Also, if you would like to learn more about how real estate investing can be a way to build wealth, please email me and we can run through the numbers. With prices down and interest rates low, this might be the best opportunity to use real estate to build your financial future.

In Durham, residents who need to dispose of trees should place them at the curb on their normally scheduled trash collection day. trees should be cut in pieces if they are taller than 6 feet, and should be free of ornaments, tinsel, etc. It may take several days after your normal trash day for your tree to be collected.

Alternately, trees may be brought to the City’s Waste Disposal & Recycling Center at 2115 E. Club Blvd., Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, 7:30 a.m. Through March 2, there will be no charge for Christmas trees dropped off at the Center. as a final option, trees may be brought to the City’s Paper Shredding and E-Waste Event on Saturday, January 14 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Sears parking lot at Northgate Mall. For more information about this event, visit http://durhamnc.gov/Pages/NNDetails.aspx?detailId=35.

When the ball dropped this morning, there were 1,617 homes available for sale in Durham County — a drop of just over 200 listings and a decline of about 15% since November 1. Again, this is not surprising, as many people take their homes off the market over the holidays. December saw 189 closings – an increase of 16 closings, which takes us back to the closing numbers of two months ago. Using December sales, we would sell our entire inventory of available homes in 8.6 months, which is an improvement of almost two months from November’s stat.

In South Durham 526 homes were listed for sale at the end of December – a drop of 85 homes and a total decline of about 25% from November 1. 52 sales closed in December, which is a drop of nine closings and, again, a drop of about 25% from November’s data. those equal drops leave the adsorption rate unchanged at 10.0 months, which makes it basically unchanged for three months in a row. It also makes December one of those unusual months where south Durham underperforms the county as a whole.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

We’ve decided to track price per square foot in 2012 instead of sales price as a percentage of list price. For some overall numbers, the average in south Durham was $105 per sf with the highest neighborhoods being Villas at Culp Arbor [1 sale at $181 per sf], Windsor Commons [1 sale at $147 per sf], and Woodlake [1 sale at $133 per sf]. the lowest neighborhoods were Cedar Valley [1 foreclosure sold at $58 per sf], Darby Glen [1 sale at $74 per sf], and Stratford Lakes [3 sales at $89 per sf]

Again we saw a month of decent numbers showing both strength and the traditional winter declines. I’m hopeful that these figures for November and December signal that we have found a floor to build off of in 2012. January will probably show something similar, especially in the first half of the month, with more sellers starting to return to the market in the last half of January and into February. Weather might also have a role to play as a series of snow and ice events will move the numbers.

Now is a good time to lay the foundations of your own real estate plans for 2012. Whether you are buying or selling, preparation now will lead to opportunities for success later in the year. If you would like to hear more about where the market is heading, or just want to know what your own home is worth,  please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. Happy New Year!

For all of Durham County there were 1,825 homes listed for sale at the end of November – a drop of just over 100 listings. October saw 173 contracts close, a drop of 17 closings. Using November figures, it would take 10.5 months to work through our current inventory, an increase of about 10 days from October.

In South Durham 611 homes were listed for sale at the end of November -  a drop of just over 10%. 61 sales closed in November, again a drop of about 10% from October. It would take 10 months like November to work our way through all the available homes, which is a drop of just under a week from October’s figure.

So, over the past two months, we’ve seen a steady drop in the number of listings and a slightly larger drop in the number of closings, which leaves the adsorption rate just about even. This is normal for the winter months. As long as the absorption rate stays fairly steady, our local housing market is steady. Of course, we’d prefer it to be steady at a lower number, but recovery has to start somewhere.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information, with some of our new neighborhoods.

Last month, we noted that the total closings were spread out among severalneighborhoods instead of concentrating in the “Big 3.” That was also true in November, but not quite to the same extent. Hope Valley Farms, in particular, saw a nice jump in closings to put it back into a more usual set of figures. Also worth noting is Keystone Crossing, which had 8 closings in November.

December tends to be a lot like November with a slow decline in listings and a decline in closings. honestly, I don’t expect the numbers to change much until about February when all the “hibernators” start to come back into the market

There are still good reasons for having a home on the market today, even with the colder weather and the smaller pool of [more serious] buyers. If you are interested in seeing how your home would fare on the market, or just want a larger home for the new year, please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. Happy Holidays.

Listed at $50,000, this could be a great opportunity for an investor or a first-time home buyer interested in converting a little effort into instant equity. I hope to see you there!

Here are some more details about 3231 E Geer Street

[Here's the full RFI -- Request for Information - Enterprise/FHA REO Asset Disposition]

Last month the Federal Housing Finance Agency [FHFA] announced a request for information looking for new ideas and ways to reduce the inventory of foreclosed properties held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. In that RFP, you stated the following objectives:

• reduce the REO portfolios of the Enterprises and FHA in a cost-effective manner;
• reduce  average loan loss severities to the Enterprises and FHA relative to individual
• distressed property sales;
• address property repair and  rehabilitation needs;
• respond to economic and real estate conditions in specific geographies;
• assist in neighborhood and home price stabilization efforts; and
• suggest analytic approaches to determine the appropriate disposition strategy for
• individual properties, whether sale, rental, or, in certain instances, demolition.

Additionally, FHFA expressed a willingness to consider a variety of options including lease-purchase agreements and rental arrangements.

I appreciate FHFA’s willingness to explore different approaches to reduce their large inventory of properties. There is, however, no need to reinvent the wheel. There are thousands of real estate investors eagerly waiting to purchase those properties, rehab them and return them to the market either as rental property or through some form of sale – lease option, seller financed purchase and so on. Unfortunately, there are several obstacles placed in front of the real estate investor when they attempt to purchase government owned property. Some examples of these obstacles are:

• Getting financing is especially hard for an investor. FHA could help by streamlining the process for FHA 203b and 203k loans. This would be especially helpful in selling properties which require large amounts of work to be habitable, a common problem with foreclosed property.
• HUD and other government agencies have 30-day preference for owner-occupants. Reducing or removing this preference would allow investors to purchase properties faster and get them off the government’s books.
• HUD and other government agencies have a rule requiring buyers own the property for 90 days before selling it [the "anti-flipping" rule]. reducing or eliminating this requirement makes properties more attractive for investors and would speed the sale of these properties.
• Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have limits on how many mortgages an investor can have. Increasing or removing these limits would help investors obtain financing to purchase more government-owned property.

Removing these obstacles and actively encouraging real estate investment would cost the government almost no money, but would vastly increase the ability of investors to relieve the government of it’s excess property inventory, which would stabilize the housing market.

Thank you for taking the time to read my proposal.

What do you think? Would easing the restrictions on real estate investment spur a housing recovery? Or is there a better way? I look forward to hearing your comments.

	From 1-3PM today, stop by 100 Settlers Mill Road. This beautiful home is 2400 square feet of space just minutes away from Southpoint Mall, I-40 and Chapel Hill. Listed at $197,200 this is a great value for your home investment
From 2-4PM today, we’ll also be at 5508 Grand Mesa Drive. This beautiful home features an open sunroom and a landscaped backyard with a koi pond. Listed at $155,000, this home is a great balance of seclusion and quiet.
	Finally, from 3-5PM this afternoon, we’ll be at my new listing 3218 Oxford. This 4 bedroom home is tucked away in University Estates – a nice quiet community just north of Martin Luther King Parkway. Listed at $115,000, this is a great value for someone who needs a little space, but needs to be close to everything.

When you are out and about this afternoon, I really hope you will join us at one of our events.

Photo credit - alh1 & Flickr

The Homestead Act, passed in 1862, was one of the pivotal moments in the settling of the West. In the Homestead Act, settlers were offerered up to 160 acres of land provided they farmed the land for five years and made other improvements to their homestead. Through this Act, much of the western Great Plains was settled.

With the turmoil in today’s housing market, prehaps we need something as expansive as the Homestead Act to set things right. along those lines, Rep. Gary Ackerman [D. - NY] announced on Wednesday that he will introduce “Homestead Act 2″ in an effort to “reduce the housing glut and put Americans back to work.” Rep Ackerman’s bill has two parts;

• The first two million applicants to the program would be offered up to $20,000 matching subsidy as down payment assistance. This would originally be a loan from the Federal government, but one-fifth of the loan amount would be forgiven each year the owner-occupant stays in the home until the loan is repaid at the end of the fifth year.
• Additionally, there would be a 10-year exemption on rental income for the first one million homebuyers to purchase a single family home as a rental property.

The combination of these would, in Rep Ackerman’s opinion “spur the traditional housing market as the existing inventory overhang of housing is depleted. Over a million workers would be productive again.”

Would it work? Well, I see several advantages to this plan. First of all, by making the $20,000 a subsidy, it avoids the problem of the First Time Homebuyers Credit — that the money was needed at closing, not several months later. secondly, by making it a matching subsidy, it would encourage larger down payments, which will put the overall housing market on a firmer foundation.

Finally, I like the fact this bill recognizes that investors are a key part of pulling the market out of the doldrums. Too often investors have been seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Representative Ackerman intends to file this bill after the summer recess. While the devil usually hides in the details, I hope Congress seriously looks at this legislation.

[Click here for Representative Ackerman's press release]

When The Landing at Southpoint announced they were auctioning off their remaining condos, [7/13/11 - 751 South developers to auction condos] Ray Gronberg of the Herald-Sun asked if there was more behind the announcement, such as an imminent foreclosure [there isn't that I am aware of]. I explained that condos are a very hard to get financed, and therefore sold, in the current mortgage market and that the auction was probably just a move to generate a return on a product that was largely unsellable. “The farther away from dirt you get, the more difficult it is to finance.”

Last week, Monica Chen noted that developers were in the early phases of planning a townhome development along NC751 just south of Southpoint [8/5/11 - Florida Developer Files to Build Townhomes in Durham (subscription required) ]. Much of what I said was edited for space, but I hope to develop those thoughts in a later post.

If you are interested in real estate development is south Durham, please call of email me. I’d love to hear from you!