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This Blog Has Moved

I will find me here. I decided to let go of my previous hosting company for my real estate site. Times are changing and they didn't. I am sure they will in time but since I have relocated my blog and downloaded WordPress, I have gone from unknown on Google to 17th for a basic real estate search and #1 for a specific topic search.

I find it odd that WordPress gets better ranking than Blogger since Google owns them. So I will leave this site here for the people who linked but future posts are at http://mikecandoit.com

thanks for reading

Buena Vista To Auction Off Homes Over 2 Days

The sale will happen over December 15th and 16th hoping to sell "approximately 200 new homes as well as 30 leased homes targeted to investors." They call the builder innovative a few times but it sounds desperate. "Communities include: Beaverton, Happy Valley, Hillsboro, Sandy, Bend and Scappoose."

I will try to be there just to see what happens. West Portland sold 197 RMLS listed homes in October. This fire sale will put an interesting skew to the numbers. Not all builders list on the RMLS.

"Earlier this year Buena Vista earned national attention for its unique financing program that paid a portion of buyer's payments for two years. Buyers were able to purchase a 5,000 square foot home in Happy Valley for $950.00 per month. The program resulted in spiked sales."

Obviously it will take some Buyers out of the market as new homes typically trumps existing homes.

Active Listings For October 2007

Fun for everyone! Well maybe not. This is a tough market with bad news and tons of bad media. Reality is often shades of perception. The drop in inventory is only slightly surprising. I have told my clients for years that between October 15 and 31 many people will decide to wait out the holidays because they are busy. The last 2 years in the inventory jumped August to October. This year it dropped.

Now what a lot of people don't understand is the inventory is a very fuzzy number. We try as hard as we can to standardize numbers but the theory for Inventory In Months is a little shaky. It says that the sales of the month versus what is out there determines the how many months until we ran out of houses.

There is no factor for an overload of high end or low end homes. A builder could roll out huge incentives and skew the numbers.

I wanted to get the numbers out for people to see. Hopefully in a week or so I will show some previous years numbers.

HB 2592 Seller Tax Holdback

Quick Snippet of the HB 2592 which will cause most, those who don't reside here when they sell, to pay an extra tax on the sale of their home.

After speaking with two prominent lawyers, one who works for the title industry, both have said that this is a poorly written law. I won't get too in depth on it but there are 3 different ways that they decide the holdback. From 4% of the sale to 10% of the gain.

The basic understanding at this moment, and some think it will get a revision in February, is that if you don't both live here on the close date and date of disbursement, you will be taxed. If you move to Washington for a job 1 week before close, will you get taxed? Seems stupid if that is so.

There will be a lot more to come on this and it hasn't gotten much attention so far. I am sure this will be a bigger issue by the end of the month as agents start learning about it and escrow prepares themselves. Escrow will be held liable if this tax is not withheld from the proceeds.

With prices softening and some people losing money on the sale, that extra 4% is going to hurt. And it may be held on all sales and then refunded after it is established that you don't owe it.

This is just a heads up. More to come soon.

FHA To Help Up To 240,000 Homeowners

I have only had time to scan through this. It seems to follow with what I have been saying. It is better to reset loans than to flat out foreclose. It stops the money flowing to the original loan company and it hurts the prices in the market due to desperate pricing.

Essentially there are so many people that could be hurt by the turn in the economy that the public is in the drivers seat. When Donal Trump went through his money problems in the early 90's the banks let him keep the properties because it was so big that they were better off letting him work his way out.

Article from FHA

Quick Notes

• I have been saying for awhile that newspaper advertising doesn't do much.
  
• Here is some information on the tax benefits of real estate investing.
• Understanding Zero Down and Buyer's Clubs
• Top 5 cities and bottom 15 cities for price movements.

I had two offers on one of my listings which was a pleasant surprise. What is interesting is that it was one of my higher priced listing. Back in August I listed a $650,000+ home and that one sold in 10 days.

Portland is still the cheapest city on the West Coast. Portland will look attractive to outsiders and we will continue the immigration from other states. I have heard some people saying that Portland could drop 20%. I have trouble imagining that.

Portland has been listed as an overpriced city by Money Magazine in many of the last few years. I attended a seminar from a local firm that does projections for home builders in many states. He said that Portland is a tough economy to figure out for most economists because we don't have one central driver for our economy.

Being the cheapest city on the West Coast is a bit of an insurance policy. Just like home prices, there gets to be a low point for lower end of the prices. There is very little for less than $200,000 and many different sizes swirl around there. But up at the half million dollar mark, there is more room for fluctuation.

That is the difference between us and San Diego or Las Vegas in a nutshell.