Warning: it’s kind of cheesy, but it’s different and novel. That’s what I like about it. It was featured on Fox News last night!
Don’t Let Zillow’s Market Report Make You Cry
May 7, 2008, 6:53, pm By Leave a Comment
Zillow published some stunning numbers yesterday regarding the US housing market. According to their analysis they believe “one out of two homeowners who purchased during the national market peak in 2006 are currently “underwater” on their mortgage”. This is a lot of people, and it does not appear to let up too much in 2007 either, because they claim “45% of homeowners who purchased last year (2007) are already underwater on their mortgages”.
This is not good news. However, is this a reason to walk away from your home, like so many are doing? In my opinion – NO! In order to put things in perspective I ran a hypothetical scenario to see how long it would take to recoup the equity. If you bought in 2006 with no down on a mortgage of $200,000 and experienced a 25% decline since. Then your home would be valued at $150,000 today. Now at the historically average appreciate rate of 6%, it would take you five years (from today) to be back at 2006 home price levels. (Side note: I sincerely believe we’ve hit bottom.)
Certainly not something you may have hoped for, but it’s not as dire as you may think. Five years isn’t too long of a time, it goes by pretty fast. Even if you purchased on a five year ARM – you’re almost covered. Also, remember ARM’s can reset lower too – if the index is falling. Even if rates go up when it adjusts, I’ve run situations for clients where the saving they received against a 30-year mortgage pretty much covers the increased payment for about a year or so (assuming its a five year ARM of course). More importantly you have five years to figure something out -maybe you make extra payment so increase your equity? Maybe you save some more. What ever the case you have five years to make a plan. The situation is completely different of course if you are in any kind of negative equity loan program.
Now, that I may have assured you a bit, let me share the rest of the bad news. Phoenix is cited in Zillow’s report as one of the hardest hit markets. I share with you some of the charts they have for Phoenix. To read the full report head on over to the ZillowBlog.
RE Bloggers Networking Event a Grand Success
April 24, 2008, 2:08, pm By 10 Comments
This mornings inaugural AZ EV RE Bloggers Network meeting was fantastic and I personally enjoyed it tremendously. Agents from around the valley (and Tucson) attended and participated in this sharing of the minds event. I want to personally thank agent Candace Robinson (HomeSmart) and Shelli Bates for organizing the first of what is hoped to be many blogging forum.
I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I didn’t take my camera with me and so don’t have any to share right now. But I’m sure Candace will send some over and I’ll be sure to put it up once I have a few. In fact the whole program was taped – so hopefully we’ll be able to have that available soon.
Just to recap, all the speakers shared some great information – from tips and tricks to how much increase they have seen in their business since they started blogging. I learned a lot – so thank you for sharing. For me it was a pleasure to finally meet the Lady in Red, Teri Ellis, Paul Slaybaugh and Mike Jones from Tucson. Jay Thompson (our local celebrity) was the keynote speaker and he spilled the beans on the key to his blogging success! It’s always a pleasure to hear him speak – so thank you!
As promised I have uploaded and made available my PowerPoint presentation for those interested. It is from my blogging 101 seminar from last year and is a bit outdated (that is how fast the blogging world is evolving). Click below to download:
The organizers and sponsors are discussing the possibility of holding these kind of get together events on a monthly basis and in a more central location. Please contact them directly if you are interested in attending the next event.
Thank you to Shelli Bates of Land America Title and Ron Kohatsu of Win Gateway (Home Inspection) for sponsoring this event.
4.29 pm update: Teri has posted pictures on her blog.
Friday AM update – some pictures courtesy of Teri:
The captive audience (there were a lot more people than what can be seen here)
Friday (4/25) PM update: Paul Slaybaugh has a complete re-cap with a whole new set of pictures!
