Wednesday, January 6, 2010

WOW a Great New Year

Well, a lot has changed since my last post. What you care about is the state of the local Real Estate market. As far as that is concerned, the market has really seemed to stablize. We are way up over last year at this time. November was an incredible month as all of the first-time homebuyers scurried to close by the November 30th deadline. December was slower but still over last year. Keep in mind that last year third quarter was a dismal mess on the heels of the banking crisis and failure of Lehman Brothers, AIG and other major financial institutions.

Seems like we are starting this year with cautious optimism. A variety of new lending regulations have taken effect and we will see what the fall out of those will be, but I think after a brief adjustment, we will see more lending options. Prices no longer appear to be going down, and the NEW Home-Buying incentive as well as the extension of the First-Time Home-buyer Credit, gives us hope for a robust 2010. I no longer hear the financial analysts talking unequivocally about the "second dip" that many are/were predicting. Vermont has lower than average unemployment, so we shoud be good.

The only downside is the temporary loss of 100's of Guard members recently deployed to Afghanistan. These folks are out of the market, not to mention in harms way. SInce this has been the biggest deployment since WWII, we will certainly feel both the emotional and financial loss of these men and women.

The foreclosure market is beginning to wind down now in the state and nationally. There is a glut of back logged inventory that will be coming up over the next few months, but many of those will be in such a grievous state of disrepair that they are only good for the investor/builder. I will post the latest list shortly. Email or reply to this post if you would like to comment, question or disagree. I invite your thoughts.

As for me, I have embarked on a new endeavour with my husband and some wonderful partners. We are opening a Keller Williams office in Chittenden County. More news to come. Contact me anytime. 802-328-0064

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please click on "comments" To ask a question or comment.