Foreclosure Information A must read

This is a must read for anyone going through the foreclosure or short sale process. Click on the title of this article and go to the link.

RiverWalk Video Complete

This is the second video on the series MC Squared and I am building for the communities I work in. It has been a lot of fun working on the production of these.

Thanks Marty for your effort on the 911 center

For those of you that don't know Marty Colburn, he is the city manager of Mason. I would like to give him kudos for his effort on trying get the 911 emergency center next to all of the other county services in Mason. Despite common sense of keeping all the county emergency services together, the is being moved to South Lansing. Marty put a lot of effort into this even though the deck was stacked against him before he started. I hope people in Mason who see Marty thank him for the effort. He still won by showing other governing bodies in the area that his city is organized has a vision for their part of the region.

New Website and video

I am excited that lansingrealestate.com has just received a facelift. MC Squared is making some great changes to make the web page more interactive and exciting. I have enclosed a link to the video we have produced on Lakeside. It is the first one of this kind we have done. Please email me or leave a comment about what you think. If there is something we can do better on the website please let me know, I am building it for you. On a personal note I have just joined Linked in, Facebook, and activerain. I am learning how to build my profiles now and it is fun to see so many people I work with and have known over the years getting in contact. I will attach my profile links as I get them built. I look forward to hearing from you.

Quick Review of Home Buyer Tax Credit

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is passed and signed into law, so what does it mean to you as a homebuyer? I am getting a lot of questions about the first time homebuyer tax credit of $8000, the main two being “Who qualifies? And “How does this credit work?” The first time homebuyer tax credit is available to everyone who has not had ownership of a home in the last 3 years. If you’re married that goes for your spouse as well. Even if you had owned a home years ago you still qualify. The income limits are $75,000 for a single person and $150,000 for a married couple. Unlike the $7,500 interest free loan last year, this is a straightforward credit. It works like this.
For every $10,000 of purchase price, you receive a $1,000 credit against your income tax. This is capped at $8,000. One you go above $80,000 for a purchase price the full credit is available. Since this is a credit it means you get the full amount of money you qualify for. You can receive the money in two ways, one change the withholdings on your taxes and get more money in your paycheck, or get a check back with your tax refund if you there is any money left after paying your taxes.
This is a great opportunity for those of you who are thinking of buying a house in the next year. I am putting the links to great sites that explain more about this program. I am also putting the application here for you to download. Before you purchase a home and go after the credit, talk with your tax advisor, real estate professional, and lender to make sure you get full advantage of this great program. If you have any questions please feel free to email or call me.

Greater Lansing Home Builders and Remodeler's Show

Just wanted to leave a quick note to join us in booth 162 at the Home builders Spring Home Show. It is located at the Summitt on the west side of Lansing. Follow the link HERE for directions and times. I bringing my laptop and will have our new website set up and you will be able to write a review of the show right our booth. There will be many other exciting opportunities to see showcasing what builders and remodelers are doing in our region. I look forward to seeing you there!

Is it time to buy a home or investment property yet? A study guide to reading the market.

In every market there are signs that tell you what the market is doing at any given time. These are called indicators. This post will show the indicators I use for looking at the market and trying to read where it is going. Please remember this data is being provided for you to look at and I am no way offering advice for what you should do. These are my opinions, and should be used to start a discussion only. One point to remember, even in a down market there is still a market. So it is important to find where it is and capitalize on it. The next few paragraphs may be a little too much information, so if you just want a one paragraph synopsis, skip to the last one. Other than that, if you really want to get more in depth with your market, hope this helps.

The first and most important indicator to me is population. If there is population growth, there is a need for housing. According to the “Real Estate Guys Radio,” the Detroit Metro area is getting 2 to 1.5 inquiries of people wanting to move out verses people wanting to relocate here. One of the best ways to track this is talk to a moving company or your local cable service may be of service if you know someone there. They can tell you how many hookups verses cancellations they are getting. Remember, these are not exact sciences, but they will give you an indication of what is going on in the market. Unfortunately, from talking with people in these fields around here, we are seeing population loss in Lansing as well. It is no surprise when you look at another important indicator and one which is very easy to track, absolute employment. This is tracked through the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. If you live in Lansing, search for the Lansing-East Lansing MSA, or Metropolitan Statistical Area. This is usually a few months behind, but I use it to look at trends. Absolute employment shows the actual number of jobs a region currently has. I use this instead of unemployment rate because when someone has been out of work for the allotted time on unemployment, they are no longer used in the statistic from the State as an employable person. If you look year over year for the last few years we are still trending down. Most likely we are going to see annual numbers for 2008 be a couple of thousand jobs under 2007. This is our third year of job shedding in Lansing. When there is a turn around here, things should start stabilizing and the region will start getting healthy again.

We also made history for new houses in our area according to the Greater Lansing Home Builders Association. December of 08 was the first month no single family home permits were pulled in our region. NAHB states builders are in a “de facto moratorium”.

This leads me into tracking monthly permit data from Texas A&M Research Center. Permits for our area are under 300 for 2008 according to their data. This may change a little bit from rural areas that only report once a year. I think you will see this number get adjusted to close to 400 or so for 2008. Even so, this is the lowest result since the early 80’s. It may even be another record book statistic for lowest in history since data was kept. Here is the link to view what the research center has published, http://recenter.tamu.edu/.

Existing home inventory levels in the tri county area also give us a pulse of what the market condition is. Currently there are just over 3800 homes listed on the Greater Lansing Multiple list service. If you take the last 12 months of sales and divide the current number of homes available, it shows that currently there is a 10.5 month supply of houses listed in the Greater Lansing Area. This is down from the last time I ran this ratio.

SO… What does this all mean to me?

First the new home permits levels falling off with no permits being pulled in December is a good thing for our market. Since I started tracking new home permits verses sales in 02, I have watched our inventory grow from around a 6 month supply to over 15 months. When I looked at current sales against inventory levels the end of 2008, we were around 13 months meaning that the market inventory is finally stabilizing. Unfortunately for us in Lansing we may be in for another small downturn before we finally level off and start back up the market cycle. This is based on the current announcement of 1500 jobs being cut in our area in manufacturing. It will most likely mean that we will see a little more erosion in our home values in the market. We need to see a turn around in the jobs market for the region to stabilize. It looked like we were going to see that last year but unfortunately we still had a slight downslide.

Under all of the bad news currently in the Lansing Market, small start up businesses and small entrepreneurs are beginning to sprout up and bring new life to our economy. This is a trend that is being showing up nationally as well. As large companies downsize ex-employees are becoming business owners since they are unable to find work at other companies. I feel that this is going to play a significant role in the revitalization of the Lansing Region. Even though we are seeing articles in our local paper stating that 2009 is going to be a rough year for commercial real estate, small businesses have a great opportunity to get into real estate for their companies cheap.

The answer to the question posed in the title, Is it time to buy a home or investment property yet?, is really for you to decide. What the indicators show is we may be hovering near the bottom now. What will get me to say we have absolutely hit bottom is when I see a year of the employment trend growing. What that means is we won’t know bottom has hit until we are well out of it. The only solace is, everyone finds out that way. It important to use education, and the experience you have gained and from professionals to find what is best for your situation. The real estate market like any other is cyclical. Many people told you in the late 90’s and early 00’s that they could time the stock market and become rich, well, who got the bigger bailout. I am certain that in the long run real estate will be worth more in the future than it is now. Since I believe that, it is time to get educated about the market and get out and find property. Signs of life are starting to show through the proverbial snow. Be careful, but get out and look and see what is going on around you in your market place. If you are not in the Lansing market, use the web links here and through your own research to see what is going on in your market. Deals are available for either investment or for your next home. And remember, once the growth has started it may be too late to get the best deal.

More on Green in Lansing

If any of you have not had a chance to check out the new online Magazine for Lansing, Capital Gains, add this to your favorites. This company has had great success in other markets doing positivie news stories showing what is going good in cities across the U.S. They started this fall in Lansing and are off to a great start. I have linked to an article that they have put together on Green Building and LEED Certification. http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/features/leed0109.aspx This gives a lot of information on what the different developers in Lansing are doing. There are also many other articles on different neighborhoods and other activities going on in the Greater Lansing area. I will put a link in my publications section on right side of this page.

Market hangover brings valuable lessons

Last night I was at a Christmas party at Dublin Square. I think out of the two hundred or so people there, 199 asked me, “so how’s the market right now? “ I respond with the same generic answer “slow in some segments, but steady in others.” Lately in Lakeside, I have been able to say we have three homes under construction for new neighbors out there. This really seems to open eyes when people hear that comment. They think housing is at a complete stop. The truth is, this market is not dead. We are seeing people still buying nice homes, the difference is, they are getting more value for the dollar. The party of the housing boom is over, and the United States housing market has finally awoken with a huge hangover. Unfortunately, some people got hurt when they fell victim to predatory lending. Others really thought the housing market would never crash and bought more than they could afford because they felt that the appreciation would bring them riches in the future. This is going to hurt for a little while nationally, but hopefully we can take a few lessons from this situation. I know I will be more careful on how little equity I leave in one of my properties so should I need to sell it fast I won’t be in a position to bring money to close. As goods become more expensive and gas prices raise again, this is a good time for all of us to readjust our budgets, and put together a program for a rainy day. A home is still a good investment if you need a place to live, but listening to a Rich Dad tape, Robert explains how a house is really a liability as a personal investment for our future. I did not understand this at first, especially being in the real estate profession. We are taught to show the tax advantages, appreciation values, and all of the other benefits that come on paper from owning a home. These are all true, but after watching the foreclosure rate, it all comes down to the simple fact of how much money is coming in the door versus what is going out. It is unfortunate that so many people are learning this at the expense of their homes.

Trespassers Beware!

Many times in Michigan we hear of property rights disputes involving where bodies of water and private land meet. Over the years there has been a lot of case law involving riparian rights. This website seems to have a lot of information regarding property rights for land owners adjacent to a body of water www.mwai.org . There is a large section of the rights of property owners and a list of cases regarding this issue.
Being a sportsman, respect of land and property is something that has always been very important to me. As more and more land is developed and purchased privately, it is getting harder to find large property for enjoying outdoor sports. Michigan has done a great job in developing its parks, and heading to the areas in the more rural parts of Ingham, Eaton, and Clinton Counties, there are tracts of State land available for use by Residents. I am bringing up land rights issues due to an incident that happened on our property behind our office on November 11, 2007. A gentleman was given permission to hunt the property with a bow, and harvested a 10 point buck. The animal ran onto property owned by a utility company. A neighbor adjacent to the utility company’s property confronted the hunter stating that he had illegally taken the animal and removed the head of the deer and took it. The neighbor had stated that he leased the property from Consumers Power. Here is the link to the article posted at WILX TV
www.wilx.com/home/headlines/11227326.html . This seems highly unlikely since several people have pointed out that Consumers Energy does not lease there property. So whose deer was it? According to the “Tagging Big Game and Furbearers” Section of the Michigan Department of Natural Resource’s Hunting and Trapping Guide. “It is unlawful to tag and animal you did not legally kill.” So even if the Neighbor did tag the head before he took it, he would still be in violation. Leaving the game laws out of, it brings up questions of property rights. If the deer had fallen on Mr. Wisniewski’s (AKA The Neighbors) property and he would not allow the hunter to retrieve it, the animal would become the State’s property. This is due to trespassing laws of Michigan. “MCLA 750.552 is the general state statute for trespass. This statute prevents anyone from trespassing upon the premises of another after having been forbidden to do so.” According to Attorney Clifford H. Bloom in an article called Trespass! Posted on the mwai.org website above, since the hunter would have been prevented from entering the premise, and the land owner could not tag the animal, an officer would have to confiscate it.
Now the question becomes since the property was not posted as private, when the hunter went on the property to retrieve his animal, was he in violation of any laws. He had never been forbidden to enter the property either by signs on the property or by any individual. If I am reading how the statute is being interpreted by Mr. Bloom, it would seem that he had every right to enter the property, especially since he thought he was still on the property he had been given permission to hunt. He had no intention of trespassing on someone else’s property. The DNR is currently involved now, and it will be interesting to see what the outcome of this incident is going to be. If you have any comments or know more about the laws involved, please leave me your comment.