Real Estate News

Mehlville MO Real Estate - Market Snapshot

Filed under: Neighborhood Reviews, Real Estate News, St. Louis County Unincorporated

Successfully pricing homes in the Mehlville Missouri Real Estate market. by Doug Aegerter, Keller Williams Realty Southwest.

The St. Louis Home For Sale Team is resuming neighborhood snapshot reports and this is the sixth in the current series, featuring Mehlville, MO.

The Mehlville MO Market Snapshot reviews the Mehlville Missouri Real Estate market during the past six months and touches upon the complete spectrum of property that was listed and sold.

If you want to drill down deeper into an area, maybe a subdivision or your street. . .fill out a free CMA request and we will be happy to accommodate you. This service is absolutely free and without obligation.

To learn more about Mehlville MO visit the Mehlville WIKI.
Doug5_26_08

Doug Aegerter can be reached at doug@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Don’t want to miss a Neighborhood Snapshot? . . . Free RSS here. . .or email me the post!

Tags: Mehlville+MO+Real+Estate, St.+Louis+Real+Estate, Market+Snapshot, Neighborhood+Reports

Posted by Doug Aegerter | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 07.04.2008

St. Louis Real Estate - Opps

Filed under: Real Estate News

Oh No! Holy Cow, we just found out our email accounts are down. Please use the post “comments” to contact us. We expect to have this resolved in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience.

Tags: St.+Louis+Real+Estate, e-mail

Posted by Doug Aegerter | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 03.04.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch February 29th, 2008

Filed under: Real Estate News

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
February 29th, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

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

The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week continues to show better buyer activity as evidenced by the pending ratio pushing up over 15% for the first time since August 2007. In some of the price ranges between $125,000 and $299,000 pending ratios are as high as 18.7%. Homes that are on the market now are selling, and those that are priced at market value are selling quickly.

HOWEVER, don’t get buyer activilty and increased home sales confused with pricing. Home prices still continue to decline, and by all indications and predictions by the “experts”, we will continue to experience home price declines into the third quarter of this year. Some predictions even say we’ll go into 2009 before things start to improve significantly.

For sellers and buyers that need to be in the marketplace now, this is a great time before spring. The market is what it is and we have to deal with it.

For a 180 degree look at the housing and mortgage situation, check out Lou Barnes’ article at http://www.inman.com/ entitled, “Starved credit wrecked housing, not vice versa”.

One of our readers, who has been following the real estate market and doing their due diligence sent us this comment this past week:

“Your write-ups are so routinely biased to the bullish side of the equation. You choose to focus on the year over year and ignore the 4^th quarter number. Clearly, Saint Louis is just beginning to break down as the 4^th Quarter in Saint Louis is among some of the worsst cities. I have been watching listings routinely slash prices over the last month. This should not be taken lightly. Of course, when your trying to sell houses…obviously your information will be biased. I wish everyone knew that real estate agents are basically a worthless source of information. I know you can’t help yourself…buyers just need to be informed how real the conflict of interest is with regards to agents.”

Our response was fairly lengthy, so we won’t print it here, but in a nutshell we said that they were correct that the 4^th quarter home pricing statistics for St. Louis were indeed one of the worst of the cities surveyed. Out of the top 34 markets surveyed, St. Louis / Illinois area ranked no. 32 out of 34 with a 6.52% decline in home prices in the 4^th quarter of 2007. We went on to say that we are striving to portray the St. Louis market as it really is, and not as the media and national averages tend to portray us. Unfortunately, now after the 4^th quarter last year, we really do mirror the national averages.

Our goal at the St. Louis Real Estate Voice is to educate buyers and sellers, whether they be “first timers” or “old hats” at the game of real estate. If we seem a bit “bullish” so be it! If we can offer some positives in this market that tends to dwell on all the negatives, we will. The goal here is honest, accurate information to help anyone who is in the real estate market.

We love to see the comments, so bring it on!!

For some great information regarding the real estate market and a really cool home-value calculator, check out the report just released by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) at http://www.ofheo.gov/.

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 February 29th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson CountyMarket Watch February 22, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch February 29th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report January 2008

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!!

The Benchmark Report is produced monthly for:

Single Family Residence
Ranch Style
1300 - 2000 sq.ft.
3 Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms

Art Wagner can be reached at art@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | 1 Comment » | 02.29.2008

St. Louis Real Estate - Market Watch February 22, 2008

Filed under: Real Estate News

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
February 22nd, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

Our St. Louis Real Estate Market moves forward with increased activity spurred by the latest interest rate activity and the anticipation of Spring. Check out our current Market Watch Reports below for the current details.

More news on the St. Louis Real Estate front comes this week from and article published by Inman News entitled, “Q4 home prices fall in 76% of U.S. zip codes tracked.”

According to the article, a mortgage data aggregator, First American CoreLogic tracked 7,472 zip codes in the U.S. and found that in 76% of them home prices have dropped. They also stated that “just over half the zip codes in the U.S. saw price declines for the year, with trends varying widely by state.”

Their report, the “LoanPerformance Home Price Index” saw 30 of the top 34 markets tracked by the Index showed price declines. “All but 10 of those markets saw year-over-year price declines.”

The St. Louis-Ill. Real Estate Market showed a fourth quarter price drop of 6.52% and a year over year price drop of 3.98%.

3.98% as a year over year price drop is one of the smallest price drops reported in the article. SO…our market may be a bit slower than a year ago, and prices may be a bit deflated, but we are in a lot better shape than a lot of the markets in the country.

Read the complete article and check out the other markets surveyed at Inman News.

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 February 22, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson CountyMarket Watch February 22, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch February 15th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report January 2008

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:

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!!

The Benchmark Report is produced monthly for:

Single Family Residence
Ranch Style
1300 - 2000 sq.ft.
3 Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms

Art Wagner can be reached at art@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | 1 Comment » | 02.23.2008

St. Louis Real Estate - Home Staging - 101

Filed under: Home Staging, Real Estate News

Today we welcome a new guest to the St. Louis Real Estate Voice. We are pleased to have Sue Rector from HomeStaging Innovations, LLC and her team from http://www.stlstaging.com/ join us as contributing members. Sue and her team will post bi-monthly articles about Home Staging and how it could make the difference in getting your home SOLD! – Doug Aegerter and Art Wagner, St. Louis Home for Sale Team.

STAGING®….The New BUZZ Word in St. Louis Real Estate by Sue Rector, ASP Stager, HomeStaging Innovations, LLC

Home Staging is a fairly new concept here in the Midwest; however, this process of preparing a home for sale has been around for a long time, especially on the West Coast. The word “STAGE®”, as it refers to turning a home into a product for sale, was coined by Barb Schwarz, over 30 years ago. Barb Schwarz began her career in residential real estate in 1976 in Bellevue, WA. She realized that challenges existed in how she communicated to her clients about ways to get their homes in the best possible showing appearance, without offending them. Barb started educating her clients on “how to set the scene and how to set the STAGE®” in order to get their properties sold fast and for the most dollars. This is when she coined the phrase “Staging the home for sale”. In 1990, the US Government granted Barb, the Stage® Federally Registered Trademark. The rest is Real Estate history! Barb Schwarz is the CEO and Founder of Stagedhomes.com, which prides itself as “The World Standard in Staging Education”. Through Stagedhomes.com, Barb has developed the “Accredited Staging Professional™ (ASP™) Course”. An ASP is an Accredited Staging Professional trained under strict guidelines using proven Staging techniques developed and used successfully by Barb. The ASP™ designation, which is earned through this course work, is one that consumers have begun to recognize as the True Professionals in this fast growing business…which is part of the Real Estate Industry and not the Decorating Industry.

In addition to developing professional staging education, Barb Schwarz was also instrumental in the creation of the “International Association of Home Staging Professionals (IAHSP)”. In any industry or profession, it is the standard to have a professional association to build its members’ level of knowledge and abilities, as well as maintaining a standard of excellence. In addition to professional development, IAHSP has also dedicated itself to widening community service projects through its annual “World Wide Staging Services Week” in the fall of each year. These are the goals of IAHSP with over 50 chapters in the United States, as well as Canada. The local St. Louis Chapter of IAHSP meets monthly for all interested area ASP Stagers and ASP Realtors to share ideas, learn new ideas, and to perform community service activities.

Need to find an Accredited Staging Professional (ASP) in your area? Want to find out more consumer-related information about Staging? Maybe you want to become an ASP.

I encourage you to visit www.stagedhomes.com for information regarding the above and/or feel free to contact our Staging Team at homestaging@stlouisrealestatevoice.com.

Be mindful when looking for an ASP in your area. It is important to find one with an established business, insurance, references….and equally as important are success statistics for their staged properties. What is their average days on market until an accepted contract and what is their average % of the List Price at the time of closing? These will be important questions to ask and have answered as you consider staging services for your home.

More Staging information in the weeks to come from our Staging Team to keep sellers, as well as Realtors updated on how they can make their listed property STAND OUT among the large “for sale” home inventory in our St. Louis market.

Sue Rector, ASP Stager
HomeStaging Innovations, LLC
Part of the http://www.stlstaging.com/ Team

Posted by Doug Aegerter | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 02.15.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch February 8th, 2008

Filed under: Real Estate News

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
February 8th, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week continues to show positive signs with more active listings, more homes accepting contracts (pendings) and consequently our average pending ratio has climbed above 13% for the first time since November 2007.

Our St. Louis Real Estate Market seems to be keeping ahead of the national trends, however. Check out Inman News’ article by John Burns untitled, “Real Estate’s February Report Card”.

In his article, John Burns gives an overview of the current National Real Estate Health and talks about our current economic growth, the Leading indicators, Mortgage rates, Consumer behavior and New home Markets.

In his review of Existing or Re-sale home sales he states that nationally, existing home sales have dropped to 4.89 million which represents a 22% decline over the past year. The declining pending home sales index means that sales are likely to fall further.

He goes on to say that pricing in the re-sale markets have fallen 6.5 percent in the last 12 months according to the National Association of Realtors.

The positive note in this is that the number of homes for sale continues to decline nationally, to 3.9 million homes or about 9.6 months of inventory. However, the supply of homes for sale still remain above year-ago levels.

The St. Louis Real Estate Market one year ago at this time had 300 fewer homes for sale (active listings) but showed a bit more buying activity with 200 more homes accepting contracts. Our pending ratio was at 19% one year ago; 6% above where we are now. One year ago today, there were also almost 1000 more mis-priced (expired) listings.

The point to all this— follow real estate trends through the news media, but when you need timely, accurate LOCAL information, look locally and contact your real estate agent and mortgage lender.

BETTER YET-Contact Doug Aegerter or Art Wagner at The St. Louis Real Estate Voice for up-to-date accurate market information.

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 February 8th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch February 8th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch February 1st, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report January 2008

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:

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!!

The Benchmark Report is produced monthly for:

Single Family Residence
Ranch Style
1300 - 2000 sq.ft.
3 Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms

Art Wagner can be reached at art@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 02.09.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch February 1st, 2008

Filed under: Real Estate News

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
February 1st, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Real Estate Market marches forward through the snow this week with an increased number of homes accepting contracts (pendings) and the average pending ratio near 13%. In the price ranges between $125,000 and $200,000 the pending ratios are above 16%. Perhaps some of the market predictions are beginning to come true, as we are seeing our average sale prices inching upward a bit also.

The average list price to sales price percentages are also improving in some price ranges. In all price ranges, except for the $800,000 and above range, we see anywhere from 97.1% to 98.5% sales price to list price. Who says this is a lousy market?? Granted, the time it takes to sell a home is a bit longer than in previous years, but with buyers having many more avenues available to them to search for homes, and with a lot of inventory to look at, longer days on market should be anticipated and planned for.

With only six more weeks of winter left, according to Mr. Groundhog, now is a great time for sellers to get into the market. You will still get ahead of the major increase in inventory once spring is actually here. Buyers are still very active right now, especially with interest rates as low as they are.

Check out the current interest rates by reading Chris Scheer’s current article posted on our blog or go to Bankrate.com to check rates and get more information.

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 February 1st, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch January 25th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch February 1st, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report January 2008

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:

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!!

The Benchmark Report is produced monthly for:

Single Family Residence
Ranch Style
1300 - 2000 sq.ft.
3 Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms

Art Wagner can be reached at art@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 02.02.2008

St. Louis Real Estate - Mortgage News - Cust. Service

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

Customer Service or Lack There Of! by Chris Scheer, Branch Manager, Cornerstone Mortgage, O’Fallon, MO

If you have read my previous posting on Manufactured Housing you may be aware of the challenge that I had getting the appraiser to put the Make, Model, serial number and year manufactured on an appraisal of a Manufactured house. The appraisal form clearly states that this information is needed, yet the appraiser we chose to use could not find the information on the property and thus felt it was not his responsibility to locate it. Over a 2 week period my assistant requested the information be added to the appraisal and each time she was told he didn’t have it or have access to it. Since this was one of my first challenges working with this assistant I let her attempt to handle the situation until it became a crisis. I recognize I should have stepped in sooner, but until you see someone perform under fire you don’t know how good they are.

At the eleventh hour I went to the Internet and found the source of the information within 10 minutes. Prior to doing that I sent an e-mail to the managing partner of the appraisal company that was very direct and to the point, see the following:

“We have a challenge. As you are aware, we have asked the appraiser to supply the Manufacturer’s serial number, name, trade/model and date manufactured for the property on xxxxx road. At this time this is the only item I need to get a clear to close, however, we will not close until we have it. In the appraisers defense, the realtor and her clients went through the entire house tonight and could not find it. However, since there is the HUD certification label #RAD730051 as per his appraisal, this should be the basis to track down the required information. If the realtor manages to find this information then the appraiser looks bad. If we manage to find this information, then the appraiser looks bad. If HUD provides it, he still looks bad, but not as bad. If he finds it, then he gets off the hook. See the challenge? I realize that this is extra work and frustrating for everyone. However we have a client who is trying to purchase a home and helping them achieve their goal is what we do. Feel free to call me if you have any questions or comments.”

I have inserted “the appraiser” and “realtor” where the names were in the correspondence. I received no reply to this e-mail from the appraiser and when I was contacted that day by the appraiser to review the value on another property nothing was mentioned of the e-mail until I brought the situation up. The defense of the appraiser was that no other lender had ever requested this information and he felt it was not his responsibility. I reiterated that the underwriter requested that the appraiser complete this section of the appraisal, therefore at that time it becomes the appraisers responsibility. He continued to contend that since he couldn’t find it then it wasn’t his job to get it. When I explained how easy it was for me to obtain, he asked why I didn’t do that sooner. It became a circle of discussion with me telling him what I expected as the client and him saying that he wouldn’t do it. Later that day I addressed the situation with one of the other principals at the company whom the e-mail was sent to and he defended his partner. Going further to say that we didn’t know what we were doing.

I appreciate a business partner defending his associates, but at the point that you have a client telling you that you screwed up and that what was being requested was not out of the ordinary for our industy. . . this is not the stance to take if you want to keep the relationship. As the lender I have a choice of the appraisers I choose and the stance this company took will keep them from getting any more of my business.

For questions or comments on this post, please contact Chris Scheer at chrisscheer@stlouisrealestatevocie.com