Happy New Year! Ok, it seems a little late, but not if you observe the Lunar New Year!
This past Friday our Congress passed a stimulus bill that will put $8000 in your pocket if you buy before August. That’s right, you will get a tax credit to buy a home. They hope that by giving you incentive to buy a home we can bring many buyers off the fence and back into the game. Let’s hope that they’re right! There are still some details that need to be ironed out on the bill. Particularly, what other qualifications may also be placed on the home buyer.
2008 was an exciting year. It was supposed to be the worst year since the Big Bang or Great Depression or some other. All I know is that despite all the drama, we still helped many people find incredible bargains for either their first home or for their investment purposes. In fact, for the entire year, almost 60,000 homes were bought and sold. Turns out 2008 was a better year than 2007:
| Sold | Total | Foreclosures | Short Sales |
| 2008 | 59346 | 20408 | 7627 |
| 2007 | 54236 |
And here is a quick update for January:
| Active | 50710 | 11795 | 11411 |
| Pending | 9144 | 5834 | 1057 |
| January | 4742 | 3099 | 808 |
Overall, it looks like although foreclosures are only 23% of active listings, they are about 65% of homes that are sold. What does this mean? It means that there are many homes that really need to be taken off the market if they are not ready to list them at the price necessary to sell. At the same time, there are many tremendous bargains to be had.
