5 Reason You Need A Realtor

5 Reasons You Need A REALTOR

A real estate transaction is complicated. In most cases, buying or selling a home requires disclosure forms, inspection reports, mortgage documents, insurance policies, deeds, and multi-page government-mandated settlement statements. A knowledgeable guide through this complexity can help you avoid delays or costly mistakes.

Selling or buying a home is time consuming. Even in a strong market, homes in our area stay on the market for an average of 77 days. And it usually takes another 35 days or so for the transaction to close after an offer is accepted.

Real estate has its own language. If you don’t know a CMA from a PUD, you can understand why it’s important to work with someone who speaks that language.

REALTORS have done it before. Most people buy and sell only a few homes in a lifetime, usually with quite a few years in between each purchase. And even if you’ve done it before, laws and regulations change. That’s why having an expert on your side is critical.

REALTORS provide objectivity. Since a home often symbolizes family, rest, and security, not just four walls and roof, homeselling or buying is often a very emotional undertaking. And for most people, a home is the biggest purchase they’ll ever make. Having a concerned, but objective, third party helps you keep focused on both the business and emotional issues most important to you.

REALTORS are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS, a trade organization of more than 1 million members nationwide. REALTORS subscribe to a stringent code of ethics that helps guarantee the highest level of service and integrity.

Freddie Mac Announcement

Freddie Mac economist says worst of US housing slump over

Nov 15, 2006
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The worst of the nation's housing slump is over, and the market should show signs of a pickup around mid-2007, a senior economist at Freddie Mac (FRE) said Wednesday.

"I think the worst is behind us in terms of the downturn in the housing market," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, at a luncheon in Washington, D.C.
While Nothaft felt the market may not have reached its "trough" yet, he said it was unlikely that housing starts would plummet as dramatically as they did from the third quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2006, when they fell by 18%.

"Housing starts will trend a bit lower, and we have them bottoming out at some point in the first half of 2007," Nothaft said. "I think by the midpoint of 2007 we're going to consistently see some positive signs," he added.

Those predictions for the housing market coincide with Nothaft's expectations for below-trend overall economic growth in the first half of 2007, followed by an uptick in the second half of next year, with overall gross domestic product growth coming in at 3.2% for 2007.

Real Estate Real Talk!

Are you all tired of being beaten up by the press about how bad the real estate market is?

Don't they realize that LOCALLY this is our second best year ever? 2005 was the best!

Don't they also realize that the market slows down about this time every year?

Yes, we have higher amount of inventory, but the prices are still inching up!

Here is a breakdown of September 2005 - September 2006 average house price changes:

Boulder + 5.8 %

Broomfield + 1.7 %

Erie + 0.4 %

Lafayette + 3.5 %

Longmont + 3.5 %

Louisville + 6.7 %

Superior + 5.4 %

Mountains + 9.9 %

Plains + 8.2 %