Andy Elliott

If you have received your 2009-2010 tax assessment for the Clark County area you will see that your home value has been lowered. You may be excited to see your taxes come down this next year but don't be lulled to sleep, you may still be getting overtaxed.

Our team sells a lot of property and as a result I do a lot of home price evaluations. The new taxes may have just come out but I can already tell you that there is a consistent occurrence of the tax assessments still being significantly high.

So what can you do? The best thing to do is to get an honest evaluation from a realtor that sells a lot of homes and really knows the market. The key is one that SELLS a lot of homes and REALLY KNOWS the market. This will tell you if you are still being over valued and over taxed.

If it turns out that you are, you don't have to take it lying down. You can go down to the County Assessors office and file an assessment dispute.

Also if you're trying to sell or buy a home don't make the mistake of looking at the tax assessment to set your value. If you're a seller you will likely be disappointed and if you're a buyer you will likely end up overpaying for your new home.

Posted by Team Leader: Andy Elliott

Everyone knows about the 2006 market crash that has resulted in devistated home values in our local Clark County area. In all of my dealings with sellers I am finding that the big question is "what is going to happen next?". Of course I am not a big time TV prognosticator but I do have a vast amount of real estate experience and I good head of common sense on my shoulders. So if you are up for a quick common sense guide to the next 5 years in Clark County real estate keep reading...

My first common sense observation is that we haven't yet hit the bottom. Of course you may hear otherwise from all kinds of seemingly reputable sources but... common sense tells us a dfferent story. If you are looking to purchase a home in Clark County for under $250k then you are going to run into a very high percentage of homes that are being listed as distressed properties. With such a high percentage of homes still selling as distressed properties the prices keep on coming down.

Another factor that many people may not be aware of is that there is a second wave of distressed properties that will be hitting the market starting in 2010. This wave is actually predicted to be larger than the 2006 wave? Where are all of the new distressed properties going to come from? There are literally millions of dollars in "Option Arm" loans that are scheduled to start resetting in 2010. Option Arm loans are the loans that gave people 3-5 year "teaser" rates that would balloon up to "real" payments when they matured.

The thinking behind these loans was that a home owner could simply refinance them to a new "Option Arm" when the old ones matured... The big problem is that a majority of these owners will not be able to refinance because they don't have the equity, they no longer qualify, and many of the old types of loan programs no longer exist. With payments rising and the option to refinance out of reach, there will be many owners who simply can't make their mortgage.

Now, if we're optimisic and say that this second wave will take only half as long to clear out as the first wave, then we are looking at a declining market until mid 2011.

The second common sense observation that I see is that when the market finally levels off we'll still need to get enough buyers active to push the market back up. The problem that we will be facing here is that many of the buyers that drove up the first market will now be recovering from the credit damage of losing their homes. When someone goes through a short sale they are typically looking at 2-3 years before they will be able to buy again and those who have faced foreclosure will need 5-7 years to qualify for a new home.

Again let's take the optimistic approach and use the lowest number of 2 years. Using this number we won't have enough credit worthy buyers to drive the market back up until the summer of 2014.

My third common sense observation is one that you will be able to identify with very quickly if you live in our local Clark County area. You can drive just about anywhere and you'll see vacant lots with white stakes in the ground... these are ready to build lots that are sitting dormant until builders decide that there are enough buyers to warrant building them out. You guessed it, as soon as the builders see that the market is turning up they will almsot certainly flood the market with new homes and upset the "supply and demand' balance. This will keep prices in check until the supply of new homes starts to thin out, which will most likely take at least a couple of years to achieve.

Now we're out to the summer of 2016 and we're ready for the market to have a real opportunity at recovery. The question that we have to ask now is how fast will prices rise? You can Google the historical appreciation rates in the United States and find that historically home prices rise about 3-5% per year. At that rate it would take a significant amount of time to build up any worthwhile amount of equity and it would be significantly offset by average monetary inflation.

Of course the one common sense thing that I haven't addressed yet is that with the amount of money our government is borrowing and spending, inflation is going to have to happen at some point. With inflation comes higher interest rates and if the rates start moving up the chart that would put a major flat tire on the real estate markets drive to recovery.

Again I am not a big TV prognosticator but these are the common sense steps that Clark County will need to go through in order to see significant gains in property value. Anyone that is waiting to sell their home needs to plan on waiting for several years. Otherwise they will just be riding the market down further, paying interest they won't get back, or wasting valuable years of their lives living in a location that doesn't match their dreams and goals.

Houses are moving in this market. Our team has closed on nearly 300 homes since January of 2007. If your goals and dreams really matter to you than you should sit down with us and put together a plan to get you there.

Posted by Andy Elliott, Team Leader for the Siebold & Combs Team. "Siebold & Combs Sells More Homes"

written by Team Leader Andy Elliott

You wouldn't believe what I ran into last night on a listing appointment... or would you?

One of the things I do is call the sellers of homes that were on the market but expired without selling. I talk with the sellers try to figure out why they didn't sell and then I help them successfully sell their home. So I went on an appointment last night and the seller asked me why their home came off the market (they didn't even realize that their listing agreement was over because their agent didn't communicate with them).

As I began to talk with them they shared with me that they believe their realtor moved to Mexico and that they hadn't heard from him in quite awhile.

That brings me to my very quick and short point for this blog post. If you want to get great service (which is what you deserve) then have your realtor put it in writing with a cancellation guarantee. Decide what you feel is good service and be specific; communication, marketing, etc... and then put it in writing and hold them to it. It's great to hire a realtor that you trust but trust me I've seen more people wind up with poor service then you can imagine because they never verified that the work was being done.

If your realtor isn't doing a good job and following through with their committments you have the right to fire them. You are the boss and you have the right to be taken care of. I work by this model and give my clients the right to cancel their listing with me if they feel I'm not doing a good job as their agent and I can tell you that any good agent should never have a problem with making themselves accountable to their sellers.

Written by Team Leader Andy Elliott

Today I'm going to be taking a look at the Brush Prairie and Hockinson Area in Clark County. I'll be diving into different areas over the next 30 days and looking at how they are doing on an individual basis. The reason I'm doing this is because just like the weather real estate is really a local market.

Think about this, what if you were to turn on the news and someone gave you a report that it was going to be 90 degrees today across the globe? That wouldn't really make much sense and it wouldn't make any more sense to say it would be 90 degrees across the United States. Looking even closer at the weather you may find yourself being rained on in Vancouver, Washington while someone else is enjoying a clear day 20 minutes away in Camas Washington.

This is very similar to real estate in that there are different areas of the world, country, state, cities, and yes even neighborhoods that may be doing very well while others are not doing so well. This is why I'll be breaking down different areas of Clark County and giving you a picture of how that market is doing. So let's get started with the Brush Prairie and Hockinson area.

The Hockinson area currently has 232 active detached (not a condo or townhome) homes for sale on the RMLS with an average list price of $477,914 and average days on market of 171. That's what is active and available for buyers to buy. So is that good or bad? Well let's take a look at the number of pending and sold homes and see how long that inventory would last if no new homes came on the market.

While there are 232 active properties there were 18 that sold over the last month. That's about a 13 month inventory which is terrible for sellers and heaven for buyers. However there is one telling sign that things may be turning around in the area for sellers. While there are only 18 that sold there are 52 properties pending. That's a pretty large number and if even half of them close that would be about 30% increase in sales over a one month period. That may not hold up through the winter but it does show that there are a significant number of motivated buyers still shopping late into the summer selling season.

Of the properties that went pending and sold the average was just under $400k which is about 20% less than the average price of the active homes. At first glance you'd get the impression that you will get 20% less for your home than what you list it for but that would be a bit of a misunderstanding of how to read the market. The reality is that on many of the pending and sold homes the final price was very close to what the sellers were asking and in reality it's the homes that are well over priced that tend to sit on the market.

For example the average home sold at about $400,000 and was listed at approximately $420,000. This is only a 5% difference as opposed to the 20% difference in the average actively listed home and sold home. Also the average days on market for active homes are 171 and the average days on market for pending and sold homes were only about 90 days.

What this tells us is that we don't want to make the mistake of "pricing the home with room to negotiate" because in the Hockinson area buyers will pay close to asking price on a reasonably priced home and simply ignore the overpriced homes.

Don't be mistaken there were plenty of homes that sold in this area that would be affordable for first time buyers too. In fact the pending and sold homes ranged from a low of $136,000 to a high of 1.3 million. That's an incredible spread. What I notice as one of the most encouraging signs about the Brush Prairie and Hockinson areas in Clark County is that there are good numbers of homes that are selling above the $500,000 mark. There are currently 14 properties that are pending or that sold in the last month for $500,000 or more in the Brush Prairie and Hockinson areas compared to only one in the Battle Ground area of Clark County. If you know this area then that is probably a pretty shocking stat and you'll be able to really appreciate how encouraging it is to see the Brush Prairie and Hockinson areas holding the higher values. Because with higher top end value there is more room underneath for the lesser homes to keep there value. The farther down in price the nicer homes come the more damage is done to the value of all the homes underneath them, it's like smashing the top of a sandwich and watching the whole sandwich shrink down.

As a local market Hockinson looks to be a great place to have bought a home and a decent place to ride out the market storm that we have been experiencing over the last 3 years. If you bought a home in this area you have likely done better at holding value than those that bought in other areas and this means you can likely still do pretty well selling your home and buyers would be fairly smart to look at buying there next home in an area like this that holds its value better than others.

For more information on the Brush Prairie and Hockinson areas or to request a specific area for my next market review please email me at marketreview@sieboldandcombs.com

by Team Leader - Andy Elliott

Is it just the first time buyers that get to take advantage of the tax credit? Are they the only ones that the government was targeting when it was trying to stimulate the housing economy?

In a word NO! The idea that the tax credit is only for first time buyers is one of the biggest misconceptions out there. The concept in giving this credit was to target new buyers or old buyers that have been sitting on the sideline for an extended period of time and drive them into the buying market. By getting more buyers in the market the housing market could begin to recover.So who else besides first time buyers can qualify?

Basically anyone can qualify who is buying a home for their personal residence and who has not owned a home in the last three years. This means that if you are looking to buy a home and you haven't owned a home in three years this may be your perfect storm.

Here are some other great questions about the tax credit:

1. Do I have to pay it back?
2. Can I use it towards my downpayment?
3. Would if I don't need a tax credit, can I get it as cash back?

These are some great questions to investigate and we'll gladly send you a complete rundown of the ins and outs of the credit.

For an e-package with detailed information on the tax credit you can email taxcredithelp@sieboldandcombs.com