It's true my 4th child Zachariah graduated high school Monday night along with all of his friends and classmates.  Click here to see all of the kids and their families.  It was a fantastic graduation.  Really it was.  The speakers were great in my opinion because they spoke from their heart and their comments were directed to the graduates themselves.  They were concise and to the point. Everything was organized and kept moving, the decorations were nice and the cd of the slide show for each graduate was very special.  The senior advisors Kristy Johnston and Jess Clark did an outstanding job.  We also need to thank the parents who planned this years grad blast, especially Cheryl Curtis.  Our graduates had a safe place to go and celebrate their accomplishments.  Way to go parents.

$3000 in scholarships awarded to 3 seniors this year!  It was fun this past week to travel to Colony High School and Wasilla High School and present our scholarship award winners with their checks.  First place and a $1500 Scholarship went to Michelle Wetherell, a home schooler from Palmer.  Second place and a $1000 Scholarship went to Jarrid McAuliff from Colony High School and Third place and a $500 Scholarship went to Jordan Anderson from Wasilla High School.  Our team will be presenting Michelle her scholarship later this month at our office.  As I listened to the awards being presented to these seniors I was so impressed with our youth.  I was amazed at their accomplishments while also serving their communities and/or participating in sports and other things.  Way to go Seniors!

There is one sign that our market is improving that we can’t miss, and that’s when our phone rings with new customers ready to buy or sell.  But there are other indicators—not including the familiar days on the market, new listings per month, and new contract activity.  Here in Wasilla we sold 34 more homes in April than we did in March; the number of days on the market came down from 126 to 98.  We still have more new listings coming on the market than typical which means in some price ranges we still have an excess supply of inventory. 

 

Bottom line is the market is making progress.  As long as builders continue to curtail their spec building in the $300,000 plus range our market will continue to recover.  As I have said before, sellers are in a pricing war and a beauty contest at the same time.  If you want to sell you have to "be the prettiest" and the "lowest price" as compared to your competition.

 

5 Signs of a Housing Market Pickup

Sign #1:  New Jobs vs. New Housing:  Historically one new home owner is created for every two new jobs, so if job creation continues in Wasilla and builders scale back on production, it’s just a matter of time before the supply and demand equation moves toward equilibrium. 

 

Sign #2:  Fewer Builder Concessions:  Look for new home builders to curtail their offerings of paying buyer closing costs, offering selling bonuses or other concessions they rolled out at the start of the downturn.

 

Sign #3:  Months’ Supply:  We had a 10-18 months supply (depending on the price range) of housing during most of 2007.  Currently in price ranges under $250,000 the supply of homes is 3-4 months.  Over $250,000 the months’ supply is still 7-9 months. 

 

Sign #4 Visitors per Listing:  Look at the visitor trends on web sites.  The more visitors looking at homes on line and the more pages they look at suggest buyers are getting serious. On my web site we typically have 135 unique visitors per day viewing over 1200 pages.  Friday we had 292 unique visitors on the site. 

 

Sign #5 Rising Number of Homes Under Contract (pending sale):  When the number of new listings per month is similar to the number of new contracts, we have equilibrium.  If the number of new listings outpaces new contracts per month, we still have a growing inventory of homes which will equate into greater supply than demand.  We haven’t reached equilibrium in our market in most price ranges yet, but we are moving closer each month. 

 

Will you regret not buying in 2008?  With low interest rates, motivated sellers, and reduced prices, will people look back at 2008 and wonder why they didn't take advantage of an ideal buying situation?  This is the beginning of my 25^th year in real estate.  I had only been selling for 4 years when the market declined to an all time low in 1988 through 1990.  Many of my friends later told me how they regretted not buying when the market was at the bottom.  The trouble then as is the trouble now, none of us knew until after the fact where the bottom was.  What I do know is we have low interest rates, motivated sellers and job growth making this a great time to buy.  Call me anytime with questions, 907-373-3575  Kristan Cole.

What fun it was for Teagen and me to attend the baby shower for Sarah and Trig.  Trig opened his eyes when I held him which was a thrill since he had not opened them all afternoon.  He is just a little peanut someone said.  He is just adorable and we all had fun sharing stories and holding the baby.  To see a few photos, click here

April's residential numbers were much better than March.  There were 103 closed sales in April and there were only 69 in March.   The sale to list price ratio for April was 98% and it was 95% in March, and finally the Average Days on Market was 98 and March was 126.  Bottom line is the market is making progress.  As long as builders continue to curtail their spec building in the $300,000 plus range our market will continue to recover.  As I have said before, sellers are in a pricing war and a beauty contest at the same time.  If you want to sell you have to "be the prettiest" and the "lowest price" as compared to your competition.  If you want to know specifics about your home and how to stage it "to sell", email me or call me, it would be our pleasure to help you be successful.

If you haven't entered already, please email me to enter our King Salmon Fishing Trip for two contest.  Drawing for the trip will be on May 20^th. 

Check out our Best Buy Listif you are looking for a home or an investment property.  Interest rates are lower than ever.  It's a great time to buy in 2008.  We regularly post our thoughts about the very best buys in the Valley.  If you would like to see the best buy list from this past week, click here. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo