CNN's "The Situation Room" Did a Little Press Piece on ForSalebyOwnerCenter.com Today

We just want to say thanks to CNN's reporter, Jacki Schechner for mentioning (along with a nice screen shot) our site ForSalebyOwnerCenter.com today on the 5:00 pm "The Situation Room" show. They also discussed the drop in existing home sales and increased inventory that we discussed earlier in the day on this blog. Here is a link to today's show transcripts.

Existing Home Sales Charts Support Cooling Housing Market

The NAR released existing homes sale data today which supports a cooling trend in the market. Interest rates appear partly to blame with the slight increase to over 6% but still historically low.

Nationally the west suffered the biggest drop of 3.7% while the northeast dropped 2.7%. Currently there is a 5 month supply of existing homes for sale which may probably continue to build into the new year.

Biggest Drop in New Home Sales in Over 10 Years

Today the Census Bureau reported the annual pace of new home sales had dropped to 1.25 million from the record high of 1.4 million the month before. This represents an 11% drop which last occurred in February 1995.

Some other highlights:

Northeast new home sales were actually up from 82,000 to 93,000 up 13.4%
West was down 22.1% from 439,000 to 342,000.

The supply of new homes is also at the highest point of the year with 4.9 month supply.

Overall new home sales are still above last years November levels of 1,175.

This may be another sign of a cooling housing market or the figures from the month before are flawed as they were a surprise to most economist who did not expect such a large jump.

Download the latest new home sales data on xls.

Selling Your Home By Owner - Get on TLC's "Moving on UP" Casting Call

For those of you selling or buying a home for sale by owner, you could be on TV. TLC's show "Moving on Up". If you are interested all the details are below... please contact Jennifer and be sure to mention www.forsalebyownercenter.com!

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*** TLC’s “Moving Up” ~ TELEVISION OPPORTUNITY ***

We’re looking for “MOVING” STORIES

TLC, the television network that brought you Trading Spaces and While You Were Out, is looking to cast 15 fresh new episodes of their home design TV show Moving Up – hosted by Trading Spaces star designer Doug Wilson.

We’re looking for people who are moving sometime between January 23 and March 30, 2006. We need people with outgoing personalities or unique, extreme taste in design - people who would love to be on TLC! Diversity is important to our show as well. We’re looking for people from a wide range of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.

All candidates should demonstrate a strong passion for design and should have plans to change the décor of their new home right away. TLC will step in to help make those projects happen faster and less expensively.

Please note: Interested candidates must still occupy their current home. First-time buyers moving into a home that is already vacant are unfortunately not eligible since we meet with a pair of buyers and sellers.

Please contact:

Jennifer Nascimento/ Rebecca Chaikin, Casting Associates

(212) 974 9050 x 130 or via email at: jnascimento - at - bbcnyproduction - dot - com

Charts of California Median Home Prices for November

For those of you in California thinking of selling your home "for sale by owner" here is the current November 2005 Median Home Prices for California.

Real Estate and the Fastest Growing States

As real estate revolves around basic economic principals of supply and demand a good idea to understand how stable a real estate market is (or will be in the future) is to look at the population growth rates. Today on CNN there is some stats to give you a nice view of this.

Strong Housing Starts for November Shows Builder Confidence in the Real Estate Market

The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Developement released its November 2005 housing starts figures today and they indicated a surprising increase of 5.3% over October and 17.5% higher than November 2004. Although interest rates have rising to the highest in 2 years at 6.3% average builders are showing that they still believe the real estate market has legs.

Additionally a building permits are also up 2.5% over October and 3.0% higher than November 2004. Also interesting is it seems that builders are building at a slower rate than just 5 years ago as in 2004 a large scale project of 20 or more homes took an average of 1.9 months to build vs. the 1.2 months in 1999. Maybe this is done on purpose to try and pre-sell more of the units and cause a bidding war?

NAR Fighting back on the DOJ anti-competitive lawsuit

As you may know, the NAR is under scrutiny from the DOJ which file a lawsuit for anti-competitive practices. The NAR just released a report to defend it position. In the opening pages of the report it states "Real estate brokerage is a $60 to $70 billion industry" (this may be part of the reason why FSBO is gaining momentum). In there report they indicate that "14% of home sales were "for-sale-by-owner", if you put that into a number it means that approximately 1,000,000 successful FSBO transactions, which means alot of people saved alot of money! If you are interested in reading this report to understand why REALTORS say they are needed, download it here (it's a .pdf)

For Sale by Owner Center - Update to Real Estate Search

We are continuing to improve For Sale by Owner Center real estate search functions. Now once you have performed a real estate search you can click on the link "Map Real Estate Listings" and you will be able to see the results of your FSBO search plotted on a real estate map.

Use Google Earth to Search Real Estate For Sale by Owner

We have been working our Google Earth real estate search product as a means of reaching more internet users and providing maximum exposure for their homes for sale. All home sellers whom use the correct legal address of the property will receive a free google earth kml file allowing users to fly over their home. So far the demand for this has been great. Home buyers love the fact that they can overlay school districts and fly over there new route to work.

Real Estate RSS Feeds Improvements on For Sale by Owner Center

We believe that RSS and real estate go hand in hand. It simplifies the often long process of shopping for a home. By subscribing to RSS feeds, you no longer have to visit various real estate websites to try and keep track of the market as now the newest real estate listings are sent directly to you.

A problem we found with RSS is that many people did not know how to use it, therefore we created a new instruction page that makes subscribing to a RSS feed simple. Take a look at our new real estate RSS feed pages and give use you feedback on how we can improve this further?

California real estate data from CAR - Affordability Down Again

Those of you from California. Here is today's CAR Housing Affordability report. Here is the big picture:

California

Oct-05 - 15
Sep-05 - 15
Oct-04 - 19

California – Condos

Oct-05 - 21
Sep-05 - 22
Oct-04 - 28

Statewide Median Prices:

Calif. (sf)

Oct-05 - $538,770
Sep-05 - $543,980
Oct-04 - $459,530

Calif. (condo)

Oct-05 - $429,090
Sep-05 - $424,580
Oct-04 - $372,600

View the entire report for your local real estate information.

For Sale by Owner Open Houses This Weekend.

Here is another list of this weekend's open houses in case your shopping for a home instead of Christmas. Have fun and be sure to view the homes on our new Google Maps / Earth mash-up maps!

$650,000 1695 Pinellas Bayway, Penthouse
Tierra Verde Island , FL 33715 1400 2 / 2 12/11/2005 9:00 AM

$214,900 1475 RAVENA STREET
Bethlehem , PA 18015 1869 3 / 2.5 12/11/2005 11:30 AM

$114,000 1215 S. 13th Ave. E.
Newton , IA 50208 1386 2 / 1 12/10/2005 11:30 AM

$25,000 2 lots on Alaska
Interlachen , FL 32148 0 1 / 1 12/10/2005 8:00 am

$142,500 406 Westcot Court
Greer , SC 29650 1700 3 / 2.5 12/11/2005 10:00 AM

$437,500 126 Viewpoint Terrace
Peekskill , NY 10566 1264 2 / 2.5 12/10/2005 1:00 pm

More Housing Data to Review... Lots of Good Data

Here is a little housing report I found today. This is an excellent read for those of you whom are thinking of selling your home and will help you price correctly. Excellent insight and data into local housing trends. Most overvalued area.. Naples, Florida. Also there is some indication of of some housing trends heading south. Download the report.

California Real Estate and Jobs.... Married Now Divorced in 6 Months?

Today, the UCLA Anderson forecast released a report taking about how a cooling California real estate market could affect as much as 800,000 thousands jobs! Here is a summary from the CNN article:

"a loss of 500,000 construction jobs and 300,000 jobs in the financial services sector from the housing slowdown, but noted that job losses would not spread across many industries, other than some limited pullbacks in manufacturing."

then followed up with...

"We actually think that we're being somewhat optimistic in saying we don't see it spreading beyond that," Edward Leamer, director of UCLA Anderson Forecast, told CNNMoney.com. "There will be weakness in retail, for sure, and in manufacturing. But not widespread losses."

There is a few things I would read in between the lines of these comments.... optimistic, for sure... everyday those 500,000 construction & 300,0000 people spend money on Starbucks, lunch, house payments, etc... so everyone downline will feel the pinch, especially in areas like Orange County which may be the mortgage company capital of the world.

View the UCLA Anderson Forecast report

Housing Cooling Off or Taken a Break... Good Insight from This Report

Everyday I get home sellers contacting me asking what are "real estate prices doing" going up, down, land softly, crash... all we can do is interpret data, so here is an excellent read for you, download the OFHEO House Price Index Report and study your local area.

For Sale by Owner Center.com Google Maps Mash-Up featured on Googlemaps Mania

Today, the unofficial Google Maps blog Googlemapsmania.Blogspot.com did a little write up on our real estate Google Maps / Google Earth mash-up that we released back on Sept 12.

Housing Migrations.... Sell High Buy Low

Here is an excellent article on CNN regarding recent trends of people moving due to housing affordability and taken their equity to move towards the mid-west. This is an excellent read and a trend that will most likely continue to pick up steam as baby boomers no longer need to leave close to work and approach retirement. Another book that elaborates on this trend is Roaring 2000's by Harry Dent which discussed this trend over three years ago. We believe that this trend will also cause an increase in owners selling homes FSBO.

Real Estate Open-Houses on For Sale by Owner Center

This weekend, if you are not putting up your Christmas lights or fighting the store... we have some real estate open houses coming to you.

Here is a list of the open house or you can visit our Open House listings page.

$550,000 18 Wildwood Dr
Adel, IA 50003 6400 6 / 3.75 12/4/2005 1:00 PM

$650,000 1695 Pinellas Bayway
Tierra Verde, FL 33715 1400 2 / 2 12/03/2005 9:00 AM

$379,900 581 Majestic View Lane
Oconomowoc , WI 53066 2515 4 / 2.5 12/4/2005 2:00 PM

$139,900 4747 Wheeler Rd.
Quitman , GA 31643 1800 3 / 2 12/03/2005 01:00 PM

$269,000 3315 Mayfield Ave.
Windsor Mill , MD 21244 1588 4 / 1.5 12/04/2005 01:00 PM

$214,900 1475 RAVENA STREET
Bethlehem , PA 18015 1869 3 / 2.5 12/11/2005 11:30 AM

$450,000 8172 NW 201 Terrace
Hialeah , FL 33015 2400 4 / 3 12/03/2005

$339,000 1821 SE 48th Avenue
Portland , OR 97215 1798 3 / 1 12/04/2005 12:00 PM

$379,900 355 Aster Ridge Trail
Peachtree City , GA 30269 4600 5 / 4 12/04/2005 2:00 PM

Click on the links for contact information, maps & directions etc!

If Real Estate Slows... the Impact on the Economy?

Reading CNN article on Housing this morning ran across this interesting little fact:

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com, said that real estate, home building, mortgage finance and other home-related industries together accounted for 9.7 percent of total domestic employment in the second quarter of 2005, up from 9.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001.

Combine this with California being one of the hottest areas for real estate, building, etc and the fact the California is something like 25% of the GDP... I'm curious to see what the impact could be. Just food for thought.

National Home Values Report of Appreciation

All the real estate bubble talk is hard to believe in when you see reports like this from the OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight). Some highlights of the housing report:

Nevada home values down 10% in appreciation to 17.6% vs. 28.6% last year.

5 Year winners of the most appreciation:

DC: 118.87%
CA: 112.76%
HI: 102.75%
FL: 99.69%
NV: 99.00%