This is a series of blog posts about real estate in Salem Oregon written by Melina Tomson of Tomson Burnham, a small boutique real estate brokerage in Salem Oregon.  The blog has articles about local real estate market conditions from Salem, Keizer, Independence, Monmouth, Dallas, Stayton, Aumsville and Silverton.

The blog covers topics from market conditions to happenings inside the real estate industry that might impact consumers to new technologies that are housing-related.  Community information for home buyers looking to relocate to Salem is also housed in our blog as we discuss our local favorites.

Thank you Mr. Contractor

Dear Mr. Contractor, I wanted to thank you for doing the repair work on the home that my buyers are purchasing here in Salem, OR. They are very excited about this house. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that in real estate transactions, the deal is between the buyer and the seller…

The bailout plan vs. the economist

I haven’t been blogging this past week as I have been trying to stay on top of the bailout in order to help my clients with their current choices. With so much political spin, it is tough to figure out what makes sense for many people. Buyers and sellers are asking…”so exactly how does this…

Information Overload

I don’t know about you all, but my head is spinning. Good bailout, bad bailout, your fault, my fault, their fault… Status of the financial markets is important to real estate. Clearly if there is no credit, then there are no loans, which means no buyers, and sellers can’t sell. As such, I have been…

Make sure you don’t get stung

Remodeling… You start a project and then realize you are in way over your head. Ugh…time to find a contractor to help. Ask a friend… “Yeah, I know so and so, he’ll cut you a deal. He’s cheap.” After spending a ton of money trying to make the project work, cheap sounds good. The problem….illegal…

Could you chisel that in stone?

Earlier this year I got my tablet PC. My goal: paperless transactions. I’ve had a learning curve with it, but have it figured out now. I like it. Today, after having my clients sign on my PC, I emailed the offer right off to the other agent. I have registered email attached to all of…

Introverted but Agreeable…

The University of Cambridge came out with a study a little over a week ago, where they looked at personality traits by state. They wanted to see if different regions had different personalities. This makes some sense to me. I mean people that live in Oregon and Washington tend to want to want be in…

Crummy real estate agents

Crummy real estate agents. You may have had one, or you know someone that did. US News & World Report wrote an article about how to tell if your agent is a crummy agent. There wasn’t anything particularly new about the information, but I am surprised at how many people hire crummy agents. 1) Communication-if…