Malisa Spivey & Damon Crelia

Under the new law, qualifying taxpayers who buy a home this year before December 1 can claim up to $8,000, or $4,000 for married individuals filing separately, on either their 2008 or 2009 tax returns. Unlike the prior first-time homebuyer credit, this is money individuals do not need to pay back.

For the full press release click here http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg39.htm

Wow! I just needed to let everyone know (not for recruitment purposes) how much I love my company. We work with the best of the best in real estate and each and every agent here is such a breath of fresh air. It is so wonderful to come to work and work with other agents who truly care about you succeeding. Just wanted to share that with everyone. Thank you Executive Real Estate Center.

You can own and buy all the greatest marketing tools and ideas out there and even implement them, but the question still remains, How do people know you have them? From the time I have been in the business my greatest question has been, how do people know you are out there and what you have to offer them? Sure your past and present clients know but how do you get the rest of the population? I am not talking about hit and miss. You may even have a lot of calls from Google, Yahoo, etc. to get you to pay $300.00 plus a month to get top page on their site, but again, does that really work?

Here is what I have learned and here is what works for us. We put our email, website, blog, etc, on everything we mail out or advertise in. The key is driving people to you, the other important key is, giving them something of value. We are all about giving rather than receiving. If you give them the information and you become the expert, they will certainly come back and more than likely refer you, but you have to build the trust first and show how your different.

It seems that lately people are getting better about sharing ideas, and that is so awesome! I wish everyone would realize that there is plenty out there for everyone! You could give away all of your "secrets" but really implementation is the key and not everyone implements. So with that said, share share share!

Thank you to everyone who shares their thoughts, ideas, and marketing strategies.

Ever wonder how other Real Estate Companies compare according to the Waco Association of Realtors? We do. We love market research and statistics. We took the data from the Waco Association of Realtors MLS, with a date range of 2/13/2008 - 2/13/2009 and pulled the top 6 companies numbers. The numbers are clear and speak volumes. List to Sales Ratio is the difference between what you listed your home for and what it actually sold for. With only one year in business and second to last with average number sales associates, Executive Real Estate Center ranks #2 in average sales price and list to sales ratio. Executive Real Estate Center strives to employ only the best of the best in Real Estate. We look forward to servicing your needs.

Name of Brokerage Avg. # of Agents Avg. DOM Avg. Sales Price List to Sales Ratio

Coldwell 61 137 $161,081.48 92%

Executive Real Estate Center 21 139 $158,939.33 92%

Kelly 59 138 $145,994.91 93%

Keller 59 120 $128,923.08 93%

ERA 15 128 $116,496.32 91%

Re/Max 26 128 $104,160.29 89%

Hows The Market?

A day doesn't go by when we, as Realtors, don't get asked the market question - How's the Market? If you would listen to the national media, you would think that the real estate market is in a collapse and that we are all going to lose our houses to foreclosure tomorrow. What you have to keep in mind is a basic rule in real estate - all real estate markets are local. Giving a national real estate report can be equated to giving a national weather report. I think we'd all agree that the weather in Detroit, Michigan is quite a bit different than the weather in Central Texas! So too is the real estate market different. When you begin to look at the market, you have to start locally, sometimes not only within a particular county or city, but in a particular subdivision or on a particular street. Just as markets in different states and cities are different, markets in a specific subdivision may be different. A house that backs up to the neighborhood park, for instance, might be more appealing to buyers than a house in the same neighborhood that backs up to the highway.

The Waco area is growing and a great place to work and live, and our real estate market is doing rather well. Yes, our area has been affected by foreclosures, but overall our market has experienced only a slight decline in sales. The numbers used in this report are from the Waco Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service and do not include homes that were sold by builders or by owners not listed with a licensed Realtor. They yield some interesting results.

Most areas experienced a slight decline in sales from 2008 to 2007, with Lorena, Robinson, and Waco being the exceptions. Waco actually experienced an increase of 89 homes sold compared to 2007. That is a 9.5% increase! Average sale price in Waco, however, experienced an 11% decrease. This means that sellers have had to price their homes lower in Waco, but that is leading to more home sales. What might be affecting this is the number of foreclosures, since Waco has more foreclosures than any other community in our market area. Since statistically foreclosures usually sell for 10 to 20 percent less than a privately owned home, it makes sense that values would come down and sales would go up. We'll keep an eye on this number over the next year to see if it changes any.

Lorena and Robinson also experienced a slight increase in number of homes sold, although average sale price decreased in both these areas. That means that values in Robinson and Lorena have fallen, but the same number of homes are selling as 2007. For the future, homeowners in Robinson and Lorena will have to price their homes competitively in order for them to sell. Days on market has also increased in all areas with the exception of Lorena and Robinson.

The most startling figure in all these numbers is that although the number of sales in McGregor and China Spring has decreased quite a bit, the average sale price in both areas is up over $30,000! Not what you would expect given all the news you may have heard about the real estate market!

If we look at the market overall, sales were down roughly 3.5% from 2008 compared to 2007, sale price is down about 5%, and days on market is 5 days longer. Given what is going on in other markets around the nation, I'd say we are in pretty good shape. Although the market is not as good as it was in years past, we are still doing quite well.

To view the numbers click here copy of market share 2007-2008 (2).xls