Best Realty's Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog » market

Introducing Mobile Connect

Mark Wisterman — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:05:00 +0000

Seaching for homes in the Oroville real estate market, the Chico real estate market, and the Paradise real estate on your mobile device just got a lot easier and more convenient with the recent release of REALTY WORLD’s Mobile Connect home search program.
This new platform allows buyers to obtain listing information, nearly instantly, on any residential property for sale in the area in which they are currently located by simply texting as simple two letter code. There is even a QR code available for you iPhone and Android users. No more searching through cumbersome apps like REALTOR.com, Zillow and Trulia looking for a specific property that you are standing in front of trying to get updated information. And no more hassles when calling the phone number on a yard sign and getting hold of an agent that has no idea of what property you are asking about.
With this new system you get not only the information on the specific home you are texting for, but you also have the option of seeing the 5 other homes for sale that are closest to the home you are looking at. I have included a couple of links here that will provide further information on this awesome new system. The benefits to buyers and sellers alike are explained in the flyers.
To sign up for this program just give me a call or drop me an e-mail with your cell phone number and I will get you enrolled. As always there is NO CHARGE for this service and there is NEVER any abuse of your contact information. In fact, I will make you this promise: I will not ever call you about any home you inquire about through this system unless you ask me to.
Mobile Connect for Sellers
Mobile Connect For Buyers
Happy House Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Market of Higher Lows

Mark Wisterman — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:12:00 +0000

My intent today was to report the weekly sales of the Lake Oroville real estate market to you for last week.
But during my number crunching I realized that it has been a while since I had updated my charts that I have been using to track the monthly and annual Lake Oroville home sales.
After updating these charts I noticed an interesting long term trend in one of the charts that I thought you needed to see. From past blog posts, you all know that I do not take the month to month numbers that are released into the media on an ongoing basis as important as what has happened over longer periods of time. I think the media is far too focused on what this month did compared to that month, which in turn has focused the consumer on the very same thing. This narrow focus is what I believe is going to cause many buyers to miss the great opportunities that currently abound in the marketplace as far as prices and interest rates are concerned.
Now before you get excited, thinking this is another one of those real estate blogs posts that tells you to BUY NOW!!!!, let me tell that it is not. This market is going to provide great buying opportunities, for those of you that still have jobs in this economy, for the foreseeable future. What I am telling you is to look at this chart and see for yourself what this Lake Oroville real estate market is whispering to you. When looking at a chart like this most people look at the peaks to see how high things have gone. What I suggest that you look at here is the lower side of this chart. The former stock broker in me says ignore what is happening in the high side and pay close attention to what is happening on the low side. In the stock broker world a stock that showed a trend of higher lows was one to pay attention to and was a good signal that the stock was poised to move to higher highs. (Click Here or on the Chart to Enlarge)
As indicated on this chart, the number of homes sold on a monthly basis in the Lake Oroville real estate market have been setting higher overall lows since 2008. The indication here is that, as far as the number of Oroville homes sold is concerned, the worst appears to be over and if this trend continues we will eventually begin selling units at a higher pace than the pace at which new listings are coming to market. It will be this difference between supply and demand that will result in an increase in values and prices. Let’s be clear here. We have a LONG way to go before any appreciable change in prices and values. The current state of our local, state, and national economies are now the main cause of the drag on the market. Unemployment has now surpassed the loan scandals of the past few years as the culprit for this ugly market.
Hopefully, information like this will keep you from being surprised while thinks SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLLLLY gets better.

Oroville Sales Numbers Just Released

Mark Wisterman — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:36:00 +0000

Here are your weekly home sales numbers for the Lake Oroville real estate market for the week ending 8/25/2011.
We had a significant drop in the numbers across the board this week when compared to the unusually strong numbers of the previous week. The home that sold for over $600,000 in the previous week helped set up the negative numbers this week. To me, the biggest disappointment in this week’s numbers is the number of Oroville area homes sales that closed escrow. Only 5 this week coming off a count of 16 the previous week is somewhat disheartening. But, as I say: “One week does not make a market.”

MLS Stats for Oroville Area
Week Ending
Week Ending
Weekly %

8/18/2011
8/25/2011
Change

# of Total Sales
16
5
-68.75%

# REO/Short Sales Sold (SS)
10
1
-90.00%

% Sales that are REO/SS
62.50%
20.00%
-68.00%

Avg. List Price
$175,786
$136,780
-22.19%

Avg. Sold Price
$167,683
$127,600
-23.90%

Sold Price % of Listing Price
95.39%
93.29%
1.63%

Avg. Days On The Market
102
52
-49.02%

Total Sales Volume
$2,682,930
$638,000
-76.22%

LOCK…LOCK…LOCK

Mark Wisterman — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:16:00 +0000

For those of you in the Lake Oroville housing market and the real estate markets of Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, Marysville, Gridley, Biggs and Durham, who did not see the Facebook posting I made on my business page yesterday at Facebook/RealtyWorld.CA, and, since I have not seen this recommendation from any other area real estate agent anywhere on the ‘net, I will repeat what I advised my Facebook readers to do:
If you are working on a loan for the purchase or refinance of a home, you need to have a SERIOUS discussion with your lender about locking your interest rate ASAP.

California Mortgage Rates
CurrentLast Week

30 Year Fixed

15 Year Fixed

5/1 Adjustable

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Home Mortgage rates

As a former financial advisor with a major Wall Street firm, I have seen this type of market volatility before and I will tell you that when you get the gigantic drop that the stock market took today and the huge drop in interest rates that came with it, there is a better possibility that that stocks and interest rates will “bounce” off these lows very quickly, then there is of rates continuing to fall in a fashion that makes it worth the risk to “wait and see” what happens.
There are two events coming up that make it a good idea to consider locking your rate as soon as your loan officer is available to do this for you.
1. The monthly employment numbers will be released tomorrow. If the numbers are at all better than analysts are expecting, or even in line with expectations, I anticipate that interest rates will tick up slightly. If, as some suspect, the number is worse than the overall consensus expectation you may see rates tick down on the news. But not by much (unless the number is some off the wall number like 10% unemployment).
2. The weekend is here. In a volatile market like this, and with rates as low as they are now, waiting through the weekend may cost you. If there is any positive economic developments from the international markets over the weekend it most likely will cause some upward movement in rates before your feet even hit the floor Monday morning.
Obviously, there is no way to know exactly what rates are going to do in the coming days, and , as I am no longer a professional financial advisor, the above comments should not be considered financial advice. I want you to be sure and make your own decision about this based on your current financial situation in consultation with your personal finance management team.
Related articles

How the Bond Market Relates to Your Mortgage Interest Rate (marketconsultingmortgage.wordpress.com)
Living in a low interest rate world (financialpost.com)
Market dive could rattle homebuyers (lansner.ocregister.com)

New Foreclosure Reports Now Available

Mark Wisterman — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:31:00 +0000

Here are the latest foreclosure reports for the real estate markets of Lake Oroville, Ca, Chico CA, Paradise CA, Yuba City Ca and Marysville, CA.
These reports still show what has been true for the past couple of years- a very volatile market with not much in the way of any long term trend that could assist us all in anticipating where the market is going from here. This uncertainty, as well as rampant unemployment, is doing its best to keep many buyers on the sidelines, as they seem to be waiting to the bottoming in pricing.
If you are one of these buyers be sure that you are keeping a close eye on trends on prices and interest rates as you wait. Remember that the Federal Reserve has pulled out of the mortgage market and are no long artificially deflating interest rates. Rates are going to react much more quickly to changes in the economy than at anytime in the past 2 years without the government interference that has kept them low. Believe me when I say I understand the fence-sitting mentality as not much this economy has to offer feels very good right now. But also believe me when I say that nobody is going to ring a bell at the bottom of interest rates. Is it a good time to buy? With these prices and interest rates….yes it is. Will tomorrow be a better time to buy???? Nobody knows for sure. And that uncertainty is what is holding back a recovery in the market.
Click Here if you would like to view and/or print the report