Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

Here are the numbers for last week’s Lake Oroville real estate market. This is the third week in a row that the number of Oroville home sales has been in single digits, and the 7th week out of the past 8 for this. With inventories still low, and a lot of that inventory in disrepair it is becoming more and more difficult to find properties for Oroville area buyers.  All of my team members have pools of buyers that they simply cannot find decent properties to show them.

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This is the 200th  post for thisLake Oroville & Paradise, CA real estate market blog. For a milestone such as this you might think that I would have something profound to impress upon you about the housing market in the Lake Oroville and Paradise, California areas.

To tell the truth, I actually considered that. But I came upon something yesterday that changed my mind about how to celebrate this monumental moment.

The hard drive on the computer that I use in my day to day operations is getting a little full. Ok, it is almost totally full. The hard drives on all my computers are  like my garage and storage area at my home.  I have a hard time throwing anything out. After all, I might need that stuff someday.

But, the time had finally come to clean house in a cyberspace sort of way.  As I was deleting files to make room for those that are now more important,  I came upon some old ad copy that I had written more than 10 years ago for listings that we were marketing back in the days when I was working with Bob Beever Realty.

Given the condition of the housing market in Oroville and Paradise, I thought you might enjoy a look back at some of those ads. See, I told you I might need them some day!!!

Ad copy for 9/30/99

 HARD TO FINDfive acres with well and 3 bd septic. Close to airport, golf, fishing and boating at Afterbay. Power readily accessible. Owner will carry with low down. Asking $45,000

 BANK REPO! 3bd 2ba 1980 mobile on 4 level acres. Has potential but needs work. Seller willing to finance for a long long long time with low low low down. Only $34,900

 TRIPLEX close to downtown. Seller motivated to sell quickly. Almost no vacancy rate. Assume favorable financing or ask seller to carry some paper. All offers considered. $114,900

 BEAUTIFUL VALLEY VIEW: Level to gentle sloping 5 acre parcel. Power close, minutes to lake, and you can almost see forever from here. Just $37,000

 ALMOST DESPERATE sellers need quick sale on this gorgeous property. Over 2700 sq ft incl. finished basement, 2 kitchens, 2 fireplaces, 24X48 shop, fenced pasture, small citrus grove. All on five acres close to town. Recently reduced to $198,000

 OUT OF TOWN SELLER can’t play landlord anymore. This home would make good rental or be perfect for buyer on small budget. Only $35,500

COPY FOR 12/3 – 12/4 1999 Read the rest of this entry »

 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.

As the interest in solar energy continues to grow in the Oroville, Ca and Paradise, Ca real estate markets a whole new set of concerns and potential problems lay in wait if owners of Oroville and Paradise homes don’t plan accordingly.

Earlier this week I received an interesting article from Lorna Joseph, the Branch Manager of our local Bidwell Title and Escrow office, that has been published by the California Land Title Association.  The article discusses some of the potential new issues that may come about as the expansion of the use of solar energy continues to grow.

Most specifically it discussess the need for solar users or potential solar users to consider the consequences of not having guaranteed access to the sun.  I know, I know, everyone has access to the sun right? All you have to do is walk outside on a clear day in the Lake Oroville or Paradise real estate markets and the sun is so bright that you gotta wear shades. While that is true for you, it may not be true for your home.

The article asks you to consider what may happen when you have your solar collectors installed to catch the most amount of light, only to have your next door neighbor plant some trees or do some home remodeling that blocks, or significantly inhibits, the sunlight from reaching the collector panels. Imagine spending $30,000 – $40,0000 for a solar energy system only to have it rendered useless by two or three big trees.

The most practical solution to this issue, according to the article would be the negotiation of easements between property owners where one property owner would receive assurances from the other that the sunlight which travels over the neighbor’s property would always be available. Of course this assurance is going to have a price attached to it. But if reasonable, the price may be more that offset in the energy saving cost realized by the solar owner.

It seems to me that this is going to be a very thorny issue going forward as more and more homes become solar equipped.  With the number of tall pines in the town of Paradise, for example, it could be nearly impossible to procure a sunlight easement as you may need 3 or 4 homeowners to grant an easement to their sunlight. Negotiating an easement with one homeowner is difficult enough. Trying to negotiate with more than one may take divine intervention.

The moral of the article: As with anything, be sure to plan ahead and consider all the pluses and minuses before moving ahead with any home project.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

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Just another run-of the mill week for Lake Oroville home sales last week. The average home price in Oroville last week is skewed downward by the sale of an older mobile home that sold for $6,000. If you excluded that sale from last week’s numbers the average sale would have been almost $121,ooo, which is in line with longer term market trends.

As it has been over the past few months, the number to pay close attention to is the inventory number. The number of homes for sale in the Oroville market are at their lowest point in nearly a year. Breaking below 300 for the first time since I began tracking the number. While a lower inventory of homes is normally good for prices, it can have an adverse effect on the market if the number gets too low. An inadequate number of homes for buyers to look at runs the risk of causing buyer frustration and shoving some of them back to the sidelines to wait for inventories to increase.

Well, enough from me today.  Here are this week’s numbers.

Expanded Lake Oroville Sales Stats

As the days go by I am finding that this blog site is being viewed and read by more and more people everyday.  But this not the only place you can find my blog posts. I also post each of my articles to Trulia.com.

With viewership increasing by leaps and bounds, Trulia continues to provide some of the most current information available for the Paradise, CA  and Lake Oroville, CA real estate markets. With that growth comes more exposure to a participating real estate professional’s blog post.

I write this because, in the short amount of time that I have been posting to Trulia, I have now surpassed 2000 blog views. I know, for you hard core bloggers, that may not seem like a lot, but to a small town blogger like me, it seems pretty significant.

I addition to thanking all of you for making this Oroville and Paradise’s most successful blog site, I also want to thank Trulia for their partnership with REALTY WORLD, and for their great technology platform that makes all of us bloggers look so good on their site.

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.

We’ve all heard the old saying , “Give them an inch and they will take a mile.” Right?

Well, this has never held more true than it does today in this age of bank owned properties. No, this is not another one of those bank, bashing blog posts that seem to be everywhere these days. Quite frankly it is difficult to tell if the expanding trend of banks REQUIRING  more and more of a potential purchaser before accepting an offer, is the work of the banks or of some of the bank-employed REALTORS® that have hitched their fortunes to their bank-employer.

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane to see what I mean.

Inch #1-In the beginning, banks that owned foreclosed homes simply required that a buyer present a loan prequalification letter with any offer that was made on one of their homes. This seemed fair, as no seller wants to be dealing with a buyer that is not qualified for a loan.

Inch #2- It was then not good enough that the purchase contract stated that the buyer had given a deposit check to their agent. The bank wanted a copy of the check.

Inch #3-Next the major banks required that any prospective buyer be loan prequalified with their bank before they would consider the buyer’s offer. Great way for the bank’s loan officers to try and persuade a buyer to swtich their business to them. Yes, it is happening! Read the rest of this entry »