Race for the Cure

The Race for the Cure is coming up on May 16th. I'm forming a team to help raise money. My sister-in-law is a survivor and many other women I know have dealt with this disease. Please consider joining my team or making a donation. The links for both are on the front page of my website - www.MontanasMostWantedProperty.com. Thanks for your help!

Market Report

I added a new section to my website - Market Report. It consists of 2 different sections, Market Update and Market Statistics. The Market Update provides information from ERA Mortgage on what's happening with banks and mortgages. Market Statistics provide monthly and yearly information on what's going on in the Helena market. So stay in the know and check out my website.

Rates

Interest rates are still right around 4.6. The banks are telling me that they probably won't go much lower, so start taking advantage of them while you can. Also, take advantage of that first time home buyer's tax credit. $8000 is a lot of money no matter who you are!

Home Show

Wow, what a weekend! The Home Show was a great success! We received a number of really great leads and got our name out there everywhere. People are excited to buy again and with the interest rates and the first time home buyer programs, it looks like that's going to happen for a lot of people.

We also met with several vendors that are very excited to partner with us and become Select Consumer Service vendors.

More good news

Wow, what a crazy day. The rates are still down and people are ready to buy! There was a lot of positive news out there and many people are saying the bottom has already hit and we're on the way up. Yay!

Got a new listing yesterday and a new one today. A recreational piece for $25,000 and a single family for $164,000. Call me for information on them.

Stop by the home show this weekend at the fairgrounds. I'll be working there on Saturday. Have some popcorn and check out some of our featured listings. They're expecting a lot of people!

Today 03-25-09

Well we had great news nationally. Existing home sales were up in February 4.7% and inventory fell slightly. New home sales were also up more than expected.

Things have really been picking up around here, although houses in town have always done pretty well. We'll keep watching!

The bottom

I just got a Reuters alert saying that existing home sales were up 5.1% in February. Of course that's nationwide. Helena has been a better market than most. Unfortunately too many people listed to the national news. I ran statistics for the past couple of years and month to month comparisons also. This is what I found. February of 2008 had 56 residences sold compared to 35 this year. The average sales price was also down from $234,132 in Feb 2008 to $200,693 this Feb. Average days on market were up about 29 days. In January 2008 49 were sold with an average price of $234,225 with 163 days on market compared to January 2009 with 37 sold, $170,346 average price and 166 days on market. Now let's compare 2008 total year to 2007. In 2007 there were 992 residences sold with an average sales price of $219,487 with 101 days on market. In 2008 there were 778 sold with an average price of $211,194 with average days on market of 125. While 2008 was down, none of the decreases are huge. So if you're waiting for the bottom, you've already missed it. Funny thing about this type of market. People are hesitant to buy in this kind of market and rush to buy when its a seller's market. Not sure why that is, but that's when they miss out on the deals.