Enormo.com real estate community blog

There’s a big problem with waiting for a housing recovery: You won’t see a real, strong recovery in the housing market until unemployment takes a serious dip.

That’s a rather unpleasant thought, considering that unemployment levels are still rising across the country.

A story on the Reuters news wire sums it up well: The continued fear of job losses is slowing any housing market rebound.

This makes perfect sense. Buying a home, and taking on a big monthly mortgage payment, is a serious commitment even in the best economic times. But when the economy is in a full-scale recession? When no one really feels that their jobs are safe? It’s asking a lot to expect people to purchase a home in times like these.

Of course, there are folks out there who have no choice but to sell or buy a home. Maybe they’ve been transferred by their employer. Maybe their family is growing, and their current residence only has one full bathroom.

The problem is, there are only so many people who have to move. For the housing market to thrive again, the country also needs people who simply want to move.

That happened all the time during the housing boom. You remember that boom, don’t you? It ran from about 2001 through the first three or four months of 2006. Then things went downhill rather quickly.

Today, the hope for, if not another housing boom (Frankly, we don’t need another of those.) but the beginning of a steady recovery of the housing market rests largely on employers. Simply put, they need to stop firing people and start hiring them.

It’s amazing what qualifies for good news in today’s housing market. For instance, the Federal Housing Finance Agency yesterday said that national housing prices continued to fall in the first quarter of this year. But they didn’t fall by as much as they’d dipped during the last quarter of 2008.

And, yes, this was heralded as good news.

I suppose it is, in a way. As this story in the Milwaukee Business Journal says, as housing prices begin to fall by smaller and smaller increments, it may mean that the residential real estate market is finally stabilizing. This would be good news for both buyers and sellers: It’d let everyone know the right price to set for homes, the prices that would guarantee home sales after a reasonable number of days on the market.

According to the government agency, nationwide home prices fell 0.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of this year. This is an improvement. Housing prices in the fourth quarter of 2008 had fallen 3.3 percent, according to the agency, from those in the third quarter of that year.

Again, I feel like I’m stretching the definition of “good news” here. But this smaller housing-price drop really does represent hope that the housing market is finally beginning to steady itself. Of course, we can all really celebrate when housing prices show an actual quarter-over-quarter increase.

Hopefully, that day is coming soon.

These are tough times to sell any  house. Luxury homes, with prices tags of $1 million or more, are even more difficult to move.

A couple trying to sell a home worth $2 million in the Boston suburb of Lincoln, Mass., understands this. That’s why they’re offering anyone who finds a buyer for the home a $50,000 finder’s fee. The Web site NECN.com wrote about the couple and even offers an online video of the home.

The finder’s fee isn’t the only creative strategy that homeowner David Hornstein is taking to help move his high-end home. He’s also built his own sign advertising the house. He tows it around town in his pickup truck. And, according to NECN.com, he parks this sign at strategic locations around the Lincoln area.

So far, the house still sits on the market. The couple told NECN.com that they have received a couple of offers on the home, but that they were too low. They’ve also had about 25 potential buyers come out to tour the property, the couple said.

Of course, just because the unique approach taken by the Hornsteins hasn’t worked yet, doesn’t mean it won’t work eventually. These are unconventional times for residential real estate. They require unconventional thinking.

Don’t be surprised to see more homeowners, as they struggle to sell their residences, take their own unusual steps. It’s a tough, tough market out there, and anything goes when you’re trying to sell a home.

There used to be several travel agencies in the neighborhood in which I grew up. This weekend, I noticed that all those old agencies are now gone.

The Los Angeles Times,  in a recent story, wondered whether real estate agents will soon join them.

The Times profiled a couple who bought a home in Burbank through an Internet service. At the end of the process, the couple, who never did meet a real estate agent in the flesh, received a $10,000 rebate check from their Realtors’ 3 percent commission.

The statistics show that real estate agents are leaving the industry in record numbers, not surprising considering how long the housing industry has been in a serious slump.

According to the Los Angeles Times’ story, the National Association of Realtors has reported a 13 percent drop in its membership since 2006.

The Times’ story goes on to say that in California, one of the states hardest hit by the housing downturn, only 2,030 people took examinations for broker and agent licenses in March. That’s down from more than 18,000 people who took these tests in March of 2005, the story reports.

Again, this is no surprise. During the housing boom, which ran from about 2001 through the first half of 2006, real estate agents flocked to the housing business in droves. It was a pretty easy time to make solid money as an agent. Homes sold in record times. Sellers juggled multiple offers. It seemed like everyone involved in the selling of real estate was making big money.

Then the housing slump came. Suddenly, working as a real estate agent was extremely difficult again. Since the slowdown, it’s taken real, hard work to make a solid living as a real estate agent.

I expect the ranks of the real estate agents to continue to shrink. But don’t forget, a good, talented real estate agent is a real ally to anyone looking to buy or sell a home. A top agent can help you land the best price for your home. A skilled agent can also help you purchase a home for the right price.

The housing slump, and new technology, have weeded out some of the dead weight in this industry. You could argue that it’s made the real estate industry stronger.

First-time homebuyers are extremely important to the health of the country’s economy. That’s because they’re also extremely important to the health of the U.S. housing market.

The National Association of Realtors reported that first-time buyers accounted for almost half of all the housing sales conducted in the first quarter of the year. Keeping first-time buyers in the market, then, would seem to be a recipe for recovery for the still-struggling residential real estate market.

Remember earlier this year? That’s when Congress passed the first-time home buyer $8,000 federal tax credit. This was supposed to stir all those first-time buyers who were sitting on the fence into action. And it did encourage many first-timers to make the leap toward homeownership.

Now the federal government is making that federal tax credit even more attractive. According to several news reports, including one from the National Association of Realtors, the federal government will soon allow first-time buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit for a down payment on the purchase of a home.

This will be a great benefit to first-time buyers. Mortgage interest rates are already at record lows. Housing prices have fallen. Sellers are desperate to make a deal. Everything right now favors buyers.

But there’s still one challenge for first-time buyers. It’s difficult to come up with all the cash needed for a down payment. Many first-time buyers, who are usually young, don’t have a lot of disposable income. Scrapping together the money for a down payment is a daunting task.

By making the $8,000 tax credit available for down payments, though, changes this. Once this happens, there’ll be no reason for first-time buyers not to enter the market.

And that can only be good for the nation’s housing industry.

I moved with my wife and children to a suburb of Chicago about three years ago. Yes, that means that I had some lousy timing: We bought our current home at the very height of the housing boom. I think I heard housing prices begin to fall about 10 seconds after my wife and I left the closing table.

We’re happy, though. We like our house, mostly. And we love our community.

Still, whenever I read our local papers, I get a bit nervous about the listings of sold residences: No one, it seems, is paying as much for homes of our size and age as we did for ours three-plus years ago.

We’re hearing and reading a lot lately about small signs that the residential real estate market may be at the very early stages of a gradual rebound. But then I see those sales in my local paper and I wonder: Are housing prices ever going to stop falling?

A friend of ours and her family have to move to Texas this summer for job-related reasons. Earlier this month, they sold their nice house for about $25,000 less than what they paid for it four years ago.

They were just happy to have sold it in less than a month’s time. But the transaction made me nervous: Their house is comparable to ours. They paid about the same was we paid for our house.

If we had to sell today, would we have to suck up a $25,000 loss? Probably, if we were lucky.

Maybe I’m reading all this wrong. Maybe these lower prices aren’t signs that the housing market is still in the midst of a terrible slump. Maybe they’re just evidence that housing prices had simply gotten too high during the housing boom. Maybe these lower, more affordable, prices are here to stay.

And maybe that’s not a bad thing at all.

You can learn a lot about your town on a bike ride. When your bike’s tire goes flat halfway through the ride, and you’re forced to walk back home for 45 minutes while dragging a now-useless bike behind you, you can learn even more.

Here’s what I learned last night, when this happened to me: Homeowners here seem to be more confident this summer than they were late last year or ealier this one.

There were a lot of new “For Sale” signs in front of homes. I didn’t count — I was too busy cursing my bike’s flat rear tire for that — but it seemed like most every block had someone who was trying to sell their residence.

This is important. Throughout much of last year, many of my neighbors in my Chicago suburb held off on putting their homes on the market. They didn’t think they’d get a fair price. Many of them didn’t even think they’d get any price at all.

People aren’t buying, they told me. And if they are, they’re trying to rip off sellers.

I couldn’t argue. They were absolutely right.

But lately, we’ve gotten some good — not great — news regarding the housing industry. Read this post, or this one or this one to see what I mean.  Maybe that’s all homeowners needed, that little bit of encouragement, to put their own residences on the market.

Or maybe they just grew tired of waiting for the market to get better.

Sellers today are still going to face serious challenges. This is in no way a seller’s market. But I’m happy to see so many sellers in my town willing to test the market.

It almost made trudging the mayflies along the riverside a pleasant experience. Almost.

Credit card companies have been getting a lot of press lately. None of it has been good.

Of course, credit card companies are like used-car salesmen, lawyers and reporters: No one likes them when times are good. When times are bad? We hate these folks.

Seems that Pres. Barack Obama isn’t a big fine of the credit card companies, either. He’s been pressing for credit card reform pretty heavy, decrying the soaring interest rates and fine print regarding exorbitant late fees and penalties for which the companies are known.

CBS News reported on the major reform bill that passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday of this week. The reform bill supposedly clamps down on arbitrary fee and interest rates hikes.

This is good, because credit card debt is killing the average U.S. family. The average credit card debt among U.S. families in 2007 hit $7,300.

That’s important when it comes to housing. According to RealtyTrac, an online provider of housing foreclosure information, residential foreclosures reached record levels in April. Think part of this is because so many homeowners are drowning in so much debt that they can’t even think about paying their mortgage loans?

Maybe this recession has taught us all an important lesson: Credit is great. It’s important, and is a necessity in today’s world. But it can also prove devastating to families when abused. Just look at those soaring foreclosure numbers to see just how devastating.

I used to like reading the Chicago Tribune. It was a hefty newspaper. It wasn’t quite as thick as the New York Times, but it certainly was meaty. I considered it a compromise between the fluff of USA Today and the highbrow appeal of the Times.

Today, though, the Tribune, wracked by bankruptcy, is a shell of what it once was. Sections have been eliminated. Stories are now shorter. Top writers are gone.

I know the economy, and the struggles of the publishing world, are to blame. But I also like to blame Sam Zell, the real estate mogul who now owns the paper. He’s the one who authorized the gutting of the paper, to save money.

That’s why it pains me to have feature Zell in a post that touts more good news for the housing industry. I’d prefer my bearers of good news to be people I actually like. But Zell will have to do.

In a story provided by the Reuters news service, Zell says that he expects the U.S. housing market to stabilize this summer. Zell is just the latest business-world superstar to say that the country’s housing market is beginning to recover.

Zell pointed to a lack of new homes as the main reason for his prediction. According to the Reuters story, U.S. homebuilders are scheduled to build an estimated 350,000 new homes this year. That’s a big downgrade from just 2006, when homebuilders here built a whopping 1.7 million homes.

Of course, that oversupply helped start the housing slump. Hopefully, a more conservative home-building industry will help jumpstart the slugish housing market.

I also hope that this time, Zell is right with his prediction. The whole country is waiting eagerly for the U.S. housing market to begin its rebound. The truth is, until housing sales begin to pick up again, the odds of the economy digging itself out of its recession are slim.

A Realtor handles what might be the biggest investment you ever make: the purchase of your home.

But how much of an expert is your Realtor? Does your agent know the ins and outs of the community in which you want to live? Does your agent know everything there is to know about the schools, parks, shopping districts, crime rates or amenities?

Can your agent tell you what kind of development the City Council is considering for that large plot of vacant land? Can your Realtor fill you in on the downtown redevelopment plan being considered for the community you have targeted? And, even more importantly, can your agent tell you exactly what new stores, restaurants and community buildings are coming in as part of that redevelopment plan?

All of these questions are crucial. Neighborhoods that are vibrant, that are constantly bringing in new retailers, entertainment options and dining districts are ones where home values usually hold steady or rise. You need your real estate agent to know these things.

Just ask Internet guru Dave Taylor, whom you can find online at his own site, Ask Dave Taylor. I interviewed him over the weekend for a feature story I’m writing for an online technology magazine. During our interview, we also spoke about how real estate agents should be using the Web to best serve their clients.

Taylor said a surprising thing: He said that agents need to visit the Web sites of local newspapers, magazines and TV stations in the communities they serve. By doing this, they can identify the community issues that are most important to their clients. And they can bring more information to their clients as they try to find that one perfect home.

So next time you’re looking for a Realtor, make sure that the agent you choose is plugged into the community in which you want to live.