About Hastings County, ON

After a strong surge through to April this year, the market appears to have quietened somewhat.






Roy Millar, President of the Quinte and District Real Estate Board, has provided an analysis of this data:

Sales: Dollar sales, for all categories in the month of June, 2009 decreased by 3.0%, going from $66,162,011 in 2008 to $66,119,290 in 2009. The Residential sales for June, 2009 decreased by 7.4%, going from $61,181,661 in 2008 to$56,654,087 in 2009.

Listings: The number of new listings, year to date, decreased 11.9%, from 4,611 in 2008 to 4,064 in 2009. The new Residential listings for the month of June decreased from 620 in 2008 to 506 in 2009.

Again this month, the highest percentage of Market sales (78%) is in the $100k - $300k range, up slightly higher than last month. The under $100k and over $300k market has been decreasing, which seems to be the result of our economic times. Belleville’s Average Sale Price for the month of June is the same as the Belleville overall average for the last 12 months, hovering around $190,000. All the long term indicators seem to indicate that pricing will be going up, as well as interest rates, over the next few years. So now seems to be a very good time to buy, but stay well within your budget. Recession is an opportune time to invest – not just sit back and wait.

Pleaese visit http://yourhomeinquinte.com/real_estate_news.htm

for more information.

I must admit that I have never been a great fan of lawns. Sure they feel nice underfoot, but you have to wonder about the prcatice of growing plants just so you can cut the tops off them every week or so.

All the same, we have a LOT of grass on our property, and a John Deere garden tractor that is very busy trying to keep it under control.

This year, though, we did bit of experimenting and I am delighted with the results. We took one section of the backyard and decided that it would be a natural meadow. Since it hasn't been natural for quite some time, I did try to help nature along by sprinkling some wildflower seeds out there this spring.

Today I came home to find my wife was collecting flowers and grasses from the meadow, and very soon thereafter we had some floral arrangements on our table that were, well ... both delicate and breathtaking.

We both understand that these are not "store - bought" flowers and that they may fade quickly, but we do have a meadow to go back to and to enjoy as the summer season progresses.

No real planning, no gardening .... just one of life's simple pleasures.

Here's a pic from one of her arrangements -

I wish I could provide you with a more flattering angle for my picture of this little guy -

but he preferred to turn away from me.

You will notice that his wings are not outstretched or even in operation. The reason is that he has just flown full force into the window and he is now bouncing back from that impact. He will regain flight again in a moment and be back to do the same thing again - up to 6 or 7 times per minute.

He thinks he sees a rival male sparrow, but all he is really seeing is his own reflection in the window. It's an instinctive behaviour that helped his predecessors to protect their nesting areas in the thousands of years before people arrived in this environment and worked well back then, but it failed to adjust when a new element was added - windows.

It's sad. I will try putting some cutouts of hawks on our windows, but we have many windows and it will not be hard for him to continue this either at our home or elsewhere.

He has failed to adjust to the new reality.

This is a pitiable situation for a small creature, but I wonder if we are sometimes guilty of this as well.

If something worked well in the past, isn't it easier to just keep doing the same thing?

This little guy's misfortune tells us that continuing to do the same thing over and over only works if it works. When the environment changes, we need to change as well.

This is true in real estate too. Ads in flyers used to be a good way to inform people about homes for sale. Do they still work when 85% of the people looking for a new home start their search on the Internet? Maybe not. We need new ways to bring information about homes for sale to those who are looking for them.

The good news is that people are not sparrows. With fewer programmed instincts and a great capacity for growth and innovation, we can learn new ways of doing things.

I would invite you to check out my strategies for marketing in a changing environment and share your own thoughts about this topic below.

Best regards,

Bob Foster

YourHomeinQuinte.com

Ok. You have a good home. You have worked on it and there are lots of improvements made since you moved in. You have looked at the comparables, and, with the advice of your agent you have come up with a good list price. You know enough about the market to be sure you are priced competitively and you are reasonably confident you can sell for something fairly close to your list price.

Then you get a call from your agent saying that an offer has come in, but the tone of voice sounds less than encouraging. You find that the potential buyers have sent in an offer that is far, far below what your property is worth ... you have been low-balled!

So, what do you do?

The first thing that comes to mind might be to throw the offer in the waste basket and tell your agent that you have been thoroughly insulted. You may think that people who would put in an offer like that have no idea what your place is worth, and that they will never some up to a reasonable price. Why bother negotiating at all?

Well, you may be right ... but ... is there any harm in finding out?

Some people low-ball offers with absolutely no expectation that you will actually accept them; they just want to check out your response and see how far you will go to accommodate them. Do they know who much you are willing to settle for? No.

So ... before you toss the offer away ... talk to your agent. Is your property really fairly priced? If so, then consider this: you have a buyer interested enough in your property to sign a deposit check and put in an offer. At this point, they don't know what you will accept, and you don't know what they will pay - so send them a message.

If your bottom line is that you will reduce your price by no more than $6,000 and they have offered $30,000 less, sign back with a reduction of $3,000. What can you lose? If they are not really interested, they will walk away. If they are, you have started a more meaningful discussion.

Yes, be realistic, and, yes, be informed about the changing market. But, if you have a property that is priced correctly, there is absolutley no reason why you need to accept less than a fair price. At the same time, there is no reason why you should not respond to any offer that comes in.

Recently some of my clients had a low-ball offer. We talked about this, and they decided not to toss it away in anger. In the end, they dropped $9000 from the list price, but the buyers came up $30,000. The deal was there to be made, and there would have been no advantage to anyone if the initial offer had been thrown in the wastebasket in anger.

***

Bob Foster

YourHomeinQuinte.com

I must admit that I really haven't paid much attenion to what is happening in terms of real estate sale on eBay. I mainly use it to buy bargain batteries for my cameras and cell phones, and it seems to be a great source for those products.

Just for fun tonight I checked to see what was happening in my area (Ontario, Canada) in real estate sales on eBay.

First I found this ad. Ok, a lakefront cabin, and the starting bid is $30,000 US. Sounds like a bargain. But then I get down to the small print and find out what the $30,000 is buying -

"By participating, you are not entering into a contract to purchase this property. You are, however, expressing serious interest in the property and in pursuing contract discussions."

Ah ... so here is an efficiency move. Forget downpayments and escrow. The owner is basically saying, "Send me $30,000 or more and I will know that you are seriously intersted in talking to me about buying this property." Interesting.

Or consider this one.

The starting price for this 120 acre parcel of bog land, with, the owner says, some silver in the ground, is $500,000 US, or, if you would like to avoid all the competing bids, you can "Buy It Now" for $20,000,000 US.

Ok ... no reports on the mineral deposits ... and the main asset here seems to be that he wants someone else to come in and dig out all of the peat moss, make a lake, then sell off lots around the lake. I'm not familiair with the area, but it would be interesting to see what he paid for the property. $10,000 perhaps?

So, isn't this all very curious?

Why are the listings on eBay so disreputable?

Is this happening in the eBay listings for your area as well?