• The home truth for Salem in 2011

    Last year my crystal ball was off by 1.6%.  You'll recall, I failed to eat my Wheaties and ended up erring on how much the market was going to correct for 2010.  For 2011, I guessed 5-7% with a possible 10% correction at most.   Well, Salem Oregon m...

  • Into the sweet spot

    The average and median home prices have been hovering in the $150,000-$160,000 range for most of this year and August was no exception.   With sales of more expensive homes incredibly lackluster with no change in the foreseeable future, this is going...

  • Salem real estate report July 2011

    Last year, at the end of June 30, the tax credit ended.   July was the first independent month that the real estate world had last year and the statistics were dismal.  It isn't suprising, then, that we sold more homes this July that last July. It w...

  • Signs of stabilization

    As you know if you read my post from last month, Salem was named one of the worst real estate markets in the country based on NAR real estate data.  You can read how I feel about their data in that post.  I won't rehash it here.  What I do want to t...

  • May 2011 market report

      April 30th of 2010 ended the eligibility for the home buyer tax credit.  No big surprise that home sales were down year over year as a result.  Year to date sales are down 2.8% year over year.  I think this is pretty good considering t...

  • Blaming it on Rapture

    Bummer. I kept thinking I didn't need to do laundry, clean those toilets, or do market reports this month as I was sure that I was going to be gone on the 21st.   What is the point of crunching market data if I was one of the chosen?  Unfortunate...

  • The impact of MERS

    Foreclosures.  We have a love hate relationship with them.  We generally love the rock bottom prices that they command, but that often comes along with a 15 page bank addendum offering the bank the right to harvest your organs for use by the CEO's of...

  • Never the twain shall meet, or will they?

    It's our turn. Give your house away. The new normal.   Phrases about the real estate market abound.  Supply and demand seemed destined to never work in tandem like we need them to for a healthy market.  I couldn't help but reminded of that phrase "...

  • Um...still a buyer's market

    I could throw out some real estate cliches to start off my post, but I don't want to send your eyes rolling to the back of your head.  Really, it was the best February in the past three years for home sales in Salem Oregon.  I promise I won't spew ou...

  • Sunny weather spurs home buyers

    The sun was out.  There was glare in your eyes. Disorientation ensued. Pigs flew.   There is an ice dam on the river Styx.  There were locusts. I know I enjoyed our nice sunny weather that we had in some of January here in Salem. I'm thinking that...