Time for Mr Sunshine...

It’s time for Mr. Sunshine! With all of the gloomy, doom-y news lately I thought that a dose of sunshine was needed. So I went to see Little Mary Sunshine and sure enough things are much better that I thought. It turns out that I’m doing all of the right things and it’s just a matter of time before I see the rewards. Well, alright! I feel better already.

I have seen an up-tick in activity. There are more shoppers out right now that in a long while and even a few buyers. The inventory of foreclosed homes is still fairly high, so there are lots of bargains for the shoppers to peruse. I’ve also noticed that more and more of the foreclosed homes are still in fairly good shape, with fewer “trashed” houses on the market right now. Of course the ones that have been foreclosed for a while are suffering the ravages of neglect, which can have severe impact in the winter months; but, which has resulted mainly in overgrown lawns and lots of painting needs this summer.

The credit market has tightened up a bit and that’s a good thing; because there are now fewer people out getting themselves in over their heads in this buyers market. I wrote some months back about “boomerang houses” - those that had been foreclosed, were bought by people who got in over their heads, and now were in foreclosure a second time. There are still some of them coming on the market again, but thankfully fewer marginal buyers are being allowed to get in trouble because of the tighter credit market.

One other thing that I’m seeing is that the non-distressed sellers, those who are in
foreclosure or headed that way, are finally coming to grips with what has happened to
home values and starting to get real on their prices too. There are still hold-outs as is
witnessed by the statistics charts that I update weekly at my site http://www.themilfordteam.com/. The stats for the Milford market in the $400-500K range show average Days-On-Market (DOM) of almost two years, due mainly to some stubborn hold-outs who have been on the market for over three years now and refuse to lower their prices. I may have to rename it Dumb-On-Market in their honor. In the five Livingston County Twonships that I track the DOM for Genoa Township averages almost two years for the $300-400K range for the same reason.

Be all that as it may (I refuse to use that trite phrase “it is what it is”), I’m busier that I’ve been in months. I have two offers out and a third on the way. I have lots of shopper/clients and a few actual buyer/clients, so I’m a happy camper. I may stil be a camper sleeping in a pup tent, but I can dream of the motor home days to come if I just keep working hard and pursuing my dream. Oops, I got a little too close to sounding like a political candidate there, didn’t I? Oh, well, the sun got in my eyes. Well, as we used to say in the computer industry - the future's so bright I need sunglasses!