St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch June 6th, 2009

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate-Market Watch  by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
June 6th, 2009
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 is getting HOTTER by the week!  At least in all price ranges below $300,000.  Both St. Louis County and St. Charles County are showing pending ratios of at or near 20 percent.  When was the last time you saw 1 out of every 5 homes listed accepting contracts within 30-40 days??

In St. Louis County, the pending ratios at or near 20 percent could be seen back as far as January in some price ranges, but we didn’t see strong competition between buyers like we are seeing now.

St. Charles County also has experienced some of this awesome activity back as far as February but again, not the strong competition from buyers on a single home.   This week, the lower price ranges in St. Charles County are seeing pending ratios at 28 percent to 40 percent. 

The other item to note is that we have a bit of a seller’s market in St. Charles County in the $100,000 to $175,000 price range, with less than 4 months of inventory in those price ranges. 

First Time Homebuyers are seeing December 1st approaching fast, as that’s when the $8000.00 tax credit is expiring. 

Sales in some of the higher price ranges are also improving, as we are seeing pending ratios of 12 percent to 16 percent up to the $600,000 range in St. Louis County.

Buyers-when you find that home, don’t hesitate or think you can wait until the price drops so you can get a better bargain. If you’re in the lower price ranges, you better act quickly or you stand a chance of losing your dream home. 

The one caviot here is that the home still must be priced within market value or a bit below and be in great condition.  There are still a lot of over-priced homes out there.

 REAL ESTATE AGENTS AND FOR SALE BY OWNERS- Are your listings and / or home sitting on the market too long?? 120 days or more??  We have a program designed to get your listing or FSBO home sold.  Real Estate Agents get paid their commission in full.  Contact us for more info.

 WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

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Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   06.07.2009

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch May 2nd, 2009

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate-Market Watch  by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
May 2nd, 2009
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 with great buyer and seller activity.  Active listings, homes accepting contracts and our pending ratios are all fairly consistent with last week’s levels.  We still continue to see a slight increase in homes being sold, and in some price ranges, we are actually seeing selling prices slighty above the averages from this same time period last year.  

This year we are beginning to see more buyers competing for a listing as buyers are becoming aware that inventory levels really are lower than last year at this time.  Our total listings this week are at 4806 compared to last years total of 5633.   

Check out our CHART showing a comparison of the past six months this year, compared to the past six months last year showing the increases / decreases of list prices and sales prices and average days on market in each price range. 

 REAL ESTATE AGENTS AND FOR SALE BY OWNERS- Are your listings and / or home sitting on the market too long?? 120 days or more??  We have a program designed to get your listing or FSBO home sold.  Real Estate Agents get paid their commission in full.  Contact us for more info.

 WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

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Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   05.03.2009

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch January 3rd, 2009

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
January 3rd, 2009
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 stable activity.  With the Holidays all around us this past week and a half, our active listing numbers and homes accepting contracts have dropped a bit, but that’s to be expected.  Our pending ratio, however, has risen slightly, proving that there is still buyer activity in the market. 

As we start this new year, we expect to see buyer and seller activity increase in the next couple months, driven hopefully by the continued low interest rates and the great values to be had in the market at this time. 

This year, we also expect to see our fair share of homes falling into short sale positions and foreclosures.  Fortunately, lending institutions are doing a better job of helping people in these tough situations. 

If you are one of those homeowners who may be headed for mortgage troubles, your first step is TALK TO YOUR LENDER.  We know it’s an embarrassing situation to admit, but if it helps, you are not alone by any means. There are plenty of homeowners in the St. Louis area that need some form of help with their mortgage.  Talking to your lender is the fist and most important step.  The second step may be to talk to a real estate professional for advice and consult regarding your situation. They can outline the steps in the short sale and foreclosure procedures so you are well educated as you proceed. 

Also…if you are RENTING a home, a friend of ours has a tip for you; one that they learned the hard way.  Make absolutely sure that your landlord is paying the mortgage  on the home you are renting.  Ask them to furnish proof to you each month.  Our friend has fallen victim to a landlord that was taking their rent money and not paying the mortgage.  Our friends now have two choices; move out of the house, as it has been bought by the bank (foreclosed) , or try to buy the home as a bank owned property (REO).  We are helping them try to buy the house, but buying from the bank is much different than buying from an individual homeowner. 

 REAL ESTATE AGENTS AND FOR SALE BY OWNERS- Are your listings and / or home sitting on the market too long?? 120 days or more??  We have a program designed to get your listing or FSBO home sold.  Real Estate Agents get paid their commission in full.  Contact us for more info.

 WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

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Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   01.04.2009

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 22nd, 2008

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 22nd, 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 slow a bit, as Thanksgiving and the other Holidays are approaching.  Homes that are accepting contracts (pendings) have remained fairly steady from last week, which signals steady buyer activity.  Again we are seeing less active listings coming onto the market.  These two situations have caused our pending ratio to increase slightly to 10.44 percent. 

 It is noteworthy that the buyer activity in the price ranges from $100,000 up to $300,000 is still beating the averages.  Pending ratios in these price ranges are still well above 10 percent.  We expect to see this activity continue, as this is the range that the FHA financing guidelines operate in.  With those guidelines changing a bit after the first of the year,  homebuyers in these price ranges should buy now before the end of the year.

It’s not cast in stone yet, but anticipated that FHA will be increasing the minimum downpayment requirement of 3 percent to 3.5 percent after the first of the year.  Also, the Mortgage Insurance Premium is anticipated to increase slightly also.  If these changes do take place after the first of the year, it will mean that home-buyers in these price ranges will have to bring more money to the closing table, thus giving them less purchasing power. Also anticipated is a decrease in the maximum loan amount of $281,000 to $271,000.

On a positive note, the Bush Administration this week announced changes to their “Hope for Homeowners” program to help more distressed homeowners refinance their mortgages to help them stay in their homes.  Read the article posted on RisMedia.com HERE.

HAPPY THANSGIVING TO ALL OUR READERS!!

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

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Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   11.23.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 15th, 2008

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 15th, 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 has our pending ratio dropping from last week to 10.27 percent, with a few more active listings and a few less homes accepting contracts.  This “slow down” is very typical in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market for this time of the year, however, it feels worse this year, as we are well below last year’s buyer and seller activity levels. 

What makes this year different than last year also is the $700 Billion Dollar Bail-Out (OR Capital Injection)plan recently approved and now talk about another Stimulus Package possibly coming down the road. It’s no wonder buyers and sellers alike are waiting to see what’s going to happen next. 

If you read, listen, watch the news,  credit and lending are loosening a bit. WHERE??  We are not seeing it here yet.  We think it will take another three to six months before we see any noticable improvements with lending institutions really beginning to lend again.  That’s what we need to happen to even hope to instill consumer confidence back into the market.  

This past week, Unemployment claims have risen again, and this time above the 90 day average by 25,000 to 516,000 and October retail sales have dropped 2.8 percent.  The National Federation of Independant Business has said that small business sales conditions were the worst since 1980.  There doesn’t seem to be much consumer confidence evident here yet.   Read Lou Barnes’ article posted on Inman News this past Friday entitled, “Economy needs full $700 billion, and more” HERE.

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

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Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   11.16.2008

St. Louis Real Estate - Mortgage News - Declining Markets

Filed under: Uncategorized

Declining Markets by Chris Scheer, Branch Manager, Cornerstone Mortgage, O’Fallon, MO 

As the foreclosures and short sales begin to take effect on the housing market one of the single biggest changes that is occurring is the dreaded “Declining Market” label attached to a property in the appraisal.  I have seen investors make the predetermination that certain zip codes, cities and counties are in declining markets and thus they are lowering their exposure by reducing the maximum loan on the properties in that area.  Other investors have said that they will only apply declining market guides if the appraisal states that the property is in a declining market.  Either way, when the declining market rules come into play, the only person that loses is the borrower.

Here are a few examples:

• The borrower is planning on putting only 5% down to purchase the property and the investor has deemed that entire zip code to be a declining market.  They will only lend on the property if the buyer puts 10% down.
• An investor is planning to purchase a home with 10% down and the appraiser notes that the property is in a declining market.  Now the investor has to put 15% down to get the loan.

In both cases if the borrower has the additional 5% it is an inconvenience, but the transaction will still go forward.  But if the borrower does not have the additional 5%, then the deal is dead.  In most cases the seller has lost valuable days marketing their property while the waiting for the buyer to get loan commitment.

Now that we know the challenges this brings I will discuss the inadequacy of how this is applied in my next post.

Chris can be reached at chrisscheer@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

Tags: St.+Louis+Real+Estate, Mortgage+News, Declining+Markets, short+sale, foreclosures

Posted by Doug Aegerter   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   05.10.2008