This Morning I was fortunate enough to meet the new U of M President. I also heard him answer some very tough questions at a forum two days ago. As I was listening to him, I thought, “It’s as if he has graduated from Toastmasters, learned the English language from Shakespeare, and learned how to pinpoint the answer to a major issue before you can finish explaining the problem!” I think we will watch in awe, the improvements that he will make at that school!
Tag Archives: real estate market
When will the ice be off Lake Minnetonka? Ice melting off a lake means spring and melts away spring fever.
Everyone is anxious for the ice to be off the lake. We live in an area where we get cabin fever at this time of the year and we just can’t wait for one of the first signs of spring; the ice totally melting off the lake. 
Many people try to predict the exact date, people have “Ice Off” parties, and the winter blaas just seem to melt away along with the ice!
It is tax time. Deductions, exclusions, rebates, expenses, can I just get an extension?
- I’m over my head. It’s tax time!
So I’m starting my taxes and it’s a little overwhelming. When you have your own business, and when you are your own business, it seems to take a long time to go through all the paperwork to get your taxes to the accountant. I think I will just go take a nap!
Do you want to move off the lake…
If you want to move off the lake, it is easier to just move yourself, not your house too!
VirginiaThe Phone is Starting to Ring!
The phone is starting to ring again
The phone is starting to ring again. For a few months, I felt like the Matag repair man. I couldn’t figure out why my phone wasn’t ringing. Were there no sellers or buyers out there that needed my help? I just couldn’t figure it out. Then, last month, my phone started to ring again. Sellers were talking about wanting to listen to me about price. Buyers were thinking the bottom was here, or at least near, and they wanted in. I am “back in the saddle again.” Yea!! Spring has indeed Sprung!!
Small houses are cozy, big houses provide privacy
Are you comfortable with the size of your house? I am just wondering because I have listed a beautiful house on Lake Minnetonka, close to Wayzata, Minnesota and last weekend I showed it to a nice family. They were concerned because the house was a little bit smaller than the one they live in now. They weren’t sure if they would be comfortable with less space. I have dealt with so many buyers who think they know just how many square feet they want in their new house. They know that their present house is too small or too big. But sometimes they find the perfect house, that has the pool, the big deck, but it is much smaller or bigger than they predicted they wanted. They move in and discover the house to be cozy, if it’s smaller, or provides more privacy, if it’s bigger.
But then, I wonder if anyone ever moves into their house and declares, “this is not right. I want to return it for another size.”
Absorbtion Rate or Absorption Rate?
You say tomato…
A lot of my clients are wondering what absorption rate is and I was trying to best explain it when I happened upon this article from realtytimes.com
Absorption Rate Analysis for Resale Agents
by Jerry Rossi
In this rapidly changing real estate market, agents and brokers need new tools. Not another technology tool, we are over sold and over stocked on those, but tools that help us convey evolutionary market changes to our sellers.
‘Evolutionary?’
Yes, the ups and downs of prices, inventory, interest rates, buyers, and sellers are the evolutionary process of markets. John Thompson, founder of Chase National Bank in 1877 said, “Interest rates are going up, then down, then they’re going to level off.”
When the going is good and our sails are full of wind, we tend to forget what it was like in the calm (dead wind). For those of us old enough, in real estate years, to remember 1979 with interest rates fluctuating from 14 to 18 percent, we know dead wind. But we used all the tools we had to power on.
I’ll never forget sitting with a first time buying couple extolling the merits of the tax write off of their new 18 percent loan. Make lemonade out of lemons, right?
Today, we have different pressures, one being the switch from homes selling as fast as they hit the market to the market hitting the sellers with sluggish sales.
So what tool can help? Absorption Rate Analysis; that is, how many homes are absorbed by the market on a monthly basis and how does it affect me and my home or listing?
Absorption Rate has been used by the New Homes industry for years and, in the early 90’s, I introduced Absorption Rate Analysis to resale agents in the CRS courses I was teaching. Most rebuked the idea as an unnecessary step in the listing process. A few, however, like Scott Case in Iowa latched on to the idea. Not only did he wow his sellers with new information, he was able to get properties listed at the correct price point.
So what is Absorption Rate? The following is an example, along with visuals and dialogues that will help you help your sellers define the market and determine how to position their home for the fastest sale:
Example of application:
Your Right Price Analysis on a seller’s home determines a Price Point of $539,000.
The sellers inform you that they want to list their property with you for $589,999.
To explain the effect of current market activity and validate the Price Point derived from your RPA, you create an Absorption Rate (AR) Analysis as follows:
First, determine the number of like-kind homes that have sold in the last 12-months at their expected price of $589,999.
8 Properties sold and closed in the last 12 months
Second, divide this number by 12 to determine the number of properties absorbed by the market on a monthly basis.
8 / 12 = .67 absorption rate
Third, you search the numbers of like-kind homes that are currently on the market (for sale) at their expected price of $589,999.
17 Properties are currently on the market
Fourth, divide this number by the absorption rate to determine how many months it will take to absorb what is currently for sale at their expected price of $589,999.
17 / .67(AR) = 25.37 month supply
Fifth, determine the number of like-kind homes that have sold in the last 12-months at your RPA Price Point of $539,000.
27 Properties sold and closed in the last 12 months
Sixth, divide this number by 12 to determine the number of properties absorbed by the market on a monthly basis.
27 / 12 = 2.25 absorption rate
Seventh, you search the numbers of like-kind homes that are currently on the market (for sale) at your RPA Price Point of $539,000.
6 Properties are currently on the market
Eighth, divide this number by the absorption rate to determine how many months it will take to absorb what is currently for sale at your RPA Price Point of $539,000.
6 / 2.25(AR) = 2.67 month supply
Published: June 23, 2006 realtytimes.com
Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.
Get it? Yeah me too! Call me if you have questions.
Virginia Lord
Raising the Bar in Real Estate
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