Steve's Soundbytes

Things are looking up!

I have often been accused of being an optimist. Seeing a glass half full has always made a lot more sense to me than bemoaning the fact that half of my drink is gone! So, I'm looking at the current state of our market in a very positive way. Let's look at some of those positives:

1. Compared to last year at the same time, we had 1535 active residential listings in the Burlington-Alamance County Multiple Listing Service(MLS). As of today, we have 1235 active residential listings. To me, this represents a normalization of our market, based on the size of the "buyer pool" that we normally have available. So, we have fewer active listings/homes available for sale, which means the inventory is shrinking. This should bring prices to a more representative level. As much as anyone wants to get a "good deal", I have always been a believer in "win-win" deals where both sides come away feeling like they did allright.
 
2. Interest rates are still very reasonable ie: LOW! Both Hallmark Mortgage Co.(Michelle Roten) and Carolina Home Mortgage (Kate Crawford) quoted me 4.875% today for a 30yr. fixed rate mortgage for a person with good credit ( 740 minimun). Let's face it folks, the reason we are in the mess that we are in now is that mortgages were being given to anxious buyers who didn't have the kind of credit rating that would indicate that they would be willing to continue making timely payments on those mortgages in the event that challenging times came into their lives. Well, the challenging times came and they bailed leaving the banks, and ultimately, us holding the bag. So, good credit ratings, some down payment and a little more conservative lending philosophy is probably a good thing.
 
3.The BIG BOYS have had consolidate and pull back a little, the BIG BOYS being the large regional and national building contractors and developers. They are the ones that come into markets like Burlington/Alamance County and skew things with their mass produced, less than average quality homes. This should help us to, again, lower the inventory and raise the quality of the construction that we get in the new homes.
 
In my opinion, these are all good things. Our glass is half-full here in Central NC. With quality people like Mac Welliams of the Chamber of Commerce out there actively beating the bushes looking for new employers/industry, we are poised for growth that we can sustain and that will add to our quality of life here rather than "boom" us into infrastructure problems, high taxes,high crime rates and more people who crowded into Alamance County looking for "the good life".
 
Until next time.  
Steve