Coldwell Banker Select Professionals

We at Coldwell Banker Central PA are excited to be taking an active part in the first-ever Coldwell Banker nationwide 10-Day Sale Event!

The event runs from October 10-19th and over 30,000 home sellers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico are participating by offering reduced prices on their homes. That's over 50% of all Coldwell Banker offices!

Here in central PA we have 80+ homes participating in the 10-Day Sales event, with the majority coming from the Lancaster county real estate market. Our local minimum offering is 4% of the list price, either taken as a straight price reduction or seller help with the buyer's closing costs.

For home seller SusanAnn Laezza of West Lampeter, the event is an exciting opportunity to try something new. "I wanted to showcase the uniqueness of my home, and Coldwell Banker's new media marketing was the best way to do that. This is a fantastic and simple way to reach many more potential buyers. I commend Coldwell Banker for their unique and brave approach to marketing"

Laezza's home will be open for tours 3 times during the event, and listing agent Iona Ferguson is optimistic. "We see this month as important given the seasonal cycle and the consumer uncertainty out there. This is why I'm with Coldwell Banker - they have the national presence to do innovative things like this." Laezza is glad to offer an incentive for buyers in the event. "By taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity from Coldwell Banker my home will have much more exposure, which is crucial in the current market."

"We applaud home sellers in Central Pennsylvania for their participation," said Jim Gillespie, president and chief executive officer, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. "Nationally, we believe that the real estate market is nearing a crucial tipping point, yet our research and discussions with our brokers and sales associates show that in many markets sellers remain reluctant to list their homes at the proper prices necessary to attract buyers. It's our hope that the Coldwell Banker 10-Day Sales Event will move buyers off the sidelines and into the market. We are embarking on this initiative - which has never been done before on a national basis - because we believe it is critical for Coldwell Banker, as an industry leader, to help serve the needs of those individuals listing homes with a Coldwell Banker broker and to help move the U.S. real estate market in the right direction.

To view all homes in the event visit http://www.coldwellbanker.com/event - it will be live during the event dates only!

Coldwell Banker is pleased to announce a Harvest Day at East Meadows. It will take place on October 25 from noon to 4 pm.

Come Join us at to meet the Builder and our Sales Team!

You will have the opportunity to tour our model home and enjoy an afternoon full of great food and fun for the whole family. There will be Amos Carriage Rides, Face Painting, Hotdogs, Popcorn, Refreshments, Balloons, and a whole lot more!

ANNUAL COLDWELL BANKER HOME PRICE COMPARISON INDEX FINDS $1.7 MILLION DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATION'S MOST EXPENSIVE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING MARKETS

La Jolla, Calif. vs. Sioux City, Iowa: Waterfront Living Differs for Cities on Pacific Ocean and Missouri River

Annual Report of 398 Markets Includes 83 from Outside U.S.; Dubai Most Expensive Overall

Full press release available on hpci.coldwellbanker.com

PARSIPPANY, N.J. (Sept. 9, 2008) /PRNewswire/- Although both are waterfront cities, something besides the salt water separates La Jolla, Calif. on the Pacific Ocean from Sioux City, Iowa on the Missouri River - a $1.7 million dollar difference in the cost of homes studied in the 2008 Coldwell Banker® Home Price Comparison Index (HPCI). In an annual comparison of similar homes in 315 U.S. markets, La Jolla topped the chart as the most expensive real estate market in the nation with a $1,841,667 average home price. Sixteen hundred miles away in America's heartland sits Sioux City, the most affordable real estate market in America, where a similar home would cost $133,459.

La Jolla and Sioux City are not alone in representing California and the Midwest. In fact, eight out of ten of the country's most expensive housing markets are in California, and eight Midwestern cities make the list of the nation's 10 most affordable home markets.

Differing from most housing reports which compare median prices, the annual Coldwell Banker HPCI, which first launched in the late 1980s, provides an apples-to-apple comparison of similar 2,200 square foot, four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath homes in 315 markets across the United States, in addition to Puerto Rico, Canada and a sampling of countries/territories outside of North America where Coldwell Banker has a presence.

"This year's study comes at an interesting time in our nation's history with the impact of the housing correction and mortgage financing serving as critical economic issues in the presidential election," says Jim Gillespie, president and chief executive officer of Coldwell Banker Real Estate. "While Americans move for lifestyle reasons, a home is usually a family's most valuable investment asset. For those who want to get into the housing market, I believe this is the smartest time in my 33 years in real estate to buy a home. Combined with the amount of homes on the market and historically low interest rates, the correction in prices has brought affordability levels down."

The cumulative average sales price of the four-bedroom homes surveyed in the 315 U.S. markets (including one in Puerto Rico) covered in the Coldwell Banker HPCI is $403,738, a 4.4 percent decline from the $422,343 reported in the 2007 Coldwell Banker study.

Through the comprehensive HPCI section on www.coldwellbanker.com, prospective home buyers and sellers can calculate what their homes may be worth in other areas in the United States and gather preliminary intelligence about the affordability of housing from one market to another.

New hotel planned in Hershey market

You can view this Central PA Business News article featuring one of our great agents here. Article By David Dagan
9/8/2008

A new hotel near Hershey will add about 90 rooms to a market that is falling far short of meeting visitors' demand, York County developer David Hogg said.

Hogg's company, Springwood Hospitality, is developing the Country Inn and Suites at the corner of Grandview Road and Route 39 in South Hanover Township. The two-mile radius around Hersheypark is difficult for hoteliers to break into because land is scarce and the municipal-approval process is daunting, Hogg said.

"When people stay to visit the park or even (Hershey Medical Center), they like a short drive," Hogg said. There may be plenty of hotels farther away from those sites, he said, "but folks who are willing to pay for the convenience clearly vote long and loud with their dollars."

Hogg said he paid about $1.7 million for the site of roughly 4.3 acres, or about $400,000 an acre. It took about five years to find the site and about and two-and-a-half years to get the required approvals from South Hanover Township, he said. A call to the township manager was not returned.

Hotel developers in the area have a hard time finding appropriately zoned land in the relatively small bundles required for a hotel, said real estate agent Ajaykumar Patel.

"That's why hoteliers are a little stuck. They need the right acreage ... as well as the right zoning, as well as having the (public) water and sewer," said Patel, a commercial real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Hershey Realty Professionals, in Derry Township.

By Hogg's count, the area now has seven hotels, not including two owned by Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, which he said serve a different market than the other hotels.

Construction is expected to start Oct. 30 and the hotel is scheduled to open Aug. 1, 2009, he said.

According to a report released today by the Lancaster County

The five-year average of homes sold in July is 546. For the first seven months of 2008, there have been 2,770 sales, a 20.5 percent decrease from the 3,485 sales during the same period of 2007. The $192,075 average sale price for July is a 6.5 percent decrease from the July 2007 price tag of $205,533. July 2007 is LCAR's highest single month average sale price on record. In July of 2007, 27 homes sold at $400,000 and above; in July of 2008, there was nearly a 50 percent decrease in this price range to 14 homes. The five-year average sale price for the month of July is $188,028. In July of 1998, the average sale price of a home in Lancaster County was $122,538, a 56.7 percent increase.

The median sale price for July of 2008 is $179,900 versus $184,900 for July of 2007 (half of the properties sold during this period sold above that number, and half sold below). For the first seven months of 2008, the median sale price is $174,900 compared to $175,000 during the same time period in 2007. New residential listings for July decreased 11.4 percent from 808 in 2007 to 716 in 2008. The average number of new listings for the month of July over the last five years is 747.

"Even though sales this year are lower than last year, there are still some bright spots in the market," said LCAR president, Jeff Funk. "Compared to national statistics, we are doing very well in LancasterCounty year-to-date with an average sale price decrease of under 3 percent. Another factor that points to a healthy market is that 64 percent of the homes that sold in July of this year did so in 60 days or less."

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Coldwell Banker Select Professionals are the premiere real estate brokerage in Central Pennsylvania, serving Lancaster, Dauphin, Lebanon, York and Berks Counties with local professional Realtors. Visit our central pa real estate website and experience the difference Coldwell Banker's service makes!