Baker’s Dozen minus two

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Good morning real estate fans! By Monday the 10th,  I will have posted newly updated statistics for residential real estate in Santa Fe NM through the end of November. Eleven months of results should tell us almost the entire picture for the year, which is easily the best sales and success year we have seen since 2007. Maybe it goes without saying, but we need to build on this year and continue the building recovery next year.

In general terms, inventory is down, sales are up, foreclosures are down and confidence is up. And that word confidence, and all that it implies, may be the most important change to how we stood last year at this time. Increased confidence in potential buyers means more transactions and more closed sales. The loan money has been dirt cheap for a long time now. But just lately buyers have been more confident.

Possibly the reason for the bloom is that the downside of home prices and values seems now to have passed. While even a year ago there was still plenty of fear that a home might continue to lose value, those fears seem to have evaporated. I am not saying that some of the huge ugly gorillas in the room (can you say… fiscal cliff – or Euro crisis?) might not yet change the course of history, but unless the world ends as some students say the Mayans predicted, we are likely to continue to see improvements in housing overall.

Some areas are selling rather briskly, while others must wait for overall levels to rise to help them hit the sales mark. The same most popular areas are still most popular. List two identical homes, on Palace Ave and also on Richards Ave, and count the phone calls for each. You get to pay extra to be a short walk from the Plaza.

Homes in the lower price ranges also get lots of attention for the reason that affordable and bargain are two words now permanently embedded in our real estate vocabulary. It might be 10 or 20 years before home buyers stop putting “good price” at the top of their list.

As always, I am available to talk with you about your real estate needs and observations. Once you and I chat for a few minutes, you can decide whether to risk meeting me in person and testing my real estate professionalism. email AlanBall2@gmail.com or phone 505-470-7153

Can we also please all get together and do a group hug and prayer for some snow on the mountains? Let’s put our collective minds and spirits to the task!

Posted in Foreclosures, Home Values, Posts & Updates, Santa Fe area real estate, Statistical Data - Santa Fe real estate market and tagged , , , , , .

The writer is a 68 year-old young man engaged as an active REALTOR (associate broker) with Keller Williams, in real estate sales and management in the Santa Fe NM market area. My career has been in and around the real estate industry for more than 35 years, ranging from mortgage lending (interim, commercial, residential); residential property management and leasing; shopping center development and leasing; real estate sales; sales training; title insurance as an executive and an escrow officer; various management positions; consulting and other related activities. That plus a bunch of banking experience including our family-owned Bank of Santa Fe in the 1980s. Where has the time gone?
My background means you have my working knowledge of the entire transaction process at your disposal. That comes with honesty and no bullshit.