Tuesday, February 24, 2009

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit

There's been a lot of hype and misinformation spread about the new first time home buyer tax credit that passed as part of the economic stimulus package last week. It's really great, but has several important "buts" and "ifs". The National Association of Realtors put out a pamphlet to help explain it and here the link to the PDF on the NAR website:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PDF

With really low interest rates and a sweet tax credit, it's a great time to become a home owner!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Houses Are Selling!

Maybe just not a the prices we would like them to if you are a seller. The buyers are definitely out there and snapping up the bargains. Here are the stats for Pierce County in January:

5367 Active Listings
728 Pending Listings
297 Sold Listings

This makes for a 7.4 month supply of homes based on the number of pending sales. The lowest supply rate since June 2007. This is after we peaked with a 14.3 month supply in December 2008. Obviously some sellers got the message. Unfortunately, most of those sellers were banks.

Here are the breakdowns for some more specific areas of Pierce County in January:

Gig Harbor
605 Active Listings
43 Pending
15 Sold
14.1 month supply

Lakewood
271 Active Listings
17 Pending
17 Sold
7.7 month supply

Puyallup
976 Active Listings
98 Pending
81 Sold
7.2 month supply

Tacoma
1873 Active Listings
151 Pending
139 Sold
5.9 month supply

University Place
159 Active Listings
23 Pending
17 Sold
10 month supply

Needless to say, these numbers vary depending on the price, neighborhood, waterfront, view, etc. By the way, these numbers are culled from Trendgraphix.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Lighting the Narrows Bridges

This week there was a big step forward towards permanently lighting the Tacoma Narrows Bridges at night. If you missed the article in The News Tribune click here for the link. I am actually a little surprised at backlash to the lights. There are some people who feel it is light polution and I think they have a valid point. Otherwise, the cost is pretty inexpensive and the power to run the lights can be generated through "green" energy sources. Most importantly, I genuinely think the lights will improve the value of homes that have a view of the bridges. That's a lot of homes! Currently there are no iconic images that represent the South Sound. Sorry, the Tacoma Dome just doesn't do it for me. Seattle has the Space Needle and Pike's Place Market. We have great museums, quirky neighborhoods, historic neighborhoods, but no one image that instantly tells someone where it located and makes them want to go there. The question I pose is "Do you think lighting the bridges will increase tourism in the area?"

Are houses selling?

"Are houses selling?" This is the second most asked question I get after, "How are you doing?" The first question is usually asked with a cringe because they expect me to break down into a puddle of tears over my choice of career... Real Estate. Well, the answer is, "I am doing fine." More importantly, "Houses are definitely selling!" In the first 12 days of February, 104 houses and condos have sold in Pierce County. That's not exactly gang-buster business, but it's not a disaster either.

My goal with this blog is to keep you informed about the South Sound real estate market through hard facts, aka statistics culled from the NWMLS. I'd also like to have some fun with the blog. I'm not even sure what that means yet, but if I see a house I just LOVE or hear of an event that I think people would enjoy I will post it.

My sister in law snapped a classic picture last summer that I think sums up the two ways to look at the real estate market and our current economy in general. We can either see it as a wild ride with lots of opportunities or we can see it as a scary mess.



Which kid are you?