The Phoenix Real Estate Advisor

Hi All,

I have posted this before, but a friend reminded me that the date is getting closer so thought it was worth repeating.  It is important that we register our cell phones for the do not call list. 

Cell Phone Numbers Go Public next month. Numbers are being released to companies and you will receive sales calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS, Even if the message is saved on your phone. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222 It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It blocks your number for five years. You must call from the cell phone number you want blocked.  

Do it today….

Lynn

Here’s an interesting article I found in one of my E-newsletter. It echos some of the things I have been saying for years. Statisically open houses account for less then 1% of the homes sold in the US so why would agents do them? Because it’s what they’ve done…They don’t know how else to find buyers…because it shows the homeseller that you are busy trying to sell their home.

Is that good marketing? Shouldn’t the job of an agent be to “find a buyer for that home” rather then hoping someone comes into the open house and they can afford the home or even want something like it.

Over the last two years there has been a noticable increase in negative commentary about open houses. I’ve heard “They’re a total waste of time” and “I stopped doing them years ago” but the one comment that has stuck with me the most was made by a Realtor at a recent conference. She stopped advertising open houses in newspapers and noticed the number of people attending the open house didn’t drop at all. I’m not sure if this is more a comment on the complete lack of value provided by print media or that having an open house is more about looking busy than effective marketing.

“The sellers expect it” is an oft repeated statement for doing lots of dumb things. Most commonly used to justify advertising a listing in the newspaper I have also heard it used as the reason for having an open house. The counter for both should be “But where are you looking for your next home?” The answer is almost always going to be “online”. End of argument.

To be effective, marketing has to engage; simply throwing something out there and hoping it sticks wastes time and money.  For sure we have tested and proven what works to find a buyer for a home. Our marketing plan is built around finding the proper buyer for the proper home..isn’t that what homesellers really want after all?

For more information about how we find buyers for our client’s homes feel free to contact us at 623-362-3060 or visit our website at www.valleyREadvisor.com.

Do you understand the new tax credit for home buyers? How about if you’ve owned a home? You’ll want to watch this short video that explains it.

Know someone that is considering a purchase? Be a freind…pass this blog along to them! Still not sure if you qualify? Feel free to contact us directly and we’ll be glad to help.

Jay and Lynn Otlewski
623.362.2060

RISMEDIA, October 30, 2009—(MCT/The Wall Street Journal)-The Senate has reached a compromise on extending and expanding the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, a boost the housing industry believes will help it pull out of its two-year-old downturn.

While its passage remains uncertain, the agreement would extend the existing credit for first-time homebuyers, worth up to $8,000, while offering a new credit of up to $6,500 for some existing homeowners, Senate aides said. The reduced credit would be available to all homebuyers who have been in their current residence for a consecutive five-year period in the past eight years. Lawmakers in Washington also raised the qualifying income limits to $125,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for joint taxpayers, from the current $75,000 and $150,000, housing-industry sources said. Under the Senate compromise, buyers must have sales agreements in hand by April 30, but they will have until June 30 to go to settlement, said the sources. The measure still faces votes in the full Senate and the House.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan are in full support of the Senate’s proposal to both extend and expand the first-time homebuyer tax credit and called on Congress to approve key housing measures that include the tax credit. “We welcome efforts taken by Congress to extend the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit for a limited period. This credit has brought new families into the housing market and contributed to three consecutive months of rising home prices nationwide,” said Secretaries Geithner and Donovan. “In extending the credit, we urge Congress to include strict measures to combat tax fraud and protect responsible homeowners.”

The current tax credit did little for the new-home market in September, the Commerce Department recently reported—news that took many industry analysts by surprise. Sales fell 3.6% from August and 7.8% from September 2008. Industry observers had expected a fifth consecutive monthly increase in new-home sales, believing that the tax incentive for qualified first-time buyers—credited with 357,000 sales of previously owned homes so far this year—would do the trick. Instead, sales of typically more expensive newly built houses slipped. “The decline in new-home sales seems to us to be more a function of the attractive pricing available on resales in the current environment than a reflection of weakening demand,” said Michael Feder, president of Radar Logic in New York, which tracks the market.

“Since hitting rock bottom in March, demand is up 20 percent,” said Joel L. Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisers in Holland, Pa. For Naroff, the robust rise in existing-home purchases—9.2% year over year in September—indicated that the housing market was not faltering. “Maybe the issue is supply, which fell to its lowest level in 27 years,” he said. “Builders, at least those left standing, have been making sure they don’t have any houses sitting around, and they have been very successful in controlling inventories.”

IHS Global Insight economist Patrick Newport echoed that, noting new-home inventories “sank for the 29th straight month to their lowest level since November 1982.” Naroff maintained housing has recovered enough to stand without the tax credit, but Newport said that if the credit were not extended and expanded, housing demand would take a hit, and home sales would drop.

The new provisions are aimed at broadening availability of the credit beyond first-time buyers and giving the weakened real estate market a bigger boost while preventing real estate investors from benefitting. While Senate lawmakers appear to have reached a deal on the substance of the tax credit, they are still at odds over how it would be brought to the Senate floor.
(c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For more information, visit www.wsj.com.