Thousands of MLS page views over 2 to 4 years: Will Bubble-wary buyers extend wait thru 2008?

admin January 4, 2008

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Temperatures in Boston are approached zero yesterday which, regrettably for this fee-for-service real estate consultant, was about the level of client billable activity over the Holidays. But that doesn’t mean that The Real Estate Cafe’s "do-it-yourself" home buyers aren’t busy house hunting; to the contrary, 36 of them have looked at over 1,000 MLS pages online. As shown on the graph above, house hunts of 2,000 to 6,000 MLS page views stretching two to fours years are not uncommon.

Can you imagine how long it would take to drive by that many properties, particularly in this frigid weather? That’s why The Real Estate Cafe offers two MLS access systems, one which includes thousands of expired listings plus another map-based search with links to Zillow estimates.

That’s also why we’re eager to invite new and long-time home buyers to network online and off in 2008. Regardless of whether you’re a member of our "1,000 click club" graphed above, please join one or more of the subgroups on The Real Estate Cafe’s new experimental social networking web site and exchange market insights with other clients — particularly if you’re in a long-term holding pattern.

Our survey of housing prices in Greater Boston includes a few questions about potential educational and networking events, like our "Bubble Hour." Please let us know what interests you and where you think housing prices are headed in 2008 and beyond.

Categories: Do-it-yourself, Extreme Househunting, Housing forecasts, Real Estate Bubble, Timing the market

“Don’t be fooled!” Boston.com readers warn each other about real estate bubble

Bravo, Boston.com! Looks like Boston.com launched a real estate discussion board yesterday about the real estate bubble, at least that’s when the opening question above was posted. As of this posting, approximately 28 hours after the discussion was launched, there have been 43 posts and a remarkable 3666 page views. Only two other real estate discussions have had more page views, but "Important things to consider when buying" has been online for 30 days (6,968 page views or 232 per day); and the other, "Tips on moving" has been online for 22 days (6,404 page views or 291 per day). That means that people are looking at posts about the real estate bubble at a pace more than ten times faster than any previous topic.

That begs the question, why did Boston.com wait so long to post the discussion question? If we are in a housing bubble, won’t more readers have been protected from potentially making the financial mistake of a life by debating the real estate bubble earlier in the housing season? The Real Estate Cafe posted it’s own discussion question months ago on a banner ad on Boston.com’s open house search page. It featured a photo of local celeb, Alex the Jester, and asked, "Are we in a ‘Greater Fool’s’ housing market?"

admin August 30, 2005

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Will the housing market thaw in 2012? Are we “Dreamrs”?

WOW! Near record temperatures in January! Will 2012 be the year the housing market thaws in Boston? Are we dreaming? Home buyers, particularly anyone who has been…

admin January 7, 2012

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Pictometry offers best of breed photos to lenders

Mortgage-services provider gains aerial views of real estate

C&S Marketing inks deal with Pictometry

http://www.inman.com/hstory.aspx?ID=47637

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Would home owners trying to sell their own homes be able to access your images on a pay per use basis? We teach "for sale by owner" courses and are always looking for best of breed applications.

If sellers cannot access the images on their own, could they work with a lender who does?

http://www.pictometry.com

"Pictometry
gives our clients multiple views of the properties they request, allowing them
at least four directional views of each property," said Schroeder.
"The side views of buildings that Pictometry offers with their oblique
images are unparalleled in the world of aerial photography, allowing our
clients to see all the way around their potential investments."

Pictometry’s
software enables users access up to 12 different views of any property,
building, highway or other feature in a county in a 3D-like format. The
software also allows users to create measurements such as distance, height,
elevation, and area, directly from the oblique imagery, as well as insert
content from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or other data.

"C&S can access the visual information via
Pictometry’s Server-to-Server Solution that enables C&S data servers to
automatically incorporate Pictometry data as needed,"

admin August 23, 2005

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CARPE DIEM: Expired & canceled listings create “commission-free holiday” for buyers & sellers

Massachusetts home buyers, if you have been waiting for housing prices to slide into your acceptable range, this could be time to "carpe diem." As shown in the graph above (click for larger image) of MLS activity during June & June over the past 15 years (1994 to 2008):

The number of off-market properties — expired, canceled & temporarily withdrawn listings — surged to a new record of 16,319 properties just after midnight.*
In contrast, sales have fallen from a peak of 19,180 in 2006 to 12,335 in 2008 (as of 12:30am, August 1).
That means that sales are down by about a third, while off-market listings have nearly doubled since 2005 when we first wrote that expired listings were a leading indicator of the real estate bubble.
Over the past three years (2006-2008), more properties have been pulled off the MLS than sold during June & July. For every three listings closed in the past two months, four were pulled off the MLS statewide in Massachusetts.

What do these raw numbers mean to buyers and sellers? Think of expired and canceled listings as a two-sided window of opportunity, or the real estate equivalent of a "tax-free holiday." Sellers can accept an offer about 5% less than their last asking price and still net the same profit because they are no longer obligated to pay a traditional real estate commission.

Will this "commission-free holiday" be enough to motivate buyers to make offers, or will motivated sellers in Greater Boston begin making offers to well-qualified buyers as is happening in other markets?

The Real Estate Cafe is advertising buyers on Zillow to make it easier for motivated sellers, particularly those who have received pre-foreclosure notices, to find them. If none of our buyers wants to purchase your home, we offer seller services "a la carte" on a fee-for-service basis. If you’d like to learn more about how to sell your home "for sale by owner," we’re organizing a FSBO support group and invite you to see our "FSBOs on Steroids" presentation. If you’re not interested in selling on your own, we’d also be glad to do a Listing Agent Report Card to help you select a new listing agent and try to negotiate a reduced commission. Email for more details.

* Technical note: Includes all residential property classes in
MLSPin: single family, multi-family, condominiums and land.
Temporarily withdrawn listings available for 2008 only.

admin August 1, 2008

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Unlisted properties represent opportunity for proactive home buyers

This graph of active listings versus unlisted properties during the 4th quarter of 2007 reveals two significant trends behind today’s lead story in The Boston Globe:

"Thousands in Mass. foreclosed on in ’07:
7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the ’06 rate

TREND 1: The Globe reported that "…lenders initiated foreclosure proceedings against 7,467 Massachusetts homeowners" between July and September. That means that foreclosure petitions during the 3rd quarter of 2007 were nearly equal to the total number of actual foreclosures year round. Add that trend to the fact that foreclosure petitions topped 3,000 listings during October 2007, and you can see that the problem is growing. In fact, the number of foreclosure petitions in October approached the number of MLS sales in December 2007 as graphed in a previous blog post.

TREND 2: The inventory of unlisted properties or homes for "potentially for sale" across Massachusetts is also growing. It’s difficult to identify how many expired and canceled listings have been already been relisted in the MLS, and we can only guess at how many homeowners facing foreclosure would be willing to sell. Still, the inventory of homes "potentially for sale" may be approaching the number of active listings during this slow time of the year, as shown in the graph above.

Should you wait for more homes to come onto the market or be more proactive? The Real Estate Cafe is exploring ways to help home buyers search expired and canceled listings, and to approach homeowners with "unlisted" properties – particularly those who have received foreclosure petitions – with unsolicited offers. If you’re a homeowner willing to consider an unsolicited offer, or rent your unlisted property until you put it back on the market later this year, please contact us. Our qualified buyers are looking for ways to negotiate sales outside the MLS, and recognize that savings can be shared by doing so. (PS. Our menu of hourly and flat fees are modest by industry standards; and depending on negotiations, may be paid by our buyer clients so sellers retain more of their home equity.)

admin January 19, 2008

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