Hood River Real Estate and Columbia Gorge Real Estate

Social media is quite the darling thing these days isn’t it? Has anyone figured out how to use it for Real Estate effectively? (Check out the Video)

Sure, in some big cities, I even saw a guy in vancouver who has a facebook page and all his clients fanned him…..yeah, like that will work out here.

How should social media platforms work out here in Real Estate? Here’s what I’ve been working on, and so far, it seems to be working ok for me……

1. Don’t use FB for Business, especially Real Estate business! It just doesn’t work. Far better is linked in.
2. I’ve been using twitter personally, (mauim) and I just started to real estate tweet. (copperwesthr) I can see some great use there, but I’ve not revved it up yet.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten……Social media seems like a great tool for this marketplace, it’s just how it’s deployed that matters. What really matters, though, is that going forward, you have to be conversant with Social Media platforms and networking to be effective in this day and age. A simple cell phone isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Stay Tuned!

Get Ready! More laws coming down the pipe! (watch the video or read below)

HERA (The Housing and Economic Recovery Act) has amended the Truth in Lending act. This matters to everyone because it will change the way we all do business. The way deals will get put together will change, and it will put people in a tailspin if they aren’t ready.

Here’s the highlights:

1. Requires timeline of 7 business days from receipt of initial mortgage disclosure to closing
2. Requires Three business days from receipt of appraisal to closing
3. If the rate on your loan changes by more than 1/8th of a percentage point, a new lending disclosure is required, and there is an additional 3 day timeline.

There are other elements to the amendments to the Truth in Lending act, but these are the most impactful. If you look at it from a consumer protection framework, this makes sense. That is, of course, if you believe that the banks were entirely the bad guys, which I can tell you from experience, is not entirely the case.

This Month in the View video:

Market picked up, only to be shelved by a spike in interest rates

5% is still a great rate, but since payment is so closely tied to purchase power, there has been some struggling to get once easy deals through.

The May Market Action report shows that our inventory is down in Hood River Real Estate. I question the trend because it feels busier for us, but June will probably clarify things

There’s an apparent average home price reduction in houses in Hood River, but the data is more a function of the type of homes being sold, not the prices. Things are clustering around the $250,000 to $300,000 price range because that is what is easy to get through under a normal “conforming loan”

However, price reductions are starting to make an appearance in Hood River Real Estate for this Season. Customers are preemptively dropping prices to make sure their houses sell this Summer. For example, the Frankton Estate dropped 10% to make sure it was the best in class for this price range. Slightly ominous sign, but coupled with the lower inventory, I’m hoping we’ll get down to 10 or 9 months worth of inventory here before too long.