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 »

The game hunting world is all abuzz this morning as word spreads that Lake Oroville resident Pat Butler set a world record by bagging the largest Tule Elk while bow hunting on Grizzly Island  yesterday. 

According to reports from the hunting grounds, Butler, an owner of  the ever popular Wagon Wheel Market, here in the Lake Oroville real estate market,  took the 8 x 8 elk during the afternoon hunt. By late afternoon representatives from the Department of Fish and Game certifed it as the largest elk ever taken by hunting with bow and arrow, granting Pat world record status for his efforts.

I think there is elk jerky in my future!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Pat.

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 »

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.

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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?

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.

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Today’s news that new homes sales are at their worst level in recorded history comes on the heels of yesterday’s report that existing home sales we down more than 2% while the “experts” were expecting an increase of almost 6%, is great example of what I am afraid is going to be another 6 months to a year of pain for sellers and homeowners.  I hope I am wrong , but I fear that I am not.

But, wait!! I thought the government’ s tax credit program was supposed to stabilize the market. If you listened to, and believed what,  the National Association of REALTORS® and the California Association of REALTORS® have had to say about the credits, you should be seeing a recovery by now. But, what we are beginning to see, on a National basis, (which is what most of us read and hear about) is a rapid move of the market toward the place it would have already gone,if  the people who should know better would have been honest about the ultimate impact of these credits they were supporting.

Instead these groups landed on the side of  getting a quick “fix” instead of thinking long term. Now we have to look even longer term because the inevitable has been prolonged.

Now let’s be honest here. I and my office associates, here in the Lake Oroville and Paradise real estate markets,  no doubt benefited from the temporary increase in sales that resulted from the credits. Our sales numbers increased like everyone else’s.  I would, however, have gladly sacrificed the short term benefits in order to re-establish a viable, vibrant and free real estate market. One that has staying power.

As it is we are saddled with the hangover from the housing version of  Cash For Clunkers, or as I prefer to call it:  “Funds For Foreclosures”

If you think that I am all gloomy and doomy about this market you are wrong. I think that expiration of these tax credits now allow us to come back to reality and now focus on the real cause of this market today. UNEMPLOYMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe a softer real estate market going into election season will be one more reason to finally get us the changes we need in order to get  our country’s, and our state’s, economic engine restarted.

As they say, Everything Happens for A Reason.

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Senate OKs new tax credit closing deadline

Congress is riding to the rescue for all of you in the Lake Oroville and Paradise California real estate markets who have qualified for the first time home buyer tax credit  by having a home purchase contract in place before the April 30, 2010 deadline, and are in danger of not being able to get the purchase closed by the deadline of June 30, 2010 because your lender is overwhelmed by the backlog of paperwork created by the frenzy.

With just two weeks before the expiration of the tax credit program ,an amendment to HR 4213 was added which, if signed by the President, will  extend the closing deadline to September 30, 2010. The extension was requested by the mortgage industry will allow a backlog of over 180,000 purchase transactions that were begun before the April 30th deadline to be completed. While this is a wise, and fair move on the part of Congress to agree to extend this deadline, it is important to understand that it THE EXTENSION IS NOT YET OFFICIAL.

With only 2 weeks to go before the original expiration date of the program, it is important for you, if you are one of these 180,000 transactions that has not closed, to keep pressure on your lender to get your loan done.  In this political environment it would be foolish to think that the proposed deadline extension of September 30th is a done deal. 

I will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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Wow, it has been a very long time since we last got together on what was the leading real estate blog site in the entire northern end of California.

What’s that you ask? Where have I been?

If you must know, I have been in the same place I have been since the beginning of this blog. In my Lake Oroville Real estateoffice; attending to the needs of my clients; brushing up on the lastest real trends, expanding my knowledge through a couple of certification programs that allow me to be of even more help to those struggling with their home mortgages; and spending a little more quality time with family and friends.

What I haven’t been doing, as I am sure you have noticed, is blogging. It seems that I have a ton of ideas of which to write about, but I have just simply been unable to sit down and do it. I feel like I have had “blogger’s block.”  If you have never heard of this debilitating ailment before it is because I just made it up and am sure that I am the first to suffer from it. I am sure though that the cost to treat this disease will be covered under the new national health care plan!!!!

A few of my Facebook friends and I were joking around during the peak of my blogging activity one day and the word “blogarrhea” was used to describe my prolific blog postings. Now however, it seems that I have been suffering from “blogstipation.”  

No longer though. Today I am taking control of this disease and will no longer let it deny you the opportunity to once again read the most relevant real estate news and advice of the day. It is true, I have a lot of work to do to catch up. But I am undaunted by the tasks that lie ahead.  Beginning today I am back, and I thank you for your loyalty to me and this blogsite.

Now……..back to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Hello again Paradise CA real estate market watchers and welcome back to your weekly stats. There is really not anything of note in this weeks’s report. With the deadline to qualify for any type of homebuyer tax credit fast approaching, I would expect to seeing some upward movements in the stats over the next 4-6 weeks.

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