Best Realty's Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog » Buyers

Real Estate in Your Underwear

Mark Wisterman — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:48:00 +0000

Is this technology thing terrific or what.
Late last week I showed a home to a first time home buyer in the Lake Oroville real estate market. She liked the house enough to make an offer on it last Saturday evening through the online bidding process that the seller had established. No paper offer to write and no signature needed when submitting our bid. I simply discussed the offer terms with the buyer and from my desk and computer in my home office I entered the online bid.
Come Monday morning I received an e-mail, on my iPhone, at about 6:30 am informing me that the seller had responded to the offer by sending us a counter offer. I immediately called the buyer, discussed the counter offer and decided to submit a counter offer to the seller’s counter offer.
I submitted the new terms to the seller. After about an half hour I received another e-mail letting me know that the seller had accepted our new terms. I promptly called my buyer to inform her of the good news. After congratulating her and discussing the next steps in the process, I ended the call and hung up the phone.
It was then that it hit me.
I was sitting there in front of my computer screen, in the privacy of my home office, negotiating, and getting an acceptance on, a contract for my Lake Oroville real estate first time home buyer, IN MY UNDERWEAR!!!
Not only can you now do a lot of your real estate business from home, you can even do some of it in your tighty whities.
Ok, so now you think I am some kind of nut case. Heck, you might be right. It just happened to be one of those things that brought to mind how quickly this industry is evolving. Probably should not have gone off my medication!!!! LOL
Is this technology thing terrific or what.

Is Your AgentNTouch?

Mark Wisterman — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:57:00 +0000

You knew it wouldn’t be long before I made it easier for you to utilize your smart phone to access this blog site, search for properties in the Lake Oroville, Paradise and Chico California real estate markets, and get the latest in interest rates and other real estate news and advice.
Today I am announcing the launch of my very own iPhone app that is now available for download at the App Store. With this highly sophisticated, but easy to use, app you now have not only my contact information in the palm of your hand but you can now access all the services of my blog site with just the touch of a button. No more addresses to remember and no more passwords to forget. This is just another investment I am making for you in order to provide a service, that nobody else in the Lake Oroville real estate market will, in order to make current and relevant real estate information readily available to you.
See my current listings, check out my latest blog post, or even find my Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In pages. Spend as much, or a little time as your prefer because there is NO COST to you to download this App. Check back often, though because updates and come cool additions are coming soon.
And unlike many of today’s apps this app will be compatible with Blackberry and Droid users. Look for the rollout annoucement for these phones on the site sometime before Labor Day.
Download your app at the iTunes App store and search for AgentNTouch. After downloading, launch the app and in the Agent I.D. box enter 5303704691.
I would greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. My goal is to always be an AgentNTouch.
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Free Market Begins To Heal Housing?

Mark Wisterman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:31:00 +0000

As a reader of this blog you know that the market guidance I give for the Lake Oroville real estate market and Paradise real estate market is intended to provide a forward looking perspective to where the market is going.
Attempting to take into consideration all the factors that affect the market and trying to provide accurate guidance into the future is a balancing act to say the least. The biggest challenge in trying to do this is in separating the hype from reality.
Every day you hear the hype but rarely the reality.
I think the reason this Lake Oroville real estate blog is so popular is that readers have realized that the perspective and advice I give is based solely what I see the realities of the market to be. For example, if you go back to some of my previous blog posts you will see that I was maybe the only REALTOR you heard saying that the tax credits would not help the market in the long term; that the market cannot recover until we find a way to get some of the 8 million or so who have been foreclosed on back into the market; and that government “purchase incentives” will only prolong the pain homeowners and sellers are going through with regards to home values.
My contact with two separate buyers in the Lake Oroville real estate market over the past couple of weeks has led me to believe that we are about to see the very small beginnings of a truly sustainable recovery in home sales and home values.
This belief is based on the fact that each of these buyers were coming to me following their homes being foreclosed upon in late 2007 and early 2008. With FHA lending standards allowing a borrower to get a loan with a foreclosure of 3 or more years old on their credit report, these buyers are poised to get back into the market and find another home to purchase.
With the first big wave of foreclosures rolling through the real estate market in 2008 it stands to reason that there should be the beginnings of an uptick in real estate transactions sometime in the middle of 2011 as many of those who lost their homes may possibly qualify again for a loan.
And as corny as this may sound, with the much lower prices and the almost free, fixed interest rates, many of these buyers may look back on their foreclosure with fond memories as it enabled them to get out of a house they most likely over paid for and which they financed with an adjustable loan with a top rate that would make a loan shark blush.
Time is a great healer, isn’t it?

Tax Credit Deadline Bill Passed By Senate

Mark Wisterman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:23:00 +0000

More good news for first-time homebuyers in the Lake Oroville, Paradise, and Chico California real estate markets who missed the June 30, 2010 deadline for closing the escrow on the purchase of their home.
The U.S. Sentate, last night, passed H.R. 5623 which, when signed by the President, will extend the deadline of closing a transaction that was under contract before May, 1, 2010. The new deadline will be September 30, 2010.
There is estimated to be 180,000 homebuyers that were unable to close their transactions by the June 30th deadline due to delays in getting their loans processed.
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This Just In…..

Mark Wisterman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:51:00 +0000

This just came across the wires and I wanted to make sure all of you in the Lake Oroville and Paradise Ca real estate markets hear it here first:
(June 29, 2010)—The United States House of Representatives has just passed HR 5623, the Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010, by a vote of 409-5. This bill extends the deadline for closing tax credit eligible transactions from June 30 to September 30, 2010. The bill moves to the Senate where the outcome is much less certain. I will continue to update you as the events move forward.
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