Data indicates the market has turned

Here are a thousand words describing what we have been waiting for.

Good hunting! ... Call me 217-779-6441

Wall Street Journal say Housing has turned the Corner

This just in via LinkedIn email.  Wall Street Journal thinks Housing numbers show the industry is looking up.
Short cut to article follows for cut and paste: <http://www.linkedin.com/e/-2585w2-h4l847ed-5b/nab/5628836251319685193/ejkNdPkSd3wOcj0MejoTdz8SdiMPczsTcjoTejkQcjcVc3wUczoRb3gMd3sTc3wMc3gQcPgTd3wOdzkIdPsMdzkQejsVczcQcPwMe38SdiMPej4Re3oVcjcNdj8ScPwUczoR/true/weekly/eml-tod2-b-ttl-0/?hs=false&tok=0_NvNfI8epllk1>
We all hope they are right.
Call me.

Interest rates go Low

Mortgage rates sank to new lows this week, so low in fact that if you were planning to buy land or a house, you might not even notice the interest. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.62 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending July 5, down from 3.66 percent last week and 4.60 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac reported. It's as if this is the all time record low interest to cosmically balance the all time record high temperatures lately. Not bad if you get a house with central air.  The rates are lower based on fears about the global economy, which includes us. But if one must suffer through a global crisis still to come, and we all know there will be more some time, why not have a decent house at almost zero interest.  Good hunting!

Nationally, Pendings rise

Mr Scott Moses, an associate of mine in Las Vegas, e,ailed me the information below just today, "New home sales rose 7.6% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000 units, the highest level since April 2010. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales are up 19.8% compared with May 2011. At the current sales pace, there's a 4.7-month supply of new homes on the market, the lowest level since 2005.
...Pending home sales, a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts, rose 5.9% in May after a 5.5% decrease in April. On a year-over-year basis, pending home sales are up 13.3% compared with May 2011."
This seems to be reflected in the local market around Quincy as well. Very few "houses in the country" are available to meet a very strong demand. Likewise, very few country acreages are available near Quincy at any price.
If you are looking for something in particular, just call. I regularly knock on doors and I will literally "ask around" as they say. Inventory down, demand strong, prices steady. That's how I see it. To buy or list,call me!

1206 S 15th is Sold!

1206 S 15th (under $90,000) is in contract set to close early in May! 2120 Adams (under $140,000), our listing a few blocks away, is also sold! We will be getting a new listing of similar size at 22nd and Jefferson perhaps a searly as this week.

So, sales would indicate small homes under $140,000 South of Main are moving fast.

If you have a house or land to sell, we would love to list it for you. If you are looking for property, I can find it for you.

Also, I have people looking for land in the country and I have a great listing - 34 acres with Barn near the Gorge Bridge. Call me!

Two great New Listings

Just Listed 1206 S 15th ... $87,500. Seller Motivated. This has been rehabbed and remodeled inside & out, Basement to roof line. New roof, new siding, new windows, floors, walls, Kitchen, Bath fixtures, carpet, the entire works. 2 bed 1 bath, big lot runs to paved alley, South of State, East of 12th, near Hyvee, restaurants, parks. A must see if evere there was one.


Also, Just listed 34 acres of heaven near the Gorge Bridge. Minutes from Quincy, easy access on paved roads, secluded, with mature forest and some tillable ground, and a spring fed stream meanders through a picturesque rocky gorge that gets deeper when it passes onto the adjoining Illinois Dept Natural Resources property - so beautiful the state claimed it and its ancient stone arch bridge thirty years ago. This is your place in the country. $340,000. Includes barn and starry nights.

Home Prices Slide thru 2011- land UP!

Nationally, as of December 2011, real estate prices continued to fall with average prices down 1/3 from the top of the market. The data shows us what most had already guessed - Chicago has fallen with the national average, Las Vegas fell by 60%. In general, prices have been falling about 1% a month for the past four months.

Locally, open house traffic has been brisk, but despite warm weather, many buyers and sellers are waiting for the official frost date to pass. I have 34 acres listed at the Fall Creek Gorge. Photos on House & Land on Facebook.

In searching for buyers for this tract and for a seller with 10 acres above the high water mark along Illinois RT 57, I have visited with nearly every owner between Seehorn and Marblehead. Most do not want to part with what they have, but a couple tracts are possibly available, though not listed for sale, atop the bluffs, one with a fabulous view. Also, clients tell me class A farmland in the South Quincy bottoms recently received auction bids above $11,000 per acre. They left the proceeding when the bidding reached $11,400. (Photo "Dawn's Foggy Light" courtesy of Jim Meinbendir productions)

Call me!

Just listed 34 acres SW of Payson!

Point your rocking chair towards the west, ...

or your camouflaged bow ... here's a hard to find parcel that is just the right size for hunting, for niche farming, for adding to your larger farm operation, for a show-stopping home site, or for producing some income while you refurbish the barn into a hunting lodge with storage for all the ATV's. Adjacent to Fall Creek Gorge property owned by State of Illinois. More photos at http://www.facebook.com/217house. Call me.

February 2012 transaction data - Quincy

There were 31 Quincy closings in Jan 2012 and 28 in Jan 2011.


According to MLS tonight, March 1, there were 29 closings in Quincy during February 2012. The Median Sold Price was $85,500, the least expensive home was $34,000; the High Price was $310,000. The Average Price was $111,282.Of the 29 closings 4 were above $200,000, 4 more above $125,000.

For February one year ago, there were 35 closings; 4 above $200,000; 8 above $125,000. The Median Sold Price was $105,000 and the Average was $126,000, with a higher high and a lower low - $464,900 vs $15,000.

There are 246 active Quincy listings today which at thirty closings per month is about an 8 month supply. That favors the buyers. However, homes priced to sell went as quickly as 18 days. Average days on market is currently 100 days. There are 69 properties in contingent status.

All in all, we are about the same as last year. The market small so the difference between 29 closings in Feb this year versus 35 in Feb last year may NOT be significant. We'll see if the trend continues.

For a house or land in Quincy and Adams County, call me!

Retiring? Think Quincy Illinois and the Good Life

Check this out ... and other homes like these are for sale ... at very reasonable prices! <http://www.seequincy.com/PrivateHomeTours_Gallery.pdf>

(Note: you may need to view link at 100% size to open. Mine needs to be changed from 102% to 100%, then it pops up.)

The 20 Quincy Illinois homes on the attached link just scratch the surface. Quincy and the surrounding villages and farms offer hundreds of choices. Amazing architecture, plenty of room and reasonably priced. Quincy and the surrounding environs are a great place to retire to - a small Midwest university town with great medical facilities and easy drive (or short hop by air) to St. Louis. Compared to the big city there are virtually no crowds, no traffic, or crime, and a slower pace, but great restaurants, museums, and music with four seasons and welcoming Midwestern people.

As for historic houses, the area has plenty. Real stone masons and brick masons and wood workers, most from Germany, completed hundreds of homes for well known architects at the turn of the 19th century for the lumber and brewing barons of the day. Some need nurturing, some have simply been preserved. Many have all the latest amenities in addition.

See one you want that isn't listed? I'll knock on the door and ask if its available.

Tired of all those years in Vegas, LA, or the big city where you are? Looking for a pleasant change?
If you are looking to retire, you should check this out! Call me.

We are Now Taking Listings for 2012

Here is my new Listing Flyer just to remind folks that I have done this before.

Often in Quincy and rural Adams County there may not be comparable sales within a few blocks or even a few miles. A house near Payson may be very similar to another that sold in or near some other Adams County town. Likewise, yours may be the only home like it on your street, but there will be a comparable house within a reasonable distance. Even then, the house must be priced "in the market" in order to sell.

This said, lenders may still rely on appraisals that may not be able to fit your house into their rules. That doesn't mean a buyer won't want it at a reasonable price, but it may mean they'll need more cash if the appraisal comes in low. That buyer just takes longer to find.

Houses are so unique here that sometimes you have to think outside the box.

Call me!

Quncy Residential Sale Data - Prices trending UP!

It appears from Quincy MLS stats that residential sales for the past year, 2011 (660 units), have fallen slightly from the preceding year, 2010 (671), a difference of 2%. The good news is that Average Prices have risen 4%, from 120K to 125K, and Median Price (half the sales above and half below this mark) has risen 7% from 98K to 105K. Median price bodes well for sales in the higher end. Residential inventory has FALLEN 11% from 1565 to 1400 units!

(Photo - Seymour home, Payson, circa 1880)

Things look healthier than I thought. My own informal research from the open house at 3125 Rutledge Place indicates that there is plenty of buyer interest. On three consecutive weekends from 1 to 3 PM, I have consistently had over a dozen people through each Sunday. Most are shopping for a home this spring and some have a house to sell first.

3125 Rutledge Place is a move-in ready 3 bed room house in the under $100,000 category.

If you want to buy an investment rental, downsize, or get a bigger place, spring 2012 is looking good.

Call me!

If Bank-Owned Houses were Rentals

If all the bank owned properties could just be turned into rentals, the idea goes, what a wonderful world it would be.

(Photo by Jim Meinbendir: a great Quincy home listed with Rodemich & Sons LLC by a private owner on Rutledge Place that would be perfect for you!)

If you own investment property, go to Google News and look up "REO" plus "rental" and see what you get. One of the recent posts is http://www.housingwire.com/2012/01/11/the-fight-over-bernanke-reo-rental-plan-shows-political-divide. This article says the government doesn't have a clear strategy for real estate. You knew that I think. We must remember, when the elephants dance or make love, the ants take a heck of a beating and they seem to be trying to decide which to do. If they double the number of rental properties available, what happens to rental income in the Southwest?

This won't affect Quincy, Illinois, very much because bank owned properties are rare here, about 1 in 60 homes, more or less. But, if you, like some of my clients, own houses for lease in Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc, you might want to pay close attention.

If the legislators push the idea through, the bloom is probably off the rental investment rose in foreclosure ridden cities like Vegas. Quincy, Illinois, missed the boom, the bust, the crime, the traffic, etc. It is not the land that time forgot, but it is a beautiful, Midwestern University town with housing prices so low that attractive ROI's can be realized. Call me!

The Price vs Value of Farm Land

Some know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The farmers buying land know the value of an adjacent farm, and as to price, may say "damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead."
Where else can they park their cash that will do any good.

My unscientific research to date shows that some banks are lending only $4000 per acre on land around Adams County that may be selling for more than twice that much, so this is not a credit bubble. I have posted the Article below on Facebook using the Wall Street Journal's own link and have cut and pasted it here.

"A Bubble Down on the Farm? online.wsj.com
The big question mark hanging over the farm economy is whether a bubble is building in Midwest cropland. Prices have doubled over the past five years in states such as Nebraska and Indiana."...WSJ (I accessed the entire article via Google News. This link asked me to subscribe to WSJ.)

Unlike gold, land offers a return. I don't yet know if the ethanol market for corn out-weighs the increase in world population, or if one would substitute for the other should one collapse, but I don't see either going away any time soon. If weather patterns remain eratic, so will world food production, so edible crop prices should/could remain strong. If land for sale remains at the 1-2% of the total as suggested in the article, scarcity could hold up land prices as long as the neighbors have cash that needs a safe haven and no better alternatives are available. On the other hand, land futures are not traded on the stock market, so in the big city who really cares? There it is the commodity prices that matter.

The farm land market may be driven only by people who know the VALUE of something and don't care about price. That is the opposite of the Las Vegas bubble. Perhaps those who don't know the value of things should be afraid ... very afraid. It is almost 2012.

Seriously, I do wonder if the so-called "business cycles" that we came to know and love in the 20th century might be twisting like a strand of DNA.

I don't claim to know what will happen, but when the issue is mentioned on Google News, people are beginning to pay attention. Stay tuned.

Hedge Post Foundation

I am a new member of the Western Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Society and I recommend the purposes of the group, and others like it, to everyone who eats. If you have been wanting to grow food, but need land, call me. If you have an odd 5 acres that someone could grow something tasty on, call me. I would be happy to help you find the missing party. My purpose is just to help us grow a wider diversity of food and bring unused land back into production. I'm thinking lease or crop-share, etc. I am also interested in green construction and implementing renewable energy. For instance, the pond in the photo is fed by a spring and it serves as farm irrigation in dry weather. It could raise fish, cool a house, and create electricity all at the same time. When I get something more happening with it, I will post the photo's here. I plan to undertake these activities under a organization that may be called the Hedge Post Foundation, LLC. Eat well and prosper. GH

Photo of New Listing & our New Blog Address

Our Blog Address has changed to 217House.blogspot.com. "217" being the area code for Illinois.




The newest Rodemich and Sons listing at 3125 Rutledge Place, Quincy, Illinois, is listed $92,500. It is 1080 sq ft, was built in 1950, and is in a convenient location, great neighborhood near excellent schools.

In fact, in Quincy, most neighborhoods are pretty nice.
Best wishes,
Grant

My Buyers Just Bought This House ... already!

The ink isn't dry on my license yet and, with the help of Kent, my sponsoring broker, we have a house in escrow!
My buyers liked this one (see photo) near Adams and South 15th and plan to transform it.  We will post the "after" photo's here and I am sure the neighbors will be pleased. List price was $35,000 for 908 sq ft with full basement and a big lot in a nice neighborhood. That's $38/sq ft ... at list price.  I can't tell you what the sale price is until we close. If you were thinking about a Las Vegas investment, Quincy is better - call me.  We might not find another this low, but we might come close.

We also have a new listing at Rodemich - Photo to follow.  It is ready to rent if that suits you, at 3125 Rutledge place - 3 bed room ranch, 1080 sq ft, neat as a pin. Could rent between $700 and $1000.  Listed at $92,500 that puts a 10% ROI within reach.  2010 real estate taxes were $1632.44.  Email me with any questions.

So, put Quincy on your radar.  Low prices.  Good returns.  Low crime. Great quality of life.  I will add some links to this blog to aid your research as the days go by.  And, I hope to find some farm land to list and find some folks who want to buy.  They tell me food remains in demand worldwide.

In the meantime, good hunting!

We're Going Up The Country

The House Team is moving from bright neon to bright stars, from big Casinos to big weather,

from wide open desert to wide open farm land, and from big city to big country. We are going back to western Illinois to the place where we grew up and we are ready for the change. Our roots are deep in Adams County. We'll be the sixth generation to live on the home place and our kids will be the seventh. Even Bugsie Segal's kids can't say that about Vegas, and he invented the place.

We have had a great experience in Las Vegas and have thoroughly learned the real estate trade. As grandad said, don't learn the tricks of the trade, learn the trade, and we did. We also served hundreds of wonderful people who became our clients and friends over the past decade and who sent us their repeat business and referrals. We protected our clients from the wolves-in-sheep's-clothing, the sharks and barracudas that also inhabit Las Vegas in numbers way above normal. We built a team of house stagers, lenders, home inspectors, and fellow Realtors that served in an ethical, proactive fashion the needs of our clients. We have routinely been in the top 10% of each brokerage where we worked, including Century 21 Aadvantage Gold's Green Valley office when it was the top selling C21 office in the world for two consecutive years (and by chance my office manager there, Sandy Ford, was from Seehorn. You have to be from "back home" to know where that is.) And we never forgot the ethics learned practicing Law in Adams County years ago.

That is the experience we have earned and that we plan to deliver to new clients in Western Illinois once I pass the Illinois Real Estate License Exam and become licensed there later this fall, if all goes well.

And, if you have ever worried that a condo in a lifeless desert may not be the best hedge against what lies ahead, consider, not just a home in the country, but an investment in Illinois tillable land. Land prices have been rising along with cash rents. Land can't burn down, blow away or succumb to vandals. Population is increasing on this planet, everybody has to eat worldwide, and, they aren't making any more land. Think gloablly. Act locally ... Call me.

Home Inspections - More Important than Ever

There are two major sellers in Las Vegas. Banks and flippers. Both are loathe to give the buyer a Sellers Real Property Disclosure. Both usually require a notarized waiver of that form along with all buyer rights under Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 113. Nor do they know or care about utility costs, so the Nevada Energy Form must usually be waived as well. Also, in preparing the home to sell, they tend to literally paper, paint and caulk over structural problems and code violations that might bite the buyer later on. This makes your home inspector a very important part of the team.

I mention this because, in the ten deals I have closed or have ready to close so far in 2011, three buyers previously passed on houses that we had gotten into contract because major problems with the house were subsequently discovered by our home inspectors. That is 30% and that is a substantial number.

One house involved a poor roof design that left unvented chambers under the roof. These held moisture even in Las Vegas' low humidity and had caused the roof to sag and leak.
The other two involved unpermitted shoddy construction that could later create problems with a city government looking for fees wherever it can find them. Both of these also included water damage because the construction code had not been followed. We passed on the houses but somebody out there bought them!

Stay alert ... and good hunting.

Blood in the Bellagio Fountains ...so to speak

Now that's a visual image of Las Vegas real estate with blood in the water!
In the Las Vegas valley, the new construction homes being sold are smaller and cost less, Buck Wargo of the Las Vegas Sun has just reported. “The price per square foot (new construction - gh) fell to a new low of $91.17, which is 12.4 percent below the $104.05 square foot price in April 2010,” he says. 313 permits were issued in April, “34 percent fewer than April 2010. For the year, 1,141 permits have been issued, which puts the region on track to fall below the 3,776 issued in 2010.”
Read Buck Wargo’s entire article at http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/may/16/las-vegas-existing-home-sales-brisk-prices-continu/ (used with permission). It has some great data that MLS doesn’t capture.
Bottom line, Mr. Wargo concludes prices have fallen by about 14% since this time a year ago, MLS listings fell by 9% between March and April this year, and the median price of resale homes is currently about $107,000 and $70 and change/sq ft. The double dip we feared seems to have occurred. Question is, has it stopped dipping?
Emails from new home builders continue to tout very high realtor commissions – 6% at some builders recently. As I have mentioned before, when the market is strong, some builders almost quit paying commissions because they feel they don’t need the Realtors. But lately, as they did back when the crash unfolded, they are offering the moon.
On the street, some lenders don’t want to lend. I have had a recent transaction with conventional loan, fall out because, weeks into the work, and after losing the first house to problems discovered by our home inspector (as he should) and after the second house in contract had passed inspection, the lender cut the amount they had promised to lend and destroyed the deal, thank you. They handed us the ball, let us run with it, and then tackled us. At least I didn’t pick’em. Nationwide may be on your side, but the banking industry is a separate question.
If you need an ethical lender, I can recommend someone.
So, prices are very low, and could still go lower. Sales volume is huge. Listings are down, and if you exclude short sales as I recommend, inventory is tight! Over half of LV offers are cash. If you are not aggressive with your highest and best offer, don’t bother. This is Vegas. The world is shopping here right now. If you hedge on your offer with sale numbers so high, somebody else with cash probably wants it more than you. The fountains dance about every 20 minutes.
Good hunting.