Edina Realty, in a bold move, pulled all their listings from syndicators in 2011.  Tired of dealing with Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com they said, forget it, and walked away from those real estate sites.  Recently a San Diego brokerage followed suit and did a video about their reasoning.  I started to write a comment on YouTube, but realized that what I had to say was an entire post.

The reasoning behind pulling their listings was that it was a disservice to buyers and sellers due to the inaccuracy of the data displayed, the fact that leads are generated and sold away from the listing agent, and copyright concerns.  I just wanted to say to brokerages that do this that consumers don’t care about our politics.  The concerns mentioned in the video are our internal politics to hash out and deal with without bringing consumers into it.  I’ve yet to see a doctor do a YouTube video about why they won’t accept a certain insurance carrier, or a attorney explain the inner workings of the BAR on video.  The reason they don’t is because they know that people (ie consumers that pay money for our services) are completely uninterested in our internal dysfunction.  The real estate industry functions like a bunch of addicts except we are addicted to our MLS data.  It’s the crack of our industry.

So let’s look at the arguments presented in the video.  Trulia and Zillow are slow to update feeds and have erroneous data on them. This is true.  I find they both take anywhere from 1-5 days to update the feed and changes to the MLS data sent to them.  The cool thing about both of those sites is that we agents can go in and manually correct something.  Wow…imagine that.  Managing the data and double checking it to make sure it is accurate.  Isn’t that part of our job?  Oh, wait…that means I might have to put one more task on my to do list after a price change or something.    That’s right…we want easy.    Really, it isn’t the Zillows and Trulias that are the data error problem, it is the other sites like HotPads, etc, that don’t update as often. I have been contacted about homes that sold and closed months prior but those sites don’t update their feeds.   The good news for consumers about those sites is that they are so small you probably aren’t aware of them.

Consumers should care about getting accurate data from these sites because you don’t want to waste your time either. But ssshh, you should expect that from MLS data too.  I had a listing that closed in December that wasn’t marked under contract by the listing agent for about three weeks, and it wasn’t marked as sold until about 2 weeks after close of escrow.  If we as an industry are holding our MLS data as the pinnacle of accurate data, we are a hypocritical industry indeed.   Let’s get over ourselves on this one shall we?  Our MLS data isn’t the end all be all of accuracy either.

The second main concern, but the true agenda,  is the selling of leads away from the listing agent.   What Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com all do is sell zip codes.  The way this works is that an agent can buy into a zipcode and if a consumer requests information from that zipcode it gets sent to one of the paying agents.  Listing agents don’t like this because they are being bypassed by people that pay.  Listing agents often have a buyer agents that work as part of their team and these leads (that means you the consumer, btw) are getting sent away from their team to another agent.  This is money away from the brokerage and potentially to a competitor.  You can see why we real estate agents aren’t fond of this system.   This is a blatant power grab as the more complete listings you have, the more consumers you can draw to your site.  Real estate brokerages are in it for profit so this is fine, but let’s not pretend that this isn’t what it is about.

In fairness to the biggie syndicators,  consumers do indeed have contact information for the listing agent but it is often waaaaaaay at the bottom of the page or in the fine print.  They want you to click on one of the buyer agents since they are paying for your information.   Consumers that read can find what they are looking for.

Real estate agents can always say no to buying zipcodes, and if agents feel so pressured to cave in and pay for a service they don’t believe in, why in the world would I want a person like that negotiating on my behalf for a hundred thousand dollar transaction.  Seriously?  Pressure?  If agents feel like their arms are twisted then they lack a backbone. I wouldn’t choose to hire an agent without one.  I mean if an agent can’t handle the Zillow rep that calls and says “hey do you want a zipcode to increase your business” how in the world are they going to handle the collections rep they have to deal with on a short sale.  Is this really the message we want to send out to consumers?  Apparently, the brokerages that have left syndication feel they have to protect agents from themselves.  That isn’t saying a whole lot about our confidence in our agents ability to handle pressure well.

The final concern in the argument to pull information was copyright.  I laughed, truly, when this was mentioned. Yes, legally the information on the MLS is copyrighted.  Do consumers care?  No.  Let me reiterate that.  Consumers don’t care.  As someone that has initiated a copyright infringement suit against another party, talking about MLS data in terms of copyright is the biggest mistake I have ever heard.   Here’s the thing…when I write a blog post, I am doing that for profit for myself (yeah, big surprise right).  When someone writes a novel, movie, music it is for profit for themselves.  When we enter information in the MLS, take pictures, video etc, we are paid to provide a marketing service to someone else.  We are functioning in a work for hire mode.  This is a totally different thing.  Sellers pay us for our marketing expertise.   We are generating that information for them, on their behalf, as part of our service.  It is in our seller’s best interest to have that accurate marketing be in as many places as possible.    To claim copyright issues on this is just lame.   I can’t imagine very many consumers sitting at home thinking, yes…MLS data is just like writing a novel.  This has to be one of the worst PR moves I have seen.   It sounds arrogant in my opinion.     There is legal and then there is reality.  They don’t coverge well here.

The problem with being vocal about business decisions like this, is that it is too transparent.  Yes, there is such a thing.  Really I don’t want to see pictures of my neighbor, in the shower, online.  Too. Much. Information.  We are standing here naked in front of consumers and it ain’t pretty.  Sort of like watching a 500 pound man walking on the beach in a speedo.  Some things, you just don’t want to know.

No other industry complains more publicly about itself than the real estate industry.   Consumers want one thing:  good service and advice from professionals.  The rest? Consumers don’t give a rat’s ass about it.   Now…if you’ll excuse me, George awaits.

If you want to watch the video that triggered this post you can watch it here.  I’d love your opinion on it.

 

• The average mortgage on a home served with a foreclosure notice in Salem Oregon in 2011 was $182,593.
• The dollar amount of mortgages that went into foreclosure in 2011, just here in Salem, was a staggering $160,316,665.  Yes…$160 million for those of you that have comma woes.
• The top 5 neighborhoods served with notices of default were Jan Ree with 31, Englewood with 14, Highland with 13, Wilark Park West with 13, and Creekside Estates with 10.

Phew…now I feel better having unloaded that information from my brain.  The good news is that you can’t get that useless information anywhere else so remember it because there will be a quiz later.

Now, you may look at this lovely graph and see the downward trend that every newspaper is writing about. It’s true foreclosures are technically down 39.7% from 2010 in Salem.  I should be doing the hokey pokey over this but let’s face it, I’d look really idiotic doing that dance since I’m older than 7.5.  I’m more of a chicken dance kind of gal anyway, especially if I have a Gligamesh or Seven Brides brew in my hand…

But I digress, as usual.

We ended the year with 922 foreclosure notices filed on Salem homes.  Some of you may remember my insanely gorgeous charts from earlier in the year where I extrapolated the data for those pesky MERS properties.  Still have those homes just  hanging out there with nowhere to go. Now, Wells Fargo has most definitely forged ahead with judicial foreclosures and Chase appears to be going that route for MERS here locally.   All banks are still foreclosing on non-MERS properties after taking a brief reprieve in the third quarter.  As such, our foreclosure notices were down significantly this year.    It is likely that foreclosures would have declined this year anyway, but not by this much.  This is an artificial drop.  I disagree with the hype in the press that the market is improving. It’s just more of the same…vexation.

I can hear my Scottsdale real estate nemesis right now.  Step away from the thesaurus, Tomson.

A special thanks to Fidelity National Title for supplying me with loads of data for me to crunch and nurturing my inner data geek.  I feel better already. Okay, the Torii Mor wine was probably a bigger factor in feeling better, but I’m NOT doing the Macarena.  Not happening people.

Well like Salem I underestimated the decline a bit.  The median shifted downward by 7.7, so I missed it by 2.7%.    The average home price declined by 9.2% which isn’t surprising as fewer high end homes are selling to keep the average up.  With smaller data figures like this, the median is a better way to look at the data.   So off by a bit, but pretty close.

How did I do on home sales?  Oh…so close.  Check out this lovely graph.  2 more sales in 2011 over 2010.  It doesn’t get much better than that for flat lining.   Keizer home sales have been stalled at these levels for three years, and quite frankly it will probably be like this again in 2012.

So what do all my lovely charts mean to you?  The good news is that banks are still having trouble foreclosing on MERS involved properties so the inventory is at 9.7 months which is decent for these economic times.  This means not great conditions for sellers but better. Multiple offers are happening on occasion, not the norm by any means, but they are happening.  Less competition is good for our regular sellers.

This stagnation for buyers means that sellers are still feeling the pain a bit and many have accepted current market conditions.  Buyers are having better choices in the regular real estate market without having to delve into the distressed property market which means good things for buyer paid closing costs and needed repairs.

So my predictions for next year?.  Honestly, the exact same thing. I think the market will continue to decline another 5% of so and home sales will remain flat lined.  There just aren’t enough buyers that qualify for financing to have any kind of big pop in home buying.

Phew…my ego is still intact.   I know you were all deeply worried about that part.

Data in these charts was crunched from data collected from the WVMLS for single family non-acreage properties.

The average home price in Salem ended at $166,976 and the median was $151, 700.  Compare that with the average and median home prices for say…2004 and you’ll see a suprising similarlity.  $164,199 and $148,400.  Yep.  The bubble never happened.   For those of you that purchase in 03-04 who think you have made a profit?  Probably not.  If you are looking to sell in 2012, you might be told you will break even.
The good news is that with these more affordable homes and incredible interest rates, buyers have been out.  I’d say they have been out en force, but there aren’t enough buyers to call it a mad rush or anything.  Many agents I know had very busy falls, and I’m hearing from my agent friends, which is true for myself also, that January is busier than usual.    In 2011, 57% of sellers were successful in getting their listing sold.  Not great but better than the 40% of last year.  There were home sales for $30,000 in Salem Oregon in 2011.  Mind you, not livable homes at that price, but investors are out in force with trashed out foreclosures getting multiple offers.
I’ve noticed the flippers have started to dip a tiny toe in the water, but most investors are doing buy and hold.  The nice drop in inventory that we see by fewer listings is pretty much caused by the MERS debacle that lenders have created, causing problems with their ability to foreclose on homes here in Oregon.  The foreclosure numbers, which had artifically dropped in Oregon will be picking back up in 2012 as lenders that can actually produce notes go the judicial foreclosure route.  So what does this mean for our 2012 market?
I haven’t had my Wheaties today but I did have green tea and a protein bar for breakfast…that counts, right?  Ithink we will drop maybe another 5%.  We could take another 10% hit if the lenders can get their MERS problem dealt with and dump their inventory on the market. That would really hurt so here’s hoping they don’t do that.  If the lenders continue at their current pace in placing inventory on the market, I would expect home prices to decline another 5% this year.  Unemployment is stagnant but stable at current levels.  Inventory is down to around 10 months in Salem and has been at that level for around 6 months. Interest rates are insanely low and buyers are responding.   These factors will allow inventory to be steadily absorbed over the coming year, assuming the banks don’t do anything asinine like dump a ton of homes on the market at once.

To get your very own trashed out foreclosure list sent to your email just sign up.  You too can smell like a beast after viewing one of these gems.   Stinky homes not your thing?  Consider just looking at regular homes for sale.

Data used in this analysis was crunched from the WVMLS, single family homes under non-acreage properties.

It was a cold, clear day in Salem, Oregon.  I sashayed down the stairs in my typical taffeta real estate attire ready to sell houses that day.  I popped down the top of my dark red convertible because as you know all real estate agents have one in the rainy Pacific Northwest.  The wind and rain droplets whipping at my hair left me undeterred even as  the “drowned rat look” overtook me.  The 80′s were on my side and Aqua-net was in my glove compartment.  I was armed and ready for good big hair.      Whizzing around the corner turns in the south Salem hills while jamming to iTunes, I was deeply aware that I looked cool.

I pulled up to the house, not even slightly frazzled at being 15 minutes late.  My clients know that being “fashionably late” is what its all about.  I located the key box on the garage door, daintily pulled out my supra iPhone to open it, and voila…the lovely sound of a key box opening.

While working on my hair flip, I felt a mystic force at play as it pulled the black case holding the key right out of my hands and heard the sound of metal bouncing off cement.  Gasp! The sound was as horrible as a Justin Bieber Christmas song.  I watched in slow motion horror as the key did a perfect swan dive (easily a 10 by the judges)  into a deep dark abyss.  That really didn’t just happen, did it?  Don’t make me get on my hands and knees and ruin my Vera Wang or worse…break a nail!  I squatted down and swatted away the leaves in the crack thinking it probably did a nice soft landing on the leaves.  Couldn’t see the key.  Probably need to take my Versace shades off, I thought.

Must. Maintain. My. Elegance.  There were only words of Glee entering my head at this point and I almost broke out in song.  I casually cleared away the leaves trying to find where the key had landed.   As I don’t subscribe to the Boy Scouts motto of be prepared as that is for lesser agents, I wasn’t prepared.  What’s up with the Boy Scouts making me feel guilty at a time like this?  I vowed never to buy any more of that really good chocolate covered popcorn from them, no matter how cute or nice they look.  Someone had to pay for this force of evil that had me looking like a frantic Lindsey Lohan digging for crystal.  No way I was calling the listing agent to grovel and tell them I dropped a key in a crack black hole leading to Middle Earth.  Glamorous agents don’t do that.

Little did I realize that my buyer clients were a walking Ace Hardware.  I was handed Leathermans complete with needle nose pliers to grab the key. The key was too far down and the pliers too big.   Two more tools later, I still didn’t have it.    Thwarted.     I had to suck it up and walk miles, you know the “I walked 10 miles in the arctic blizzard to go to school when I was a kid” kind of miles,  in my stiletto Jimmy Choos to a neighbors house to see if they had a hook I could borrow.  I sheepishly knocked on the door as I said “I’m a really cool and amazingly glamorous real estate agent.  Forget everything else I’m about to tell you after that, okay?”  Armed with a long camping stake and cursing the days of my youth where I failed to win at Operation,  I was able to snag the key after several attempts and pull it out.  My Precious.

With key firmly grasped in my palm, we walked into the house.  The highly unpleasant scent greeted us and despite my best efforts to convince them that a house with a kitchen was a good buy, they wanted to leave.   30 minutes digging out the key.  5 minutes touring the house.  1 minute spraying my hair with Aqua-net.

I truly lead the glamorous life.

So how does it work?  Each month I will give away gift certificates to a locally owned business.  Hopefully all of you have been there, but if you haven’t take the time to try and win the gift certificate.  Each week, on Fridays, I’ll have a “trivia” question to answer about the Salem area or a local citizen.  These will be posted on my Facebook business page, so answer on there.  The first person to answer will get 10 points and second 5 points.  Every time you get a friend to like my business page you will get 5 points (you have to let me know you brought them to my page).  Whomever has the most points at the end of the month will get a $100 gift certificate.   I will also donate $250 to the local charity of your choice that month.   Over the course of the year, we will have $1200 in gift certificate giveaways, and $3,000 donated to local charity.

Let’s talk charity for a minute, shall we?   I do have some restrictions on that….1) It has to serve our local area and 2) It can’t discriminate.  So if you say, hey Melina, I’m loving on the KKK and want my $250 to go to them, it isn’t happening.  I reserve the final say on the charity that receives the money, but really it isn’t that hard.  Just make sure they serve everyone including the gay and lesbian population, various religions, and no political “charities.”   Think Family Building Blocks, Liberty House, humane societies, homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, food banks, etc.  Times are hard and I want to make sure that people who need help aren’t being excluded.  Pretty simple, right?

So here’s how it works…

John Salemite answers the trivia question first three weeks in a row and earns 30 points.  He gets 4 friends to like my Facebook page and earns another 20 points for a total of 50 for the month.

Suzie Salemite answers the trivia question right behind John three weeks in a row for a total of 15 points but she gets 10 friends to like my Facebook page giving her 50 points there.  She has a total of 65 points and wins the gift certificate for the month.  She picks her charity and I give her the gift certificate and drop off a check to the charity.

We start again the next month.

So head over to the Tomson Burnham Facebook Page, like it, and on Friday January 6th, watch for the trivia question.  This month’s gift certificate will be $100 to La Capitale.  With Valentine’s Day coming up, this would be a perfect date night out.    If you haven’t been there, now is your chance to get there.

365 days of being thankful is on.

One of the things that threw me off kilter was a major leak in our master bathroom.  Lovely…the unexpected remodel.  True to form, I decided, hey, if we are gutting our master bath, let’s redo the master bedroom at the same time.  Without a thought, I hopped on down to Sherwin Williams for inspiration and to pick my new improved paint colors for our bedroom. Excitedly, I shared with my husband that our bedroom would now be purple and green.   Eyes rolled and masculinity was challenged.  Apparently, real men don’t have purple walls in their bedrooms.  Undaunted by his lack of enthusiasm for my improvement, I forged ahead.  “He’ll come around,” I told myself.

Carpet ripped up, hardwoods installed. Check.

New windows and craftsman style window trim. Check.

Crown moulding and larger baseboard. Check.

Purple accent wall painted. Check.

“Why do we have to have a purple wall, again?” questioned my exasperated husband.

“Because it will look awesome when it is all put together.  If you really, really, really (yes that many reallys…) hate it, I’ll paint over it with the green. “

After having our furniture in our living room for a couple of weeks, we get to move back into our bedroom.  The best part?  I think my husband is starting to like the purple wall in our room.    Well…maybe like is too strong a word, but his eyes aren’t rolling in the back of his head anymore.  So far, no requests to paint over the purple and when the furniture was in there he actually said he liked how it looked.

Sweet.  Real men can handle purple bedrooms to make their spouses happy.
The hardwood floors were done by Restoration Creek, the trim work by Lance Hamberger, and painting by Brian Gaskin (the ceiling looks wonky in the photos but it isn’t like that in real life…looks normal).  I was pleased with all of their work if any of you need contractors like that I’d recommend them.

I’m supposed to write some thought provoking post about how I am thankful for the multitude of things in my life.  Gathering dust on a shelf are those “thankful” cards I’m supposed to send out to my clients to remind them to do business with me again because I love them so.  Never mind that you never talk to them any other time of the year…the how-to-keep-your-clients-using-you-forever-guide says I’m supposed to send Thanksgiving or holiday cards every year.   I’m supposed to write that I’m thankful for my kids, who alternate being driving me to the brink of insanity and touching my heart so deeply.

I say we start a new tradition.  How about instead of waiting to let people know that you are thankful for them just once a year, do it when they least expect it the rest of the year. Everyone expects the same forced thanking that we go through every year.  Imagine hugging your kid on January 23rd and saying “I’m really glad you are in my life.”  Imagine telling your client who is a dog lover that there was a recall on a certain kind of dog treat on March  14th because you care about their well being.  Imagine telling your spouse on June 4th that you appreciate that they cleaned the toilets.  If your household is anything like my household, getting my hubby to clean the bathrooms is indeed something to be joyous about.  Seriously, the man has issues cleaning a toilet.  We have gloves for a reason, people.

What am I thankful for?  I’m thankful that there are 364 other days in the year for me to express my appreciation to my friends, family, and clients.  So you won’t see all the things I’m thankful for scrolling on my twitter feed or Facebook status page right now.

Don’t worry though.  I appreciate many things in my life.  I’ll catch you the other 364 days a year.

August saw a bit of a jump up in home prices from last August.  I certainly wouldn’t say that home prices are appreciating in Keizer but last year was the end of the tax credit and July and August were dismal months in real estate.  Home prices really couldn’t get worse than after the tax credit ended.  With a current average of $175,297 and a median of $156,000, Keizer is fairly close to Salem median home prices.  

The 90 day absorption rate is 29.67 which means the current inventory of homes in Keizer is 7.3 months.  A bit better than Salem’s 9 months and just like Salem, Keizer is in a bit of a sweet spot for regular sellers as 50% of foreclosures have been pulled off the market temporarily.  In August 16% of homes sold in Keizer were foreclosures or short sales.  17% of active listings are designated as foreclosures or short sales right now.  Home sales were the best in three years in August, just like Salem’s numbers.  It wasn’t hard to beat last year so that doesn’t really count.  Overall good market numbers for Keizer.  If we didn’t have those stopped foreclosures looming ahead of us, I’d say Keizer is looking pretty darn sweet for real estate, but these numbers will probably get uglier in about 6-12 months, assuming the MERS foreclosure issues get resolved.

The 90 absorption rate in Salem is 145.67, which means that we currently have 9.24 months of inventory in Salem.  This steady drop is due to the lack of MERS foreclosures hitting our markets.  21% of MLS listings sold in August were distressed properties, and we’ve had our first decrease in active distressed properties with 18% of active listings being foreclosures or short sales.  We are in a “sweet spot” for sellers right now where the inventory has dropped (still not normal,  mind you) and interest rates are low.  This is a temporary situation that will last maybe 6-12 months until those MERS foreclosures start chugging through the judicial foreclosure process here in Oregon.

If you are thinking of selling your home, this spring may be your best shot for the next few years.  We are in a temporary sweet spot for regular sellers.   If you want help getting your home ready for sale just contact us and we will be happy to help.