Monday, March 19, 2007

Is This a Good Time to Purchase?

"What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate."

Donald Trump


Recently on Active Rain Caleb Mardini posted - Why Buy? This was an interesting topic, and this post got me to think. David Podgursky made an excellent point the cost of not buying a home and his advice was:

"If you're buying a home - buy a house you LOVE. If you have this many regrets causing you to keep from purchasing then maybe you just don't LOVE the house. Don't, though, let a good deal or the right house slip away from you because you're betting on the market. Know what is controllable and what isn't. The right house could disappear as quickly as it came on the market and you could miss out on the right property while trying to figure out the right time to make your move".

Awhile back I wrote Help - My Crystal Ball is Cloudy over at Active Rain, and in it I wrote " There are many factors that affect us all across the country - Baby Boomers, Generation X, the economy, insurance, taxes and disasters to name a few. How they will affect us will be dependent on many local things. But there are things that point out that now is the time to buy. Mortgage rates, lifestyle decisions, and the like play into the decision as importantly as are we heading for an upswing in prices. You may purchase in the downswing while prices go a bit lower, but you run the risk of higher interest rates later on. If you are planning on keeping the property for long term, this setback is temporary. If you are too slow you could miss out on that perceived "better opportunity" only paying more and with a higher interest rate. Because that is also a possibility!"

As Realtors we are here to assist buyers to achieve the American Dream - Home Ownership. That might be to relocate to a new location, which might mean selling their current property, helping them find another qualified agent in the new area. As your Real Estate Professional we have to be part Banker, part Parent, in addition to helping you find a home. We have to wade through the massive amount of information that is now available to the consumer. With Web 2.0 that information has expanded tenfold. No wonder the consumer is sitting on the fence. It was a lot of information to process when you were looking at two or three neighborhoods. Now people are exposed to a lot of extra information, information that may not be relevant to your specific situation or area. The Consumer gets stuck in analysis paralysis.

A perfect example of the information over-load and how things can get lost is Allison Stewart's post What to do when cloudy ball buyers demands fall of deaf ears the day after the one I posted. In it she talks about affordable housing, or the lack thereof. She brought up an important point. When I commented on it, the word passion was there for me to pass the human test. It started me thinking, as Realtors we need to be passionate about our areas, we need to be promoting it and sharing our knowledge of the area. We need to create the reason for being in these communities!

If all that is out there is the negative why would someone want to purchase? I am not saying that we should lie about these communities, but let us focus on the good. The media seems to do well enough on the negative. Remember that is what gets ratings and newspapers sold. It makes great headlines, remember corrections and retractions are usually buried somewhere in the paper. The media forgets that Realtors advertise with them, and what they are doing is hurting us and ultimately the consumer.

Mark Eibner wrote a great post about Crystal Balls his advice in the market if for the Colorado area, but he probably says it best for the whole country "For those of us that have been in this business long enough, we know that there is no such thing as a crystal ball. The only thing that is certain for sure is change. Change will be the biggest news item for the next five years. The Crystal ball says get ready to CHANGE."

How are you going to react to the changes in the Celebration Florida market? What changes in your plan are you going to make?

How are you going to be one of the winners this year?


For more detailed inforamtion about Wood Frame Homes,
Please give me a call, I would be happy to share my research with you!


Call me today to start the process of
purchasing your Celebration Florida Area Home!
Colleen Kulikowski, Realtor
Keller Williams - Celebration
email me
(407) 288-0017

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