Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

 Now, before you get too excited about the change in sales for the Paradise real estate market compared to last week, you need to know that I have made a change in the areas that I am tracking for you.  Due to popular demand I have now added the Magalia area to my Paradise CA weekly reporting.  Reporting on a larger geographical area will smooth our the wild swings in the numbers that sometime occur with smaller samples of numbers. Stay tuned for future reports.

 Another ho-hum week for Lake Oroville real estate market as sales activity continues to under perform. But once again we find that the inventory of Oroville homes for sale has dropped to another low. 

If the current activity in the office of our Oroville market is any indication we may soon be seeing a change in these sales numbers. Our Oroville agents have been very busy this week showing property and writing offers. It is good to see that maybe the spring-like weather is bringing buyers out.

If you are thinking of selling, now might be the time to get your home on the market.

Of all the real estate blog posts I have read over the past year, very few, if any attempt to get a feel for what their readers think. In fact most of what I see out there in the blogosphere are glorified advertisements touting the author as the only person you should be using to help you buy or sell your next home.

In our office in the Lake Oroville and Paradise real estate markets we attempt to provide not only real estate market information on our blogs, but also a good mix of what is going on in our communities. And while it is easy to provide comment and feedback to each of our posts we realize that not everyone has the time in their hectic lives to sit down and submit written comments on any particular blog post.

Well, providing your opinion just got easier for those interested in the Paradise andLake Oroville housing markets. With the newest feature to my blog site having just been released by REALTY WORLD  you can now provide your opinion with just a quick mouse click or two on what will be a broad range of real estate topics, and even some topics that have nothing to do with the local real estate markets.

Introducing the Poll Question of the Month. Each month (or more often if you wish) I will post a question that you can answer quickly and easily. To the right of this post you will see this month’s question asking your opinion on where you think real estate prices are headed. Simply click on your answer and then click the VOTE button. It really is that easy.

And better yet, if you have a question you would like to see made part of the poll,  just drop me an e-mail and I will consider using your question.

Let me know what you think. This site is as much yours as it is mine.

Over the past eighteen months or so I am sure you have seen many an article written by various real estate professionals encouraging buyers to “get off the fence” to take advantage of the low prices and low interest rates currently available.  As a regular reader of this Lake Oroville and Paradise, CA real estate blog you have also seen my views of market conditions over the past year. Many buyers have taken the advice and made some magnificent deals on their purchase of homes in the Oroville and Paradise, Ca real estate markets.

The advice has been taken so seriously in fact that a new dilemma is now facing potential Oroville and Paradise buyers: A lack of adequate inventory!

Suffering from significant loses in the value of their homes, many Oroville and Paradise potential home sellers have decided to wait for the market to get “better” before putting their homes on the market. What the definition of “better” is remains to be seen, but a look at the trend in the Oroville inventory numbers (see chart) points to a need for some sellers to get off the fence themselves and take advantage of the lower interest rates, and the increase in buyer inquiries we are beginning to experience.

Granted, home prices are not what they were in 2006, but if you are waiting for a return to those prices, you are in for a very long wait. Those prices were a result of very loose and irresponsible lending standards. They were not driven by free market demand.

So what is a seller to do? Well, that depends on your circumstances. If you do not need to sell, then DON’T. If you are considering a sell but are thinking about waiting for a year or so for the market to improve, you may be outsmarting yourself. While it is possible (isn’t anything possible) that prices may move up in the next year, it is not very probable. I continue to think that we are at the bottom of this market but that we will be bouncing along the bottom for quite some time. Maybe two to three years before we see any consistent price appreciation trends in our local markets.

Historically low interest rates, and lower prices have significantly increased the home affordability for Californians. An increase in either of these factors will exclude potential buyers from the market further delaying any meaningful recovery.

Another thing to consider when contemplating a sale is how many other homes are on the market that compete for the attention of potential buyers. With inventories at an 8 month low, now would be the best time for your home to be seen by the most buyers.

I know that many of you are upside down with your mortgages at the present time and NEED to wait for a significant turn in home values. But for those of you who owe less than the value of your home or own your homes outright, this may be a good time to think about getting off the fence.

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A not so funny thing happened to the Paradise, CA real estate market last week. Only two sales to report from Paradise this week.

The one encouraging thing to take from the week’s meager numbers is the fact that the average Paradise home sale was over $250,000 and the average time that each of these two homes were on the market was only 24 days. From the seller’s side of the equation it is good to see higher prices homes selling quickly.  Hopefully we will have more substantial numbers to discuss next week.

A few years back I had the opportunity to help a nice couple sell their Lake Oroville house. It was a house they had lived in for a very long time. They had raised two children to adulthood there and were now enjoying  visits from their grandchildren.

One day as the transaction for the sale of the property was coming to a close I had occasion to meet with them about their transaction. During our conversation the wife was telling me that she felt bad about selling the property. When I asked her why, she said that she felt sad that she was selling her “home.” At that point I said to her, “You’re selling your house, you get to take your home with you.” She was puzzled by my comment until I explained that her “home” was simply contained within the house. Her home was all the memories she enjoyed in the house. All the photos, the furniture, the keepsakes and all those things hanging from refrigerator magnets, along with all the memories while living there, were all things that she gets to take with her to her next house, to turn IT into a home.

Over my nearly 16 years in the Lake Oroville real estate business I have seen many sellers struggle emotionally with the sale of their property. In fact, so much so,  that it can sometimes actually negatively affect their decision making process. Negotiating from an emotional standpoint is never a good thing.

For some sellers, and prospective sellers, this little bit of advice I am going to give you may not be what you want to hear but I think it is vital to your ultimate goal of selling your property.

The minute you decide to sell your dwelling you need to put it out of your mind that you are selling your home. The thought that you are selling your home needs to be replaced with the thought that you are selling a house. A house is a commodity and you need to do the best you can do to make this your mindset from the time you decide to sell through the entire escrow process.

To do otherwise runs the risk of making  decisions that could cost you the opportunity to sell at the best price. It can actually cost you an opportunity to sell at all.

Nearly every REALTOR® can tell you a story of a seller who was  ‘offended’ by a buyer’s offer because of an emotional attachment to their house. What normally happens in these instances is that the seller will either reject the buyer’s offer or be totally inflexible during the negotiation process, resulting in the buyer deciding to buy a different house.  Inevitably the frustrated seller eventually either takes the house off the market or ends up selling it for much less that the original buyer’s “offensive” offer.

Becoming emotionally detached from the property you are selling can be be very difficult. But, as hard as this may be for some of you to hear or read,  for your own financial well being, is something that is necessary to accomplish.

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 Sales for the Lake Oroville real estate market took a turn for the better this past week. The average sold price was the highest it has been in a very long time thanks to the sale of a couple homes that had been on the market for quite some time. The sale of these two particular homes was also the reason for the nearly doubling of the “days on the market” time. One of the homes had been on the market 928 days and the other had been for sale for 897 days.

Once again, though, the number of the week to lookout for is the number of Oroville homes currently on the market. This number has hit another new low for this blog site and is threatening to go under 300 for the first time in probably two years.

 It seems that this week’s Lake Oroville real estate market report reflects some ongoing reporting issues the local REALTORS are having with our new multiple listing service system.

It looks as though that the inventory of unsold homes is beginning to increase slightly. This may be an effect of some sellers trying to get a head start on what most people think is the peak selling season of Spring. Hopefully we can get the bugs worked out of our new MLS system soon. Watch for the weekly sales numbers for the Paradise real estate market later this week.

A little while back I posted a blog article regarding the lack of attention that many REALTORS® are paying to their obligation and legal requirement to provide the proper disclosure documents to clients and cooperating agents in a transaction. Not much has improved since then. The biggest violators of the disclosure laws seem to be those agents that are working as agents for the banks.

Before I continue let’s make one thing clear: Not every REALTOR® who is working for a bank is ignoring the law. Most of them are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

There does, however, seems to be a growing number of  bank-hired agents in our area that have somehow come to believe that they are above the law, in fact REFUSING to comply with disclosure requirements. And to be totally blunt about it, I am tired of it. So tired in fact, that it is time to do something about it. Maybe it is time to start naming names on this blog site of those agents who seem to have acquired the arrogance of the banks to whom they have pledged their allegiance, and refuse to do their jobs. Or maybe the Department of Real Estate would be interested in seeing what some of these “agents” are doing; I mean, NOT doing.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

I e-mailed the local listing agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week to ask her to provide me her inspection disclosure. She is the listing agent for all of the HUD owned homes in Northern California. As an agent for the seller she is required to perform what the real estate law calls a “diligent visual inspection” of the property and provide a written disclosure of her findings to my buyer. As the agent of the buyer I to am required to do the same.

Her response to me was that she “normally” does an inspection when she is representing the buyer. But because I was representing the buyer she did not feel she was required to do the lawfully required visual inspection.

We currently have another transaction with an agent from S. California who has a bank owned property in Oroville listed. He too is refusing to provide the results of his visual inspection. Know why? He has never seen the home and has no idea what condition it is in. Being an agent from out of town DOES NOT exempt him from performing his duties. It seems that the longer this foreclosure market continues the more these type of agents cut corners and violate thier ethics. Can you imagine what it is going to be like by the end of the year if something isn’t done to fix it?

So here is how I am going to help YOU become part of the solution. Beginning this week I will be sharing with you the disclosures you can expect to see during your Lake Oroville, or Paradise, real estate transaction. With this knowledge in hand you can begin to demand the proper disclosures from your agent and have just that much more piece of mind about the purchase of your new home.

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The rapid advancement of new technologies in the real estate industry has reshaped how we, as real estate professionals, conduct our businesses. As the onslaught of bigger and better things continues to provide more and more opportunities to represent our clients more fully and efficiently, there is a continual learning curve which confronts those of us who are trying to keep pace with the changes.

But REALTORS®  are not the only ones trying to keep up with all the advancements. Our clients are also working hard to understand how these new technologies affect them.

I think the best illustration of this is in the way sellers are still trying to grasp the way potential buyers are seeing their homes. In the “old” days, before the turn of the century, (around 1999 and before) the way sellers knew how much interest potential buyers had in their homes was from the number of buyers that actually showed up to the home with their agent to view the property.

Today’s technology though, has changed the way we gauge the amount of interest that is garnered by any particular property. No longer can we rely on physical showings to monitor buyer interest. With over 90% of buyers viewing properties online before ever calling a REALTOR®, it now is more important than ever for a listing agent to be able to show his/her client how much the home is being seen in cyberspace.  Without the ability of a seller to see what the level of buyer interest is, it is  impossible for the seller to make an informed decision on whether to make a price adjustment or maybe do a little sprucing up around the house. It is likewise just as difficult for the seller’s agent to know what to recommend to the seller without a COMPLETE picture of activity on the home.

Here are links to three reports that I think each seller of a home should have access to through their REALTOR®. These reports are generated weekly by the companies that provide the service, in my view should be an integral part of every REALTOR’S service to their seller in the Lake Oroville and Paradise real estate markets.

Click on each graphic link and look them over. If it is easier for you I have also included the text link. And be sure to ask your agent to provide these to you if he or she is not already doing so.                        

  Trulia Showings Report      RW Showings Report      REALTOR.com Showings     

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