Happy Monday!

There are a couple of websites that offer you an opportunity to express your opinion about a home. This is great if you go to a lot of open houses as I know many of you do. As a Realtor I think honest feedback is good. I tell my clients I can tell them the truth or tell them what they want to hear. So far I haven't had anyone opt for the latter. Here's more info on the sites. Check them out and let me know what you think.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101300627.html

This is why you should be buying right now:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101300664.html

I have a new listing in Greenbelt, MD. If you're looking for a great first home, check out this condo located at 8461 Greenbelt Rd. #202. Go to my website for more details and more photos:http://www.angelajonesrealestate.com

Busy day today. Go enjoy the rest of yours and remember, you can rest when you die.

How much does your commute cost?

I work with a lot of buyers and often they say they want to live out in the burbs. Their reason is not because they like the burbs but because housing is cheaper and they can get more bang for the buck, or so they think. The reality is that money spent driving in and out of the city eats any savings you get from having a house in the burbs. The Washingpost Post had an article yesterday that talks about that: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101883.html

By the way, the Post had a very good Mega Real Estate section so if you missed it, link here:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/realestate/features/2006/finding-your-way/index.html

I've got a new listing, this one is in Greenbelt, MD. It's a wonderful condo in the Chelsea Wood complex. It's two bedrooms, 1 bath. The bedrooms are spacious. It's well cared for with new paint and new carpet. The seller is also offering closing help with a full price offer. The list price is $215,000. The address is 8461 Greenbelt Rd. #202. Let me know if you are interested.

I've got a busy day today so let me go get started. Enjoy the rest of your day and remember you can rest when you die.

If Donald Trump says it, it must be true!

Donna and I were flipping through the channels on the tube last night and came across Larry King's show on CNN (I used to work with Larry when I was at Mutual/NBC Radio, got lots of great books from him). Anyway, Donald Trump was on there talking about real estate and making people rich. Of course that got our attention because we both want to be rich! An audience member asked how was the real estate market and was it about to burst. His answer was the same answer I've been telling people for a while now. He said that real estate is still a good investment, while the market may not be as hot as it was two years ago, it's still a very good market and people should be in it.
My take on it is that while it's not as hot and fast as it was a few years ago, people are still buying and selling homes. Prices are coming down because in many instances, prices were too high to begin with. People who have urgency and need to sell right away are bringing prices down to sell (if it wasn't priced right to begin with). People who have less urgency are willing to wait until someone makes the offer they want and if that doesn't happen, they take it off the market and wait for things to improve. Things will improve, maybe not to where things were two years ago, but they will improve.

Speaking of things selling, I've got two new listings, both in Ledroit Park. The first one is at 128 Adams St. NW, priced at $435,00o. The other is at 334 Oakdale Place NW, priced at $280,000. My website has more info on both: http://www.angelajonesrealestate.com. Adams St. is a three bedroom, three-level Victorian and Oakdale is a two bedroom. two-level federal style. Contact me if you'd like to see either one. I've got to start my day now, you enjoy the rest of yours.

No Johnny, the sky is not falling

The bottom's not falling out of the housing market after all. Read on.

Hopeful Glimmers in the Housing Slump
Sure, prices fell. But look at the big picture: The market is adjusting to reality and some of the news is better than expected.
By Peter Coy, BusinessWeek Economics Editor

More From BusinessWeek.com
If you're a homeowner, the recent movement of home prices is as sickening to watch as a mountaineer falling off a cliff. As recently as a year ago, prices of existing homes were rising an amazing 15 percent a year. But the rate of increase has been going down, down, down. In August, the year-over-year change went below zero for the first time since 1995. The National Association of Realtors announced Sept. 25 that the median price nationally in August 2006, was $225,000, 1.7 percent lower than in August 2005.Time to punch that pulsing-red panic button? Not yet. Because several other pieces of news in the Realtors report were better than expected, indicating that the housing downturn may not be quite as bad as some fear. For example:• The decline in the number of existing homes sold was less than economists expected. It fell 0.5 percent to 6.3 million. There was no change at all in the number of single-family homes sold in August. The decrease was entirely in the category of condominiums and cooperative apartments.• The inventory of unsold homes, albeit the highest in terms of months' supply since April, 1993, increased from July to August by a modest 1.5 percent, the smallest amount so far in 2006. If inventories start to top out, it will be a good sign for housing.• According to an analysis by JPMorgan Chase (JPM), the inflow of "new offers"—that is, existing homes coming onto the market—held steady in August and was down 5% from a year earlier. (Those numbers are not seasonally adjusted.) This shows the market is adjusting to reality.FED RELIEF? Investors certainly saw a silver lining in the Sept. 25 news. The stocks of D. R. Horton (DHI), KB Home (KBH), Lennar (LEN), Pulte Homes (PHM), and other homebuilders all rallied for the day. Pulte led the way as its share price rose more than 4 percent, to $32.66.Stocks overall were lifted by hopes that the Federal Reserve will hold off on further interest rate hikes, at least for a while. Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve, said after a speech in Mexico that the slowing U.S. economy is likely to tamp down inflation. Lower inflation would give the Fed more latitude to hold the line on interest rates (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/25/06, "Stocks Climb on Fed Remarks, Housing Data").Make no mistake, housing is slumping, and things are probably going to get worse before they get better. Global Insight, the forecasting firm, wrote, "The housing slowdown is about a year old. It probably has another year to run." The firm expects that existing-homes sales will drop nearly 10 percent in 2006 and nearly 15 percent in 2007, and begin to turn around in the second half of '07.PRICING REALISM. The point is, things could be worse. For one thing, mortgage rates have been falling lately. Freddie Mac (FRE), the big mortgage buyer, says that the national average commitment rate for 30-year fixed-rate loans fell about a quarter-point in August, to 6.52 percent, from 6.76 percent in July. And they've fallen more since, to 6.40 percent last week. That increases consumers' buying power.You can even put a positive spin on the price decline, as the National Association of Realtors did in its announcement. NAR president Thomas M. Stevens said, "sellers are starting to become more realistic" and cut prices in order to move the merchandise.The Realtors' own numbers lend credence to the "realism" theory—by region, it appears that sellers in the Northeast were the most realistic and ones in the Western region, which is dominated by California, were the least realistic. Prices fell the most in the Northeast, but at least volumes were up. California had a slight increase in prices, but volumes fell the most.