Birmingham, AL

This may seem like an odd thing to talk about in a real estate blog, but it does have a lot to do with any of you who are either looking at or selling homes that are now vacant.

As copper has increased in value over the last few years, thieves have noticed the opportunity to cash in on this by “visiting” vacant homes and taking as much copper as they could ruining air conditioners and any other copper pipes they could find in the home.

I have been out on numerous occasions showing Birmingham homes and seen what it looks like after it happens. This is going to cost the home seller and home buyer some cash. Birmingham area Home sellers will be asked to lower the price of their homes and Birmingham area home buyers will be paying to cover whatever the sellers won’t. Either way it can ruin the home buying or home selling process.

So, you know when I found the article, Authorities Charge Man They Say Was Trying to Steal Copper, that I was a little happy. I was happy for home buyers and home sellers that the authorities are on the ball and are doing what they can to put an end to this senseless crime.

I have been catching up on some reading on AL.com and found an article from the Birmingham News, Birmingham-Hoover Metro Area Building Area Hit Hard By New Home Downturn, which really put an excellent picture on the affects of the market downturn on new construction.

While reading the article there were a number of things that I felt were confirmations on things that we had been thinking and saying for months. For instance:

• “The slump is due to massive overbuilding, overlending and price escalation in the housing market.”
• “He saw the market begin to lose control in 2005.”
• The downturn is worse than he feared, Sandlin said. “Now we have to pay for the sins of those days.”
• “In the past, housing markets were steered back on course by changes in mortgage rates. This slump is different - it’s mostly due to having too much inventory, especially in the number of used homes listed for sale that compete against new ones.”

These are three quotes from the article. My thoughts on these are such, one of the things we have been saying is that you can out-build the market. The old idea, “Build It and They Will Come” isn’t always true. When you look at real estate trends year by year you can see that the Birmingham market had been consistently growing, but growth at that pace just wasn’t going to be sustained here. Over the past 12 months, there have been 34,925 new listings, 16,159 sold, and there are still 14,067 active listings today. That’s a lot of inventory! While no one wants builders to go out of business, we all have to realize that a slow down is required whether by choice or not, and the slow down we are seeing now is not what anyone would have chosen. But, as Sandlin stated above, “Now we have to pay for the sins of those days.”

However, let me note that Alabama is still doing better than average. On a list of all of the states with the amount of foreclosures they are facing per household, Alabama is at the bottom, #43, and that shows that while there is a crunch Alabamaians are holding tight and being responsible and resilient. With these characteristics, it is our opinion that we will recover and will recover strong.

I will start by saying this post has absolutely nothing to do with real estate. (and yes, I do know this is a real estate blog)

When I turn on the news I hear about the economic crisis, the presidential race, the gas “crisis”, and the list goes on and on and on…

but something I don’t hear much about is all of those thousands of brave men and women (heroes in my opinion) standing in the gap for our freedoms.

I got an email the other say about a program that Xerox has been promoting, Let’s Say Thanks, and I wanted to spotlight it and give it some attention.

When you go the site, you…

1. Choose a card from one of the designs they have there.
2. Enter a personal message.
3. Press send.

That’s pretty simple in my opinion. You’re done. Xerox takes the initiative to print the card and send it to the troops, and the troops DO appreciate it. They have even put a section there showing responses from some of the troops who have received them.