Chris Grus

"All Real Estate Is Local" is so relevant in today's market. While the New Home Buyer Tax Credit has revived the long ailing first time buyer market, these buyer's are making more conservative choices than their counterparts in previous years. "I want something that is least likely to drop in value" was what one recent client told me. We were looking in the reasonably stable Holly Hills neighborhood in St. Louis City. Some buyer's are finding more competition in the bidding process. A fact of live in Seller's markets, but something not experienced too often in the past year. Some buyer's, taking the slow road of looking for a few days and waiting to consider the options are finding that all their top choices are already in contract when they re-emerge from the "think tank".

Other neighborhoods aren't as fortunate.

Tomorrow one of my items on the "to do" list is write a letter to my Congressman and Senators.

I have to tell them about the offer I made two weeks ago and how it was rejected.

I have to tell them that it was the best of 3 offers put in on a bank owned home.

I have to tell them the offer was clean and was 16% above the asking price.

I have to tell them the bank pulled the property off the market so they can shift their assets around.

What is so disturbing is that while these banks juggle these properties in hopes of maximizing thier federal bailout money, they are robbing home buyer's from opportunities to buy and stimulate the economy in on its own. They are also keeping realtors from earning a living.

This isn't the first problem I've seen in trying to sell foreclosures. Has anybody else had this problem.

Is there anything we can do as real estate professionals to hold banks accountable for what they list on the MLS?

As if we need more incentives for home buyer's to enter the market!!!

President Obama is expected to sign into law today the stimulus package aimed at helping our sagging economy toward a turn around. Part of that plan is to offer an $8000 tax credit to first time home buyers.

So in addition to great selection, historically low interest, low prices, now free money!!! What gives?

Despite all the positives, first time home buyer's have been reluctant to enter the housing market. With all the news focused around the housing market being bad, many buyer's are needlessly scared off.

Even before the stimulus package has been signed, I've heard nothing but complaints from the real estate industry.

Ok, so 8 isn't as good as 15. Limiting to first time buyer's kind of stinks too. Cheer up though!

In my market, the first time home buyer has been the person sitting on the side lines since 2007. For Realtors to kick the dirt about the stimulus conveys a negative message to the general public. As a non-first time home buyer, negativity from the professional Realtors might give the message that without the additional break, buying now is not worthwhile. To the first time home buyer, they may take the negativity as another excuse to wait things out and hope for more money in another 6 months.

Personally, I'm in favor of the stimulus, but concerned that so much has been done to keep the housing market going. All the way back to the Fed keeping rates so low in 2004-2005, thus fueling the market and speculators into a bubble.

Like so many people are saying, I'd be interested in seeing what we as individuals and businesses in this country do to pull ourselves out of this recession rather than having the Federal Government borrow our way out.

Let's do our part and be positive about the added motivation for first time buyers and rally this spring!!!

Last week, I put down a fair amount of information on the downtown real estate market and provided the sales information about the area. I also talked a bit about how the year of 2008 felt for a real estate professional (http://www.loftsinthelou.com/2009/01/2008-real-estate-sales-downtown.html).

The post is something I've tried to do for a few years. Putting the year in perspective.

Of course, that was just downtown.

Hearing a news broadcast yesterday, I heard some remark about housing values and felt that the report was misinformation; exagerating the markets downturn.

Today I pulled up the city wide sales statistics. Looking at single family residential, condominiums and multi-family homes, the report is included below, but the most notable data follows:

Year----Total Sales Number/$ Value----------Average Price------------Days on Market

2007--------5000 / $701,227,559---------------$140,246---------------------88

2008--------4532 / $515,009,046---------------$113,638---------------------99

2007

Active: 0

Pending: 0

Sold: 5000

Other: 0

Total: 5000

	Bedrooms	Bathrooms	Square Feet	List Price	Selling Price	DOM
Minimum	0	0.00	384	$500	$500	0
Average	2	1.31	1,733	$145,120	$140,246	88
Median	2	1.00	1,284	$124,900	$120,000	59
Maximum	12	8.00	20,592	$2,199,000	$2,000,000	883
Total Dollar Value					$701,227,559

Average DOM Breakdown and Average % of List Price received on Solds by Market time:

	0-30 Days	31-60 Days	61-90 Days	91-120 Days	120+ Days
No. of Listings	1500	1020	766	475	1239
Breakdown %	30.00	20.40	15.32	9.50	24.78
Avg SP % LP	98.16	80.99	37.81	59.75	86.72

2008

Active: 0

Pending: 0

Sold: 4532

Other: 0

Total: 4532

	Bedrooms	Bathrooms	Square Feet	List Price	Selling Price	DOM
Minimum	0	0.00	40	$1	$1	0
Average	2	1.31	1,766	$119,548	$113,638	99
Median	2	1.00	1,416	$89,900	$87,400	66
Maximum	9	6.50	158,167	$2,300,000	$2,050,000	1,382
Total Dollar Value					$515,009,046

Average DOM Breakdown and Average % of List Price received on Solds by Market time:

	0-30 Days	31-60 Days	61-90 Days	91-120 Days	120+ Days
No. of Listings	1234	925	575	500	1298
Breakdown %	27.23	20.41	12.69	11.03	28.64
Avg SP % LP	41.41	56.88	88.32	49.50	48.94