Culpeper's Future

I couldn't have said this better myself! Here, in the Culpeper Star Exponent is a framework for Culpeper's future.

I'd add that we should look at the transportation issues and work on better rail connections with these technology centers.

And, I'd add to his rationale for attracting high tech jobs that they tend to pay well enough for people to afford to buy homes, as opposed to service industry jobs.

The local real estate market could use that shot in the arm!

September's Good News

September's numbers are the kind to make you "ooooh" and "aaaah". They're that good!

In Culpeper, Fauquier and Prince William counties, inventory continues to fall and sales continue to rise.

In Culpeper inventory is down from 823 at this time last year to a measley 632 this year. Sales doubled year over year, 27 last year and 54 this September. And the trend looks to continue with 72 new contracts written in September!

There's good news for those of you in Fauquier as well. Inventory has declined from 832 last year to 696 at the end of September. While sales didn't quite double here they did a very respectable increase from 38 a year ago to 53 now. And new contracts soared to 83.

In Prince William things have changed so much that you've got to feel sorry for the buyers. Total inventory has declined from 5674 to 4489. Meanwhile sales have almost tripled from 327 to 934. 1059 new contracts have been written in Prince William. Multiple offers on foreclosures are now routine there. And bidding wars are back, if the house is in good enough condition and priced cheaply enough.

Rappahannock County is the rain cloud amidst all this sunshine. Inventory continues to rise there with 93 homes on the market now compared to 83 a year ago. There was one sale last month compared to 4 a year ago. And there are three new contracts. In general, sellers in Rappahannock County have been slower to lower prices, believing that the counties unique circumstances protect them from the economic forces at work. And, to some extent that's true. But clearly not to the extent many sellers believe! The other factor at work here are a large number of very expensive properties, owned by very wealthy people, who are perfectly willing and able to wait a year or two for market conditions to change.

Overall, sellers should be singing hallelujahs. But, here's why I suspect many of you aren't. What we continue to see are lots of sales of foreclosures and short sales at very low prices. Many sellers are not willing or able to compete at those prices.

While inventory levels have fallen to around a 12 month supply, it's still not low enough to stop the price declines. If you're a seller in this market, desparate to sell, you're probably thinking that there's not much comfort in this if the only thing selling is foreclosures. But sooner or later, surely, we're going to run out of foreclosures. Here's the question, if that's a year from now, or longer, can you wait?

Ten Cents

I was supposed to have a settlement yesterday. My clients are buying a foreclosure. (The one that we've been working on for months and months and months!)

I know it will come as no surprise to many of you that the settlement didn't happen.

Why, you ask......?

The original estimated settlement statement (HUD1) differed from the final numbers by.....TEN CENTS.

Ordinarily, the change would be made and we'd have approval from all parties for the change in a matter of minutes and would proceed with settlement.

But, this ten cent change had to go back up the chain of command on the bank's side. And, so, we're still waiting. Since this was Friday and no bank is going to give us final approval over the weekend settlement won't happen before Monday.

Except that this week, Monday is a holiday. So, now we're looking at Tuesday at the earliest.

So, how much do you think it cost the bank, to approve this ten cent change? How much in lost time (wages) for the employees who worked on this? How much did it cost them to have this money in my clients' pockets and not theirs for these extra few days?

This is the culmination of months of negotiations as the bank continued to get lower offers from my clients after they rejected higher ones. And, in one case, lowered the price while we had a higher offer on the table!

There are very well managed financial institutions in this country. This isn't one of them.

Foreclosures: More Than We Thought

NPR had a story this morning on their show, Morning Edition, about how foreclosures are counted.

It turns out that they've been undercounted in rural counties by RealtyTrac, the company everyone's been using for these statistics.

HUD is now responsible for counting these, at least temporarily. I'll be digging into how we look locally with these new numbers.

Disaster Prone Areas

For those of you who are wondering what's become of me, I've taken a break to help with some of the recovery efforts for Ike in the gulf coast. I worked initially in Louisiana and am now in Houston. It's been quite an experience!

When Katrina hit New Orleans it started a conversation about that city and whether it should even be rebuilt where it currently sits because of its vulnerability to flooding and hurricanes. But after a couple of weeks down here, I think the question is bigger than that.

Those who live in the most low-lying areas, who are most vulnerable to the ravages of nature, are very often the poorest. And, so many of the same people living between New Orleans and Houston have been hit by Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. Who knows what comes next!

The local, state and federal governments rush in to help in these situations, which is what should happen. But it's a costly exercise. And, I wonder if it wouldn't be more prudent to simply offer many of these people incentives to move away from the areas of greatest danger. Since many of these individuals are in tough financial circumstances, some of them may welcome the chance for a fresh start elsewhere. Certainly I heard many express that they didn't think they could handle any more hurricanes!

And, maybe there are some areas where we should have a new designation. There are lands protected from development for all kinds of reasons. Why not some kind of "disaster prone" designation? I wouldn't say no one could build there because I don't want to tell people what to do. But they'd sign a waiver of any right to assistance, including government flood insurance, if they decided to build there.

Right now this seems like another case of working on eliminating the effects of the problem without ever getting at the root cause. It seems to me we're smart enough to do better!