shelleydraper.com

Beer and wine will be served with a maximum of 3 drinks per person.

Received this message from the Board today. That’s a bit insulting for an old lady but I can live with it. Moreover, I will give the Board the benefit-of-the-doubt, in that, probably due to the lack of ticket sales, they pulled some pretty big teeth to make this quasi-cash-bar happen. Bravo, but bring it back to Brasstown next year and let my bartender make the call on how many drinks to sell me.

As listings grow old on the vine in this flush-with-inventory market and frustrated sellers reach for the slightest edge, the findings of several academics might offer guidance.

For example, a Canadian professor, as part of a broader study on real-estate sales patterns, found that homes where the seller was “motivated” took 15 percent longer to sell, while houses listed as “handyman specials” flew off the market in half the average time.

from The Seattle Times - New study shows which words sell, and which don’t

And we all thought “motivated” was a huge seller—not anymore. 15% longer to sell? That could be a pretty costly word in some instances. Buyers must be making one of two assumptions here:

• the price is currently too high as obviously the “motivated” seller will take less, and they’re waiting-it-out for a price drop
• the seller/agent initially overpriced the property in the first place, dropped it, and aren’t yet motivated enough to price it where it should be: what’s wrong here?

Either way, it must denote a lack of buyer trust for the “motivated” seller. Not necessarily “buyer-beware” but more like “buyer-look-elsewhere-first”.

Most importantly, it also means that buyers are paying a great deal of attention to the listing agent’s written remarks and most certainly applying their own definitions and actually acting on the perceived trustworthiness of the agent’s wording. I’m amazed that some sellers still let their listing agent get away with writing a few bad words, snapping fewer photos, grabbing an MLS number, kicking a sign in the ground and calling it a year.

Single women now purchase 22 percent of all homes. Single men accounted for only 9 percent of purchases.

Single females accounted for almost a quarter of all homes sold, more than double that of single males. I hadn’t really thought about it until now but my numbers do pretty much match the unmarried female-to-male ratio. Perhaps bachelors rent in anticipation of marriage (choosing a home together, etc.) and single women aren’t quite as optimistic as they used to be and have wisely learned how to cover home base?

According to Pat Vredevoogd Combs, the president of the National Association of Realtors, that shows real change. “Thirty-five years ago, when I started out as a realtor, a single woman couldn’t even get a mortgage,” she says.

Part of the reason why women have become so big a buying bloc is that more women are single than ever before.

CNN Money - Real Estate: Who’s Buying Now?

Have we hit the bottom? Feels like it, activity has definitely picked up in the past 30 days for me:

Sales of newly built family homes rose 4.8 per cent last month to 1.1m for the year amid signs that housebuilders were beginning to clear excess inventory that has weighed down the construction sector.

The backlog of new homes standing empty fell to its lowest level since the start of last year – with enough supply to meet about 6 months worth of demand, the Commerce Department said.

The drop in excess inventory was seen by some economists as a sign the market had bottomed, while figures for the full year revealed the extent of the slowdown in 2006 as sales of new homes were 17 per cent lower than the previous year.

MSNBC - US housing shows unexpected strength

Wow, looks like an avalanche zone from this shot but I guess they know what they’re doing with a $155 million dollar, 53,000 square-foot spec home. Near Bozeman, Montana, it comes with its own private ski lift, and oh yeah, it’s furnished and that includes the wine cellar and all of its potentially painful contingencies:

The 10-bedroom Blixseth mansion will sit on 160 acres and come with a private gondola-like chairlift that will whisk residents up to the Yellowstone Club’s private ski slopes. There will also be an indoor/outdoor swimming pool separated by a glass wall that can slide away on warm summer days, as well as a home movie theater–practically a standard feature in super high-end homes. The home will come furnished.

“When someone writes that kind of check, they don’t want to have to worry about knives, forks and spoons,” says Blixseth. “The wine cellar should be stocked.”

full story | slideshow