Time to come up for air...

Some whales can remain submerged for long periods of time before coming up for air. The longest recorded whale dive on a single breath was just under two hours.

Many homeowners who found themselves under water on their mortgages have been holding their breath and trying to wait out the market. Some turned blue and went under in foreclosure. Others surfaced with a short sale breath. Many are still down there thinking that they must stay under longer. That may or may not be true anymore.

The real estate market has come back strong in some areas. The recovery has been spotty and in pockets. there are still area that had fallen so far that they'll take extra time to recover. Some areas truthfully may never really recover; however, there are pockets, like Milford, where the return of value has been fairly rapid and dramatic. Much of that quick run-up of prices can be attributed to the lack of inventory in the current market. That is being caused by those people who have their heads down and are still holding their breath.

The truth is that it is time to surface and take a breath, look around to see if your home is in one of the recovery pockets and maybe get on with life. If you haven't had a Realtor do a market analysis lately you may be holding your breath needlessly. That is especially true for people who did not buy or refinance at the peak of the real estate bubble market - 2005-6. If you bought in the late 1990's or even the earlier 2000's, you may be alright now. You won't know if you don't look and see.

There is no guarantee that you've recovered enough to sell, but you sure won't know if you do nothing. If you've been waiting to sell, so that you can get on with retirement or maybe look at that move up house or downsize house that you've been considering, this is step one.

Give me a call at 248-763-2497 and let's set up an appointment for me to do a FREE market analysis of your home (Southeastern Michigan residents only, please). I'll give you the straight answer to your question about your home's value on the current market and even provide some advice or tips on things that you might need to do to get it ready for sale (if that's what you want to do).