For some frustrated sellers, the answer to “Why isn’t my home selling?” is “It’s the agent’s fault!”  If your immediate instinct is to drop your Santa Cruz real estate agent for a new one, you might want to take a deep breath and consider the following:

1. Do you think agents are like lottery tickets?  Going through Santa Cruz real estate agents as fast as scratch-off lottery tickets isn’t going to get your home sold faster.  In fact, it usually slows down the process.

2. Is your home priced correctly?  That’s probably the number one difference between homes that sell fast and homes that sit on the market.  A poorly priced home could be your agent’s fault.  Then again, you could be partially to blame.  Did you insist on a specific price even though your…

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Frequently, there are news stories that impact our Santa Cruz  real estate market.  Here are two I want to share with you this month:

Rising Interest Rates Could Get Buyers Moving

Rising interest rates may finally push Santa Cruz  real estate buyers off the fence and into the market.

In December, after President Obama agreed to extend tax cuts for two years, the financial markets  indicated this event would most likely push mortgage interest rates higher.

Analysts predict that buyers will move quickly when it looks like rates are going up and are unlikely to come down. "Once people see this might actually be the bottom, they’ll go for it," says Paul Dales, U.S. economist at Capital Economics Ltd.

For an example of interest rate increases, note what…

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As a real estate agent for Santa Cruz homes for sale, part of my job is keeping up with current real estate news. Most of the time, I’m largely unsurprised by the news that comes across my desk, but this little tidbit blew me away.

For two years now, we’ve seen mass foreclosures, people walking away from their underwater mortgages and warnings that there’s more to come. Foreclosure numbers reached all time highs, housing prices have reached all time lows and half the country is unemployed. It’s enough to make a homeowner with one of the Santa Cruz homes for sale have a mental breakdown.

However, in February, the news went out, flooring most in the real estate industry: severe shortage of property predicted by the middle of 2011. This may sound…

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 The national real estate market, state markets and city markets all seemed to be wrapped up in a nifty bundle that effect whether your Santa Cruz home for sale will have a buyer. With the news reports over the last two years about the pop of the housing bubble, homeowners everywhere essentially lost their minds.

Here are a few examples:

• Some homeowners panicked and immediately put their houses up for sale
• Some homeowners chose to walk away from it all, leaving their homes vacant and mortgages in default
• Some homeowners went into a flurry of home renovations, with the idea of selling
• National and Santa Cruz home for sale listings shot through the roof

The amazing thing isn’t that the real estate market seems to be stabilizing – that’s not the…

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A Seller’s Market? Hard to believe, but many homes drawing multiple offers again as listing shortages continue

My how things have changed in just one year! A year ago at this time, many homes were languishing on the market as buyers stayed on the sidelines, worrying about their jobs, the sharp decline in their 401k accounts, and whether housing prices would ever rise again. Today, many of those buyers have swallowed their fears and are out in force once again, spurred by an improving economy, a solid recovery in the financial markets, and federal home buyer tax credits that will expire this spring.

While no one claims the housing market is out of the woods yet, an unusual dynamic is occurring in many communities around the Bay Area:  Despite the choppy…

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 Trends At a Glance Dec 2009 Previous Month Year-over Year
Median Price $560,000 $550,000 (+1.8%) $450,000 (+24.4%)
Average Price $607,159 $626,278 (-3.1%) $527,657 (+15.1%)
No. of Sales 144 141 (+2.1%) 117 (+23.1%)
Pending Properties 221 286 (-22.7%) 154 (+43.5%)
Active 467 553 (-15.6%) 974 (-52.1%)
Sale vs. List Price 98.1% 97.4% (+0.7%) 96.3% (+1.9%)
Days on Market 78 83 (-6.0%) 74 (+4.6%)
 
Median Home Price Ends Year at Highest Level Since August 2008
The median price of single-family, re-sale homes in Santa Cruz County reached $560,000 in December, a gain of 24.4% compared to December 2008.

Home sales were up 23.1% year-over-year.

We expect sales to be strong through the Spring selling season because of the…

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Contract activity for pending home sales has risen for six straight months, a pattern not seen in the history of the index since it began in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in July, increased 3.2 percent to 97.6 from a reading of 94.6 in June, and is 12.0 percent higher than July 2008 when it was 87.1.  The index is at the highest level since June 2007 when it was 100.7.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the housing market momentum has clearly turned for the better.  “The recovery is broad-based across many parts of the country.  Housing affordability has been at record highs this year with the added stimulus of a first-time buyer tax…

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