Bob Haywood, www.BobHaywood.com

I used to live up North. I understand how valuable and useful basement space is. However, here in Oklahoma, basements are NOT something you want to dig into. Instead of going down, we go UP with bonus rooms and second floors.

Check out these pics from an actual basement here in our area. The home is in foreclosure and the story is that the people just left the basement flooded when they found out they were going to lose the house. I don't know if the story is true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me. From what I understand, this basement has flooded more than once!

Notice the lovely mold spots. They kind of add a certain "ambiance" to the room!

I'll bet there's been some yucky stuff down that hole in the floor!

Yep, that's mold on the wall. You can make your own penicllin!

Do you think this should be disclosed? The answer is YES!

Oklahoma has had flooding problems for years. We are located in the great plains of America. That means our ground is very flat. When it rains the water runs to the lowest point and it doesn't really care if that lowest point is your basement or a creek. Thankfully, Tulsa spent the money and had the vision to put in one of the nation's leading flood control systems citywide. We no longer flood in Tulsa by and large...only in basements!

I have a nice couple who I'm working with right now who are going to be my buyers as soon as they sell their home. They're selling their home as a For Sale By Owner because they don't have enough equity in it to list it with a realtor.

Last night I took them to see a great new listing I have (generated from Active Rain by the way - more on that later). After we took the tour, I asked them how the sale of their property was going. "Pretty okay," was their answer.

Hmmm, at this point I have a decision to make. Do I help them by giving them some tips or not? I know many realtors who wouldn't help at all because they didn't list their house with a realtor. I'm more of the philosophy that we're all here to help one another and that what goes around comes around. So I visited with them about making sure the house was on Craigslist which was really funny because they went, "Craigslist? What's that???" So that was a fun conversation. You should have seen them light up when I told them it was FREE! I also talked with them about paying a buyer's agent and making sure it was clearly advertised, etc.

I didn't give them everything I've got in my bag of successful sales tactics, but I thought those two things would be helpful. After all, if they sell their house, they become my buyers...and that's a good thing!

Here in our area I'm seeing more people trying to sell their home as FSBO's this year than last year. Interestingly enough, I'm seeing less people using discount real estate brokerages and more FSBO.com sites. I wouldn't have expected that. I guess it's due to the decreased cost.

Do you help FSBO's? Are you friendly with people who are trying to sell their home by owner? What's your take on this situation?

According to an article in the Sunday Tulsa World, the number of new Oklahoma foreclosures was 30% lower in May than in April. That's great news because anytime you're in a crisis, you start looking for the bottom. When you hit the bottom, you know you're on the way out of that crisis. However, the reality is that we'll have to wait to see if this is the bottom of the crisis or if this is a temporary pause.

picture created by Bob Haywood

Our foreclosure numbers for the month of May were 1,213. That's 30.7% above May 2007, but better than the 58.7% "year over year" increase in April. Note: these stats are taken from the article. There's more good news in the article such as Oklahoma dropping to 29th in the ranking of states with the highest foreclosure rates. We had been ranked 22nd.

Click here to read the entire article.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Oklahoma is a great place to live. The people are nice. The cost of living is low. Gas is around $3.75. You can buy a brand new home for around $150,000 (and up of course). We have seasons and we're close to everything.

Check this out. It's about...

2 hours to drive to Ft. Smith, AR
4 hours to drive to Little Rock
4 hours to drive to Dallas
5 hours to drive to Kansas City
5 hours to drive to Amarillo, TX
6 hours to drive to St. Louis
About a day's drive to Denver

As you can tell from the article in the Tulsa World, our housing market is doing okay. I actually saw something this weekend that I hadn't seen since last summer - more than 1 offer on a property at a time! It was almost a bidding war! Are you kidding me??? UNBELIEVABLE!!!

If you're moving to Oklahoma, you're moving to a great state! Contact me to find your great new or existing home.

RealtyTrac Foreclosure Rates for May 2008

"That showing time is too early for us. If you'll come at 12:30, that will work fine. Thank you!"

This was the message I got from a seller in our area tonight on my cell phone. I had called him earlier and had a left a message about showing his home tomorrow morning around 9:30. I know that can be early on a Saturday, but we've got to start early as that's when my buyers are available.

I haven't called this seller back yet (too late tonight), but when I do, there are a few things I'd like to tell him. See if some of these resonate with you.

First, do you really want to sell your house? Because if you do, asking a real estate professional to wait 3 hours later to show your house isn't going to get it sold. Not in today's market. When showing, we are usually on tight schedules. Coming back around to a neighborhood twice is sometimes simply impossible.

The second thing I'd like to ask this guy is, "Do you ever watch the news?" Surely he knows about this little mortgage crisis our country is currently experiencing.

How about this one..."Do you have ANY idea what the interest rates are doing right now?" My mortgage officer friends tell me that they're quoting rates only for that immediate moment in time to people making loan application because things are so unstable right now. Today's rate was closing in on 6.6 and we're probably looking at 7 pretty quickly. Rising mortgage rates mean higher payments. And what exactly is it that we don't have a lot of due to the rising (and may I say ridiculous) gas prices? Yes, that would be extra money for higher payments!

I want to ask him also if he has any idea how many less houses are selling right now as measured against last year. Does he know the stats for our area? Apparently not.

Now, why is any of this important? Why does it matter? Because the answers to these questions are obvious. If you're a breathing human being who lives in America, you know that we're in the midst of a market slow down. If you're a seller, you've got to be super savvy to be successful in selling your home right now. And that means being flexible in the showing of your home. If a Realtor calls you to show your house, get the appointment scheduled and get out of the way! That Realtor might be bringing you the person or couple who falls in love with your home. If you make it hard for us to get into your home, you're really only hurting your odds of success! After all, my buyers have PLENTY of houses to pick from. Not getting into yours just isn't that big of a deal anymore.

For this poor guy, we probably won't be seeing his house tomorrow. Bummer for him!