Great chart on homes prices across the nation

The NY times has a great interactive chart that shows the %change in house prices over the past 20 years: "Home Prices Across the Nation".

I've clipped the chart for Portland, but I encourage you to go play with the chart on their site.

Are Short Sales a Good Deal?

BLOG.FranklyRealty.com: Short Sales Are "Fake Listings." Only 5% Close!

I saw the post above today on short sales, which reminded me of this conversation we had a few weeks ago.

Has anybody here tried to buy a short sale? I expect to see more of them as foreclosures increase, but they always seemed to be fraught with danger to me, and Frank confirms that.

Oregon foreclosures almost double

Realytrac just released their monthly report on foreclosures, and the numbers for Oregon are getting worse.

Foreclosure filings are up over 28% from December 2007, and are up 96% year over year in January.

Unfortunately they don't break out Portland numbers, but my gut says that Portland is doing better than some less expensive areas.

Portland median prices continue to fall

The latest Case Shiller data for December 2007 was released today. The median Portland home price fell 0.6% from November to December, from 183.65 to 182.47.

Year over year growth slowed slightly from 1.3% to 1.2%, but is surprisingly still positive.Don't forget that this data is backwards looking, and almost two months old at this point. Given today's economic indicators I expect things will continue to get worse.

On the bright side I do believe that Portland is weathering the storm for a few reasons.

1. The urban growth boundary prevents the overbuilding that other cities have seen.
2. We have a lower than average foreclosure rate than other areas, but we are certainly not immune from risky, 100% financing.

The real estate fallout spreads

I had dinner with a customer last night who works for a major US retailer.. He mentioned that they had done some analysis recently looking for potential growth areas to target this year, and as they were analyzing the overall real estate segment, two sub-segments showed major declines recently. Realtors, and mortgage brokers.

The fallout from the popping of the housing bubble is starting to spread into my day job.

The elusive exclusive buyer's agent

Perplexed asked in a previous thread

"Has anyone ever used an exclusive buyer's realtor?

In this day where it's a buyer's market agents who only represent buyers should be in a great position."

And in a follow-up post:

"Here is what I found. I know of no one who has ever dealt with any of them, which is why I asked.

http://www.carlahomes.com/

http://www.dreamstreetre.com/

http://www.worldstar.com/~pdxpro/

Read the document at the lower left on the last link. It is an interesting discussion of what to watch out for."

Here's the document he's referring to, which I think is a good source of info for potential buyers:

I haven't used an exclusive buyer's agent, but I have given the subject of buyer's agents a bit of thought.

One issue I see is that if you've acted as a seller's agent and never sold a house, you don't know all the inside issues that would help with negotiation.

But I think the biggest issue is the basic principal-agent issue and misalignment of interests between the buyer and buyer's agents such as:

1. The buyer stands to benefit from a lower price, while the agent benefits from a higher price due to a greater likelihood of sale and a greater commission.

2. The buyer might be in a position to wait as long as possible for a good deal, but the agent only makes money on a sale, so is inclined to push for a sale.

Those are the two big issues I see, I'm sure there are more. But it seems like #1 could be eliminated with a different payment structure, such as a flat fee plus bonus for discount. Or a retainer plus hourly rate.

I really like the idea of paying a flat payment with a bonus for a discount, based on the amount of discount. Does anybody know of any agents using a payment structure like this? To answer Perplexed's question, has anybody used an exclusive buyer's agent and what were the results?

Advice for real estate agents (quit now!)

Seth Godin has an excellent post that all real estate agents should read. His advice is that you should either:

1. Quit.

2. Specialize, and become the best at one small niche of your market.

#1 is easy. #2 is scary and hard. There is also option #3 which is to keep doing what you've been doing for the past few years, and watch your business die slowly.

#2 isn't that hard as much as it's scary and counterintuitive for most people. And for those that say they don't have time, I found the time to build and contribute to this blog, and I have no incentive other than to help other frustrated buyer's like myself who are tired of the status quo.

I see Charles Turner doing an excellent job at #2, and I have seen a few other Realtors starting to specialize. But I see plenty of others that are still trying to take orders in a the new sales world.

I'd love to hear stories of Realtors that are reinventing their business during the downturn.