By James Wedgeworth on March 30th, 2009
People always ask me when the real estate market will return. The answer to that is when we are only dealing with level two and three sellers.
The three levels of sellers are as follows:
#1 – Must sell within 30 days at any price. These are usually bank foreclosures, people with financial problems, divorce dituations and people for one reason or another have to sell. These people will keep lowering their prices until they get a buyer.
#2 - Normal seller. This is a typical seller who will sell at a market price given a normal market. This is the type of seller you usually have in the real estate market.
#3 – My price, my terms. This is the seller who says he will sell at his price which usually has nothing to do with market value. We had a lot of these sellers in 2005 who were able to get exorbitant prices for their property simply because we had so few sellers and lots of buyers.
The problem us, the level 1 seller drags down the market because a buyer really does not care what kind of situation the seller is in – they just want the best buy they can possibly get. A market will not return to normalcy until all of the level 1 sellers are out of the market.
By James Wedgeworth on March 26th, 2009
During the Presidential election, President’s Obama’s campaign “change we can believe in” gained a lot of attention. It is like people were ready for a change; even though they may not like the change they got, they were just ready for change.
In the real estate market I often hear Realtors complain over and over again about how the real estate market has changed. Everything has changed. Being on the Board of a local Hilton Head Hospital I realize that medicine has changed tremendously. I often hear older doctors talk about “the way it used to be”.
Growing up in a rural agricultural community I realized that farming has changed. My father-in-law was a dairy farmer. The people who have survived in that business had to change to meet the changing times.
Real Estate has changed in many ways. The way we advertised has changed tremendously; in the old days we used to run ads in the paper and when people would get the Sunday paper and pick out what they were going to look at when they were ready to look. With the capabilities available on the Internet, most people just pull up everything they want on the web and determine what properties they would like to see that way.
It has been my experience that if people do not adjust to change, the real estate market will leave them.
I once worked with a Realtor at Lighthouse Realty over 25 years ago and once we went to MLS he came to me and said that the business was changing too much and he could not take it and he would retire. What if he were in the business today? He thought that was change.
I think it is important that we all realize that change will happen and 25 years from now it will be totally different than it is now and there will be some agents running around saying they wished it was “the way it used to be”.
By James Wedgeworth on March 24th, 2009
The greatest reason to buy real estate in a recession is because everything is for sale and prices are off.
Sunday there was an article that appeared in The Island Packet in reference to the “Why buy in a recession” symposium that I was a panelist along with Bill Baldwin, Craig Ostergard and Phil Schembra. We talked about all the reasons why now is a great time to buy real estate.
I jokingly said “I went down to the ocean yesterday and you know what, it is still there”.
I think sometimes we look at real estate in the wrong way. We look at it more as an investment tool when it really needs to be more of a family enjoyment tool. Memories are made at the beach and now is a great time to do so.
*Courtesy of The Island Packet
By James Wedgeworth on March 20th, 2009
We saw 106 homes, 33 villas and 23 new lots come on the market last week. Wow – that is a lot more inventory than we would like to see.
The good news is that we did have 39 homes go under contract last week; 13 on Hilton Head Island 26 were in Bluffton.
We had one lot sell in Belfair in Bluffton; lot sales continue to be slow.
We had eight villas sell last week; one in Sea Pines, two in Forest Beach, one in Folly Field, three in Point Comfort and one in Tabby Walk. Of the eight villas that went under contract, all eight were priced below $300,000. The strength in the market seems to be in the lower price ranges.
Of the homes that sold, none sold over $2 million, one went under contract at $1.7 million, and the other two were right at $1,000,000. Most of the sales were in the Bluffton area in the lower price range.
What does this mean? It means that there are some great opportunities out there if people have the ability to make a decision in today’s market.
By James Wedgeworth on March 19th, 2009
I ran some Hilton Head real estate activity based on pending date, which in our business is much more important.
For [...]
By James Wedgeworth on March 18th, 2009
For the last month it seems like everyone who called me was complaining about the stock market because their assets [...]
By James Wedgeworth on March 11th, 2009
I figured this out in 1978 – the first time I crossed over the bridge and realized that this was [...]
By James Wedgeworth on March 10th, 2009
We had 10 homes go under contract on Hilton Head Island last week. Of the 10 homes that sold; 7 [...]
By James Wedgeworth on March 9th, 2009
Yesterday Jane and I were on our way back from the mountains. At noon, we stopped in Columbia at Rush’s, [...]
By James Wedgeworth on March 6th, 2009
Wow, the stock market dropped 4% yesterday.
Stock market values affect real estate values, even though not directly.
It has been my [...]
