Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

After two consecutive days of “the sky is falling” reporting about the real estate market, I thought you all might appreciate some time meeting with our resident Lake Oroville Real Estate psychiatrist to help deal with this “tragic” news. 

Free Real Estate Market, meet Dr. I Told You So

Dr. I Told You So: What seems to be the problem today, Free Market

Free Market: I’m  just exhausted, Doc.

I Told You So: Really? Tell me why.

Free Market: Well, every time I try to do my job, something, or someone, interferes with me.

I Told You So: Didn’t we have this conversation about 10 years ago?

Free Market: Yes, when a bunch of meddlers forced me to loan money to people who would never have been approved for a loan, had they let me do my job. 

I Told You So:  So, how has it gone since then?

Free Market: Well, I hit my head real hard when I fell of the cliff. Since then they have been trying to put me on disability, thinking that I am no longer capable of doing my job.

I Told You So: Let me get this right, they attempted to disable you, Free Market.

Free Market: Yes.

I Told You So: Didn’t I tell you that there is no way to disable you? That the only way to stop you is to take you over?

Free Market: Yes, but how come nobody else seems to understand this?

I Told You So: Who is nobody? Read the rest of this entry »

Having spent a part of my working life, in the Lake Oroville real estate market, as a financial consultant with a major Wall Street brokerage company I was always entertained by, not only the jargon of the industry,  but also by some of the odd, or some might say superstitious, ways that pundits use to predict the next direction that the market or the economy might move.

For example, the Super Bowl Indicator theorizes that the year in which a team from the AFC wins the Super Bowl the stock market will fall, but if an NFC team wins the market will rally. Amazingly, this “predictor” has been right 80% of the time over the years. Another of these anecdotal predictors is the Hem Line Effect. This theory says that as hem lines move up so does the market and when hem lines get longer the market drops.

So, what does this have to do with anything related to the real estate market in Lake Oroville, Paradise and Chico, you say?

As to those theories, nothing. But I think we unintentionally swerved into the first real estate industry anecdotal predictor of the real estate market, in our office. I call it the Redenbacher Effect.

I discovered this theory while Steffan, one of the associates in my office was popping his $1.00 bag of popcorn ( that he bought at the Dollar Store, because that is where REALTORS® shop these days) in our microwave oven. You might imagine the quality level of $1.00 popcorn is not quite the same as the good stuff you get at the movies for about $5.00 a bag.  The fact that Steffan eats at least a bag a day of this stuff has leads me to believe that he is quite the popcorn connoisseur.

I will never forget the profoundness of the words that eminated from his lips as the Redenbacher Effect was born:

 ”I sure will be glad when the market gets good again so I can afford to buy something better than this $1.00 popcorn c*@p.”

With the suddenness of a light bulb being switched on to interrupt the darkness of an empty room, it hit me that we may finally have an accurate way to forecast the pending direction of  not only the Lake Oroville real estate market, but the real estate markets of all 4 corners of the world!

The Redenbacher Effect is defined as this: Read the rest of this entry »

August 1, 2010 marked the 35th anniversary of the 6.1 magnitude earthquake that shook the Lake Oroville real estate market that summer day in 1975.  A quake, that most scientists that study these things say, was induced by the construction of Oroville Dam and filling of Lake Oroville.

The quake, which caused an estimate $2 million in damages, mostly greeted homeowners who had masonry fireplaces with collapsed or cracked chimneys. 

In light of the recent observation of this historic annniversary I want to share an article with you which discusses whether earthquake insurance is worth the cost of paying for it.

Happy anniversary and happy reading.

Click here for article

Good news for those of you in the Lake Oroville, Chico, and Paradise real estate markets, who have been unable to enjoy the benefits of my AGENTnTOUCH™ app on your Android smartphone.

I have just rolled out the Droid edition of this app and it is now available for download. I have also made some recent changes to the features of the app by adding mapping of area schools, and providing the ability to search for properties directly from my website.

After downloading the app, simply enter my Agent Id on the first page. The Id number is 5303704691.

With coming upgrades and the addition of more features it is my goal to make this the only real estate app you will ever need. Coming next is the Blackberry version of the app. It should be launching sometime within the next month. Of course you will hear it first here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Adobe Flash 10.1 Player to hit Motorola Droid on August 18th? intomobile.com)
• Remotely Control Your Computer with RemoteDroid pocketnow.com)
• Motorola says Droid X getting Android 2.2 Froyo update ‘by early September’  intomobile.com)

Is this technology thing terrific or what.

Late last week I showed a home to a first time home buyer in the Lake Oroville real estate market. She liked the house enough to make an offer on it last Saturday evening  through the online bidding process that the seller had established.  No paper offer to write and no signature needed when submitting our bid.  I simply discussed the offer terms with the buyer and from my desk and computer  in my home office I entered the online bid.

Come Monday morning I received an e-mail, on my iPhone, at about 6:30 am informing me that the seller had responded to the offer by sending us a counter offer. I immediately called the buyer, discussed the counter offer and decided to submit a counter offer to the seller’s counter offer.

I submitted the new terms to the seller. After about an half hour I received another e-mail letting me know that the seller had accepted our new terms. I promptly called my buyer to inform her of the good news.  After congratulating her and discussing the next steps in the process, I ended the call and hung up the phone.

It was then that it hit me. Read the rest of this entry »

You knew it wouldn’t be long before I made it easier for you to utilize your smart phone to access this blog site, search for properties in the Lake Oroville, Paradise  and Chico California real estate markets, and get the latest in interest rates and other real estate news and advice.

Today I am announcing the launch of my very own iPhone app that is now available for download at the App Store. With this highly sophisticated, but easy to use, app you now have not only my contact information in the palm of your hand but you can now access all the services of my blog site with just the touch of a button. No more addresses to remember and no more passwords to forget. This is just another investment I am making for you in order to provide a service, that nobody else in the Lake Oroville real estate market will,  in order to make current and relevant real estate information readily available to you.

See my current listings, check out my latest blog post, or even find my Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In pages. Spend as much, or a little time as your prefer because there is NO COST to you to download this App. Check back often, though because updates and come cool additions are coming soon.

And unlike many of today’s apps this app will be compatible with Blackberry and Droid users. Look for the rollout annoucement for these phones on the site sometime before Labor Day.

Download your app at the iTunes App store and search for AgentNTouch. After downloading, launch the app and in the Agent I.D. box enter 5303704691.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. My goal is to always be an AgentNTouch.

Related articles by Zemanta

• More Smartphone Owners Using Local Search And Social Networking  webpronews.com)
• Droid X vs. the Droid: How They Differ  pcworld.com)
• iPhone, Android or Blackberry? The right smartphone for doctors  kevinmd.com)

As a reader of this blog you know that the market guidance I give for the Lake Oroville real estate market and Paradise real estate market is intended to provide a forward looking perspective to where the market is going.

Attempting to take into consideration all the factors that affect the market and trying to provide accurate guidance into the future is a balancing act to say the least. The biggest challenge in trying to do this is in separating the hype from reality.

Every day you hear the hype but rarely the reality.

I think the reason this Lake Oroville real estate blog is so popular is that readers have realized that the perspective and advice I give is based solely what I see the realities of the market to be. For example, if you go back to some of my previous blog posts you will see that I was maybe the only REALTOR you heard saying that the tax credits would not help the market in the long term; that the market cannot recover until we find a way to get some of the 8 million or so who have been foreclosed on back into the market; and that government “purchase incentives” will only prolong the pain homeowners and sellers are going through with regards to home values.

My contact with two separate buyers in the Lake Oroville real estate market over the past couple of weeks has led me to believe that we are about to see the very small beginnings of a truly sustainable recovery in home sales and home values.

This belief is based on the fact that each of these buyers were coming to me following their homes being foreclosed upon in late 2007 and early 2008.  With FHA lending standards allowing a borrower to get a loan with a foreclosure of 3 or more years old on their credit report, these buyers are poised to get back into the market and find another home to purchase.

With the first big wave of foreclosures rolling through the real estate market in 2008 it stands to reason that there should be the beginnings of an uptick in real estate transactions sometime in the middle of 2011 as many of those who lost their homes may possibly qualify again for a loan.

And as corny as this may sound, with the much lower prices and the almost free, fixed interest rates, many of these buyers may look back on their foreclosure with fond memories as it enabled them to get out of a house they most likely over paid for and which they financed with an adjustable loan with a top rate that would make a loan shark blush.

Time is a great healer, isn’t it?

More good news for first-time homebuyers in the Lake Oroville, Paradise, and Chico California real estate markets who missed the June 30, 2010 deadline for closing the escrow on the purchase of their home.

The U.S. Sentate, last night, passed H.R. 5623 which, when signed by the President, will extend the deadline of closing a transaction that was under contract before May, 1, 2010. The new deadline will be September 30, 2010.

There is estimated to be 180,000 homebuyers that were unable to close their transactions by the June 30th deadline due to delays in getting their loans processed.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Extension to Home Buyer Tax Credit Deadlines Resurrected by House of Representatives  findwell.com)
• Closing Deadlines for Home Buyer Tax Credit Extended  findwell.com)

This just came across the wires and I wanted to make sure all of you in the Lake Oroville and Paradise Ca real estate markets hear it here first:

(June 29, 2010)—The United States House of Representatives has just passed HR 5623, the Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010, by a vote of 409-5. This bill extends the deadline for closing tax credit eligible transactions from June 30 to September 30, 2010. The bill moves to the Senate where the outcome is much less certain. I will continue to update you as the events move forward.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Will Congress Extend the Tax Credit Closing Deadline?  blogs.wsj.com)
• Today in Congress  dailykos.com)
• Extension to Home Buyer Tax Credit Deadlines Resurrected by House of Representatives  findwell.com)
• U.S. House Extends Closing Deadline for Homebuyer Tax Credit  businessweek.com)

The United States Senate failed to pass a bill yesterday that, among other things, would have extended the home buyer tax credit until September 30, 2010.

The bill, H.R. 4123, included an amendment allowing home buyers the three-month extension on the tax credit. The extension, though, only applied to buyers who signed purchasing contracts before the original April 30 deadline.

With a backlog of transactions waiting to be processed, and in danger of not closing by the required deadline of June 30, 2010,  the National Association of REALTORS®, as well a mortgage lender groups, had urged Congress to extend the time for escrow closings to the proposed September time frame.

Unfortunately for those of you in the Lake Oroville real estate market and the Paradise real estate market in danger of not closing your transaction on time, the provision for the extension was added as an aside to an unemployment bill that had become a political hot potato.

Why Congress can’t do the common sense thing, (oh wait, my English teacher told me never to use the words Congress and common sense in the same sentence), and vote on these unrelated issue separately is beyond me.

If you are in danger of missing this deadline you might want to turn up the heat on your loan officer, as loan processors and underwriters could really care less about your time frame

There is still an outside chance that this extension amendment and be added to another bill or simply be voted on on its own merits. My advise though is don’t assume anything.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tax Credit Extension is Dead in the Water  zillow.com)
• Tax Credit Paperwork Extension Denied  rerockstar.com)
• 200,000 could lose out on homebuyer tax credit  money.cnn.com)