress how important it is to work with an agent and lender that you trust. There are so many scary people out there who aren't afraid to commit fraud. Check out the article by clicking the link at the beginning of this paragraph. There are alot of good basics to follow.


~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
Toll-Free: 1-877-TINAJAN
tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
www.tinajan.com