Jones and Associates Realty, LLC Archived Blog

Single family home Prices edged higher in March. This is the second month of gains in a row, adding to signs the housing market is stabilizing in the country and Utah housing is on the rise.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.1 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, falling shy of economists' forecasts for a gain of 0.2 percent.

On an unadjusted basis, the index was unchanged. Prices in the 20 cities were down 2.6 percent year over year, improving from the 3.5 percent yearly decline seen last month.

Still, the major indexes ended the first quarter at new post-crisis lows, the report said. For the first quarter, prices were down 2 percent, compared to a 3.9 percent decline in the last three months of 2011.

This is another piece of recent evidence that the housing market is making a bumpy revival. The median price for a new home rose 4.9 percent in April, year over year, while sales of existing homes rose 10 percent last month versus April 2011.

In my mind there is no question that housing has bottomed, in terms of home sales, home construction and home prices but the recovery is still going to be very modest or very sluggish with buyers still a little gun shy.

Housing has a long way to go, though. Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages.

There are still so many unanswered questions in front of us, such as what has happened to attitudes toward home ownership. We know there has been some change to that. Also we don't know what is going to happen with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, what is the government's role in mortgage financing going to be? We are not going to be able to settle that until after the election. I would say don’t wait and start looking. Its time to buy!

A very popular real estate blog this morning stated:

29% of all signed real estate contracts never make it to the closing table!

This horrible statistic made me figure Jones and Associates contract failure rate.   After all even the easiest cash transaction comes with hurdles that need to be overcome to get it to the closing table.

Jones and Associates had a contract failure rate of 9%.   This number upset us and we see any failure as an opportunity for improvement.  We are also very proud that our contract failure rate is almost a third of the average failure rate for real estate contracts.

After digging a little deeper we noticed the failed contracts we had were buyers we represented and every buyer received 100% of their earnest money back.     So we dug even deeper and looked at what could we have done to hold those contracts together and what caused them to fail.  

We reviewed each file and concluded every failed contract failed because our agents guided the buyer to do professional home inspections and unforeseen problems were found or our agents made sure our buyers knew exactly what loan terms they would end up with prior to the loan denial deadline and the buyers determined the loans were not what they wanted to move forward with.  

So the question now is: was 9% of failed contracts a failure or 9% cost of doing business to represent your buyer properly?  

My bet is the 9% of buyers we had that canceled contracts are GLAD they had Jones and Associates representing them!

This is a link to the blog I refer to:  http://www.kcmblog.com/2012/05/24/the-top-5-reasons-deals-fall-apart-2/

In April, home buying season begins in earnest for most regions, and last month was no exception: Existing-home sales increased 3.4% in April from March, hitting a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million, the National Association of Realtors said. That was 10% higher than in April 2011.

Meanwhile, the median sale price for existing homes increased 3.1% in April from March to $177,400; that was a 10.1% jump from April 2011. Coupled with March's price increase, this marks the first two-month period of back-to-back year-to-year price increases since mid-2010, the NAR says. Earlier this month, the NAR reportedd that 74 of the 146 largest U.S. metropolitan areas showed a price increase from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of this year.

The most encouraging news, however, could come in the breakdown of who's paying for these homes.

First-time buyers accounted for 35% of purchases in April, up from 33% in March and near April 2011's level. All-cash sales decreased to 29% of transactions, from 32% in March. Investors accounted for 20% of sales, nearly the same as in March and in April 2011.

• It's harder for non investors to buy foreclosures

On one hand, in a healthy market, first-time buyers represent 40% to 45% of the market, and typically, a stable month includes 6 million home sales. But April's news as evidence that real buyers — or folks buying homes to live in them, rather than to rent or flip them — are coming back to the market. That is good for many reasons.

A return of normal home buying for occupancy is helping home sales across all price points, and now the recovery appears to be extending to home prices. The general downtrend in both listed and shadow inventory has shifted from a buyers market to one that is much more balanced, but in some areas of Utah it has become a sellers market.

The Salt Lake Tribune ran an article yesterday named:

"Ailing Salt Lake metro housing market coming back to life"   

When reading the headline you can almost invision the nearly dead real estate market falling out of a hospital bed!   I think it would have been better to compare our real estate market to an Olympic marathon runner 20 miles into the race and getting ready to sprint!  The article also mentions the average days on market as 122 and that the median home price fell 5% from the same quarter last year. 

The article didn't mention the  highest volume area in Salt Lake County is zip code 84118.   In the 84118 zip code 419 homes sold in the last 200 days alone!  The Median Price in that zip code using solds from the last 200 days is $125,000. (of course that will push averages down)  The article also failed to mention that zip code median days on market is only 61 from list to sold.  That my friend is a smoking hot market not an ailing market coming back to life! 

This is a link to the article:

www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/53978202-79/market-prices-rates-lake.html.csp

The Jones Team understands our market and we are available to give you clear, concise market data on your area.  Don't look at medians or headlines to determine if now is a good time to buy or sell.    

With news stories reinforcing the fragile state of the global economy, mortgage rates again moved into record low territory last week. Highlighting the challenges facing Europe, financial services firm, J.P. Morgan, announced loses totaling over $2.3 billion dollars on complex bets that were intended to protect the firm from exposure to the European debt crisis. Fed Chair Bernanke also spoke last week, with little new insight into the Fed’s future plans or current view of the economy. This week is an extremely busy week of important economic data points. The CPI, Retail Sales, Industrial Production, LEI and others are due. With mounting evidence that the economy is shifting into a lower gear, any data that confirms that prognosis will apply more downward pressure on mortgage rates. Europe may also play a significant role in any movement in mortgage rates this week. With political challenges mounting, and growing evidence of even slower growth in the European bloc, any additional bad news from across the pond could pressure rates even lower.

With this being said, Utah home sales are still very strong and we anticipate them to continue to be strong with Unemployment percents being so low and with new business’s and families moving to Utah because of the demand it is going to continue to be a sellers market for awhile. As we have always been honest and upfront with our clients again we say "It’s never been a better time to buy a home" Lets go shopping! 

Big Real Estate Brokerages vs. Small Real Estate Brokerages:

Before the internet, cell phones and electronic communication played such a huge role in how Realtors do their jobs it was important to work for or have a big brokerage.   The bigger the brokerage the greater number of agents the greater number of buyers, sellers and people to share your listings with.  In the old days the only way to expose your listings was through word of mouth a sign and maybe some print advertising.  After all, other real estate offices didn’t know about new listings from a different brokerage until the end of the week when the new book of homes was delivered.   In addition you needed big conference rooms and impressive lobbies to meet your clients to sign documents and go through the books of homes available and only the big brokerages had computers, type writers and copy machines.  

All this has changed!   We immediately share every listing with the world!   In fact most of my clients never see my office so there is no reason to have an impressive lobby or conference room.   You can speak to anyone in the world or send video or photos instantly 24/7.   Most cell phones are capable of providing information instantly about anything from almost anywhere!       

Since starting our new brokerage we have heard other reasons why some people think a big brokerage is better and wanted to give a little rebuttal to why we disagree!

Training big brokerages provide:  to this I say why anyone would want to learn from a corporate trainer that probably wasn’t able to make it in the real world when instantly from anywhere I can buy an audio book, read an old fashioned paper book, hire a personal coach, or watch a video from the best person in any field I want to learn about!   I have never heard a corporate trainer as good as, Robert Kiyosaki,  Gary Keller, Jim Rohm, Zig Ziggler, Neopolean Hill or Darren Hardy.  Get with it today you can learn anything about anything and it doesn’t cost a lot of money just time!!!! 

Network with Other Agents:  Seriously, if your business plan is to help your buyer or seller by networking with the people you meet face to face in your office my guess is your buyers and sellers are not very happy and you’re not doing very well!    By 7:00 a.m. this morning we sent over 600 emails to buyers looking for bank owned homes alone!  Apply for the corporate trainer job!    

Office Space to work from:  If you need office space we have it for rent!  Call us!   Professional office space with internet, receptionist and conference room for only $200 a month in Cottonwood Heights.   If this is why you think a big brokerage is better you too should be a corporate trainer!

Free Cards and Signs:   You’re joking right!   If you are a real estate agent that doesn’t understand $100 will buy you a years worth of cards and $40 is what a personalized sign runs you need to do your buyer or sellers a favor and quit and apply for the coaching position at the local big brokerage!

We have worked with fantastic agents from big brokerages and fantastic agents from little brokerages they had one thing in common they were fantastic agents not brokerages!

The best proof I have that there is no advantage to big brokerage is this testimonial from one of our recent past clients:

"Don't get fooled by big name real estate companies when you can go with local representation that knows the market and knows where to market your home to get the highest sales price. Mark and Monte Jones made selling our home a walk in the park. They are great to work with.”

For the first time since the recession began, development and construction of commercial real estate is on the rebound nationally, and Utah is among the leading states.

Utah ranked sixth in the U.S. in 2011 for direct spending across all categories of commercial real estate, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association reported last Tuesday. That's a leap from Utah's 2010 placing — No. 26. Only West Virginia saw a bigger jump, from No. 48 to No. 3.

According to the study, $3.6 billion was spent in the development and construction of office, industrial and retail buildings statewide in 2011, which supported 77,550 jobs.

It's a bunch of things that has changed the trend here in Utah. There are a lot of businesses that have migrated from California because it’s just too expensive to do business there. Multimillion-dollar facilities built by companies like eBay, EMCCorp and Adobe that have chosen to come to the state is evidence that Utah is much more inexpensive when it comes to doing business.

The City Creek development, a $1.5 billion mixed-use project in downtown Salt Lake City that opened in March, also played a major role in commercial growth last year. 

It's predicted the commercial real estate market in the state will continue to be strong.

Texas led the survey with $7.9 billion in spending followed by New York, West Virginia, California and Arizona.

So as we have been telling our clients residential Real Estate always follows Commercial real estate so if you are getting ready to buy now is the time. 

I was showing homes two weeks ago to an out of state buyer.  Because the buyer was unfamiliar with the different areas he decided to see as many homes and areas as possible in the 6 hours we had scheduled together.   With his price range, layout and features requested the buyer decided the East side of the Salt Lake valley or the South West quadrant would suit his needs the best.  He also wanted to see what the North side of Utah County had to offer.

 
Starting in Downtown Salt Lake we drove East all along the bench then up Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Over to Draper up to Suncrest down to Lehi and South to Saratoga then we worked our way back to his hotel through Herriman, Riverton, SJ, and back on the freeway to Salt Lake. 

It didn’t really hit me as unusual because I have lived her my entire life.  But in that six hour tour  we saw snow boarders and skiers all over the canyons, hikers and rock climbers at the mouths of the canyons, golfers on the golf courses, one crazy water skier in Utah Lake, bikers and did I mention the Salt Lake Marathon was going on?  Where else can you experience so many different things in one day?  

We are pretty lucky to be able to live and play along the Wasatch Front!