It has been a pretty good week! I got to spend a long weekend soaking up the rays at the beach in beautiful Narragansett, RI, got to take the munchkin to the
zoo for the first time, AND there is good real estate news everywhere!
After a few days away my Google Reader was chock full of news. There was lots of New Hampshire news, lots of cloth diapering reviews and advice, lots of yummy new recipes to try, and of course lots of real estate news. And, surprise surprise, the real estate news was mostly good!
I am a very firm believer that media played a large role in the crumble of the local housing market over the past few years. It is true that there are lots of foreclosures that are bringing values down, it is true that a great many people are upside down in their homes. However, up here in New Hampshire, the foreclosures did not really hit until the past year or so. Historically speaking, we here in New Hampshire are a bit `behind the times` when it comes to the market… our market rises a bit after and a bit slower than other areas, and drops the same way. I believe that before our prices had to start dropping, they did because everyone expected them to. Watching the doom and gloom news every night, reading it every morning in the paper… you see what is happending in California and Florida and you expect no less outside your front door.
Anyway, it appears as
the opinion of mass media might be about to turn around! Realty Times is reporting good news about the housing market, the
Boston Globe is reporting good news about the housing market,
Business Day is reporting good news about the global market! Whoa!
Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come. The more confidence buyers have in the market, the more likely they are to buy. The more buyers that buy, the more stable the market will become. Mass media has an incredible hold on the opinions of the general public, so if they are starting to crack a smile, we just might be heading in the right direction!
Today I am in a numbers mood. So… I thought I would play with stats. As it is the last day of July, this month`s numbers are not quite complete, so I used June.
This following shows the June numbers for the last five years. The important numbers are the median price, the number of sales, and the total sales volume.
The number of sales is down 37% from June 2005 to June 2009, while the sales volume is down 45%. Looking a little closer at those sales numbers…
Sales up to $100,000 – UP 166%
Sales $100K – $200K – DOWN 32%
Sales $200K – $300K – DOWN 60%
Sales $300K – $400K – DOWN 22%
Sales $400,000 and up – DOWN 47%
The incredible jump of homes less than $100,000 is foreclosures. No doubt about it. And the $200,000 – $300,000 homes have taken the brunt of the downturn, which is pretty evident when you look at recent activity. Take real estate sales in Tuftonboro, for example. There are currently 40 properties on the market between $200,000 and $300,000, and only one lonely pending sale. Over the past 12 months, there have been four sales in this price range. Compare those figures with the $300,000 – $400,000 price range, with only 13 active listings, one pending sale, and seven sales in the past year.
The good news? If you are a buyer and are looking in the $200,000 – $300,000 price range, you certainly have the pick of the litter! If you are a seller (like one of my clients), well, competition is tough. BUT, homes are selling. Price it right and make sure your agent is advertising on the internet and is there for all showings. The summer selling season has really just begun!
I am a self-proclaimed nerd, and I love to tweak my websites. In my mind I have plans for…oh…at least a dozen more sites. The only thing delaying me is that whole `26 hours of work to do in this 24 hour day` thing comes into play, as well as my completely self-taught `skills` (*ahem*) of web design and code writing.
This past week I did manage to get up a new website about one of my favorite listings, 595 Maple Grove Road in Madison NH. This home was built in 2001 with all the nice perks like radiant heat in the flooring, central vacuum and high end kitchen appliances. However, walking in it has the look and the feel of a wonderful older home. From the custom cabinetry with punched tin accents and a soapstone sink in the kitchen to the two Rumford fireplaces and the charming screened porch, this house is just lovely. I do not use the term `lovely` very often, but it is indeed the term that comes to mind when I show this house.
Sometimes it feels like finding the right buyer for a property is like finding a needle in a haystack…
I have had one particular lot of land on the market for almost a year now. Land usually takes longer to sell than a residential home anyway, but I have had so much activity on this lot… at least a few calls or emails a week (which is quite a bit!), but nobody serious enough to make an offer. Usually if a property is shown a number of times and there are no offers, we have to assume that there is a pricing problem. In this case, though, the price is not the issue.
This lot is a very unique lot. A total of about 13 acres, smack dab in the middle of a few hundred acres of conservation land. The lot includes a logging road almost a mile long, 50 feet of frontage on Ossipee Lake, and hundreds of feet of frontage on both sides of the Bearcamp River. And…did I mention the conservation land? It is surrounded the `Bearcamp Woodlands`, a conservation area maintained by the New England Forestry Fund. It is a fabulous property.
What you can not do, though, is build on this lot. Maybe in the future you will be able to when they develop a super clean and tiny and effective septic system and they relax the NH Shoreline Protection Act. But for now (unless you know someone very important and really enjoy jumping though hoops)… you can not.
So, as I was saying, I have been getting a lot of activity on this lot. Mostly buyers – unrepresented buyers – who assumed they could build on the lot. If the buyer was represented by an agent, the agent would have been able to see that the lot would not support a septic and would be able to explain to them the Shoreline Protection Act and all of the red tape involved with building on or even remotely near the water these days. Do you think, really, that a 13 acre waterfront lot priced at $79K is not going to have some sort of issue?
I have always known that this lot will make an incredible camping spot, vacation spot, get-away-from-reality spot for one lucky family. River frontage where the river is wide, crystal clear, and deep, perfect for swimming. Lake frontage with views into a Loon Sanctuary. And, of course, amazing privacy. LUCKILY, though, I do think I have found the perfect buyers…(or more accurately…they found me!).
You do not know how happy it makes me that these folks are realistic about the lot. They know they will never subdivide. They know they will never built a mansion. They know they may never be able to build at all. They know that locals have been walking down this logging road for generations, and are probably still going to no matter what . They are exciting about finding that perfect camping spot for family weekends and campfires and (hopefully) lot of s`mores! They are realistic and excited about what they are getting – and that could not make me happier.
I am amazed every time one of our little local towns gets national attention! Wolfeboro does get the majority of it, I admit, but for good reason! This time in was featured in Budget Travel magazine in an article about wonderful summer lake towns. We all know that Wolfeboro is the Oldest Summer Resort in America!
Summer Lake Towns – Budget Travel
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