Rick Schwartz

City Center Danbury CT is kicking off their 2010 Concerts On The Green tomorrow evening at 7:30 with the Danbury Symphony Orchestra. Admission is free.

Concerts will be held all summer long culminating with The Marshall Tucker Band on September 11.

Here is the entire schedule.

RealtyTrac – a leading provider of tracking data on Foreclosure Activity, used by many private and public sector organizations to help evaluate foreclosure trends, reported late last week on a national level foreclosure activity dropped 9% in April.

Sounds like good news right?

Well – hold on just one minute there, Bucko. There may, indeed, be more to the story.

• What if there were lots and lots of homeowners, who can’t afford their payments and have realized that the banks are taking a long time to take action against them?
• What if some of those homeowners just stopped making their payments and are staying in their homes, making no payments for up to a year or more?

Diana Olick of CNBC says these are questions that have to be considered. Here is her article from May 13, 2010 on this very subject called “Banks Ignore Delinquent Borrowers”

I’ll hang on here while you go read that.

OK – Done?

So how does that affect owners that are operating outside of this part of the market? You know who I'm talking about - people who have equity in their house and would like to sell.

While no one knows for sure when those foreclosures are going to hit the market – or if they are in your town or your neighborhood, one thing is for sure. If they do, it will affect the value of your home in a negative way.

Again – every situation is different and you have to work with your Realtor to determine the best course of action for you. Having said that, if you are interested in selling, come up with marketing plan and a price point that will move your house quickly. The idea of “Trying a high price” for a while – may have passed.

If you have a need to move for one reason of another, such as wanting more space, less traffic, nearer to work or school – just get it done. Even though the economy shows signs of getting better, the decline in housing prices may not be over – not for quite a while.

IT’S A GREAT TIME TO BUY – OHHHHMMMMM

IT’S A GREAT TIME TO BUY— OHHHHMMMMM

To quote one my heroes, Simon Cowell, “I don’t mean to be rude but..” SHUT UP ALREADY!

• Yes prices are low!
• Yes Interesting Rates are historically low!
• Yes there’s a ton of housing inventory!

So let me qualify my opening about why everyone should not be jumping on the bandwagon and grabbing up some of the low-priced inventory with the low-interest rates.

It goes back to something that has been mercilessly pounded into our collective consciousness over the last 50 years.

Real Estate Is A Great Investment!

For many years, this was true. In fact if you search through my blog archives you’ll find that I have taken my turn at chanting the mantra. If I were a politician, I might be called a flip flopper.

Right now – it’s NOT a great investment. Sure we’d all hope that the RE Market is going to “cycle back to normalcy” tomorrow – or next month, or next year. Another Cowelism: “If I’m being honest..” there really aren’t any indicators that home prices are going to “bounce back” anytime soon.

Of course no one really knows exactly what the future brings and I’m by no means an economist but I continually read just about everything that’s out there on this subject and nothing has convinced me that you can buy a house now and watch your investment grow.

So, if that’s the case, you might ask, why did I just spend several hundred dollars and renew my Realtor’s License?

Fact is, there are people who should and will be buying homes and with the market as complex and dynamic as it is right now, those people need a guide like me who knows the ins and the outs so they can make it all the way from their current home to the next as gracefully and smoothly as possible.

So who is it that should be buying?

Glad you asked.

There is only one valid reason to be buying a home right now – if you are looking for a new place to live and plan on staying there for some time. For those people it’s a great time to buy for all the reasons above (low price, low interest tons of inventory).

So what I’m suggesting is this: Be honest with yourself. If you need a new place to live in Connecticut – give me shout and I WILL help you find it. If you are thinking that you should buy a house because conventional wisdom has been drilled and drilled that it’s a good investment, you may want consider buying gold.

It certainly IS a Buyer’s Market. That means that there are more sellers than there are buyers – it’s just supply and demand. It doesn’t mean that everyone should be buying just to buy. If you need a house, you can get a great value – a REALLY great value – but think about the house as place to live, not as a way to make money.

Right now in Northern Fairfield County, CT there are more than 2000 Single Family Homes and Condominiums listed for sale. They range in price from the low $100,000′s to more than $8,000,000. So there are a lot of options. If you have a valid reason to purchase one, I’d be excited and delighted to help you sort it all out.

Any of these dates:

* May 18, 2010

* June 15, 2010

* July 20, 2010

Each Seminar will begin at 5:30 and runs for two hours. They will be held in the Handel Performing Arts Center Community Room at the University of Hartford.

They are being presented by the University of Hartford Paralegal Program and the CT Fair Housing Center.

In addition to learning about the process and how best to minimize the impact of foreclosure, you will also have the opportunity to meet with volunteer attorneys as well as Paralegal students.

There is no pre-registration required and anyone can attend. There is no charge.

You can get directions here.

One of the tips we Realtors give our clients about selling their house is this:

De-Clutter De-Clutter De-Clutter The simple fact is this – rooms look bigger with less stuff in them.

* The photo array of your family tree on the wall (you know – on that wall under the stairs heading from the front door to the kitchen) has great sentimental value to you and yours. To a prospective buyer it is just a distraction. It’s better to have just a few photos to accent the wall rather than to blanket it.

* Your wine bottle collection (model car collection, cork collection, mug collection, etc) can take away from the beauty of the built-in shelves in your living room.

* It’s great to keep the spare bedrooms furnished for your grown kids and grand-kids who visit. The 4 poster bed, triple dresser and wardrobe may have a great, homey feel to them but they do make the room look a little smaller. Get the point? Some of your stuff has to go.

Sounds like a monumental and highly emotional undertaking to have to get rid of things that have great value but there’s a simple solution.

Remember, the goal of selling is to move. You are going to have to pack ALL your things at some point, so why not get some of packed up now, make your house look bigger and ultimately have less to pack when the day does arrive. So go through the house, pick out some things that will make a difference (I’m not suggesting that you empty the place – you do still live there) and put them in a self-storage facility.

When Shereen and I moved in 2007 we managed to empty out quite a bit of stuff and kept it in storage for a few months. I can’t remember exactly but the whole cost of it was well under $1,000. When we sold and moved, we simply had the moving truck make a second stop at the storage place and pick up the stuff and we were on our way.

Make sure to check the place out to make sure you are comfortable with it. Many facilities have climate control and the ones I have seen are typically very clean and secure.

If you're selling a home in Danbury, Bethel, Brookfield, Newtown or New Milford CT, here is a list of some places in the Northern Fairfield and Southern Litchfield area. There are likely some others but this will give you a place to start.