Best Realty's Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog » The Local Market

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?

No Time Extension for Tax Credit

Mark Wisterman — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:04:00 +0000

The United States Senate failed to pass a bill yesterday that, among other things, would have extended the home buyer tax credit until September 30, 2010.
The bill, H.R. 4123, included an amendment allowing home buyers the three-month extension on the tax credit. The extension, though, only applied to buyers who signed purchasing contracts before the original April 30 deadline.
With a backlog of transactions waiting to be processed, and in danger of not closing by the required deadline of June 30, 2010, the National Association of REALTORS®, as well a mortgage lender groups, had urged Congress to extend the time for escrow closings to the proposed September time frame.
Unfortunately for those of you in the Lake Oroville real estate market and the Paradise real estate market in danger of not closing your transaction on time, the provision for the extension was added as an aside to an unemployment bill that had become a political hot potato.
Why Congress can’t do the common sense thing, (oh wait, my English teacher told me never to use the words Congress and common sense in the same sentence), and vote on these unrelated issue separately is beyond me.
If you are in danger of missing this deadline you might want to turn up the heat on your loan officer, as loan processors and underwriters could really care less about your time frame
There is still an outside chance that this extension amendment and be added to another bill or simply be voted on on its own merits. My advise though is don’t assume anything.
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No Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark Wisterman — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Today’s news that new homes sales are at their worst level in recorded history comes on the heels of yesterday’s report that existing home sales we down more than 2% while the “experts” were expecting an increase of almost 6%, is great example of what I am afraid is going to be another 6 months to a year of pain for sellers and homeowners. I hope I am wrong , but I fear that I am not.
But, wait!! I thought the government’ s tax credit program was supposed to stabilize the market. If you listened to, and believed what, the National Association of REALTORS® and the California Association of REALTORS® have had to say about the credits, you should be seeing a recovery by now. But, what we are beginning to see, on a National basis, (which is what most of us read and hear about) is a rapid move of the market toward the place it would have already gone,if the people who should know better would have been honest about the ultimate impact of these credits they were supporting.
Instead these groups landed on the side of getting a quick “fix” instead of thinking long term. Now we have to look even longer term because the inevitable has been prolonged.
Now let’s be honest here. I and my office associates, here in the Lake Oroville and Paradise real estate markets, no doubt benefited from the temporary increase in sales that resulted from the credits. Our sales numbers increased like everyone else’s. I would, however, have gladly sacrificed the short term benefits in order to re-establish a viable, vibrant and free real estate market. One that has staying power.
As it is we are saddled with the hangover from the housing version of Cash For Clunkers, or as I prefer to call it: “Funds For Foreclosures”
If you think that I am all gloomy and doomy about this market you are wrong. I think that expiration of these tax credits now allow us to come back to reality and now focus on the real cause of this market today. UNEMPLOYMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe a softer real estate market going into election season will be one more reason to finally get us the changes we need in order to get our country’s, and our state’s, economic engine restarted.
As they say, Everything Happens for A Reason.
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Important News Flash

Mark Wisterman — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:22:00 +0000

Senate OKs new tax credit closing deadline
Congress is riding to the rescue for all of you in the Lake Oroville and Paradise California real estate markets who have qualified for the first time home buyer tax credit by having a home purchase contract in place before the April 30, 2010 deadline, and are in danger of not being able to get the purchase closed by the deadline of June 30, 2010 because your lender is overwhelmed by the backlog of paperwork created by the frenzy.
With just two weeks before the expiration of the tax credit program ,an amendment to HR 4213 was added which, if signed by the President, will extend the closing deadline to September 30, 2010. The extension was requested by the mortgage industry will allow a backlog of over 180,000 purchase transactions that were begun before the April 30th deadline to be completed. While this is a wise, and fair move on the part of Congress to agree to extend this deadline, it is important to understand that it THE EXTENSION IS NOT YET OFFICIAL.
With only 2 weeks to go before the original expiration date of the program, it is important for you, if you are one of these 180,000 transactions that has not closed, to keep pressure on your lender to get your loan done. In this political environment it would be foolish to think that the proposed deadline extension of September 30th is a done deal.
I will keep you updated as new information becomes available.
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