In April, we talked about the need for sellers to make their house “showing-ready” by decluttering and doing all those repairs/maintenance they have been putting off. Here’s a quote from David Bracken in the News & Observer

The combination of historically low inventory levels and more buyers in the market has created a dynamic where sought-after homes quickly receive multiple offers while others that are in need of work languish on the market for months.

What if you can’t do the repairs? Perhaps there is just too much work needed, or its something you can’t do while you are living in the house. By not fixing things yourself, you restrict yourself to two major groups of potential buyers;

• Owner-occupants who are willing to fix-up the place
• Real estate investors

It’s worth taking the time to understand how an investor evaluates the property. For our example, let’s assume you are selling a house worth $200,000 fixed up [a pretty average house in Durham] and those repairs would cost $10,000 [interior and exterior paint, new carpet throughout and some minor deferred maintenance]. Let’s go through three scenarios;

1. Repairs are made and the house sells at “retail.”

This one’s easy – you get $200,000 for the house, less the $10,000 for repairs or $190,000 net

2. Property sold “as-is” to an owner-occupant who will make repairs.

First of all, you have to find one. Most owner-occupants want something they can move right into. Finding someone who will do the work is harder than it seems, and many people who say they will do the work balk when it comes time to buy the house. Oh, and they will always, always overestimate what the repairs will cost – its a negotiating tactic. So your house will take longer to sell and you will get less. In our example, your buyer is going to figure on $15,000 in repairs and offer $185,000 for your home. And you’ll take it because your other choice is . . .

3. Property sold to an investor.

On the surface, this sounds like the perfect solution. investors don’t care much about commission, pay in cash, and close quickly – sometimes in a week. But here’s how the investor will look at the numbers

$200,000 — After Repair Value [what he will get when he sells it]
-$50,000 — Investor Gross Profit [No, he doesn't pocket all this]
- $10,000 — Cost of repairs [the investor knows how much repairs will cost]
$140,000 — Offer to seller

In other words, having an easy sale and not having to do repairs comes at a price

So what’s the takeaway here? If at all possible, do the repairs. Repairs will help sell your place quicker, and maximize your return-that’s cash in your pocket.

It’s been a busy week, and one of the things that slipped a bit is the monthly housing stats post. Still, they say that good things are worth the wait, and I think that applies here.

At the end of April there were 1,876 homes available for sale in Durham County — a increase of 133 listings or about 7%. April saw 316 closings – an increase of 38 closings. Using April sales, we would sell our entire inventory of available homes in 5.9 months, a drop of 0.4 months. That’s a small drop, but it does move us into seller’s market territory [usually defined as less than 6.0 months of inventory]

In South Durham 715 homes were listed for sale at the end of April – an increase  of 16 listings, or just over 2%. 136 sales closed in April, an increase of 43 closings, or 46%. This moves the adsorption rate to 5.3 months, a drop of 2.2 months. This is pretty firmly in seller’s market territory.

April continues the improvement of the Durham housing market with both the overall market and the south Durham market moving into seller’s market territory. Like last month, houses that are priced right, and prepared for sale [solid curb appeal, repairs made, etc] have been selling quickly. We are still seeing shortages of move-in ready homes on the market and, as you will see below, prices are starting to rise as a response to that scarcity.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

For some overall numbers, the average price per sf in south Durham was $114 per sf [up $13 from March] with the priciest neighborhoods being  Chapelwood [1 sale at $192 per sf], Villas at Culp Arbor [1 sale at $189 per sf], and Keeneland Manor  [1 sale at $161 per sf] . The lowest neighborhoods were Fisher Heights [1 sale at $31 per sf], Forest View [1 sale at $56 per sf], Carriage Hill and Parkwood [both with 1 sale at $75 per sf]

Two things jump out this month;

• Almost every neighborhood we look at is in a seller’s market [Woodcroft, Chancellor's Ridge and Lochside being the exceptions] and many of them have about the same number of listings. This shows that our neighborhoods have a good velocity — homes are being listed and getting sold.
• Just as importantly, every neighborhood saw the price per square foot go up in March [OK, Hope valley Farms and Woodlake didn't, but they are both pretty close to even]. This gives us hope that the tightening market we’ve seen over the past few months will translate to higher sales prices. This will allow even more people to enter the market, meaning more buyers and sellers – a virtuous cycle

There is still time to take advantage of this recovering market. You’ve seen the numbers – sellers are listing and, more importantly, getting their houses sold. If you are ready to take part in the housing recovery please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. See you after Memorial Day.

photo credit ipeaked.com

Going to be out and about early Sunday morning? If you are planning on travelling on I-40 near Southpoint Mall, you might want to take another route. I-40 between Fayetteville road and NC-751 will be CLOSED from 12:01AM until about 7:00AM on Sunday morning. Why, you ask? At long last, DOT is installing the pedestrian bridge over I-40 for the American Tobacco Trail. When the bridge is completed in July, the entire 21 mile trail will run from downtown Durham down past Southpoint Mall to just south of Olive Chapel Road in Wake County. Future plans include running trails up to the Eno River, which would make the whole trail over 30 miles. The American Tobacco Trail is one of Durham’s great secret assets. Hop over to their website and see what a great resource the trail is.

[for more details and detour routes, here's the N&O article]

David Bracken and the News & Observer had a pretty solid article in today’s paper [Triangle Home Sales Rise 28% -- go ahead and read it, we'll wait]. If you want the Cliff Notes version, there are two main facts. First, there were 28% more closings in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the first quarter of 2012. Secondly, the inventory of available homes is steadily declining. First semester economics tells us this is a good thing – demand is increasing and supply is declining. That is a recipe for higher prices and a strengthening housing sector.

What does this mean for you on a personal level? The biggest takeaway is that now is a great time to put your home on the market. That usually sounds like marketing hype, but this time I have the numbers to back me up. Buyers are out there today and they are finding fewer and fewer homes to make their own.

Secondly, and just as important, is that your newly listed home has to shine both in its condition and its price. Here’s a quote straight from Mr Bracken [emphasis mine]

The combination of historically low inventory levels and more buyers in the market has created a dynamic where sought-after homes quickly receive multiple offers while others that are in need of work languish on the market for months.

It’s April 3rd, which I think is the latest in the month I’ve published my stats post. I’ve actually had the data for a couple days, but getting the time to type everything out has been difficult. There has been good reason – the market has been improving and I’ve been out selling and buying homes with my clients. the numbers will bear me out: we haven’t had a market this strong in quite some years.

At the end of March there were 1,743 homes available for sale in Durham County — a increase of 196 listings or about 12%. March saw 278 closings – an increase of 82 (!) closings. Using March sales, we would sell our entire inventory of available homes in 6.3 months, a drop of 1.5 months. This is a strong, balanced market. Another month of improvement like this and we will be talking about a seller’s market.

In South Durham 699 homes were listed for sale at the end of March – an increase  of 113 listings, or almost 20%. 93 sales closed in March, an increase of 29 closings. This moves the adsorption rate to 7.5 months, a drop of 1.6 months.

Like I said in the intro, this is another month of strengthening sales county-wide. Houses that are priced right, and prepared for sale [solid curb appeal, repairs made, etc] have been selling quickly – sometimes within days. In some sectors of the market, the is actually a shortage of listings and sellers really are in the drivers seat

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

For some overall numbers, the average price per sf in south Durham was $103 per sf [down $3 from January] with the priciest neighborhoods being  The Oaks  [1 sale at $215 per sf],Maida Vale [1 sale at $196 per sf], Windsor Commons  [1 sale at $192 per sf] and Villas at Culp Arbor [3 sales at $184 per sf] . The lowest neighborhoods were Fortunes Ridge [1 sale at $61 per sf], Hope Valley North [1 sale at $67 per sf], and Villages of Cornwallis [1 sale at $70 per sf]

lots of little things to note this month. the most glaring is the huge jump in adsorption rate for Woodcroft. that is driven, I think, by the large jump in listings [from 52 to 68 – almost a third. I’d expect to see that come back in line over the next month or two. A second thing to note is the number of homes prices at over $150 per sf. there were a total of 9 homes selling at that luxury price point. that shows some support for prices at the high end of the market. We also saw support at the low end. The least expensive sales were about $30 per sf higher than we saw in February. That gives us hope that the worst of the foreclosure mess might be behind us.

We’re still moving into a solid Spring housing season . Sellers are putting homes on the market with confidence and buyers are still out there to buy them. If you are ready to take part in the housing recovery please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. See you in May.

It’s the first after G090X and how do I celebrate? Publishing housing stats. I am such a geek.

At the end of February there were 1,547 homes available for sale in Durham County — a increase of 164 listings or about 12%. February saw 196 closings – an increase of 30 closings. Using February sales, we would sell our entire inventory of available homes in 7.8 months, a drop of a half month.

In South Durham 583 homes were listed for sale at the end of February – an increase  of 96 listings, or almost 20%. 64 sales closed in February, an increase of 13 closings. This moves the adsorption rate to 9.1 months, a drop of 0.4 months.

As we have mentioned in previous years, February is the month people start listing their homes in earnest, which explains the large jump in active listings. Buyers also re-enter the market in February, but their activity usually isn’t seen until March and April, which explains why the adsorption rates seem high. In fact, adsorption rates for February 2013 are about a month better than last years, which signals a strengthening local market.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

For some overall numbers, the average price per sf in south Durham was $103 per sf [down $3 from January] with the priciest neighborhoods being  Chapelwood  [1 sale at $202 per sf], Villas at Culp Arbor [1 sale at $181 per sf], and Downing Creek  [1 sale at $142 per sf]. The lowest neighborhoods were Lincoln Heightss [1 sale at $31 per sf], Cedarwood Villas [1 sale at $37 per sf], and Buttonwood Acrea[1 sales at $51 per sf]

Again, we saw a lot of listings enter the market in our largest neighborhoods, which pushed all their adsorption rates up. We will see the sales follow – possibly as early as this month – and the numbers return to a balanced market. This is a normal seasonal cycle.

All of this is setting us up for a solid Spring housing season . Sellers are putting homes on the market with confidence and buyers are still out there to buy them. If you are ready to take part in the housing recovery please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. See you in April.

Now that the housing market is recovering, have you thought about a career in real estate? Was the main thing holding you back the prelicensing class? 75 hours of uncomfortable seats, droning instructors and high-school flashbacks is enough to scare anyone.

We thought so too. That’s why we created the Go School of Real Estate. Our brand new facility has everything you would expect from a course taught in the 21st Century – comfy chairs, refreshments, exciting courses [as exciting as we can sneak past the Real Estate Commission] and the latest in audio-visual aids to make the class an interactive learning experience. All this is led by our award-winning Go Professor, Chris Barnette.

Want to know more? Want to see how the Go Core Beliefs can make a real estate class fun? Come see our new web home at www.GoSchool.biz.

In my blog reading today, there was an interesting article about how people are looking to the national home builders to predict the future of our housing recovery [ Wall Street is watching Toll, Lennar, Beazer, others for housing signs ]. It’s a good article, and it does a thorough job of covering the “big picture” of the housing market. It also notes the irony that the national home builders are having pretty decent sales, but are watching their stock price get hammered because the numbers aren’t as good as expected.

Still, looking to the national builders is not perfect. National companies have larger bureaucracies, longer lead times, and generally aren’t as nimble as their smaller brethren  What you see in news reports about Toll Brothers, Lennar and the like is how they were doing three months ago. To get a feel for what the local housing market is doing, I suggest you might want to look at some of the smaller homebuilders — people like Garman Homes or ForeverHome. Find out how they are doing, and you will know how the market is doing today.

[how's the market doing today? Pretty darn well, if you ask them.]

Earlier this week, the Triangle Multiple Listing Service released its monthly video on home sales in the Triangle for the previous month. This video talks about January sales and it’s worth a listen. January closings were up 33% compared to January 2012!

If you haven’t believed it before, this should tell you that buyers are out there and they are looking for homes. If you would like to list your home for the Spring selling season, please email me and we’ll get started finding one of those buyers for you.

Earlier this week, I listened to an interview with Lisa Earle McLeod, the author of  “Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud” In the interview, she spoke about salespeople having a Noble Selling Purpose – a reason for selling that goes beyond “to make a lot of money.” In particular, she talks about how sales is a service industry – that we should look for ways to serve our clients. Selling with a noble purpose enables both the customer and the salesperson to build a relationship and prosper far beyond a single transaction.

That idea of a Noble Selling Purpose resonates with me. It’s doubly important in real estate brokerage, since we are supposed to hold our clients needs above even our own [our "fiduciary duty"]. At a personal level, I tried to encapsulate it this was in my About page;

I believe real estate brokerage should be based on three principles;

• Having a ‘Servant’s Heart‘ . . . My goal is to find the home that best fits the client’s needs — no matter how hard the transaction might be. After all, making hard transactions easy is part of the job.
• Having the ‘Soul of a Teacher’ . . .done correctly, of our clients will leave a transaction with enough knowledge they could sell their next home without us, but be so pleased with our service they won’t want to.
• A Spirit of “Competitive Cooperation”. . .buying or selling a home can, and in most cases should, be a winning proposition for everyone involved with the transaction.

Another example of a Noble Selling Purpose is the Go Realty Core Beliefs;

• We Believe In a $6 Cup of Coffee:  Go Realty believes in a $6 cup of coffee…a premium experience for a select group of clients who value positive energy and unforgettable service.
• We Believe in Magic:  We believe in looking for the exceptional moments to create memories that will be shared again and again.  Our mantra is “Be memorable.”
• We Believe in Giving Back: Our community supports us with opportunities to sell homes and land.  We honor that opportunity by giving back.
• We Believe in our Team:  We are collecting the most creative, productive, and energetic team in real estate.  We got their back; it’s all about supporting them on their way to peak performance.
• We Believe in our Clients:  We’re not #1 in sales units.  It’s not about market share.  The star of this show is the client.
• We Believe in Simplicity: Clear communication, everyday language, real people, genuine affection.
• We Believe in Change:  We are passionate about performing the crazy idea.  Failures are truly okay.  We are nimble, quick, and ready to step out of, onto, or just plain over top of the box.
• We Believe in Being Better:  not by comparison to others, but by comparison to ourselves.  Serving better, making improvements, and growing our approach are fundamental and daily pursuits.

Having a set of Core Beliefs building a Noble Selling Purpose enables us to rise above ourselves and truly serve others. What about you? What can you define as your Noble Purpose? I’d love to hear it in the comments.