Brian Buffini and Company held its MasterMind Summit in San
Diego last week. It was awesome. The guest speakers were Captain
Jim Lovell (he led the Apollo 13 space mission) and Jack Canfield
(he wrote the Chicken Soup series but his mastery of life is what
is spectacular). Both had powerful messages about this year’s
theme: Never give up; never give in.
Brian Buffini and Company held its MasterMind Summit in San Diego last week. It was awesome. The guest speakers were Captain Jim Lovell (he led the Apollo 13 space mission) and Jack Canfield (he wrote the Chicken Soup series but his mastery of life is what is spectacular). Both had powerful messages about this year’s theme: Never give up; never give in.
Being a curious creature, I check out real estate wherever I wander. Once again I had a fantasy of owning a condo in San Diego. After all, there is so much to do there; it’s beautiful, and the weather is usually pretty terrific. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a pied a terre there?
You’ll be glad to know you can get a penthouse condo at 400 feet overlooking the Pacific, 8,361 square feet of sumptuous finishes, 3 huge bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, all the bells and whistles for a mere $12.5 million. Sound good? Give me a call and we’ll fly down and take a look at it. (Of course, you’ll need a pre-approved loan first …) The cheapest condo I found was $199,000 and that one was 290 square feet. That’s about the size of a closet in the first condo. Whoa, doggies.
So that’s the condo market in San Diego. How about back in the beautiful Central Coast and south Silicon Valley? Joe Bob says, “Check it out!”
A point of clarification: Some agents were wondering who supplies me with the information about transaction activity I use. I merely go to my trusty computer, call up REIL, our multiple listing service (MLS), and check out all the activity posted there for the past week. This information does not include activity NOT posted there. There is no magic in this … anyone with access to the MLS could get this.
Anyway, San Benito County had a pretty awesome real estate week. There was lots of activity. The San Benito County Association held its quarterly meeting (Thanks, Marcella and Rita for your hard work organizing it!) at Ridgemark. The marketing meeting following was definitely a change over the past months. There were less new listings, less price reductions and more sales.
This week’s statistics bear that out. In San Benito County there were only 19 new listings, 9 sales, 11 closed escrows, and 24 homes pulled from the market. The inventory is down for the first time in awhile.
In southern Santa Clara County there were 38 new listings, 27 sales, 23 closed escrows, and 42 homes pulled from the market. Doing the math, you can see the inventory is down for this area also.
What does this mean? Because it occurred in both areas, it appears to be more than a blip on the radar screen. It could indicate the market has reached its equilibrium … and the period of softening is over for now.
Your Realtor can watch these figures for you just as well as I can. This is why it’s so important to have a local Realtor on your team. They can be proactive.
For instance, if you have been considering buying a house or selling your current one and moving into a bigger one, this past week’s activity should put you on Red Alert. Now’s the time to hold your nose and dive! Or is it? Certainly you won’t want to make a huge financial and emotional decision based on one week’s data. But what if it holds true for the next 3 or 4 weeks? Might you miss the opportunity to buy a larger home at a great price?
Lots of times I see home buyers who call around on their own. They call each listing agent and ask to view the home. They don’t want to “get stuck” with a Realtor. It makes me feel for them. They are missing the opportunity to have someone focus on their wants and needs. Perhaps the perfect home for them is two streets over from where they are looking now. But they turn left instead of right, and miss the For Sale sign because they’re jotting down the listing agent’s number from another sign in front of a home that will not suit them at all.
Buyers, listen up! You do not pay for the services of a Realtor. The seller does.
The only thing that we as Realtors ask in return is that you be honest with us. Do not say you’ll meet us at a certain time and stand us up. Do not work with two or three of us at a time. Pick one agent and stick with him or her.
This doesn’t mean you’re stuck with the first agent you talk with. Just if you don’t think there’s a good working relationship, thank them for their time and tell them you won’t have further use of their services.
Oh, and one last thing. I think you can probably guess what it is. Once you have selected, your Realtor you have an important task: Be kind to your Realtor.
