The C Team

Archive for the ‘Real Estate Info’ Category

We got late notice about a First Time Buyers Seminar in conjunction with USDA and their loan programs.  It was a wonderful idea, our office participated with several other real estate offices, along with several mortgage companies.  It would have been a great seminar except for the blizzard that blew into town yesterday, attendance was obviously down.  There were a couple of families braved the horrible roads to look at what is available.

One of the great things that we learned was that the Cedar City Housing Authority offers free loan modification assistance.  This is a great free help to those in a bad position with their mortgages.  They told us that they have been having pretty good success with their clients, and it is free.  

This is some great information that I thought that we should share with everyone.

I was wasting time last night, okay it was late by I was satisfying my morbid curiosity watching “Forensic Files” on Court TV.  It was one about a lady whose skeleton was found in North Carolina, they were having a hard time identifying the remains.  Anyway the jurisdiction in North Carolina couldn’t afford to buy some expensive software to manipulate the photos of the skull and match it with a photo of the suspected victim of this horrific crime. 

They had a Professor at UNC download some free software from the internet and did the comparison, while it wouldn’t stand up in court, he was able to show that it was probably the victim.  While watching the show, I missed the reason that they couldn’t obtain DNA from the skeleton.

Anyway my point to this long narrative is to say that the software that he downloaded from GIMP.com.  I downloaded it this morning, it is free and their website compares itsself with Adobe Photoshop.  I have been busy enough this morning that I haven’t played with it yet.  (I am now waiting for some clients.)  I just figured even if it was half as good as Adobe Photoshop, the price still makes it worthwhile!

Darcy and I each participated in the virtual REBar camp today, what a great experience!  It is at least 3 hours in any direction for us to participate in a camp like this, so having it online was great.  I really enjoyed learning from great teachers like Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy.  There were so many others, but his class on blogging was just outstanding! 

The only mistake that we made was that we went to the office to listen to/participate in the camp, and there are a lot of distractions that take place in an office setting!  Other than that, I can see why everyone raves about REbar camps, they are great!  I can only imagine what a live setting would be like!  It was a great experience and I thank those who put it on.  I can honestly say, let’s do it again, and real soon!

I sat down and figured out our October Sales Statistics for the month of October.  We Had 49 properties sell, the gross sales amount in dollars was $7,856,705.  Not bad, that is up from 25 sales in the previous month.  The Original sales price combined of the sold listings was $8,699,681.  The Final listing price was $7,782,207.  

That meant that we were doing a better job of listing properties correctly, as the sales price was 89% of the Original Listing price.  The Sales price was at 94% of the Final listing price.  Our average Days On Market is 169 days, with the shortest time on Market being 16 days. 

I know that I should have put this information in a graph form, but I spent a lot more time gathering the data than I had intended and am getting pressed for time before an appointment.  I hope that this trend will continue, I think that for at least this month, November, we will see a lot of deals as people were trying to get deals done prior to the end of the stimulus money.

I am hoping that the extension granted will mean that business won’t drop off too much during the winter months!  I don’t know, we normally slow down down during the winter months.  Just so that buyers know, it is a great time to buy a home, our inventory is still very good and it isn’t too bad to move in the winter, I know we have done it a couple of times. 

We have enjoyed a really nice couple of weeks weather wise.  Yesterday and today we have been receiving snow flurries with some small accumulation here and there.  I am sure that Brian Head will probably get 6 to 10 inches out of this storm.  It isn’t all that unusual to have snow at the end of October in the valleys, I can remember a year in Northern Utah where we had 6 or 8 inches before Halloween.  That wasn’t a great Trick or Treating year!

That is one thing to remember about this area, we do have all four Seasons.  Autumn will come back for a couple of more weeks after this storm system clears out.  We will then have Winter, which is not my favorite season. Winter typically lasts from the end of November to at least Mid February.  We will have storms come through, but usually things begin to warm up in February.  We generally have a week of really cold temperatures.  (At least for here they’re cold, there are many places much, much colder.)  This is generally the first week or so in January when the temperatures hover in the zero degree range.

Springs here are generally nice, we will still have snow storms come through the area which typically will still drop a few inches of snow, then once they clear out it usually warms back to Spring like weather.  The really warm temperatures will generally begin around the end of April to the middle of May, with Summer like Temperatures usually by Memorial Day.  

Summers are usually hot and dry, temperatures will be in the mid 90’s most of the Summer, again there is generally a week to 10 days of temperatures over the 100 degree mark.  Then by mid September, the heat begins to subside and cooler nights and pleasant days are the norm.

This is a very general and brief over view of the weather here in Cedar City.  This is not carved in stone, this past summer was mostly cool and wet until nearly August for example.  There is a joke around here that if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes it will change.  Another thing about Cedar City is that we are near the mountains, which means that we do enjoy winds and breezes almost everyday.  

Another to remember if you are going into the mountains, be like the Boy Scouts and Be Prepared!  Good tires and in the winter tire chains are often required if you don’t have a 4 Wheel drive vehicle with good tires.  Another thing to keep in mind is that these are mountain roads, and because of the danger are not plowed at night, when in doubt, wait until morning if there are storms in the area.  Because of our elevation even the Interstate can become very treacherous to drive.  

I wrote this blog to give all of our friends an idea of what generally to expect, it is a very beautiful area, but the weather can be bad at times.  Any way I hope that this helps you plan your trips to our area, we do honestly have something for almost everyone because of our 4 Seasons, so come on up and enjoy!

I have mentioned that we were at the UAR Convention last week.  This was a blessing for me as my older brother lives near where the convention was held in Midway, Utah.  It was great to visit with him, he had both of his knee joints replaced in May, and I haven’t had a lot of time to visit since then.  He suffered an economic downturn as he was off healing, the shop where he was the head mechanic and shop foreman was closed by the parent company.

He is a Diesel Mechanic, and worked for a Moving and Storage Company for 21 years.  They decided, (foolishly, in my opinion) that it was better for them to outsource the service and mechanic work for the company.  It wasn’t as though it was a large shop, my brother and 2, sometimes 3 other mechanics.  They were all given a small severance package and let go.

My brother is in his late 50’s, he indicated that this is the first time in 40 years of working as a full time employee in various fields that he has used the unemployment insurance that he has paid into all that time.  I will admit that I have never used this either, but as Darcy and I were talking about the situation, Darcy commented that would be an interesting indicator of the economic circumstances.   How many people are using umemployment insurance for the first time in their careers? 

To me, that would really indicate what the economy is doing, there are professions that are somewhat cyclical and unemployment insurance would have been used much more frequently than other professions.  Farm workers, for example.  Anyway, just something that I had to stop and think about this morning.