St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch for July 28, 2007

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, For Sellers, Real Estate News, Relocation Buyer, St. Louis Market Reports, Unrepresented Seller(FSBO)

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch 
July 28st,  2007
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County and St. Charles County Market Report to review and plug into your home buying or selling scenario. Your questions and comments are welcome!

The week of July 28^th sees the market a bit stagnant with regard to days on market and our pending ratios.  Days on market have moved by a day or so either way in most price ranges, and pending ratios have moved .5%-1% either way from last week. Nothing to get excited about yet.  The active listings showed a net drop of 2.  Personally, we have seen a bit of an increase in activity with our listings; as summer heads to a close, there are some motivated buyers, wanting to be settled in by fall.  Buyers still have an abundance of inventory to search, and they are looking at everything and being particular. So…the paragraph below will stay for this week.

Price, Condition and Marketing are still and always will be what sells a home.  The key today seems to be that you MUST hit all three right on the mark from the beginning of the selling adventure, or you stand a good chance of missing the boat completely. 

It’s here - Along with our weekly St. Louis County Market Watch, we will also be providing the St. Charles County Market Watch. This is in response to numerous requests and actually, the St. Charles County market does act differently than the St. Louis County market, so it’s appropriate that we present both Market Watches.

Thinking of buying or selling a home? Contact Us for additional information tailored to your specific needs.

St. Louis Real Estate St. Louis County Market Watch July 28, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch July 28, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report July 2007

The report begins by breaking the market into 17 distinct price ranges. Then we show current listings and current pending listings which creates a pending ratio, which is helpful on a week to week basis to see if activity is increasing or decreasing in a price category. 

The report also shows the last 6 months of results and compares the data to the same 6 months of the previous year. 

The Market Analysis includes data on: 

Number of Active Listings (Current)
Pending Sales (Going to closing)
Pending Ratio (Active vs.Pending)
Sold (Last 6 months)
Expired (Last 6 months)1
Average List Price
Average Sale Price
Average List to Sales Price %
Days on Market (DOM)
Months worth of Inventory (Based on current pending rate)
Buyers Market: > 7 months of listing inventory

Transitional Market: 5 - 7 months of listing inventory (sometimes called a “balanced” market)

Seller Market: < 5 months of listing inventory

Average % Sale Price/List Price (0-30), (31-60), (61-90), (91-120), (120+)DOM
           
Notice that you’re paying a penalty for over pricing. . .hey. .it’s a fact!!                          

Tags: St.+Louis+Real+Estate, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Market+Watch, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Blog, MLS, Buyers, Sellers, FSBO, Relocation, First+Time+Home+Buyer, Real+Estate+Investors, For+Sale+by+Owner

Posted by art   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.29.2007

St. Louis Real Estate - Home Searching Made Easy!

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, Real Estate News, Relocation Buyer

Are you searching for the perfect piece of St. Louis Real Estate? Looking for your dream home, investment property or perhaps a fixer upper to flip? Have you been burning up $3.00/gallon gas in the process? Why? The St. Louis Real Estate Voice gives you a better place to start. We know that today most home buyers start their search on the Internet but as you’ve probably already discovered, most large real estate aggregator sites have outdated listings. Or, you’re ask for personal information and then pestered by agents that were silly enough to purchase the “leads” from the web mash up sites.

The St. Louis Real Estate Voice is the place to start your search;

1. You can search to your hearts content and never give up any personal information.
2. Our data is current, updated daily from the St. Louis MLS.
3. YOU choose if you want more information from us and if you do provide personal information, we never pass that information on to third parties.
4. You wind up burning our bandwith and not your gas.

Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   2 Comments »   |   07.27.2007

St. Louis Real Estate–Market Watch for July 21st, 2007

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, For Sellers, Real Estate News, Relocation Buyer, St. Louis Market Reports, Unrepresented Seller(FSBO)

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch 
July 21st,  2007
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County and St. Charles County Market Report to review and plug into your home buying or selling scenario. Your questions and comments are welcome!

This week, again we saw a very slight increase in the number of new listings hitting the market.  As we get closer to the dog days of summer, and the beginining of the new school year, activity slows somewhat.  Those buyers willing to brave the heat of the summer are sure to find some good buys out there still. 

Price, Condition and Marketing are still and always will be what sells a home.  The key today seems to be that you MUST hit all three right on the mark from the beginning of the selling adventure, or you stand a good chance of missing the boat completely. 

It’s here - Along with our weekly St. Louis County Market Watch, we will also be providing the St. Charles County Market Watch. This is in response to numerous requests and actually, the St. Charles County market does act differently than the St. Louis County market, so it’s appropriate that we present both Market Watches.

Thinking of buying or selling a home? Contact Us for additional information tailored to your specific needs.

St. Louis Real Estate St. Louis County Market Watch July 21, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles CountyMarket Watch July 21, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report July 2007

The report begins by breaking the market into 17 distinct price ranges. Then we show current listings and current pending listings which creates a pending ratio, which is helpful on a week to week basis to see if activity is increasing or decreasing in a price category. 

The report also shows the last 6 months of results and compares the data to the same 6 months of the previous year. 

The Market Analysis includes data on: 

Number of Active Listings (Current)
Pending Sales (Going to closing)
Pending Ratio (Active vs.Pending)
Sold (Last 6 months)
Expired (Last 6 months)1
Average List Price
Average Sale Price
Average List to Sales Price %
Days on Market (DOM)
Months worth of Inventory (Based on current pending rate)
Buyers Market: > 7 months of listing inventory

Transitional Market: 5 - 7 months of listing inventory (sometimes called a “balanced” market)

Seller Market: < 5 months of listing inventory

Average % Sale Price/List Price (0-30), (31-60), (61-90), (91-120), (120+)DOM
           
Notice that you’re paying a penalty for over pricing. . .hey. .it’s a fact!!                          

Tags: St.+Louis+Real+Estate, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Market+Watch, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Blog, MLS, Buyers, Sellers, FSBO, Relocation, First+Time+Home+Buyer, Real+Estate+Investors, For+Sale+by+Owner

Posted by art   |   Read More   |   1 Comment »   |   07.21.2007

St. Louis Real Estate - Dark Side (cont)

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, Mortgage News, Real Estate News

So how do you avoid the “Dark Side?”
by Chris Scheer, First Integrity Mortgage

Let me first say that I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to make money. The Mortgage Industry is a great place to earn a living, provide for your family and help people make dreams come true. However, with every industry there are always people who are in it only for themselves. These people prey on others who are less educated, less intelligent and sometimes less qualified. When they do, they usually abuse the system, creating large incomes for themselves while staining the reputation of their entire industry. Not to mention that the people who are usually their prey are the people who need to have a lender who will treat them fairly as opposed to taking advantage of them.

Once a “B” always a “B”. When the sub prime lending market was in its beginning, there were borrowers who would not qualify for the “A” paper loans. On more that one occasion I would hear an account rep say that “B” borrowers don’t change their habits and they don’t learn their lesson. That may be true about some people, but I believe that people can learn to manage their credit and they can learn to manage their finances. All they have to do is have an honest chance!

So what is an honest chance? Well it is putting someone into a loan program so that they can develop a budget off of it. It is creating a mortgage solution that will not penalize the client in a short period of time. It is not gouging them in fees when they do come back to you, eating all of their equity up with refinance fees. It is treating people the way that you would want to be treated.

As we see mortgage delinquencies rise and foreclosures happening at an alarming rate, there is a change that must take place. But it is going to have to be consumer driven. Legislation is not the key. Education of both the consumer and of the mortgage sales people will be the basis of this revolution. The consumer must learn not to fall into the trap of working with people who spend tremendous amounts of money on advertising. Mortgage originators need to learn that if you are going to stay in this business for a career, relationships are a necessity. To nurture those relationships you must take care of people so that they want to come back and refer other clients to you.

Chris Scheer can be contacted at
chrisscheer@stlouisrealestatevoice.com
or visit Chris at his blog
http://chrisscheer.blogspot.com/

Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.19.2007

St. Louis Real Estate

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, Mortgage News, Real Estate News

St. Louis Mortgage Commentary

Another guest author comes aboard the St. Louis Real Estate Voice and we are pleased to have him join us. Chris Scheer is our “Residential Lending Expert,” with 14 years of mortgage origination experience. He has personally closed over $200,000,000 in mortgages. Past experiences include origination, processing, underwriting and funding of conventional, FHA, VA and sub prime loans.

This is the first in a series of articles regarding the “Dark Side” of the mortgage business. Be advised and be wise!

The Dark Side
by Chris Scheer

If you have read any of my previous writings you have seen where I have referenced someone giving in to the “Dark Side.” What is the “Dark Side” you ask? Well the answer is the lender; you can pick them, who prey on the uneducated borrower. They spend a lot of money on advertising, radio, print, television, even the Internet to attract the borrower with promises of a lower rate, lower payment, and no mortgage payment for 3 months, anything that they can say to make the phone ring. Enticements such as a free cruise or vacation if you close your loan with their company. Anything to get the borrower in the door and take advantage of them.

Now what do I base this on you ask? Here is the simple truth; we are all getting the money from the same place. It really comes down to who has the lowest overhead and who has the least amount of people getting a commission out of the origination of the loan. 95% of the time the loan is backed by a mortgage backed security that was put in place by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. When you go into the sub prime mortgage market, their loans are securitized also and a premium or value is place on the note at a certain rate. If the loan is sold at a higher rate, then more value is placed on the note or the seller of the note receives more money. On occasion a lender will secure a block of loans at a rate that is slightly below the market rate. In this instance they have guaranteed delivery of a package of loans that meet the secondary guidelines at that interest rate. When this occurs, the lender is making less than the normal premium for the sale of these loans and will use this as a loss leader to generate phone calls. Those loans that don’t meet the criteria of the loans for the package are the loans that the lender then makes their money on by selling their other products at a premium price or with additional fees.

What about the really low interest rates or the Option A.R.M.’s you ask? The Option A.R.M. is a fantastic product for the right person. However for most borrowers this is too complex of a loan for them to comprehend or to manage effectively. This loan starts with a low teaser rate, but that rate is only good for as little as one month, and then the rate starts climbing monthly. When the rate has fully adjusted it is usually about 1.5% higher than the current 30 year fixed. The catch is that the payment is set off of the initial interest rate and they give you 4 options on what payment to make every month. You can pay the minimum payment, which covers the interest only at the initial rate, you can make an interest only payment, you can make a principal and interest payment on a 30 year amortization schedule or you can make a principal and interest payment on a 15 year amortization schedule. The sales pitch teases you with the low rate and the idea that you can pay off your loan in half the time of a normal loan. What they gloss over is the fact that if you don’t pay the 15 year payment schedule every month and only pay the minimum, then you end up adding to the principal owed and create a negative equity position. In addition, this loan has origination fees and a pre-payment penalty which make it expensive to get and even more expensive to get out of when you realize your mistake. Now, if you are diligent and pay the 15 year schedule you can pay down the principal quickly, but most people do not do that. They see the minimum payment every month and only pay that. At the end of a year, the minimum payment adjusts 7.5% while the rate has increased and the negative equity gets worse each month. If you are someone who gets large bonuses each year and can pay down the equity balance, this loan will work for you. Pay the minimum each month and at the end of the year, recoup your losses by paying down the principal balance of the loan. However, if you are not one of these people, run from this loan.

Chris Scheer can be contacted at chrisscheer@stlouisrealestatevoice.com or visit his weblog at http://chrisscheer.blogspot.com/

More on the “Dark Side” this week.

Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.16.2007

St. Louis Real Estate

Filed under: First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, For Sellers, Real Estate News, St. Louis Market Reports, Unrepresented Seller(FSBO)

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch
July 14th, 2007
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County Market Report to review and plug into your home buying or selling scenario. Your questions and comments are welcome!

This week, our listing numbers return to normal for the summer season, with an increase, however slight, in the total number of listings in St. Louis County. Average days on market are remaining fairly steady, but still 15%-20% longer (or more) than last year. Homes that are priced correctly, ie…today’s market value, staged to show properly and pushed out to all the web portals are attracting multiple offers. Our pending ratio covering all price ranges is again at 18%, which means that slightly less than 1 out of every 5 homes listed is actually closing.

The message here is to make sure that from the first day your home is on the market, it must be priced within market value, or slightly less, in order to insure attracting showings and offers.

It’s here - Along with our weekly St. Louis County Market Watch, we will also be providing the St. Charles County Market Watch. This is in response to numerous requests and actually, the St. Charles County market does act differently than the St. Louis County market, so it’s appropriate that we present both Market Watches.

Thinking of buying or selling a home? Contact Us for additional information tailored to your specific needs.

St. Louis Real Estate St. Louis County Market Watch July 14, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch July 14, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report July 2007

Also new this week – beginning this week we will be providing our report formatting information on all our reports, as it’s just too inconvenient to ask our followers to keep switching between articles if they need terms in the Market Watch reports explained, or need to know what our abbreviations stand for. Hopefully, this will make reading the Market Watches easier. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

The report begins by breaking the market into 17 distinct price ranges. Then we show current listings and current pending listings which creates a pending ratio, which is helpful on a week to week basis to see if activity is increasing or decreasing in a price category.

The report also shows the last 6 months of results and compares the data to the same 6 months of the previous year.

The Market Analysis includes data on:

Number of Active Listings (Current)
Pending Sales (Going to closing)
Pending Ratio (Active vs.Pending)
Sold (Last 6 months)
Expired (Last 6 months)
Average List Price
Average Sale Price
Average List to Sales Price %
Days on Market (DOM)
Months worth of Inventory (Based on current pending rate)
Buyers Market: > 7 months of listing inventory

Transitional Market: 5 - 7 months of listing inventory (sometimes called a “balanced” market)

Seller Market: < 5 months of listing inventory

Average % Sale Price/List Price (0-30), (31-60), (61-90), (91-120), (120+)DOM

Notice that you’re paying a penalty for over pricing. . .hey. .it’s a fact!!

Tags: St.+Louis+Real+Estate, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Market+Watch, St.+Louis+Real+Estate+Blog, MLS, Buyers, Sellers, FSBO, Relocation, First+Time+Home+Buyer, Real+Estate+Investors, For+Sale+by+Owner

Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.15.2007

St. Louis Real Estate

Filed under: Building Inspection News, First Time Home Buyer, For Buyers, For Sellers, Relocation Buyer

Guest author Harry Morrell is back with yet another timely post. It’s bug time for St. Louis Real Estate.

TERMITE INSPECTIONS FOR ST. LOUIS REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS
by Harry Morrell, ASHI certified home inspector

If you are buying a house that has not been inspected or treated for termites in the past month, a termite inspection is highly recommended. Remember, if you are getting a full building inspection that does not mean you are getting a termite inspection as well. A termite inspection report in the state of Missouri is totally separate from the building inspection. The inspector must have a special state license to inspect and fill out the termite report. Some building inspectors work with pest control contractors/inspectors and others are licensed to perform the termite inspections and provide this service as a package when doing the full house inspection. Always ask your inspector if he is licensed to perform termite inspections.

Remember that termite inspectors doing inspections for real estate transactions are doing a visual inspection only. Even though veteran termite inspectors know where to look for and conditions that are conducive for termites, finished spaces like walls and ceilings, heavy storage and clutter, appliances, shelves and cabinets can hinder the inspection. It is safe to say that no termite inspection on real estate transactions are a 100% guarantee that the house is free and clear of termites. Remember, the house that is being inspected is not your house yet, and the owner probably would not like having the inspector do destructive testing to check in between walls, and moving heavy storage and clutter can take an excessive amount of time. So, how can an inspector ease the concerns of the buyer regarding termites?

During the after inspection summary, your inspector should walk you through the specifics of the termite inspection. Termites in Missouri are mostly underground or subterranean. You will not see termites crawling around your house. They live in the wood or underground, they travel in a shelter or mud tubes. Termites swarm 2-3 times a year and develop wings, they fly and die, and some make it underground. If termites swarm close to your house, assume you have termites, treatment is recommended. If one shelter tube is found or noted, assume you have termites, treatment is recommended. If poor drainage and grading is causing water ponding and soil erosion close to your foundation resulting in areas constantly holding moisture, termite presence is likely, bait stations should be considered. If the basement is mostly finished and access is limited, regular inspections are recommended and bait stations should be considered. Regular inspections are always recommended regardless of the conditions.

The good news is that termites are slow eaters and if yearly inspections are performed, major termite damage to your house is not likely. Talk to you inspector and make sure all your concerns are answered.

If you suspect you might have a termite problem, Harry Morrell can be reached at harrymorrell@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.12.2007

St. Louis Real Estate

Filed under: For Sellers, Real Estate News, Unrepresented Seller(FSBO)

St. Louis Real Estate sales are very competitive. Buyers have a huge pool of inventory to preview for selecting their “dream home”. Sellers need to use every marketing tool available to stand above the competition. Home Staging can be the edge that you need to get your home SOLD.

HOW TO HIRE A REAL ESTATE HOME STAGER
By Interior Designer & Home Staging Expert Natalie Pinson

Real Estate Staging is the art of preparing a home for resale. A staged home will illuminate the focal points and make a notable first impression. If done well, a staged home will create more open spaces while highlighting a homes strengths and downplaying its weaknesses. It enables buyers to easily picture themselves relaxing, raising a family or entertaining in their potential new home.

Who is qualified to do this service and how does a typical home stager work?

1. Interior Designers
2. Interior Arrangers
3. Home Stylist
4. Professional Stagers

should all be qualified to do this service. It is important to ask what their background is and what their typical jobs involve. Some Interior Designers do not want to get involved in staging because it is a different mindset and there are different industry partners. While the traditional business model of an Interior Designer is largely based on profits from the mark up of furnishings which are resold to the client, a Home Stager is overwhelmingly service oriented.

Real Estate Staging services vary greatly. Some clients prefer to work with larger “well known” businesses for peace of mind or reputation. If this is your choice, be sure to speak directly to the designer handling your project so there is no confusion or misrepresentation. Independent stagers or designers often charge less but may have less availability. Some clients prefer to work with individuals or small businesses for a more personal touch. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by doug   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   07.11.2007