Where Are The Short Sales Being Felt The Most?

December 24th, 2011

Discussion of the graph in the previous post led me to further analyze the data, resulting in the graph below. Because of the differing amount of short sales and normal sales in each townhip, the effects being felt in each location will also differ.

Trenton is experiencing the most short sales and also the greatest effect at over one third of the sales being “short”. While Ewing and Hamilton have the next most short sales, the effect is greater in Hightstown and Hopewell Borough because of the limited amount of total sales.

Yes, Virginia, all real estate is local.

Where Are All The Short Sales?

December 13th, 2011

All real estate is local.

The previous post about “normal” vs. “short sale” transactions also allowed me to analyze where in Mercer County the short sales were occuring.

Township Location of Short Sales in Mercer County, New Jersey

About 85% of the short sales are occuring in just 3 of our thirteen local townships, with about half of them taking place in Trenton. Add Ewing and Hamilton to the mix and the rest of the county have seen significantly less activity in this realm.

Yes, Virginia, not all the national news applies to every location. It truly is location, location, location.

How Prevalent Are Short Sales?

December 13th, 2011

All real estate is local.

While analyzing the sales data for types of mortgages (see below), I realized that the short sale information was staring me in the face, so I decided to see just how many short sales there were in our local Mercer County market.

Short Sales, Bank Owned, Normal Sales

While the national press keeps telling us just how bad things are, the data for our local area may suprise you as we had only 8% short sales. Add to that the 6% of sales that were of bank owned (read foreclosure), that leaves 86% of the sales to be what we would consider “normal”.

Yes, Virginia, there is some normal real estate activity taking place.

Can I Really Get A Mortgage?

December 13th, 2011

All real estate is local.

After a long discussion about how people are able to buy a home in the current climate, I undertook a project to look at how individuals are financing their purchases. The chart below is a compilation of the past six months of home purchases in Mercer County, New Jersey. There were 1385 homes sold according to our local Multiple Listing Service, TReND.

Approximately 75% of the purchases were made by means other than cash. Not all conventional loans are 20% down, so somewhere between 25% and 75% of the home purchases were made with less than 20% down (at least 25% were at 3.5% down or less, as that is the least percentage down that FHA allows).

So yes, Virginia, people are getting mortgages with less than 20% down.

Photos with Santa

December 6th, 2009

Weidel Photos with SantaI 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.

And I Didn’t Even Know They Knew Each Other

November 7th, 2009

Lori and BryanImagine my suprise when both Bryan and Lori, the head of licensing at Weidel, both became Fans of Starbucks at the same time….

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock

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.

July Market Conditions

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.

Real Estate Agent vs. Federal Minimum Wage

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.

Pushing Traffic To Our Weidel.com Site

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

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.