Is it too early to call it a trend in Memphis Real Estate?

April, 2012 Home Sales - Memphis Area

Memphis real estate is on an upward trend, right?  Well, if you use number of units sold as  your as a measure, things are looking pretty rosy, with  a 15.3% increase in sales  4/12 over 4/11 and a 19.7% increase Year-to-date.

The good sign here, at least for the month of April, is that median prices showed a 13.7% increase, and average prices increased 11.6% over 2011. In my opinion, median prices are all tied in with inventory - if there are more inexpensive houses on the market being sold, it will skew the prices downward; less cheap houses - median prices rise.  Remember that about a third of the residences sold in this area are sold for below $50,000.

Are we out of the woods yet?

This bar graph below shows monthly sales over the past 3 years (2009-red, 2010-green, 2012-blue).  Let’s face it, 2011 was a dismal year. And we are straggling behind 2009 in unit sales.

However, a couple more positive months, and this stalwart bear will be morphing into a guardedly cautious bull.  We all want to know that values are trending up, and we all want to know what these types of stats have to do with us, and our particular situations.   I can’t end this post without saying that All Real Estate Is Micro-Local.  Consult an agent that specializes in your neighborhood and knows what’s happening right there.

Mortgage rates are still great if you are considering a purchase or re-finance.  I would like to write about some of the re-fi programs for underwater owners, but I will leave that to the experts.  There are programs available.  Contact me, and I can get you in touch with the experts.

The stats in this post are provided by the Memphis Area Association of Realtors.  Click here to download  the full report.

Original Article

If you are looking for a rental home, beware of this Craigslist scam

[Note:  I posted this recently, 12/27/11, but since then, activity seems to have increased on this scam.  At least some people are savvy enough to Google the properties and call the legitimate Realtor  - I got 20 calls on one of my scraped and scammed listings this week.]

This scam has been going on on Craigslist, and probably other sites for years, but it hit one of my listings yesterday.  Fortunately someone alerted me early that the listing was being offered for rent at about a third of market rent.  Of course it was a scam, perpetrated by someone off shore.  It generated 9 calls from my yard sign from people who had seen the ad and driven by the house, so, obviously, lots of folks search Craigslist for rentals and they all seemed to think they had found the ultimate deal on a rental.

I replied to the email address on the scam, and got back an email from “Kristina Kilgore” , who claimed to be the owner, written in poor English, with overseas phone numbers, the mention of Nigeria, and a Rental Application designed to get personal information.   At the end of the application, this:  ”Please do understand that, a refundable deposit of $600 MUST be put down first before receiving the keys and paper work from me as to secure the house for you while you go through.”

This scam is actually pretty transparent. It has been going on for quite a while.  Does that mean that it is successful enough that people are actually sending the deposits to foreign addresses to people they have never met,  to get a good rental deal on a property they have never been inside?

Craigslist provides scam warnings here.  Real estate listings all have a scam alert in the header which takes you to this useful information:

You can sidestep would-be scammers by following these common-sense rules:

• DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one rule and avoid 99% of scam attempts on craigslist.
• NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or any other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.
• FAKE CASHIER CHECKS & MONEY ORDERS ARE COMMON, and BANKS WILL CASH THEM AND THEN HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE when the fake is discovered weeks later.
• CRAIGSLIST IS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY TRANSACTION, and does not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer “buyer protection” or “seller certification”
• NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, etc.)
• AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL “GUARANTEE” YOUR TRANSACTION.
• DO NOT RENT HOUSING WITHOUT SEEING THE INTERIOR, OR PURCHASE EXPENSIVE ITEMS SIGHT-UNSEEN - in all likelihood that housing unit is not actually for rent and that cheap item does not exist.
• DO NOT SUBMIT TO CREDIT CHECKS OR BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR A JOB OR FOR HOUSING UNTIL YOU HAVE MET THE INTERVIEWER OR LANDLORD/AGENT IN PERSON.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

For more on this type of scam, see Jay Thompson’s post Anatomy of a Rental Scam for his in-depth follow-up with the scammer.

Original Article

Memphis real estate sales decline in 2011

[caption id=”attachment_19877” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”For Sale www.1573Vance.com - Midtown”][/caption]

The Memphis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR) has released sales information for December and year-end, 2011.  The report contains complete information on all publicly recorded sales in Shelby, Fayette and Tipton counties, including information on pending sales and active listings.

Sales

[caption id=”attachment_19870” align=”aligncenter” width=”500” caption=”December, 2011 and year end sales summary”][/caption]

Residential unit sales were off 10% in December vs. 2010, and year-end totals lagged 2010 by 8.4% .  Both median and average sales trended down in 2011, as the market desperately sought price stability, and home buyers remained cautious.

Foreclosures

[caption id=”attachment_19871” align=”aligncenter” width=”500” caption=”Foreclosures down in 2011, but what will 2012 bring?”][/caption]

While foreclosures ruined more Christmases in 2011, with a  December increase of 67%,  foreclosures for 2011 were down by over 15% at 4,113.  There seems to be a lot of politics going on in the foreclosure arena.  Time will tell.

If you haven’t downloaded the sales report (link at end of post), you are missing a lot of real estate information on listings, pending sales, and inventory.  This would be a good one to file away since it is the end-of-year report.

One more interesting feature is the neighborhood reports.

[caption id=”attachment_19872” align=”aligncenter” width=”500” caption=”Midtown and Downtown Sales”][/caption]

Two of my specialty areas showed declines in Unit sales but increases in median and average prices, showing once again that all real estate is local - micro- local!  Download the report to see how your neighborhood is doing.

Download Full Report

Note:  In the next day or so I will be posting my Memphis Real Estate predictions for 2012 - Stay Tuned!

Original Article

Goodbye - Hello

[Reposted from Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog, which is moving to http://blog.spake.com/]

Last  post on Memphis Real Estate Buzz

Moving to http://Blog.Spake.com

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If you have come to this URL - http://MemphisRealEstateBuzz.com for the last few years for my local and national real estate news and comments, thank you!  This is the last post on this blog.  No I am not giving up real estate blogging - just changing the blog’s URL and look.

I am integrating Memphis Real Estate Buzz as a sub-domain of my main site, http://spake.com.  From now on you can find my real estate posts, and hopefully other interesting posts at http://blog.spake.com.  This blog will be automatically redirected there.

Thanks for your support.  If you are an RSS subscriber, please go to http://blog.spake.com and subscribe there (all the posts from this blog are archived and searchable there).  You won’t be automatically subscribed at the new location.  You can use this link to subscribe right now.  If you would prefer to receive new posts by mail, use Subscribe%20to%20Memphis%20Real%20Estate%20Buzz%20Blog%20by%20Email“>this link.

So, I will see you on the other side.  I will leave this site up for a while, to make sure all the permalinks to posts transfer properly to a new and permanent location.

Original Article

Today’s Hot Links -Real Estate, Memphis, Social Media

• AOL Names 11 News Stories That Shaped 2011 ~ via Mashable
• Is Privacy in Social Media an Age Issue? - via Social Media Today
• Sellers Overvalue Their Home’s Worth, Study Finds
  Another good reason to listen to the advice of the real estate professional you hire.
• You’re So Memphis If… (via the I Love Memphis Blog)
  Well, you gotta live here or have lived here.
• Most Popular Top 10s of 2011 [Best Of Lifehacker 2011]
  Lifehacker seems to have solutions for all of life’s little problems. Here are the best of the best.
• Facebook Timeline Is Here: Are You In? via Mashable
  Are you in? I am going to wait around and see how this evolves. I am still not seeing a whole lot of relevance for me in life events, but Facebook does have its ways of bending us to its will.

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Original Article

Memphis Bungalows

[caption id=”attachment_13627” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”Midtown Memphis Bungalow”][/caption]

Most of Memphis’ Bungalows are located in the Mid-City area, roughly bounded by Bellevue, the Wolf River, Highland, and South Parkway, however you see samples of the style in other parts of the city that saw development in the 1920s.

Memphis Bungalows feature low pitched roofs with usually with significant overhang; 0ne or one and a half stories, and a front porch.  The interior features a practical floor plan, usually with a short central hallway, separate living and dining rooms.  Many of the Bungalows found in Memphis were built from Sears Kits.

So what is a Bungalow?

Probably the most definitive description and examples for the layman can be found in this article.  There are many definitions in the United States and around the world: Craftsman, Prairie, and Chicago styles are perhaps the most recognizable.

Bungalows for Sale in Memphis

Here are samples of bungalows currently on the market in Memphis.  Since this is a dynamic slideshow (automatically updated), and since we have to depend on listing agents’ definition of  ”bungalow” some images may not be representative of the classic bungalow style.

To see ALL the bungalows currently on the market in Memphis, CLICK HERE.

Related link:  Memphis is a great bungalow town

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Original Article

Social Media is about the culture, not control, domination, and leverage

Browsing through a real estate trade magazine supposedly targeted at highly successful agents, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the amount of editorial content and advertising focused on social media and internet marketing:  Social media ROI, dominating Google, new media marketing, and crash courses in social media.  Of course, internet marketing and especially social media marketing are all the buzz in the real estate world now.  I am inundated with invites to webinars, offers for training, and book pitches. In an industry dominated for decades by push marketing techniques, giving real estate agents a little basic technical knowledge, without a thorough orientation on social media culture can have disastrous effects.

It is very revealing to check out the social graphs of the real estate social media magazine writers and the highly-touted social media instructors in the industry.  Many real estate instructors have had to adopt their 20 year old course content rather quickly to the ever-accelerating utilization of social media, technology, and other web based innovations. But it’s not enough to learn how to setup a Facebook, twitter or LinkedIn account, build a Facebook business page, or set up a blog if you don’t understand the culture you are stepping into. I don’t see many articles in the trade magazines about social media culture or engagement, just how to control, leverage, and dominate.    One absolute truth about the social media culture:   it has very little patience with being controlled, leveraged or dominated.

photo credit: Matt Hamm

Original Article

Stuff real estate agents do - flyer boxes

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Real Estate agents like to put flyer boxes in your yard to spread the word about you listing.  For the potential home buyer, there is just something reassuring about the tactile experience of taking a beautifully designed paper flyer out of the flyer box.  Of course sometimes the drive-by inquisitive take more than one flyer.  They seem to be attractive to kids walking home from school, and some flyers seem to disappear for no reason at all.

I am not a huge fan of flyer boxes.  I can provide much more information about your property with a single property website with a sign in your yard with the URL.  If you list with me and you want a flyer box in your yard, I will provide flyers and a .pdf file of the flyer and you make sure there are always flyers in the box.  If I happen to find it empty, I remove it.  Pretty simple solution to the situations pictured above, all within an easy walk of my home.

My hope for the future is that consumers will continue to develop their technical savvy and tool use, so that signage and flyer boxes can be replaces with QR code signs, which provide lots of info via  a simple scan with your smart phone.

If you saw on of these in the yard of a listed property, would you know how to deal with it?

Original Article