A Full Day at the Housing Summit

Yesterday was a solid day of learning for me…

I began by going to the Housing Summit, and then went to the Broker’s Council for NAMAR…it was a FULL day!

What I learned is the following:
1. We are right on target with what we have been communicating…Pending sales are rising back to levels of last year, and Supply is coming down everywhere. This is where you would see solid glimmers of hope forming the POTENTIAL for a bottom…everything in markets are driven by supply and demand…
2. Be glad you are not in Clayton County! The median home sales price was like $40k!
3. Forsyth is one of the areas that has been fairing better than most on values of homes, BUT my contention is that is the only county that has still been sliding on volume of contracts…meaning, it needs to come down some more to stimulate more buyers to buy…
4. What will shape the bottom, or not are the following:
a. Interest Rates need to remain low
b. Lending Practices – we need to get back to normal lending practices and allow the “good” credit people to be able to buy homes vs the tight restrictions everyone is facing today
c. Jumbo Money – if the Jumbo Loans are not made more readily available, then the upper end homes will see a very difficult time in selling to someone today…right now, you must have 20% down, and a 720 credit score…this eliminates a lot of people from the potential of buying…
d. GAS Prices! If the gas goes up to $4.00 a gallon, then we could see a terrible time for us all…in many ways…
5. As Banks are being riddled with mass lot take-backs/foreclosures, you will begin to see incredibly priced NEW homes begin to surface in areas…they will be a brand new home that will be priced to compete with a foreclosure…this is brewing, and will begin to be shown in the upcoming months…banks are beginning to get aggressive in pricing or building out of a situation…what will be good, is that it will stimulate people to buy, and that is a necessary thing to get out of the bottom and move into correction…GET YOUR SELLERS ON BOARD WITH THIS AS IT WILL ONLY GET MORE DIFFICULT TO SELL ONCE THIS COMES TO BE!!!!!
6. Most areas have shrunk in inventory, so RE-SALES will have a good ending to the year if they get priced right, and get priced to sell!
7. Gwinnett County is in the process of beginning its “rebuilding” of areas…it is the Gwinnett County Neighborhood Stabilization Program…they have targeted areas that they will be able to buy vacant, and run down homes to rehab and help the overall market conditions.
8. Social Networking is here to stay…if you are not on board with it, you better get on board!

Keep up the great work, and remember this:
You have finished swimming 75% of a huge body of water…it has been a long hard swim…you can either give up, or finish the final 25%...I CHOOSE TO FINISH STRONG!