Get Real Estate Blog: Salem Oregon Home Trends and Relocation Information

In 1864, this photo was taken of the Cook Hotel located on the corner of High and State Streets…the SE corner of it, in fact.   The hotel changed owners a couple of times and was the Monroe Hotel before the Bligh’s purchased the building and land, razed it, and built Bligh’s Capital Theater.

Bligh’s Capital Theater became Warner Bros Capital Theater and most recently this corner of Salem has become a local gem…La Capitale Brasserie.  Owner David Rosales, opened La Cap (locals nickname for this place), just over a year ago.  Already it has a good reputation in town, and I personally agree with that reputation.

I think I have the only kid on the planet that hates french fries.  My son has NEVER liked them.  On a recent outing to La Cap, he couldn’t resist trying one, as we all raved about how good the pommes frites were.

Yep.  My 10 year old finally likes french fries. Not sure if that is a good thing or not, but whether you are here for the pommes frites, the sandwiches, the tomato soup, or the warm chocolate cake…chances are you will enjoy your meal at this new local restaurant.

This is a great addition to the Salem restaurant scene, and for parents rest assured that their grilled cheese is kid tested and approved so feel free to head over there knowing you can get something for your kids, while you have a more adult meal.

Did I mention the lemonade is fresh squeezed?

If you are considering moving to Salem Oregon, this is one restaurant you will want to check out.

La Capitale Brasserie is located at 508 State Street in the old Bligh Capital Theater building.  David even has the old sign up on the wall.

The old photos are from the Salem Public Libraries Historic Photos Collection.

I’m always chatting with real estate agents around the country to see, whom is doing what in terms of new marketing. I’m always looking for new ideas to market my real estate listings here in the Salem area.  I was chatting with a really great Colts Neck, NJ real estate agent, Andrew Lenza about the use of tours in marketing.  He wrote a post about how a buyer for a property fell in love with the house after watching the virtual tour.

Now I do video tours for my listings, but I was curious about how many local homes for sale in  Salem Oregon specifically, had a virtual tour or video tour as part of their marketing.  In this day and age, I have to say I was surprised.  As of today 17% of homes on the MLS have a virtual or video tour.  17%…that’s it.  Now I can bet that most of those are just the slide-show virtual tours, and not an actual video tour, but I’d literally have to flip through all of them to see those stats and well…that’s not going to happen.

I’m guessing that John Kirk and I are some of the few agents in town that do an actual video tour. I’ve been messing around with different formats for my video tours, and have been enjoying adding that aspect into my marketing.  I do use a professional cameraman to shoot my videos since my tiny camera can’t handle the lighting differences.

So, when you are thinking about selling your home in Salem Oregon and you are looking at marketing plans think about this…

According to the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 63% of home buyers found virtual and video tours helpful, and 26% somewhat useful.  89% of buyers found some use out of virtual tours, yet only 17% of local agents are using them.  Are you using an agent that is missing the boat?  The buyers like them.  Compare that to the 84% of buyers who found newspaper ads not useful at all. Is your listing agent marketing to the consumer.

Seriously.

If you are getting ready to hire an agent to sell your home and you think the 8 page Sunday spread sounds like great marketing…think again.  The buyers of your home are telling you what THEY want.  The only question that remains is are you hiring an agent to sell your home that is listening.

As you have noticed, I haven’t posted in a bit, because it went from dead calm to a squall in my world of Salem Oregon real estate.   It isn’t a big secret that April was really busy in the world of real estate as those buyers that valued the tax credit played a mean game of tug-of-war with sellers as they tried to get an accepted low offer before closing.

Then calm, dead calm.  Showings dropped like a rock the first couple of weeks in May as buyers seemed to disappear from the face of the earth.  Time to panic?  It sure felt like it as an agent.   A week ago…a slight gale started…and I was reminded of something from what felt like eons ago…what was that?  Oh, yeah, the normal real estate cycle.  I’d almost forgotten what that was supposed to be like.

See in the normal, not tax credit influenced world of real estate, showings normally start to pick up around Memorial Day in Salem and buyers start to look.  True to the normal cycle of real estate this same pattern started as usual.  With the plunge of the Euro and low interest rates, it seems to have started faster than normal as buyers hoped to more than make up that $8,000 tax credit with the exceptionally low interest rates hovering for buyers these days.

As such…I’ve been seriously busy.  I haven’t forgotten about posting here.  I just need to batten down the hatches, and get ready for real estate season.

On the Powersites blog, they posted the question “Can a Realtor do too much?“  At issue was a marketing piece done by an Atlanta real estate agent showing her doing dishes, making the beds, and yes…scrubbing the toilets for her sellers in order to sell a house.  You can see the short video for yourself.

Selling a home in Salem Oregon is insanely difficult these days.  Inventory is high and lending is still difficult and transactions fail more often than before.  I get that what this agent is going for is that she will go above and beyond for her clients, but I’m interested to see what you all, the consumers, think of this.  Would you hire an agent that advertises themselves this way?

Me…I don’t clean windows…leaf blowing…dishes…you get the idea.

What do I do, since I don’t offer maid services as part of my real estate services?

1. Study the market data like a crazy agent to help a seller price the house for the current market. I mean if a market sector has a 5 year inventory of homes, then I’ll want to take a different pricing strategy than a market sector that has 4 months of inventory. If I spend all my time mowing lawns, I won’t have time to study the data and then my CMA is useless, but I might know how to get rid of that crabgrass that plagues us this time of year.  Crabgrass killer extraordinaire vs. Proper home pricing?  You decide.
2. Tour homes on the market weekly so that I’m familiar with what kinds of homes are selling and why. If I haven’t been in ANY of the homes that are in current competition with yours because I’m busy doing dishes for a seller, then my real estate expertise is useless, because that is why people hire agents…for real estate expertise…right?  OR are you just looking for someone that can make your dishes squeaky clean?
3. Read studies about how buyers find real estate information and make sure my listings are where buyers are. If the  crux of your real estate marketing plan is the Homes and Land Book and making your beds so it looks good for the non-existent people that actually read those real estate books, then maybe making beds for a living is in the future of that real estate agent.  Who needs online photos anyway?
4. Know how to get listings ready for market. If all I have to offer is that I can clean a toilet really well, then seriously…you need to not hire me.  My job is to know what is selling, why it is selling, and how to get your home in selling condition.   If that isn’t the point of a real estate agent, then I think I need to put my house on the market and get some free maid service for 6 months…Hmmm….I think I’m onto something here.

So for you sellers looking for a agents that knows the market, look no further, we are it.  If you are looking for a personal servant…just mosey on, ’cause I’m not the right person for you. 

Sorry…I don’t do toilets.

10.9 months.

That’s the current inventory level for the Keizer Oregon real estate market.  Like the spike in the Salem market, Keizer saw a big jump as sellers put their homes on the market for the tax credit.  Inventory is up since last month, but what I would expect to happen is that fewer than normal listings will come on the market for the summer months as people entered the market early. As such, I would expect this number to continue to come down as the year progresses.

Where are things?  If we compare this year to date,  to last year, then the median is up a  smidge (that’s offical statisical language by the way) 2.5%.  I don’t think this increase will last just because I do think prices will continue to correct.  Sellers were aware that some buyers were going to get $8,000 and I think that prices were propped up a bit.  Last month’s increase in price is pulling the overall averages up…for now.

Comparing April to April though…the average home price was down 10.8% and home sales, of course, were up by 80%.  Honestly, they couldn’t get much worse than last year in Keizer.  It would have been pretty hard to not beat those dismal numbers from 2009.

Where is the market going from here?  The same as all of the other Salem area markets…heading towards bottom.  I do think Keizer will mostly likely bottom out this year.  We’re close.

The tax credit is over, except for our military personnel that have been overseas, so we are on unsupported territory from here on out in the world of real estate.  I’m totally fine with that.  I say let’s start creeping our way out of this mess.  We really won’t have a gauge on what is happening, specifically in the Salem Oregon market, for a few months yet.  The fact is that some first timers really wanted the tax credit so we will have a bump in home sales for April through June.  I would expect a drop off and then some sense of what things will look like  come August and September.

So where is the market?  same ol’ same ol’…home prices are down and home sales are up.  It’s funny how that whole supply and demand thing works.  So the average home price was down just 2.3% from the same time last year.  I had talked before that the rate of descent of home prices has slowed.  This trend is continuing…make no mistake home prices are still declining, but we are in a much slower decline than before.  That indicates that we are nearing the bottom of the market.  If all goes according to my crystal ball that will happen at the end of this year at the earliest, but more likely next year some time.  Really the deciding factor will be the employment rate which is directly impacting our foreclosure rate here.

Earlier in the year inventory surged, and I told you all not to panic. All that was happening was that sellers were getting their homes on the market early to take advantage of the buyers for the tax credit.  As expected, inventory is coming down.  Right now it is 11.9 months which is better than the 18 that it was at earlier. This number should head back into the 8 month range as transactions close in the next 60 days.

As expected home sales surged for April in Salem Oregon by 43%.  Y’all know this isn’t going to last…right?  As long as we are all being honest and know that the surge isn’t a natural market surge, then we are fine.  The surge, of course, is due to the requirement that home buyers be under contract by April 30th for the tax credit.

So where will things go from here?  Well at least for the next two months the numbers will most likely be up.  After that, I would expect a drop since the market was coerced into improvement earlier than normal.  Then…the real healing begins.

P.S.  All data was crunched from the WVMLS.

I have some clients that are relocating to Salem Oregon.  While I do my best to teach people about our area, the fact is, I haven’t been in every restaurant in town.  My son just upgraded his taste buds to halibut from grilled cheese so adventuring into Asian hasn’t happened for us as a family.  So when my clients asked me about good Asian food in town, I had to turn to Rebekah of the What’s Happening in Salem Blog.  Rebekah loves Asian food and I think has been to every Asian restaurant in town many times.  I knew if anyone could steer my clients in the right direction, it was her.   I thought her email to me would be a great list for my Top Lists, so this month, my Top List is brought to you…unknowingly…by Rebekah.

Salem’s best Asian Cuisine.

• Super Pho on Lancaster has the best pho
• Vietnam Restaurant on Center downtown has the best for other Vietnamese dishes.
• Thai Beer is hands down all-around the best Thai in town.
• Thai Lotus in Keizer is good too.
• Fuji Ricetime downtown is good sushi and
• Sushi Kyo has good sushi on a sushi train.
• Love Love Teriyaki is great!
• Venti’s also has great teriyaki plus a lot of other good fusion dishes.

So if you are looking for an Asian fix in Salem Oregon, check out these restaurants!

In June of 2009, in Oklahoma, a lawsuit of a buyer against a seller and the listing agent was allowed to go to the Oklahoma supreme court.  At issue, the ability of the buyer to sue the seller and the agent for misrepresentation of square footage.

Here in Salem, Oregon, I have been appalled by some agents adding in unfinished basements into square footage in order to make the house seem larger than it is.   Personally, I think that is an easy way to get yourself sued because it is misrepresentation.   Fortunately, it is obvious misrepresentation and just makes real estate agents look like schmucks. What is interesting about this situation in Oklahoma, is that the house was listed at 2,890 sq feet but it really ended up being somewhere between 2200-2400 square feet.  If you can’t walk into a house and see the difference in a 2200 sq foot house vs a 2800 sq foot house, then I suggest you need glasses, but they didn’t ask me and I digress…The buyers purchased the house and then when they saw the appraisal realized how small the house was and sued.

As a result of this lawsuit, one of the local MLS’s in Oklahoma made the decision recently to pull square footage data off the MLS for public viewing and encouraged agents to avoid quoting square footage.  So if you are a buyer in that MLS area and tell an agent, I want at least 2000 sq feet… they have to say “sorry can’t tell you that” or pull data based on that.  What that means for buyers is a lot of wasted time seeing homes that are 3 bed/2 bath and 1,000 sq feet, when what you really want is a 3 bed/2bath home with at least 1,500 sq feet.

I see the next step in real estate is to stop quoting the number of bedrooms because someone might sue because a bedroom in an old house doesn’t have a closet.  Maybe someone will sue an agent because they quoted 3 bathrooms on the MLS,  but it really is not 3 full bathrooms because one only has a shower and not a shower tub combination.  Pulling the square footage data off the MLS is such an unfortunate turn of events.  I think most buyers find this information essential in determining if they want to see a house.  This is truly a step backward for real estate.

I don’t mean to demean the buyers involved in that lawsuit in Oklahoma because they obviously feel deceived and the representation made by the agent and seller sounds dubious.  What I do hope is that all buyers of real estate here in the Salem Oregon area realize is that we have a clause in our OREF contracts, lines 316-318 in fact, that explicitly states

“Neither seller nor any Licensee (s) warrant the square footage of any structure of the size of any land being purchased.  If the square footage or land size is a material consideration, all structures and land should be measured by Buyer prior to signing or should be made an express contingency in this Agreement.”

Square footage is not an exact science, and there are in fact several ways to measure square footage.  I guess what disturbs me most about this lawsuit is that the “defect” was apparent.  It’s not like this was hidden mold, or a zoning change that the seller knew about but didn’t disclose.  The buyer’s could walk in and physically SEE what they were buying.    So dear local buyers…when you walk into a house and it feels “small” just know that it may really be small.  If you walk into a house and it feels “large” it may really be large.  I just encourage all of you to LOOK at what you are buying.  Make your judgments about you physically see.  If you don’t like what you SEE, then you know you aren’t looking at the right house for you.

It’s official, unless you are in the military and spent time overseas, the real estate tax credit ends tomorrow night at 11:59 to be under contract.  At 12:00, I think many real estate agents will be heaving a sigh of relief.  While I am thankful for my clients that have been able to take advantage of the tax credit, I also realize that this comes at a cost to all of the taxpayers.  And let’s face it, tax payer money isn’t going up anytime soon with high unemployment.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, hence my lack of blogging on here, but I just wanted to say goodbye to the tax credit and say hello to the unsupported real estate market heading our way.