Larry and Peggy Pitts

I just ran the stats for the Okc market and found that we have remain basically flat on prices the past 3 years. Certainly beats some places in the US that have seen as much as a 40% decrease. What we have seen is a great reduction in the number of homes sold. We are down 30% in actual number of homes sold and closed. It seems to be mainly in the new home and upscale market that has suffered the most.

As Realtors we need the number of homes sold to increase. I see no turn around anytime soon in this number. It looks like prices will hold but the number of sales will remain slow. Until we see a turn around in the finical market, jobs, and take home pay I really doubt if we will see much of an increase in home sales.

It is time for all of us to make the most with what we have.

Every time the government has a good idea it has to go through so many political hands it never comes out anywhere near what it was intended to do. We (National Association of Realtors) had gotten into the stimulus bill and tax credit of $15,000 for anyone to buy a home. Now do you think this would have helped the houseing market. You bet. It would have created a number of buyers that we would have helped the economy immensely. But after the (the politicians) decided the stimulus was too much money they cut it back to $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers only. Their thinking was that if the first time home buyers bought homes that would free people up to but other home and so on. Guess what. That just did not happen. We have had an influx of first time home buyers but there are so many vacant home out there right now that we have not seen the domino effect that they thought would happen. Sure it was had some effect but not near what they protected.

Now NAR is back trying to get the congress to extend the tax credit and also to go back to the $15,000 for anyone to buy a home. Do you think there is any chance that it is going to get passed. Only if congress goes to sleep when it is brought up and goes through before they know what happened. We can always hope.

Can you beleive the year is half over. Now we have the 4th of July and then the next you know it will be Christmas. Amazing how fast time flys by anymore. Even when you want time to slow down because you are on vacation or maybe involved in something that needs more time, you just can't slow things down. Time have become an Indy 500 speed race. I just can't seem to keep up. I always seem to be running behind, late, or just miss it all together.

How do we stop and smell the roses when they go by at the speed of light.

Why can't we slow down anymore. Life has gotten so fast anymore we don't even know what we are missing.

Showings have picked up. Open house traffic has picked up. Sign calls have picked up. But still no one willing to step up and buy. What is the deal. This is really a great time to buy a home. I just don't understand why we don't have buyers lined up buying homes. Interest rate are at all time low. We have the $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers. And here in Oklahoma we even have special down payment assistance for first time home buyers, so they can get in for no money down.

It is just amazing why we don't have more homes selling than we do. Now you talk to Realtors around and boy you would think we have selling more than ever. But when you check the stats on the MLS the truth comes out. We are still selling half as many homes today as we did in 2006. What can we do to get things turned around.

I will say for those of us who are still in the business, we must have an optimistic view of the world. We know that it will turn around and we always think it will be soon. We just have to keep preaching the word on how buying now is the thing to do. I know someone out there will hear us and believe us.

Keep the faith. Keep on selling.

We finally see a glimmer of hope that we have hit bottom and could start a turn around and then we get hit again knocking us back down. As of today the appraisers have a new requirement that they have to use the three most recent sales in a neighborhood as comps. It doesn't matter if they are foreclosures, sold in "as is" condition or sold under stress. This just means that appraisers will be hard pressed to show values on a good sale. When you try to help get the values up the appraisers just say we have no choice. They have to do it this way or they won't be able to do any more appraisals.

Why is it we always try to correct problems after the problem is gone. Raising the credit limits, raising the down payment requirements, wasn't enough. Now we have to make sure to reduce the value of all real estate. All we are doing to making the down turn worse and lasting longer.