Buyers buy when they feel the prices are right, or in this case, have bottomed out. I think they’ve bottomed out.
Location: Atlantic County
Dateline: 01.30.12
People either look at me as they shake their head with pity and say: “Oh, you’re in real estate," or ask, “What’s the market like?” They keep asking, because they already know the answer: It stinks. Nothing about real estate is like it should be, but it’s better than you might think.
After a few year hiatus, I returned full time to real estate in the fall. I’m ahead of most having owned my own office with more than 35 years experience. I am currently in the middle of negotiating several offers. Everything from a three-percent down deal to two others for cash. So the experience is broad, and all over the county. Here’s the market I touch everyday.
People are frustrated, both buyers and sellers. There is interest and pent up demand, but there aren’t strong enough economic indicators to assuage fears, and many of those fears are intangibles coming from within people. People who are worried about their jobs, their businesses, and the future of the market.
The beach towns of Ventnor, Margate and Longport, always an anomaly, continue as such. Prices are down, way down from last time I was selling full time, but way up from the first home I ever sold for $18,500.
My office is located in Margate. The median price of a home last year in Margate was $500,000 (meaning half the 141 homes that transferred in 2011 sold above that figure and half sold below). The average price was $683,202. That’s a heck of a lot of money. Still, compared to the peak, it’s cheap. You can find a small house for $300,000 - $350,000. A few years back you couldn’t find a buildable lot for that price.
Since the New Year, I’ve sat four open houses in properties I’ve listed. Each had buyers come through. Overall e-mail and phone inquiries have increased. Now, we have to wait to see if deals come in or if folks are testing the waters for next year. There is no urgency for a summer home. Buyers buy when they feel the prices are right, or in this case, have bottomed out. I think they’ve bottomed out.
March 2010, a construction crane next to my apartment complex broke lose and we were forced to evacuate in a door to door sweep.
As I read through the close to 100 posted comments, thoughts came to mind about our responsibility as citizens, Atlantic City residents, and Americans.
Some year-round residents have empty pockets from money needed. Tourist dollars flow through many hands. They are spent over and over again by locals paying their bills. We need to bring back the old Atlantic City where we concentrated on spreading affluence and money everywhere.
Congress is considering legislation that would mostly stop lending to any homebuyer who does not put down 20 percent toward the purchase of their home. QRMs (Qualified Residential Mortgages) are being argued by the FDIC as a solution to the weak housing market.
"Investments which finance dreams are those same loans that built our nation."
Originally built as a HUD project, and now called The View, the building was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers between the years of 1959 to 1962. Shaped like a half circle, the idea was to deflect hurricane-strength winds in its’ curve and turn them back to sea.
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