December 16th, 2009
While looking for website uses of chartle.com, I began by trying to import data from an Excel spreadsheet to display a multi-line graph showing the monthly sales of each year. Excel graphs are almost unreadable when sized for the center div of the websites. Couldn’t work it out, but the following graph will present the story of how the market has changed fairly well.
When viewed on chartle.com, the bar sections are clickable and pop up a balloon with the actual number. Need to try to find out how to make that function carry over to the websites.
Posted in East Windsor | No Comments »
December 13th, 2009
Create, embed and share your charts, plots, diagrams and maps online..
The above chart represents the sale price trend in West Windsor, East Windsor, Hightstown, Plainsboro, Cranbury and Robbinsville over the past number of years. If you bought a home prior to 2005, you probably have built some equity in your investment.
Posted in Cranbury, East Windsor, Hightstown, Plainsboro, Robbinsville, West Windsor | No Comments »
December 6th, 2009
I spent some time yesterday as Santa’s helper by taking pictures at the West Windsor Weidel office as we offered complimentary pictures with Santa in the Weidel sleigh in front of the office.
Posted in West Windsor, general | No Comments »
November 7th, 2009
Imagine my suprise when both Bryan and Lori, the head of licensing at Weidel, both became Fans of Starbucks at the same time….
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 21st, 2009
The impending end of the $8,000 tax credit for first time buyers has been having the effect of encouraging them to at least look for a home. The last week has been exciting with new clients seemingly coming out of the woodwork. However, because of the new regulations of the mortgage industry, they may be too late in getting started. The new procedures have caused the mortgage companies to ask us, the real estate agents, to plan on 45 to 60 days to complete the sales because of added pressures and regulations. Now add a whole lot of new potential homeowners all trying to accomplish the same thing at the same time, and it may be too much for the system to handle.
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August 7th, 2009
Just added a comment on all of the township websites concerning the latest month’s activity in the local real estate marketplaces. Most townships showed an increase in activity and sales prices compared to the past twelve months averages. Most localities also have about 9 months worth of inventory, keeping the market in a buyer’s market status. West Windsor has only 5 months, Plainsboro 6 months. Hightstown on the other hand has 35 months supply of homes for the average sales cycle. Just click on the link on the right side of this page to access your community of interest.
Posted in Cranbury, East Windsor, Ewing, Hamilton, Hightstown, Hopewell, Lawrenceville, Pennington, Plainsboro, Princeton, Robbinsville, West Windsor | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009
Okay, so let’s figure this out together. There were 212 average sales per month in Mercer County real estate over the past year. They sold for an average of $338,901 and spent an average of 89 days on the market. A quick check of the membership roster in our local Multiple Listing Service reveals 1664 members in offices with zipcodes in Mercer County. The average total commission rate for a sale probably comes in around 5.5%.
That is a total of 2544 sales (1.52 per member) or a total sales amount of $862,164,144. This should result in total commissions of about $47,419,027.92.
With there being two members working on each transaction, each member would receive an average $14,248.50 in commissions for the year, which is generally split between the member and the company they have their license with. Assuming 52 weeks per year — 5 days per week — 8 hours per day, for a total of 2080 hours per year, that works out to $3.43 per hour. And then you have to take out the 15% for social security taxes, your multiple listing, membership and license fees, your Errors and Omissions insurance, car expenses, etc.
Even if you assume the agent is only working while the listing(s) are on the market (89 days x 1.52 listings), that is still 1082 hours or $6.58 per hour, before expenses.
The federal minimum wage is set to rise to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009.
It would appear that we need either higher commissions, more sold houses, or fewer agents in order to meet the requirement of the Federal Minimum Wage.
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June 6th, 2009
Statistics kept at DeltaNet, our Weidel website provider, show that over the past number of weeks our West Windsor NJ Homes for Sale website has provided the most traffic to our Weidel webpage.
Websites ranked in order of performance
This trend has proven resilient over time. Google and Yahoo know that the Weidel page exists but it does not rank very high in their rank of importance.
Posted in Township, general | No Comments »
June 4th, 2009
We have updated the West Windsor NJ Homes for Sale site with a page offering to help sellers find out how much their home is worth. Setting the value of the home is extremely important in the current market situation.
Posted in West Windsor | No Comments »
April 27th, 2009
Yes, it was that long ago, that a group of seniors graduated from West Bend, Wisconsin’s high school. Former Badgers’s such as Sue Atwood, Pat Hoeft, and Sandie Weiler along with myself, have joined a group at Facebook. Anybody else looking to catch up with old classmates?
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