Recent conversations we’ve had with several homeowners about selling their homes remind me of a fact I consider important to remember:

We may be in the age of unprecedented access to information, but there’s still a lot of misinformation out there.

Cases in point are Sellers we’ve talked with in Alabaster and Hoover.

Both have tried to sell their homes, both properties are in popular neighborhoods, but neither home sold; in fact, neither couple even got an Offer. One of the homes has been on the market twice.

Why?

According to both Sellers, the reason is pretty obvious. “Everybody knows nothing is selling,” one said, while the other told me,
“There just aren’t any Buyers.” To back that up, one of the Sellers points to a home directly across the street from hers that has
been on the market since November, 2008. Within only a few blocks of this setting are at least four more homes that never sold,
either.

I have to admit that I can’t blame these folks for thinking there are no Buyers out there. After all, the sight of real estate signs swinging in the breeze for long periods of time is pretty convincing visual proof for them.

But when you watch the market day in and day out, a different picture emerges.

With almost 1200 homes having sold across Shelby Co. since April, it’s a bit of a stretch to say there are simply no Buyers. The truth is that those Buyers are going after the best deals they find.

The real reason most homes fail to sell is because they’re overpriced. We see proof of this all the time, both in properties that draw little interest from Buyers, and others that draw almost immediate interest after going on the market.

Generally speaking, the current market is not one for putting your home up for sale to simply test the waters or “just see if it will sell.” Sellers with this perspective face slim chances at best of even getting an Offer.

The homeowner who is motivated to sell, and who is willing to meet Buyers on their price terms is the Seller who is far more likely to be successful.

David

Unless you have enough cash in pocket to buy a home outright, you’re probably going to be looking to get a loan when the time comes.

And here’s some good news from the mortgage industry:

Interest rates for the Shelby Co. and Birmingham area have dropped, compared to a week ago.

Rates for 30-year fixed loans have dropped to around 4.8%, down from around 5.0% at this time last week.

Rates for 15-year fixed loans have also slipped from last week’s 4.3% range to the current 4.2%.

So, what does this mean if you’re thinking of buying a home? Simple: The cost of getting a loan is still extremely attractive.

If you’re considering buying a home in the Birmingham/Shelby Co. area and want to get the purchase financed, your best bet—even before starting to look at homes—is to start talking with a Lender. That way, you’ll be well on your way to having your financing already lined up when you find the home of your dreams!

David

Yet another indicator that the super low interest rates Buyers have been enjoying in the Shelby Co. and Birmingham real estate market may be coming to an end:

Click here to see an article in the 4/11/10 New York Times advising that rising interest rates are inevitable.

If you’ve been considering buying a home and have been waiting for the perfect time, it looks more and more as if the perfect time is about to pass you by.

It’s all the more reason to get serious, and soon!

David

More folks want homes!

The number of properties sold in Alabaster and Helena rose sharply in March, compared to February, according to the Birmingham Multiple Listing System. In Helena, March sales were double those for February:

Meanwhile, home sales in the Alabaster, Maylene and Saginaw areas were up sharply during March, as well.

Why the big rise in sales?

Last but certainly not least, the return of spring has no doubt been a welcome change from the extended bitterly cold winter Alabamians had to endure. Most people found going out looking for homes—only to be blasted in the face by freezing wind—to be less than fun.

For more reasons than one, we’re glad Spring is here!

David

If you’ve been thinking of buying a home in the Birmingham/Shelby Co. area using the popular USDA loan program which allows you to buy with no down payment, you may be fast running out of luck.

USDA says the program is projected to run out of money by the end of April, and no new funding is currently anticipated.

In Shelby County, USDA loans have been responsible for many people buying homes in areas like Calera and Montevallo, as well as across many other parts of Alabama.

Because USDA loans are so attractive to many buyers—mortgage insurance isn’t required, either—they have often meant the difference between whether a Buyer is able to purchase property.

Carmell Cantrell is a Loan Officer with First Federal Mortgage in Birmingham, and has been following what may be the demise of the program she and other Lenders have worked with extensively over the years.

USDA loans could be revived if Congress acts, but whether that will happen remains unknown. If the program does, in fact, end, it will stand as a major point in real estate sales history, signaling the end of the so-called easy credit era.

Click the player below to listen to our interview with Carmell now…

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…or click here if you’d like to download and listen on your personal listening device.

So … what to do if you’ve been thinking of buying a home using USDA loan program?

Experts have two words to suggest: Start saving.

David

If Sellers sometimes have an unrealistic idea of what a Buyer is willing to pay, Tom Horn brings them back to reality.

Tom is an appraiser in the Birmingham and Shelby Co. area, and owns appraisal-source.com, a company Lenders and homeowners trying to sell on their own rely upon for accurate residential market appraisals.

Colleen and I caught up with Tom and got his analysis of what’s happening with home values in the Shelby Co. and Birmingham areas. We found out pretty quickly that talking with Tom is very interesting!

From everything we learned about home price trends in the area, as well as the negative effects on home sales prices caused by government-mandated changes in the way appraisers are selected, we knew we needed Tom to share his expertise with us.

We’ve divided our interview with Tom into two segments. Click the players just below to listen to Parts 1 and 2.

Tom Horn Interview Part 1:

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Tom Horn Interview Part 2:

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…or, if you’d like to listen by downloading to your portable device:

Click here to download Part 1 (10 Mb).

Click here to download Part 2 (7 Mb).

Links to Thomas Horn’s websites:

Click for Appraisal-source website

Click for Tom’s Appraisal Blog

We hope you enjoy … and thanks, Tom, for the great information!

David Black

If you’ve been thinking about buying a home in the Birmingham or Shelby county area, be aware: the clock is ticking…

The government’s Tax Credit for first time (and many existing) Buyers ends April 30th.

Under current rules, that’s the last day you can have a Contract to buy a home in place and still be eligible for the credit.

Have you been ‘on the fence’ about buying?

Here are some of the reasons proving why buying now is such a good idea:

After taking a look at new numbers from the Birmingham MLS, it’s clear that Buyers have the upper hand when it comes to purchasing a home in the area.

Almost all across the board in the areas we checked, sales in January were down, and in some cases, half of what they were four months ago:

The message for now is clear: Buyers call the shots.

If you’re looking to buy, all sorts of factors are on your side at the moment. First, there are lots of homes available (482 in Helena and Pelham, 350 in Alabaster and 684 across the North Shelby Co. area at the moment!). Second, smart Sellers know they have competition and will do whatever they can to ‘work a deal.’

Third, interest rates are, in two words, still great. One of the Lenders we work with reports 30-year fixed rates remain below five percent, while 15-year rates (which were around 4.375% last week) have dropped a bit more.

So, if you’re a Seller, the message here is that you absolutely must meet Buyer’s expectations in terms of how nicely your home shows, and price. Fail to meet either of those requirements, and your home won’t sell.

And if you’re a Buyer, with such a good market for buying a home, one question comes to mind:

What are you waiting for?

David

Ever wished for a crystal ball so you’d know what’s ahead? That might, or might not, be a good thing, depending on what you want to know…!

On the one hand, having a crystal ball to look into the real estate market could sure help ease concerns for some folks here in the Birmingham and Shelby county areas. Or would it?

Suppose you’re thinking of selling your home. Would you be more inclined to sell sooner, if, say, the ball suggested values would continue to slide in 2010? What if the ball suggested you’d get more if you wait?

I don’t think we really need a crystal ball to know that home values will rise. Nearly every expert out there predicts they will, at some point.

It’s those last three words that are the kicker: At some point.

Hmm. Does that mean in the next three months? Ten months? Two years? This is where having a crystal ball would be pretty handy.

However, crystal balls are about as plentiful as bumper stickers in Alabama supporting the Texas Longhorns. People ask us questions frequently that would pretty much need a crystal ball to answer accurately. “What is my home going to be worth in a year?” would be one such question.

“What will my home sell for if I list it right now?”

Ahh. There’s a question that doesn’t need a crystal ball as badly to answer. We have good resources we can draw upon to come up with a figure that—more times than not—winds up being very close to actual selling price.

The fact is that if your home ’shows nicely’ as Agents like to say, and is priced where we know Buyers will bite, your odds of selling are promising. And, yes, that’s true even in the tough market affecting so many neighborhoods in the Birmingham and Shelby Co. areas as we plow into 2010.

This might sound ridiculously obvious to some, but the ’shows nicely, priced right’ concept is one we’ve seen trip up a lot of people trying to sell their homes. So, not everyone really understands how important this really is. Or put another way, not everyone really ‘gets it.’

During 2009, we represented Sellers who agreed to price their homes where we suggested. Granted, they weren’t always thrilled with the price we recommended. But they swallowed hard and said, ‘okay.’ Why? Because they needed to sell. Helping ease this frustration was their knowledge that—when they turned around to buy another home—they’d be enjoying the opposite side of the tough selling market, getting a very good deal on the home they’re buying.

We also dealt with Sellers in 2009 who disagreed with us. They felt they had a better idea than we did of what their home would would sell for. And guess what happened with their efforts to sell? Nothing. Zilch. Their homes didn’t sell, despite being on the market plenty long enough to sell. I remember several cases where other homes in the same neighborhood as our Clients’ house sold, and in the general price range we had recommended.

There were some cases where our Client’s home never even got an Offer. We always talk about how important it is to listen to what the market is telling us. Let me assure you of one thing: If a home for sale doesn’t even get an Offer, that’s the market talking. It may even be shouting.

I know one thing for sure about trying to get a home sold in this market. You either have to ‘get it,’ or you have to trust your Agent’s advice. Otherwise, your home is probably not destined to sell.

I think the real question that emerges is: How badly do you want, or need, to sell?

Clearly, there are many situations for folks where—regardless of how the market may be performing at the moment—it’s important to sell sooner, rather than later. Some Sellers who contact us tell us they need to sell as fast as possible, and are waiting for us to tell them what to do to make it so.

These are the people we feel confident we can help.

And no, we don’t have a crystal ball to predict the outcome.

But listening to the market and to your Agent go a long way right now, and will most likely mean you can start packing sooner, rather than later.

David

I asked a group of Realtors who sell homes in the Birmingham and Shelby Co. area recently what their thoughts are of 2009, now that it’s ‘in the rear view mirror.’

While a few Agents reported a strong year last year, most told me they weren’t sad to see ‘09 become history.

We hear conflicting information in the media a lot these days about home sales, and this can even happen when you’re looking at sales in a small, targeted area.

Here are a few statistics from the Birmingham MLS that show trends in 2009, compared to 2007 and 2008. Clearly, the local market was a difficult one for many:

Here’s a look at average sold prices for homes in the area:

And, finally, how long did it take to get a home sold? Here’s a look at that:

While these numbers show a challenging market, people with a lot of years in the real estate business under their belt continue to believe that the market will undergo a gradual change, back to more balanced conditions.

No one knows exactly when that will happen, or how quickly it will occur, but most are confident it will. Some think it’s already starting.

Perhaps 2010 will be the year…

David