We Are Weather Driven!

2818 Mount Pleasant

1890 home in historic area south of downtown, hear So. Broadway. 3+ bedrooms, historic feel. Listed at $130,000.

You know, we as humans are not much different from our brother animals. Many animals in these midwestern, northern hemisphere areas, hibernate for the winter. The longer I'm in sales, the more that I notice that we humans do the same things. We come out for a bit around the holidays to purchase the necessary Holiday and Christmas presents and then back into the holes of our homes and work we go...trying not to come out unless necessary...that is, until spring and the trees bloom and the flowers pop and our minds turn to ... all things outdoors.





Real estate is always affected by weather in a buyers market. As soon as we get a good cold spell, or worse, snow or ice, we notice that buyers burrow. But, let a warm day come about and bam! phone ring, people look. Time to buy. Warm weather is tied to our pocket books and hardwired in our brains. Something about warmth makes us want to buy.





The funny thing is that this cold snowy weather also brings about greater bargains from sellers. Not many sellers want to be on the market during the winter months...not now, at least, during a buyers market. So, you can find more bargains out there and more sellers willing to deal this time of year. It's another reason why not to wait...and to buy!





I read a great article in the Broker Agent Professional magazine. It was entitled Why Buy? And here's a quote from it: Buy because the city heat (cold) is just about to make your head explode, and cool lake breezes are better than warm alley breezes any day of the week. Buy because you'll walk a little taller if you live on that street where the maples high overhead reach across the street and shake hands with each other. Above all, buy because you want a better lifestyle for you, for your friends, and for your family, and the purchase you're contemplating allows you to more easily obtain that lifestyle.





If you need fundamentals to buy, realize that interest rates are unbelievably low and inventory is monumentally high. Realize that whether or not the market creates an identifiable bottom, you're not going to know when it does. if you're hoarding cash hoping for market bottom balloons to be released from the pink unicorns soaring in the sky, I hope you have fun swimming and boating in your money vat like a decidedly uncartoonish Scrooge McDuck. Just buy because of the 320 months of summer we're all hoping for out of lie, way too many of them have already been wasted worrying about 5% market swings, and 5% interest rates."





Until next time!

St. Louis by the Zip Codes!

4520 West Pine, Unit 2

Listed at $317,000

2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths

Located in the very heart of the Central West End on a very desirable street, this bright and airy condo unit is very economical with a very stable and wise condo board. Walk everywhere! Two car garage below the unit with a workshop! And a private deck off the living room. A MUST see!

St. Louis is a city of neighborhoods! Every small neighborhood a community in its own strength with its own history and its own flavor. Many and diverse. And that's why all of us here at Sandy Bender, REAL ESTATE enjoy selling and living in the city as much as we do. From the Scrubby Dutch neighborhoods to the Bosnian Bevo Mill Community to the Asian influence on South Grand. All distinct. All fun. All wonderful!

Over the past three or four years, I have been keeping track of St. Louis sales by zip code, since each zip code in the city is different.

Fourteen years ago, when the city was just coming to the end of the then existing Buyers market, home sales slowed during the holiday season and started up again in the spring. Also, during that time period, you couldn't sell a two bedroom, let a one a one bedroom home, for your life! The holiday slow down has come about, I'm wondering if the sales of two or one bedroom homes will follow soon. As soon as the market became a sellers market, all of that changed. Sales zoomed right through the holidays and you couldn't keep a one bedroom on the market, either!

I do a report every two months entitled The Bender Report. The report looks at the St. Louis city area by zip code and focuses on listings, pendings, sales and sale prices. If you would be interested in having this report emailed to you, I'd be happy to do that. Just email me at sandy@sandybender.com and I'll send you a copy.

For now, I'll leave you with two interesting facts:

1. According to the New York Times and their article focusing on Renting vs. Buying in 55 metropolitan area, St. Louis is ranked in an area that it is smarter to Buy at this time than to Rent. Their rule of thumb after looking at rent ratios (the price of a typical home divided by the annual cost of renting that property), is that you should often buy when the ratio is below 15 and rent when the ratio is above 20. If it's between 15 and 20, lean toward renting, unless you find a home you really like and expect to stay there for many years. St. Louis' ratio is 14.6. We have excellent home prices!

2. In the Central West End, which is where our office is located here in St. Louis City, a vibrant urban neighborhood near Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University as well as St. Louis University, home prices in this historic area have dropped by 2% and have gone to about $73 per square foot. The condo market here is very, very strong and is at a 6 month Inventory rate, which indicated a cusp of buyer/seller market, leaning again to a sellers market. The price per square foot of condos here has dropped again to $191 per square foot, but the overall price of condos here has increased by 3%. Our condo market has remained strong and our overall sales market in the 63108 sales market, has remained, for the most part, pretty stable.

It remains a great time to buy!

2010 St. Louis Real Estate Overview

4230 Olive in the Central West End's Gaslight District
$410,000
3 bedrooms with a main floor master bedroom, 2.5 baths, attached garage, open kitchen
Won Best Home and Best Design in City Rama six years ago, once again available for purchase!

Real estate in St. Louis took an interesting turn this past year. Having been in the business of selling real estate for the last 23 years, I'm astounded, now at this holiday season, to once again see the market I last saw 14 years ago in South St. Louis. The market at that time "died" around the holiday season. It was a Buyers Market. We appear to have once again become a Buyers Market, no longer on a cusp, teetering back and forth.

And all of that is logical. The city of St. Louis is a city of Neighborhoods: north, south, midtown, downtown: Soulard, Benton Park, St. Louis Hills, Hyde Park, Central West End, just to name a few. During this economic downturn, the hardest hit areas were north and south. Midtown held its own because of its close proximity to Barnes Hospital complex (our largest employer), Washington University and its Medical School and St. Louis University. At one time, students, interns, residents, doctors at one time still found it a wise idea to purchase a home in near the hospital and the bio-corridor. Today, we are seeing many more folks looking for rental property. Waiting until the future shows a more favorable arena for purchase and profit.

When the Buyers market of 14 years ago first began, the quiet family neighborhoods of south St. Louis, including St. Louis Hills and the Southwest Garden Neighborhoods as well as Lindenwood Park were "discovered" by the rest of the metropolitan area. I overheard in a prestigious Ladue office, two agents talking about St. Louis Southwest Gardens being "THE" place to find property for buyers. And indeed the race was on. Property was fought after with multiple contracts. We often remarked that you could sell a "one bedroom" home back then just as easily as a three bedroom home. Everyone wanted to buy. Interest rates didn't matter. We had to buy a house back then. And we fought over them and home prices rose, and rose and rose. I wondered where the top was.

When the market began to fall, not only north St. Louis city but also south St. Louis city took a deep tumble. Prices fell. No one bought.

Well, as the Central West End held on and maintained, and has now turned more toward rental, the good news is that South St. Louis is coming back. As it did 14 years ago, I believe that South St. Louis will again lead the way into the St. Louis revival of the real estate market. Things are looking up. I am very optimistic about the future St. Louis real estate market. As the coasts are beginning to recover, I think we are going to see a spring market that will rebound.

Real estate is still your best investment. And NOW is the time to buy. Make 2011 YOUR year for investing your money wisely as a buffer for the future.

What Have I Seen

2253 Klemm

I was out showing houses today and ran across a house for which someone thought they had a bright idea. Nicely done. Old historic. Kept most of the old woodwork and baseboards. Nice layout and floorplan. Did the old painted basement floor to make it look cleaner. But, the master bedroom was turned into a suite by adding a master bath --- up a couple of steps and behind it. And that's alright. I can understand the need to run plumbing under the floor to add the bath. But, someone didn't think out the location very well.





The bath is located behind the wall on which the bed is located and above the bed is the heating/a/c vent. Well, on the other side of this wall is the shower and above the shower is another vent for heating/a/c.





Well, it reminds me of other multi-families that I've seen where the owners thought they would put a/c in one unit but not in both. So, they put the a/c in the second floor and not the first. Well, when the a/c is turned on, the cool air goes up and makes the downstairs walls sweat, causing wet walls on the first floor. Same thing happens when the tenant on the first floor doesn't turn on their a/c but the upstairs folks do.





I've seen lots of attempts to make property updated. In one house, there was a carport to the left of the home. Well, when you went into the basment of this ranch style home, the owner had opened a hole through the foundation wall to get under the carport so they could make a space to have more storage. They dug out under the carport slab. Only problem now is that you've got a foundation wall with a hole in it - compromising the strength of that wall.





How about the house with the master bedroom on the second floor and the whole floor turned into a master bedroom suite -- with a bathroom. But, the only problem is the bath room had no walls. The bathroom was up two steps (running plumbing underneath it), and the tub, vanity and toilet were in full view of the bed! No matter how much you love someone, that's a little much.





How about the home with the waste stack replaced with plastic and held together with duct tape?





Or how about the home with the indoor swimming pool off of the kitchen and a deck on top of it. Not only was the moisture affecting the ceiling/floor of the deck so that the deck was saggin inward but also, the pool room and the kitchen all had mold everywhere. Too much moisture and not enough venting. And...a pool off of your kitchen.





Or how about the house with a chunk of the basement foundation cut out, and moss growing up the backyard wall all the way up to the roof? on the brick and in the tuckpointing.





I guess the premise behind this blog is that I've seen EVERYTHING and if you are thinking of buying a home, condo, investment property, don't think you know it all. Have a building inspection done and not just a general building inspection, have every kind of inspection done you can think of that might apply: termite, radon, lateral sewer are most common, but there are also structural engineers, lead paint, mold, septic and well water, to name just a few more of many. Don't get caught with a home that will cost you lots of dollars in the future.

Today's Real Estate Market

224 N. Newstead in the Central West End

Lots of people ask me just how the real estate market is doing. Most expect me to say that I've put my house up for sale and I'm moving out of the city to some small island where I can start a career in sea shell selling to small beach shops. Not true. Although the idea of warm weather in the middle of January is most tempting!

2009 proved to be the best real estate year this company has ever seen! A surprise to most people. What has driven our business this past year? Several things:



Because of the number of foreclosurs and short sales, there are a large number of wonderful homes at extremely good prices out there and the investor is having a field day! There are truly some wonderful bargains to be had and many folks are taking advantage of that. What does an investor want with all of these homes? Rental and rehab. All of which spell money in their pockets. Investment is about 40% of our business right now.



The second purchaser is the first time home buyer. Because of the extension in the $8,000 tax credit, the first time buyer who was not able to purchase last year has until April 30 to write a contract this year. About 40% of our business last year was the first time buyer. Anxious to take advantage of the credit, the months of October and November were crazy with buyers trying to just find a house before the deadline. I'm sure this March and April will prove to be the same.



And 20% of our business was the regular, normal buyer. Now our office is located in the heart of the city of St. Louis, right in between our largest employer, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and two large university's, St. Louis University and Washington University ( and both of their Medical Schools), and so we have a steady stream of students and professors who are looking to move close to work/school. With the Central West End being the most densely populated area of the city, we are usually very busy.



I'm interested to discover what will happen after April 30. With spring/summer normally being pretty busy in real estate, if the economy is to get back on its feet, on its own, without the falseness of government infused help, we will see a normal pick up of buyers and sellers after April 30. If the real estate market is only busy because of the false economic push of the tax credit, the market will take a dramatic slowdown after the deadline. I'm hoping the market continues to grow.



Now St. Louis has never truly been hit very hard by the downturn. Our city had its slowdown and markets fell off a cliff, but on the whole, the markets are coming back very nicely. The average sale price is lower than it was, but that's to be expected. I see St. Louis returning to a normal market again within five years.



Thank you for your past, present and future business. We love to sell St. Louis!

The Recent Market

Our small office in the Central West End of St. Louis city, (where the flowers are always large and in full bloom, the skies are always blue and the bugs are very, very tiny,) has been averaging at least 6 closings a month. The city of St. Louis has been doing a very nice recovery over the debaucle of the past several months. Prices are rising thoughout the city, selling times are decreasing, listings are clearing out while pending contracts are staying steady...all spells a good real estate market.

The midwest, in particular St. Louis, has always been known for its centrist, common sense, mentality. Its not surprising that, should the rest of the country follow the midwest lead, the nation is being lead by the midwest back into a recovery. However, we still have a long winter season ahead of us. And so far, no word of extending the $8,000 tax credit.

I wanted to talk a bit about the last couple of closings we've experienced in this office. They both pose interesting problems that were solved.

The first closing was for a first time buyer who was getting his purchase from a grant he is being given for research at Washington University. The problem in this closing was certainly not the loan. No problems there. The problem was actually in the seller of the property, who was facing foreclosure if he didn't sell this home. The seller was a rehabber. He did nice work, but there were things that needed to be taken care of that he was or wasn't aware of when he did work on the property. One was a break in a lateral sewer line, the second was an electric box that had mixed tabs, and the third was a suspect roof. The seller, facing foreclosure, didn't have a lot of money to repair. So, the electrician was not a problem, the seller had a qualified electrician do the work. The second, the lateral sewer repair, was a little tricker. A normal repair like that will cost around $7,000 to complete. I found a small contractor who would do it for $2,800. But, the listing agent found an even smaller contractor who did the work for $1,800. Moral: bid out the work. As long as a qualified contractor does the repair and he guarantees it, your buyer should be fine. Price is always negotiable.

The third problem was the roof. The building inspector said the roof was shot and showed several photos. But the home owner said that the roof was five years old. Now what? Well, we asked for a qualified roofer to examine the roof and give an opinion. The seller had a roofer come out who simply said there was life left in the roof. To this day, that roofer has not returned a phone call inquiring how much life or addressing the six suspect spots where there were actual holes in the roof. As we did our walk thru prior to closing, we asked a local roofer to take a look at the roof. He said the roof was maybe about 10 to 15 years old and that there were indeed six spots where the "under roof" was pushing through the top roof, creating holes and that was the cause for concern because it could leak at any time.

We refused to close. And submitted a mutal release. The seller gave us $2,000 towards roof repair and we closed. (I forgot to mention that the seller also removed the stove and refrigerator which were supposed to be left behind.)

Hold your ground if you are right.

The second closing would not have happened as Wells Fargo told the buyers that there was no problem with their loan and then the day of closing denied the loan! That left our buyers in a legal lurch. Because they did not have a denial of loan by loan commitment date, they were obligated under the contract to purchase. Jumps in the hero! Heartland Bank! Who, because they are a local bank and follows FNMA guidelines instead of the stricter guidelines self-imposed by other lender, closed the loan in two weeks at a whole point lower in interest rate than Wells. Our hero...on many fronts.

Watch your lender and stay in contract.

That's all for now. Until next real estate time. I'm always happy to hear your real estate stories. Please comment and let me know what's going on in your real estate world.

Groans

Oh, why does this business have to be sooooo hard! By the way, this photo is of a very nice three bedroom condo in the Shaw neighborhood. Priced at $129,900. A steal!

Well, I had one closing this week that was like pulling teeth. Wells Fargo kept putting restrictions on the buyer -- I need this, now I need that. Oy vey. Well, after she decided that she was going to switch lenders -- after they demanded that the condo docs be rewritten to remove a first right of refusal (what condo board is going to do that for one sale, huh?), all of a sudden they close -- after they denied her the loan.

Well, Heartland Bank here in St. Louis was willing to do the loan and could have closed it in a week. But, Wells couldn't stand that thought, so they bumped out poor Evan and closed it. Yay, for the buyer in the Bankers Lofts. Boo for poor Evan who started the process and then got bumped and entirely neutral on Wells Fargo.

And then, there's the broken lateral sewer in the home on Connecticut. The seller says he doesn't have the money to fix the sewer line, the roof that was badly done and the electric box. But, my young buyer who is a research scientist in neuroscience at Washington University, doesn't have cash to put out and a lateral sewer and a roof and an electric box are all more than he can spend. So, we need 'em fixed!

Well, the other agent and I have given on commission and we've got the bids on work pretty low, so we're waiting to see where this goes. Poor Harry is out of a place to live by the 28th!

Then there's 707. Well, the buyer has decided that a foreclosed piece of property down the hall from his unit scares him and he's not sure he wants to buy the penthouse he's contracted on. Well, foks. Foreclosed properties cannot affect your value. Appraisers are not allowed to use them as comps unless the whole building is foreclosed and if they do -- then they need to adjust the value to market rate again. So, no argument there. Plus, foreclosed properties are only a reflection of the owner -- not a reflection of the property. So, that is supposed to close on the 18. We'll see. The buyer is thinking about it.

So, most days these days I go home with a headache and get up in the morning with a tight chest nervous about the days dealings. But then, you get a compliment and some business coming down the pike from an attorney in Denver and -- everything is alright again.

The nature of the business. And I love it!