I know from reading blogs from agents in other markets that not all real estate markets are experiencing the same issues right now.  My market, Del Norte County, is a textbook example of what Cliff Rossi is discussing in this video, large inventory, declining prices, large foreclosure and short sale inventory, long days on market for upper end inventory, etc.  I agree with his assessment of what we can expect in 2011 for sales in Del Norte County and yes, it is definitely a buyers market.

Yesterday was my local Board of REALTORs annual awards luncheon.

Pictured here from left to right: Me (horrible picture of me. Couldn't someone have told me to put my hair behind my ears or something?), Ana Hartwick and Rose Peasley the co-owner of our office, RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods.

Our board handed out million and multi-million dollar awards. Agents are allowed to count any income obtained through the use of their real estate agent license, including property management fees and bonus'. The boards fiscal year is from November of the preceding year to October of the current year.

Our board does not recognize the Top Producing Agent, however since she worked exceptionally hard at acquiring this distinction I think I will mention it now.

• #1 in volume at 8.91% of total volume sold for our board's fiscal year...Fran Gatti - Active Rain Ambassador
  
  
• #2 in volume at 6.14% of total volume...Rose Peasley
  
  
• #9 in volume at 4.21% of total volume...Ana Hartwick

RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods sold 19.26% of the total volume out of the Del Norte County Board of REALTORs and we are extremely proud of that fact. We have a tiny office, but we work extremely hard to sell your property and find you the perfect home.

Come see a RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods agent and let us show you what we can do for you!

This month in the California Association of REALTORs Real Estate Magazine there is an article entitled "Missing Manners."

Several agents from different California Markets tell horror stories, to name a few:

• Trying to get agents to return phone calls.
• Trying to get agents to actually put the key back in the lockbox.
• Having agents showing up without appointments at their listings and asking the seller for a showing.
• Trying to get the other agent to produce paperwork in a timely manner and carry their weight in a transaction.

I have noticed some of these same occurrences in my market with the worsening economy and slowing real estate market.

A colleague in my office, Agent Highly-Professional, said clients she has been working with for over a year, the "Smith's," came in for a showing yesterday. The Smith's said their Eureka agent (Eureka is 85 miles away) suggested the Smith's work with a different agent than Agent Highly-Professional (no doubt so she could get a referral fee). The Smith's said the Eureka agent was not very nice to them, however they did touch base with the agent she referred them to, Agent Too-Busy. Agent Too-Busy asked the Smith's their price range. When the Smith's replied under $200,000, Agent Too-Busy said she did not have time to show them around...she was too busy. Can you believe it, because I can't.

With the median price home in our market currently at $120,000, $200,000 is a pretty nice priced home. Is that agent really so busy she can turn away business? Well our current market stats would say no. No one is so busy in our market they should turn away business and even if that were the case, there is never an excuse to be rude.

Agent Highly-Professional set-up several showings for her clients and had to call one particular agent, Agent Never-Answers-the-Phone, to set-up showings. She tried several times with no answer and no response to her voicemails, however Agent Never-Answer-the-Phone, did send a text message much later saying she is taking the week off and will get back to Agent Highly-Professional after she gets back to work. Well, the clients are from out of town and needed a showing that day. Maybe Agent Never-Answers-the-Phone should have made arrangements with someone in her office to cover her workload.

Regarding lockboxes - I was having such a terrible problem with them being left unlocked that I stopped giving the lockbox code in the agent only remarks in our MLS. I also watched a colleague give one of my lockbox codes to their client. I headed over to my listing and changed the code right away, but what a hassle.

Roberta Murphy, one of the agents interviewed for the CAR magazine article states, "Good etiquette means returning another agent's phone calls, updating your information on the MLS and keeping time frames as tight as possible." She points to the lack of MLS accuracy as a sign that more and more agents have almost no regard for anyone beyond themselves.

This happens to an extent in my market too. I pretty much know who the agents are who feel they are above the MLS rules of changing the status on a listing to pending or contingency status, so I take the extra time to call those agents before showing their listings, however, if they don't call back and their office isn't updated on the listing status, then what? I actually showed a home where the seller told me, in front of my client, that the home was in escrow scheduled to close in a few days. The seller wondered why I was there. My client looked at me and wanted to know why as well. I was irritated a colleague would put me in that position, but there it is.

Murphy calls this type of behavior a "lack of professionalism" and I agree.

Now what does this have to do with soliciting ratings from your clients? I just finished reading Sara Bonert's post on Zillow's launch of agent ratings by consumers. I took the time to read many of the comments and quite a few agents thought it was a great idea while a few were leery and concerned some agent's would "game" the system.

I've seen "gaming" happening on several websites including AR. If you look-up my market, Del Norte County and Crescent City, there are several "agent's" registered who aren't in my market. I also noticed an agent who appears to be cutting and pasting posts, has two profiles instead of one and shows as the top agent in his market with both his profiles. What are you going to do? There are always going to be scammers.

My point, and I'm finally there, is instead of looking for the next best thing to increase your leads, all you really have to do is:

• Answer your phone when it rings and if you can't, reply to the voicemail.
• Show the clients the homes they want to see, even if they are low priced. Happy buyers tell their friends and family about you by word of mouth, not by going to a website to see your rating.
• Make sure your showings are secure when leaving and that the lockbox has the key in it and is locked.
• Meet deadlines and quickly handle problems when they arise before they become deal breakers.
• Answer requests from other agents for feedback on showings.
• Cancel showing appointments if you can't keep them.
• Extend common courtesies to your colleagues and clients and treat them the way you want to be treated.

As Renee Grubb, broker-owner of Village Properties in Santa Barbara, points out in the article, "No one is interested in doing business with them [rude individuals]. Those are the ramifications of not treating your fellow agents in a respectful manner."

That goes for clients too. Agent Too-Busy lost the buyers. The Smith's are back at our office getting the wonderful customer service they deserve. They will purchase a lovely home and tell their friends not to go to the other agency because the agents there are too busy to show property. The Smith's will point their referrals to RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods because they were treated well.

Thank you Agent Too-Busy...keep up the good work.

Crescent City/Del Norte County Real Estate Market Report - November 2010 is Slooooooowwww.

I'm really looking forwward to the day when I can say something encouraging for owner/seller's about our real estate market. It's still a buyers market with low interest rates, declining home prices and motivated seller's. It won't improve much for sellers until prices stabilize.

There were eight sales in our tiny market for the month of November. The median price, $120,000 with a long DOM (day on market) of 140 days. Four of the eight homes that sold were foreclosures, in fact the highest priced home to sell for the month at $243,000, was a foreclosure with an ocean view off Pebble Beach Drive.

The California Association of REALTOR's latest issue of Real Estate magazine has an article, "That was then, this is now," that has some interesting statistics and predictions for the coming year.

• Anxiety about jobs and a sharp drop iin home sales created fears of a double-dip recession by mid-2010...no double dip, however it may be too soon for a substantive economic recovery in 2011.
  
  
• Statewide unemployment averages 12.2% for the year...Unemployment should remain in double-digits until Q4 2012, according to a UCLA forecast...Del Norte County's unemployment is higher than the statewide average.
  
  
• Interest rates were at a low of 4.32% in September 2010...NAR's chief economist says mortgage rates could rise to 5.7% in 2011 and as high as 6.2% in 2012.
  
  
• 2010 was a banner year for buyers...not for sellers, though. 2011 will still be a buyers market for those with a stable job. Seller's will still face tough price competition from short sales and foreclosures.
  
  
• 2010 sales - 492,000 units...projected for 2011 - 502,000 units.
  
  
• Housing Affordability index 2010: 48%...46% for 2011.
  
  
• Any additional stimulus efforts, such as President Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus package will come under heavy scrutiny by Congress and taxpayers.
  
  
• Will state and federal tax credits come back? Unlikely...our country does not have the funding, however we spent 3 trillion in the last 2 days bailing out the Euro. Maybe we should all move to Europe.
  
  
• More than half of loan modifications done thus far have defaulted after the modification. Look for alternative to modification such as banks being encouraged by to "write down" the loan balance.
  
  
• The Dodd-Frank bill attempts to regulate banking and finance. Does anyone have any faith in our government to regulate anything at this point?
  
  
• According to CAR, Investors are driving the recovery and Del Norte County MLS stats bear that out.
  
  
• In 2010, sellers received an average of $35,000 on the sale of their home-a record low. This explains why the trade up market continues to languish (upper end home sales).
  
  
• 30% of sellers sold at a loss.

My personal experience, foreclosures are increasing in our market. At this time last year we had less than 20 REO/short sale listings and as of today we have more than 40, which is almost 20% of the listings. As long as short sales and foreclosures are a driving force in the market, prices will continue to decline increasing the risk of even more strapped homeowner's walking away (strategic foreclosure) from their homes.

Hang in for a bumpy 2011 and if you have money to invest in real estate, now is the time.

REO offers are a bit different then writing a purchase agreement for a privately owned home.

In my experience there are a few common threads that most banks are looking for.

1. Most want at least $1000 earnest money deposit if not more.
2. All will shorten the inspection period to 10 days or less.
3. Most want the name, phone number and address of the buyer, and I have one that wants the buyers social security number (this is in the negotiating stage).
4. All require a prequal letter and/or proof of funds (POF) when negotiating.
5. Many want to see a copy of the earnest money check.

Some other things that makes an REO offer and negotiation different. In most instances:

• The bank has the listing agent input the information from the offer into their system without supplying the purchase agreement until negotiations are through.
• Much of what goes on in negotiations is verbal until an agreement is reached. At that point the bank provides their own addendum which spells out everything THE BANK EXPECTS. This addendum supersedes the purchase agreement if there are any differences.

Most banks will pay for a few inspections but are not to amicable about fixing anything. I have noticed that tide may be turning a bit as asset managers and lenders see that some fixes can more than pay for themselves with a higher sales price.

I have AM's (asset manager's) that get back to me on any offer submitted within a few hours and others that take a week or more. All banks reserve the right to continue to accept offers and tell their listing agents in the listing agreement that they are to submit all offers, until there is a fully executed contract.

A fully executed contract is:

• The CAR contract has been provided to the AM
• The bank addendum has been signed by the buyer and provided to the AM
• The AM has received lender approval and returns everything to the listing agent signed by the person in authority, usually the AM
• Only now do you have a fully executed contract

I have had offers where the bank has verbally agreed then changed their mind when an offer they liked better came along, however I think most AM's work hard at making sure that never happens. Most are very good at what they do and don't want to make the process anymore difficult than it already is.

With the declining economy and the tightening up of the lending industry, many banks are now asking for buyer FICO scores, pre-approval letters from their lender with conditions, buyers social security numbers and other information that I did not have to provide just 3 months ago.

Working with an agent who is familiar with REO negotiations and sales contracts is a plus for a buyer new to this type of purchase, so don't be afraid to ask your agent how many REO buyers they have assisted in the successful purchase of a foreclosed home. Many times folks think a lowball cash offer will work because we all know that "cash is King," however, I have seen banks pass up cash for an offer involving financing if it's going to give the investor who owns the foreclosure a better bottom line.

Most AM's are under guidelines on how low below list price they can go within the first two weeks of the listing, then three weeks and so on. Many can not consider any offers that differ by more than 3% in the first few weeks of a listing, even if its cash. Only agents familiar with REO's are going to know that, so keep that in mind if you are looking for a successful outcome.

Call me if you have questions about the REO purchasing process in Del Norte County and check out my websites: