Riding the real estate roller-coaster

Flickr photo by tboard.

Just when I thought the worst was over ... things got worse. Our local market started to tank in late 2006. I have worked through waves of foreclosures and short sales and survived.

Business has picked up; I have more listings; and those listings are getting offers. Sadly, I don't have as many closings as I would like.

It looks like the worst isn't really over, it just changed a little.

Two of the homes that I recently sold are back on the market this week. Even though the buyers think the homes are excellent values and the sellers accepted offers, the sales fell through because the homes did not appraise for as much as the buyers needed to borrow.

The buyers lack the cash to make up the difference, but the sellers are confident that another buyer will make an offer and that it will work out.

Two of my listings are in a building where FHA will not back a loan and buyers would have to come up with at least 40 percent down or maybe more to secure a conventional loan. The for-sale signs with my name on them look pretty standing on the corners, but I will probably need to remove them because nothing has sold in that building for a couple of years and I am out of for-sale signs and lockboxes.

There is a young couple that I have been working with for some time. We wrote an offer on a nice property, new construction and everything they wanted in a home. The offer was accepted and the closing date set.

Sadly they may be homeless for a few days or weeks. They have a VA loan and the VA has gotten very, very slow processing certain documents. It will close, but like most transactions these days it won't be painless.

There is an old saying that no one makes any money until someone sells something.

So far I have been doing just fine on the sales part and it doesn't look like I am going to run out of clients, but all of my sales need some kind of financing -- and that puts each sale in jeopardy, and to a certain extent out of my control. ...CONTINUED

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