On foreclosure, bankruptcy & being a privy specialist
I have discouraged clients from putting their homes on the market over the last several years, unless they have a definite need. Those who have wanted or needed to proceed, we’ve worked together to get their properties into top condition for whatever the competitive price is that we come up with to get the house sold. But, if they didn’t have to sell for a specific reason, most have decided to stay put.
I just ran a quick check of our area, and, today, January 25th, there are 85 bank owned (foreclosure) properties and homes being sold short listed in our MLS. Though any is too many, that is less than many communities throughout the country. We've lost a couple of small builders to bankruptcy, which I'm sorry to see. Honestly, the area had reached an overbuilt situation, and so there has been an adjustment for the past several years.
The 2010 year-end numbers (Charlottesville Area Real Estate Sales, 2010 Year-end Market Report) were released a couple of weeks ago, and though not totally surprising, the numbers did make me pause and take a deep breath. I believe the answer to “Where does it go from here?” is “UP” beginning now. I'm confident prices overall have hit their bottom, and we should see some movement this year. We should see some movement this year. That is, if our representatives in Washington can get their acts together long enough to realize that their squabbling has no value. That is, if the banking industry stops acting like a spoiled brat. That is, if the people who really can make a difference will look beyond the tip of their own nose long enough to see that there might just be a better way of doing things.
While thinking about all of this, I came across an old issue of Cook’s Illustrated (much more appealing than thinking about people losing their homes and businesses). I always go straight to the editorial section of the magazine. The editor, Christopher Kimball, is a New Englander living in a rural community. He has a good sense of humor, a warm sense of community, and a personable sense of human nature. He focused the editorial that month on those people of this earth that work hard at doing whatever it is that they do, doing it until it’s done right. He began and ended with stories from the early part of the 20th century about a country handyman, Lem Putt, who decided one day that he would become the best privy maker of his county, a true "privy-making specialist". Apparently, Mr. Putt laid it all out - where best to install a privy, how best to pitch the roof (so as to keep away wasps nests), and more, right down to the hanging of the nail for the catalog.
Ending his editorial, Mr. Kimball says… "If satisfaction is to be found on earth, and some people might argue the point, it most likely comes from knowledge and a job well done, whether on the farm or in the kitchen. Allow me to end with the words of Mr. Putt, the man who specialized in privies."
“Sometimes when I get to feelin’ blue and thinkin’ I hitched my wagon to the wrong star… I just pack the little woman and the kids in the back of my car and start out, aimin’ to fetch up at Elmer’s place along after dusk. When we gets to the top of the hill overlookin’ his place, we stops. There sits that privy on that knoll near the woodpile, painted red and white, mornin’ glories growin’ over her and Mr. Sun bathin’ her in a burst of yeller color as he drops back of them hills. I heaves a sigh of satisfaction, my eyes fill up and I sez to myself, ‘Folks are right when they say that next to my eight holer that’s the finest piece of construction work I ever done. I know I done right in Specializin’; I’m sittin’ on top of the world.’ "
I wonder if the people who are deciding the fate of our economy have the same sense of pride and “specialty” as Mr. Putt.
*The graph showing Median Sales Prices above was created by the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors for its 2010 Year End Market Report
