Beth Brace Hinsdale, Oak Brook, La Grange, Homes

Happy November 2010.

According to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors, gross commissions for real estate agents are down 50 percent from their peak.

Wow.

That essentially means that the real estate industry is playing with half the money it did back in 2006. And then we have the other kicker…

The ranks of real estate agents has only fallen around 25 percent.

That means the if there was 100 dollars of commissions for every 100 agents at the peak of the market there is now only 50 dollars for every 75 agents.

That is some seriously bad math for the industry. It means that people were doing very, very well at the peak and we are now to a moderate level or the more likely reality, most agents would be starving if real estate is their only source of income.

Either way, these numbers show the pain that is being felt in the industry today.

The number of U.S. home sales agents and brokers has dropped by about a quarter since the industry’s salad days before the housing market crash.

But home sales have fallen even further – they’re down almost a third since 2005.

The gross commission total has plunged 50 percent in the last five years, estimates Lawrence Yun, top economist with the National Association of Realtors.

“The pie has gotten smaller,” he said over the weekend at the Realtors’ annual meeting, where about 20,000 members were expected. In 2007, more than 30,000 Realtors showed up for their biggest convention. Via The Dallas Morning News

Get Out and Vote Today

With all the changes going on in our nation , please take time to get out and vote today. It is everyone's responsibility tohear your voice counted in this election. There will be change and with our industry in the dump we need to look for a solution. I hope that all of you, vote today.

Let's Get to THe Bottom

I read this and I am thrilled that we are starting to see other people thoughts on getting to the bottom. THe government needs to get out and we will settle down and start to climb. The sooner the better..... Buyers are not dumb and there are plenty of them out there just waiting to move.

As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash.

When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve.

“Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels,” said Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University. “If we keep trying to stimulate the market, that’s the definition of insanity.”

via the NY Times

High End Chicago Area Homes are being Foreclosed.

This is such a rare event for the Lake Forest area. Not any more. It is finally being released from the banks, that short sales are incompasing the complete real estate market. How about your area? Now Banks can not longer hold on to the high end properities due to changes in regulations. So the fall market will be a very soft market for the high end homes too.

From the New York Times Chicago News Cooperative:

“In the first half of 2010, the largest increases in new foreclosures occurred in the region’s middle- and higher-income communities,” according to a report this month by the Woodstock Institute, which tracks housing trends in the region.

DuPage County was hardest hit in the Chicago metropolitan area, with a 74.8 percent increase in new filings in the first six months of 2010; Lake County, home to Lake Forest, was second, with a 64.9 percent jump. But in Lake Forest, the increase in the number of foreclosures was a jarring 78.9 percent.

An examination of real estate transactions in Lake Forest through the end of July found that of the 127 houses sold this year, 18 of them, or 14 percent, were either in foreclosure or were transferred on so-called short sales — that is, when the selling price falls short of the amount owed on the mortgage.

The article describes how some homes on Lake Michigan which would have sold for $10 to $11 million previously are now being “whispered” about being for sale for $4 million to $5 million.

Far from poor, real estate woes nip at Lake Forest [New York Times Chicago News Cooperative, Tom Hundley, August 7, 2010]

A New Happy way to build Client Relationships, Hinsdale, La Grange,Il

What a new and graceful way to make someone day happy. I am thinking that if we keep in touch with our clients this way at their front door or car what a statement. IT does not have to be expensive,just a happy reminder that we are working for them.

This is from Secret Agent email.

I just wanted to take a minute to say that I am so overwhelmed by the amazing and loving responses the Secret Agent L Project has been getting as a result of Wednesday's CNN interview. Never, ever did I think that this project would attract national media attention. I simply set out to inspire whoever stumbled onto my site to spread kindness and, if they were interested, to offer them a fun and creative way to do so.


Again, thank you to CNN, to all of the media members who have reached out in interest and support, and to you, my readers--new and old--for your support not only of this project, but for your pure hearts that are hungry to spread kindness in this hurting world.