Back in the boom, MERS was a cornerstone of the real estate market offering a way to offload mortgages to investors allowing banks to continue to originate loans and make bundles o’ money. Apparently, my strategy of waiting at the end of the rainbow for my pot of gold wasn’t a good one: should have…
While that lowly 79 homes sold in the 2nd quarter in Keizer Oregon might look a bit lame compared to last year, last year was an off year because of the tax credit. Overall, better than 2009 so that’s good. Keizer currently has an 8.65 month inventory of homes. So if no one else…
I am often gallivanting around on real estate forums giving out sage advice to consumers. My mantra for about the past, I don’t know, five years or so to consumers has been…look at the photos taken by an agent online. When a seller is going to get a home ready for sale, they should take…
As you know if you read my post from last month, Salem was named one of the worst real estate markets in the country based on NAR real estate data. You can read how I feel about their data in that post. I won’t rehash it here. What I do want to talk about is…
Basketball hoops in the road for the local pickup game. Skateboarders weaving all over. Kids screaming and splashing in pools. For some of you, living in a neighborhood where these things happen on a daily basis sounds undesirable. I get that. Sometimes I don’t want to be around my kids either. The thought of altering…
April 30th of 2010 ended the eligibility for the home buyer tax credit. No big surprise that home sales were down year over year as a result. Year to date sales are down 2.8% year over year. I think this is pretty good considering the unnatural boost that happened in 2010 due to…
I’m off on my NAR/news media rant early this year. A client emailed me a link to a recent news article about the 5 worst real estate markets in the country for Q1 of 2011. Salem, Oregon was listed as number 3. They based this article on the NAR data that was released. Any of…
Bummer. I kept thinking I didn’t need to do laundry, clean those toilets, or do market reports this month as I was sure that I was going to be gone on the 21st. What is the point of crunching market data if I was one of the chosen? Unfortunately, it does appear that Lucifer and…
I always thought Chablis was something that came in a box. Well, that is until I had dinner at the Crooked House Bistro. Many years ago my husband and I were down in Bandon, Oregon with my in-laws. We dined at this small restaurant with 12 tables, ordered our dinner, and a bottle…
Not too long ago, I was in a condo here in Salem Oregon and was thinking about whether or not I was an urban dweller. When I lived in Portland, the Pearl District was a mess of abandoned and broken down warehouses. You could hear a rat scurry across the street as no cars were…