Thank You and Other Real Estate Happenings

It has been a busy time in real estate, indeed, but I want to quickly and humbly thank the Long Valley Patch audience for voting RE/MAX Heritage Properties in Flanders and Chester as Readers' Choice Number One real estate company. It is through the efforts and professionalism of the amazing agents in our company that we accomplished this. I count it a privilege to manage the company and work with them. Thank you! Now on to real estate happenings in our area! September proved to be a record setting month in listings sold and sales for our company and as I watch the industry, I believe it held true for most companies. Was it the interest rates? Maybe, but they have been historically low for years. Was it an onslaught of buyers moving into the area? Not really, that has remained consistent for months. Was it more realistic pricing and expectations throughout the markets? You bet! It takes years for markets to adjust as the media background noise drives doom and gloom into even thinking about moving. The facts remain, however, that you have to live somewhere! People don't stop moving or downsizing or renting or changing the family structure so housing is imperative, always. When a house is listed on the market, it has to A) receive an offer from a buyer B) have the offer accepted by the seller C) pass the grueling test of a legitimate appraisal. Not a market analysis price; a licensed appraiser. Without it appraising for the selling price, all of the efforts of both sellers and buyers can be 'blown to smithereens' and it is a heart wrenching and expensive process. Mortgage companies are wisely very conservative and having seen a market that we have experienced for years, they need to ensure that placing a mortgage on this property is going to reflect a well informed, wise investment decision. So now we have years of adjusted prices to put merit into appraisals and future sales and purchases. And although we have had strong sales and listings moving quickly, you can point the finger directly at a better educated consumer public with the facts to back it up. At the beginning of the downward spin, the facts didn't make any sense. Your neighbor's house had just sold two months before at, hypothetically, $30,000 more than your's. In fact, all of the stats showed that the neighborhood sold higher than your listing price! But that was years ago and the market plummeted overnight. Now you have years of stats to really paint a true picture. As disconcerting as the past market might seem believe me, after 29 years in this business, you have a competitive field far better now as you have the proven numbers to help you price properly if you a selling and choose wisely if you are buying. All reasons to be in the market, if you are thinking about it. A word of caution, however; don't underprice your property to create a bidding war. They don't work. An underpriced property is just that; an underpriced property and trying to have buyers bid up your price to over -market value will result in the same appraisal problem as I stated above. One final note; appraisers don't pay attention to houses that are on the market. They are mostly concerned with closed sales and even in that arena, they try to stay within the last three months. The market changes on a daily basis and as volatile as it has been in the last few years, there is a sense of normalcy that has entered the market directly correlated to factual numbers and proof in the closed sales.