kaulat

Actually, this will encompass two weeks and as you will see, nothing much happened over the Thanksgiving weekend. Things are slowing down, houses are being taken off the market for the winter, people are settling in for the holiday season. HOWEVER! I still have buyers looking for homes, and as I've told them, people who put their houses on the market in the winter know that only those truly looking, not thinking about looking but really ready to buy, go out in the winter cold. It's a great time to list - fewer homes for competition, real buyers, and if your home has that cozy, warm feel it can be easily demonstrated. So list, please, so my buyers can buy! Currently there are 120 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service. That's only 120 - the numbers are down. Of these, 35 are in the village and 31 are on the water. Six are new. One is a foreclosure, and a waterfront foreclosure at that but priced to sell around $300,000. Another is a...

Can you feel the heat? The Tasmanian real estate market is hot again, or as the reprobates at The Mercury called it, ' back on boil .' As you might note, one lone soul voiced his disgust, "What rubbish, sensationalistic yet again. Another promo?" Before you ask, no, I'm not 'Blah' of Hobart. Our friend Blah has a reason to be frustrated. The Mercury couldn't put a name to the story and it was completely void of any detail, except for one figure - sales were up 9.8% in October - that was the reason to be happy and why sellers are in for a ripping good time. Except The Mercury's report left out one little detail - sales over the year. While prices were behaving schizophrenically over the state, up 12% in Hobart over the year; down 19% in Burnie; up 32% in Ulverstone and down 6% in Devonport, sales were doing in one clear direction - down. Crashing 16% in Hobart; 40% in Burnie; 55% in Ulverstone and 25% in Devonport.  We can thank Sean Ford for the ho...

You have to hand it to the HIA, they really know how to rally the troops and get houses built. Sorry if you don't know what I'm talking about, but it was mid-March in WA, when the HIA offered the sobering news that a cardboard box (hopefully freezer sized) would be the home to many a Perth family by 2020.  Western Australia would be 72,500 (glad they got it down to a round number) houses short by 2020 and as it stood, they were already 17,400 short back in March.   It was clear something had to be done, and the HIA, in a benevolent act of kindness, rallied its WA members and they started putting up houses faster than a bunch of Jehovah Witnesses putting up a Kingdom Hall. Eight months later, problem solved. The Perth housing market was already oversupplied by 30 per cent, with prices sluggish. Unfortunately we also found out, courtesy of REIWA head, David Airey, this was bad news for buyers. Because in the Bizarro world of real estate, when interest rates cool things off...

Here's an oldie but goodie. In one of the maiden posts on this blog (don't forget the update ), I featured this property, sporting a mind-boggling $545,000 wishing price. That 2008 post prompted a decent amount of hate mail (including this idiot whose soaked-diaper logic I eviscerated in a response. The result? We never heard from him again). Although much has changed since 2008 (not the least of which is the disappearance of whack job bubble-deniers and wrong-headed realtors spitting their delusional venom on this blog) but what has not changed is my ability to ascertain "true values" based on the facts, the numbers, and good old fashioned common sense. At the time I said: At $454 per square foot and 260 days on market, this thing isn't going anywhere. Sometimes I get the feeling owners just aren't serious about selling. I don't care how close you are to Belmont Heights, in this zip code the median household income is $30,353. This house is probably sli...

Actually, this is the Thanksgiving edition! Happy Thanksgiving! Go make pies and devour them, chase the kids around the yard, watch out that the dog doesn't eat the gouda, and sleep in front of the fire (in the fireplace, please!) Visit with your guests and relatives, listen to them tomorrow on National Listening Day, buy the one great thing you want at half price - and enjoy your home or home-to-be dreams!

Another 150 jobs gone , the state's finances in the toilet , a Jurassic Western Australian MP calls us leeches while two uninspiring boneheads dribble out a mealy mouthed response - Sid Sidebottom  even offered up that Don Randall was a 'friend'. Thanks for the spirited defence, anyone with a modicum of backbone might have opened up a nuclear bomb on Randall, but maybe Sid really knows we're screwed and can't be bothered with the charade. Makes you proud to be Tasmanian. But we've got the most affordable capital city in the country - first home buyers can rejoice! And feel even prouder to be Tasmanian. Unless you bothered to check the figures... which reporter, Matt Smith, at The Mercury, didn't. Frankly, I don't know why Matt doesn't shut down his laptop, head north, and go and eat poo with the monkeys in the enclosure at the Launceston Park. "Oh look the HIA has sent us a press release, must breathlessly regurgitate figures for public con...

As terrible figures and anecdotal evidence mount on one side, on the other the excuse play book is being furiously scanned for any argument to calm the nerves. As auction figures continue to stink it up during the traditional kick arse spring selling season, we're now told this is actually a bad time for house sales - it's too close to Christmas, or maybe not, because someone sold a boat . Such is the dire state of the Gold Coast Bulletin. Like I've previously said, the spruikers aren't going to give up that easy, no matter how retarded they look. In fact, there's probably not a copy of Glengarry Glen Ross available in a video store across the country right now. Sales meetings are in full swing as every two-bit ex-shoe-salesman tries to perfect his best Alec Baldwin, if only to keep the lease on the BMW X5 through Christmas and maintain that shiny veneer of success to the relatives, reminding them what arseholes they are for renting. All this is a backdrop to the s...