Today's Featured Property

 I have been extremely blessed over the years, to have been able to develop a very successful, and busy real estate career.  Those who know me, know that I am also very committed to giving back to the community.  One of the areas that I feel incredibly passionate about, is education.  I can’t emphasize enough, how strongly I feel about the value of education, as a tool to solve many problems, both here in the United States, as well as problems across the globe.  Because I feel so passionate about education,  I am a board member of the Trenton Public Education Foundation. (http://www.TPEF.org)  For those who are not familiar with the area, the Trenton school district, is pretty much, a poor, inner city, district.  Despite what is often found in the newspaper, there are amazing students, faculty and administrators, in the district.  Our organizations mission is to broker, foster and leverage resources that enhance and promote educational opportunities for the students in the Trenton School District. 

At one of our events, I met am incredibly dynamic and committed teacher at Trenton High, who was teaching a course at Trenton High in media technology. We as a foundation, are trying to provide high school students with an opportunity to see life outside of their neighborhoods, and to get an idea of a future career path. This particular class is apparently very popular, at the school. Our foundation awarded the teacher, a 1000 dollar mini grant for her program. She elected to use the money to upgrade the software she was using. She wanted to purchase the latest version of Adobe photoshop, which is basically an industry standard, for anyone looking to get into any design related field. This all sounded great, except that the computers in the school were so old, that the new Adobe software would not run on them, which gets me to the point of my current blog post. Having met this teacher, and having met students, it was driving me crazy that here was a dynamic teacher, who could make a real difference in the lives of her students, who was being thwarted in her efforts, by outdated tools. The teacher reached out to our foundation, to seek our help in trying to find a way to upgrade the computers at the school. I am extremely proud of the fact that, through a contact that I have with a very large foundation, I was able to secure a grant for 10,000 dollars, so that we could buy 6 completely new, IMacs for the school. The teacher is able to enhance her program, and the students will be completely familiar with industry standard equipment, should they decide to embark on careers in any design type of work. I know that this class is extremely popular with the students. The teacher told me that because of the interest in the class, the students are often not ready to leave the class room, when the class ends. I have seen some of their work, and it really is amazing.

I was really proud of my involvement in securing this grant, and creating such a wonderful educational opportunity for the students.

 I understand that this post may not be directly related to real estate, but in a sense, all of our communities can be better places, if we try and make a positive difference in the lives of others. These kinds of efforts mean a great deal to me.

I have been extremely blessed over the years, to have been able to develop a very successful, and busy real estate career. Those who know me, know that I am also very committed to giving back to the community. One of the areas that I feel incredibly passionate about, is education. I can’t emphasize enough, how strongly I feel about the value of education, as a tool to solve many problems, both here in the United States, as well as problems across the globe. Because I feel so passionate about education, I am a board member of the Trenton Public Education Foundation. (http://www.TPEF.org) For those who are not familiar with the area, the Trenton school district, is pretty much, a poor, inner city, district. Despite what is often found in the newspaper, there are amazing students, faculty and administrators, in the district. Our organizations mission is to broker, foster and leverage resources that enhance and promote educational opportunities for the students in the Trenton School District.

I have written a few posts recently, about the state of the real estate market in Bucks County.  In those posts, I have consistently pointed out that our local market, is not doing all that badly.  That is especially the case when you compare what is happening in Bucks County, with what is happening in many parts of the county.   If you listen to the national press, you would assume that the bottom is falling out of the real estate market in Bucks County.  I have been extremely frustrated with our local  press, because until recently, there have been very few articles that accurately portray the state of the local market.  In case anyone has not told you, real estate is, and always has been, local.  What is happening in Florida, Arizona and California, has nothing to do with what is happening in Bucks County.

The chart actually documents, from data taken directly from our MLS system, that there were more closed units in Lower Makefield Township in 2007, than in 2006.  You would certainly not know this, from reading the local newspapers.  This is not to suggest that our market is not a, “buyers market”.

I found a couple of very well written articles, in local publications, that very accurately portray the state of our local market.  First, the current issue of Philadelphia Magazine, has on its cover, the following headline, “Philadelphia, Smile.  Your house is worth more than you think.” 

In the article, the author points out that the general Philadelphia metropolitan area, of which Bucks County is included, is holding up quite well, compared with other parts of the country.  The article explains why the Philly area market is better than you are being told.  He points out that the area economy is still strong.  Another point made, is that we are a primary residence market, for the most part.  There was never a lot of speculative buying, during the hectic, appreciating years.  As a result, although prices appreciated nicely in the Bucks County area, they did not appreciate as much as they did in more speculative areas.  Conversely, as other parts of the country have crashed, our landing has been much smoother.  The article dispels several other myths about the local real estate market.  I highly recommend getting a copy of the article.  If you are reading this, and would like a copy, please let me know, and I can send it via email.

The second article, was a column in the Philadelphia Inquires, this past Sunday, by the papers real estate columnist, Alan J. Heavens.  Alan talks in his column, about real estate from a historic perspective.  He says, “Real estate is local as local as a block.  Forget the web nuts and NBC nightly news.  There is no national housing market.”  Further, he observes that if you are thinking of selling but worried that the housing market is glutted.  Forget it, he says.  Houses linger because they aren’t priced right for the market.  How true!

Interest rates are low, and there is mortgage money available, despite the challenges of the sub-prime lending fiasco.

In a nutshell, as I have been saying recently, the real estate market in Bucks County is not as bad as the press would have us all believe.  Houses are selling every day.  The spring market is upon us and I will report on how the first quarter faired, once we get through March. 

In another post, I will provide some additional statistics for other Bucks County markets.