My Triumphant Return to the World of Blogginess

So i'ts been about a hundred years or so since my last post. I went to blog rehab, refocused on my business and things couldn't be busier or better. So what better to post about than the great news that is Dallas real estate.

The PMI Group just released it's Summer 2008 U.S. Market Risk Index that "ranks the nation's 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) according to the likelihood that home prices will be lower in two years." At the top of the list is Riverside, CA which is most likely to experience a (continued) price decline 2 years from now. At the bottom of the list? Drum roll please...well, it's Ft. Worth and Arlington. But right above them is Dallas, Plano and Irving! So we're the 2nd least likely city in the nation to see a price decline in the next 2 years. Not too shabby. Here's the Top 10 "most riskiest cities".

Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario; CA
Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach; FL
West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach; FL
Orlando-Kissimmee; FL
Las Vegas-Paradise; NV
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater; FL
Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine; CA
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale; CA
Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall; FL
Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville; CA

And the Top 10 cities least likely to experience a price decline in 2 years:

Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord; NC-SC
Kansas City; MO-KS
Columbus; OH
Cincinnati-Middletown; OH-KY-IN
Indianapolis-Carmel; IN
San Antonio; TX
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown; TX
Pittsburgh; PA
Dallas-Plano-Irving; TX
Fort Worth-Arlington; TX

So quitcherbitchin'. Glad to be back!

Be Glad You Don't Live In These Cities

Forbes lists America's riskiest real estate markets. Read the full story here or just look at the pretty pictures.

Financial planners agree that houses will continue to be a poor investment

This headline was a quote from Kiplinger's Personal Financial Magazine in 1993. Terry Forsberg, a Realtor in Scottsdale, Arizona, compiled many quotes like this one in order to fight back against the newspaper and magazine scare headlines predicting the virtual demise of real estate across the country. I've copied his email below. This is a great dose of reality to those that are buying in to the negative hype. Take a look at how much homes have appreciated since 1996 across the country and tell me with a straight face that real estate is a poor investment. America's short sightedness is rampant and only the truly intelligent and edcuated people that have a sense of perspective about how real estate appreciates will come out on top. Will you be one of those people?

The Media’s Attack on the Real Estate Industry

The Media’s attack on the real estate industry is nothing new. For decades they have practiced doom and gloom tactics and in some cases have actually caused real estate prices to decline short term. The good news however, is each and every short term decline has been temporary and has been followed by long term price appreciation.

Today we are in the middle of a window of opportunity to purchase attractive real estate at the best prices we may see in our lifetime and to receive “incentives” on our purchases on top of it! The incentives, which are being offered by builders and developers, will not last any longer than they need to. Once the market begins showing signs of a rebound, these incentives will dry up.

Sit back and enjoy some of these dire media projections from yesteryear and allow them to mirror the wide variety of “fear factor” type “media” comments that exist today.

"The prices of houses seem to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline." - Time Magazine, 1947

"Houses cost too much for the mass market. Today's average price is around $8,000 - out of the reach for two-thirds of all buyers." - Science Digest, 1948

"The goal of owning a home seems to be getting beyond the reach of more and more Americans. The typical new house today costs about $28,000." - Business Week, 1969

"You might well be suspicious of 'common wisdom' that tells you, 'Don't wait, buy now… continuing inflation will force home prices and rents higher and higher.'" - NEA Journal, 1970

"The median price of a home today is approaching $50,000… Housing experts predict price rises in the future won't be that great.”- Nations Business, 1977

"The era of easy profits in real estate may be drawing to a close." - Money Magazine, 1981

"The golden-age of risk-free run-ups in home prices is gone." - Money Magazine, 1985

"Most economists agree…. [a home] will become little more than a roof and a tax deduction, certainly not the lucrative investment it was through much of the 1980's." - Money Magazine, 1986

"Financial planners agree that houses will continue to be a poor investment."- Kiplinger's Personal Financial Magazine, 1993

"A home is where the bad investment is." - San Francisco Examiner, 1996

"Home prices experience historic drop." - CNN Money.com, 2007

Each and every negative prediction by the Media was short-lived. At the time such predictions made it appeared real estate would never go up again in value - similar to the way it feels for many now. The good news is found in the few lines below. This time is no different than times past! FACT: National real estate values have appreciated

• 88% since 1996
• 340% since 1977
• 685% since 1969
• 2650% since 1948

Best Regards,

Terry

Atlanta Agent Quits Due to Bad Market...And She Sucks

Read here about an agent in Atlanta who just can't handle to strains of her current market. So I wrote a broker friend of mine in Atlanta asking him about the agent in the article. The article says

As for McMahon, the Atlanta agent, she still had a nice listing book and plenty of leads when she called it quits. In the end, unreliable buyers, surly sellers, and a lack of office camaraderie contributed to a decision that solidified when home sales and prices dipped. "I was waiting for a time to kind of swing out," she says. She's planning to become a high school science teacher.

My broker friend's response?

I looked her up in MLS - she's some ReMax agent who has closed 7 houses in 2 years (4 of which were new construction on the same street)... I'd quit too if I were her.

Hmmm. Doesn't sound to me like she had a "nice listing book and plenty of leads" with 7 sales over 2 years. I will be blogging soon about the abundance of Realtors just like this that in my opinion just get in the way of the good ones. They don't make $150,000 like they thought they would because hey, real estate is easy. Right? And then they disappear unnoticed in the middle of the night and return to their corporate jobs where they get their paychecks every 2 weeks. Good riddance I say.

RE: It's All About Perspective

I got this comment from a DREB reader about this post. Thanks to the anonymous poster because I appreciate this type of feedback and dialogue. Also thanks to him/her for clarifying the stats for me.

The 78% drop is volume, not price. Also, there may not be 60% appreciation in one year, but there are areas that have experienced very high appreciation. That makes the overall DFW market more difficult to analyze. There are some ZIP codes that will see depreciation.

I could not agree more that there are some zip codes that will see depreciation. I've said that many times and even on T.V. But I must disagree that some areas have seen "very high appreciation". First, what does that mean? And second, the only areas that will ever appreciate around 25% will be Preston Hollow and Park Cities and maybe some parts of Lakewood or around White Rock Lake. If any other area appreciates by this much then there are other forces at play such as big time developers scooping up land or apartments in a smaller city.

It's All About Perspective

I was just reading this post on Dallas Dirt where an ignorant real estate jockey think they know more about the real estate market than the experts. So I bristled up and needed to blog on this New Years Eve Eve.

I will be running year end sales statistics after the New Year so we can put all of the stories to bed and you can make up your own mind how "bad" 2007 was for real estate in Dallas. But I couldn't wait to post this from a great blog straight out of Irvine, CA that dedicates itself to sharing stories about sellers who are losing their asses. Here is basically the whole post.

ZIP
92602 $662,000 -78.4%
92603 $760,000 -31.3%
92604 $630,000 -31.3%
92606 $867,500 -56.0%
92612 $397,500 -14.3%
92614 $650,000 -63.6%
92618 $742,000 23.5%
92620 $892,250 -66.7%

This is the first median I have seen reported under $400K (92612).

I'm not sure if these are year-over-year statistics and there are some other numbers he includes in the post that I didn't know what to make of them. But that's not the point. Here's what you should take away from this.

1. Dallas will never see 60% percentages in appreciation year-over-year which means we will never see these percentages in depreciation as well.

2. Dallas is doing very well heading for a 5% appreciation overall for 2007. Compare that with the -78% depreciation of zip code 92602 in Irvine, CA. We need to be grateful and put our great real estate market in perspective.

3. There is a zip code in CA with an average sales price under $400K. Investment opportunity? I think so.

Am I off base in my thinking? Am I being overly optomistic? I dont' think so. I think I am being realistic. Most important, what do you think?

Well Are They Or Aren't They?

I stumbled across this blog entry out of Irvine, CA and found it to be well thought out and made a lot of sense in terms of explaining why we’ve recently seen such astronomical real estate highs - and lows - across the country. Although it goes against what I learned in the Power Pricing Course and is titled “Houses Should Not Be a Commodity”, I think it has some pretty good information. It has some intriguing graphs and charts predicting how all this will play out and is a pretty long read so here’s an excerpt:

“…once houses become an investment, the prices of houses begin to behave like an investment, and volatility is introduced into the system. You do not want houses to trade with the volatility of a commodities market. It causes more harm than good.”

He goes on to say,

“In a commodities or securities market, you simply cannot have a rally, unsupported by valuation measures, without a crash back to fundamental value. It is very clear the rally in house prices was not caused by a rally in the fundamental valuation measures of rent or income. This was documented in How Inflated are House Prices? and The Anatomy of a Credit Bubble. Many people forgot the primary purpose of a house is to provide shelter — something which can be obtained without ownership by renting. Ownership ceased to be about providing shelter and instead became a way to access one of the world’s largest and most highly leveraged commodity markets: residential real estate.”

Even though Dallas/Ft. Worth doesn’t see huge gains or losses like California, etc. I think there’s a lot of truth and value in what he’s saying and it’s definitely an interesting perspective. And I don’t think this guy is saying houses should be treated as a product either. He kind of invokes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by saying shelter has always been a basic human need and now we’re in a time where many people are treating it as a commodity and most are losing (just as they would if they tried to beat the stock market).

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Dallas Real Estate Market Summed Up

I used a quote a while back in one of my previous posts to explain much of what is going on in our current Dallas real estate market. But here's an equation I like that sums it up nicely.

Seller greed (uneducated sellers) leads to overpriced listings;

Overpriced listings don't sell because buyers don't perceive value;

When buyers don't buy, inventory increases;

Increased inventory over time leads to a decrease in sales prices.

You can take this to the bank. Buyers aren't stupid and don't really care about your "upgrades" if the price doesn't make sense to them. Like it or not, buyers are not willing to pay your asking price just because you "need to make $X amount of dollars" when selling your house. That is what we mean when we say "the market is telling you your house is not worth what you're asking". Buyers determine value and they are always out there looking. Serious buyers are educated about asking prices in the areas they want to buy. They will not waste their time making an offer on a home they feel is over priced.

And don't kid yourself by saying, "Buyers just aren't looking right now" because they very much are. They just aren't seeing value in the homes that are currently on the market. Realtors that understand this and the above equation and how it applies to their clients aren't whining about a terrible real estate market because they're too busy attending closings.

Again With The Quotes

Taken from this article these are great quotes and hold a lot of truth in today's real estate market. So pay attention!

A combination of lower prices, a large inventory and mortgage rates well below 7 percent offer buyers a terrific opportunity. Real estate truly is a long-term investment.

And,

It really doesn't matter if we're at the bottom [of the market cycle] yet. What matters is, can you find what you want? If you wait till it's a good market and everyone's buying, you won't have as much choice.

What I Learned in Class: Part II

Is real estate a product or a commodity? A product's price can be influenced by marketing and advertising and the seller sets the price. Think products that are advertised during the Super Bowl. A commodity's price is set by the buyer and no amount of marketing or advertising affects the price of a commodity. Think the price of gold, for example.

Realtors and our clients have been treating a home as a product instead of a commodity and unfortunately we are not doing ourselves any favors. Think about it. You bought a stock at $100/share and then 1 year later that stock is at $50/share. So you turn to me to sell it for you for $100/share. But since I have a fee you want me to add that fee on top of the price you want. So even though no one is buying this stock over $50/share you have asked me to sell it for you at $115/share. Does this make any sense? Not really. Even if I advertised your stock on TV during the Super Bowl no one will buy the stock over the market value. Why? Because it is a commodity and not a product.

This is exactly what is happening in our real estate market today. Sellers who bought at the height of the market and have only been in their homes for a year or two are putting their homes on the market at inflated asking prices to recoup their costs. The problem is that buyers are seeing right through this. There is no perception of value. And when there is no perception of value there will be no sales.

Many agents and sellers are saying "There just aren't any buyers out there looking!". This is a myth and here's why. If a home's market value is $500,000 and that home lists for $450,000 how long do you think it will stay on the market? Not long at all. This is because buyers know when a good deal presents itself. The bottom line is that there are just as many buyers out there today as there were in 2005. The only difference is that today's buyers don't see the value in many of the homes on the market because the sellers are asking inflated prices to recoup their costs. And where there is no perception of value there will be no sales.

To wrap up, seller greed is due to being uneducated about the current market conditions which leads to overpriced listings, which means few or little sales, which leads to increased inventory, and when inventory rises, consumers push prices downward. (Supply and demand)

So if someone is thinking of selling their home and they need to ask top dollar to get out of the home without paying money at closing, I would tell them to stay in the home until they can ask a fair price. Otherwise, they will not only be wasting their Realtor's time, they will be wasting their own time and effort showing the home for 6 months or longer.

What I Learned in Class: Part I

The purpose of the class I attended last week was to help agents price their client's listings according to the market they are in using classic economic supply and demand logic. When inventory trends downward, consumers push prices up. Which means the opposite is true or when inventory trends up, consumers push prices down. Eric Celeste over at Frontburner blogged this earlier today by way of the DMN and Steve Brown which is a prime example of real estate "experts" not giving the full picture. Here are a couple graphs taken from Trendgraphix using NTREIS statistics from all North Texas areas to form charts and graphs so people like me can look at pretty pictures and learn at the same time.






So what market are we in here in North Texas? According to these graphs the number of home sales is down from the previous year (6,583 in 11/06 to 5,157 in 11/07) but sales prices are up from $184K in November '06 to $204K in November '07. That is approximately a 10% rate of appreciation. Not too bad. But how can inventory be up AND prices rise? Hmmmm. So what does this mean and where are we headed? How do we interpret the fact that less homes are selling than the previous year, inventory is rising slightly yet home values are increasing?

No, we're not defying the laws of economics. I believe we are at a tipping point of sorts. The laws of economics do apply to our market but we don't fluctuate as much as other states including the outlandish California and Flordia real estate markets. With that said, inventory will continue to increase and prices may drop in certain areas due to overbuilding, short sales, foreclosures in the subprime market, etc. But I believe we will simply see a flattening market meaning prices won't go up, but they won't go down either. Inventory will not reach astronomical levels like the 29 months worth of inventory in some California cities.

In closing, these numbers are for ALL OF NORTH TEXAS AND NOT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD! Many areas in North Texas will see price appreciation and will always see price appreciation no matter what regional statistics say. So talk with a local Realtor who knows your neighborhood before you start spreading doom and gloom to your friends.

Hollywood Here I Come

After Wick Allison of D Magazine linked to my blog last Wednesday morning, I received a call from local news station CW33 asking if they could interview me for a real estate piece they were going to air that evening on their 9 o'clock news. I happily obliged and think it turned out well, if I do say so myself.

Click Here to watch the clip.

Barbie Not Exempt From Real Estate Woes Either

I doubt that my brother reads my blog but if he did he would be so proud of this link.

Hilarious!

Real Estate Stats You Need to Know

Recently, the President of my company, Sue Meyer, wrote a letter to the Dallas Morning News and the Star Telegram encouraging them to write more positive articles about our local real estate market. In this letter she uses statistics that some people will find startling. As you all know, I have been a consistent advocate for our local real estate market trying to make sure people understand Dallas/Ft. Worth is doing fine amidst all of the doom and gloom real estate markets around the country. “Real estate is local” has been my mantra for many months. What is happening in Florida has no effect on your home’s sales price. The only effect these stories have had is only on our psyche. So now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and show you those statistics Sue Meyer showed all 1,300 agents with Coldwell Banker Dallas/Ft. Worth.

2006 was the best year for real estate sales ever in the North Texas region with a sales volume of $18.2 billion dollars. If North Texas sales continue at their current pace (5% appreciation overall), even with the slight dip in sales numbers we have seen recently, we are still going to have the second best year for real estate sales ever! These are very impressive statistics but I have yet to see any of our local newspapers put these numbers in writing and into perspective. It is true our sales have declined. But is that really a bad thing when compared to the best year in the history of real estate? I don’t think so.

So now that you are adequately armed with knowledge, go tell your friends and family. The more people think our real estate market is doing poorly, it is only a matter of time before we make that a reality. We are our own worst enemy. So the next time someone tells you real estate in North Texas is headed South, quote these numbers taken straight for the North Texas Real Estate Information System. Not only will they be impressed, your local real estate market will thank you.

"Fish or Cut Bait" Among Other Things

Dallas is suffering from buyer paralysis. Home buyers have heard about the horrific real estate doom and gloom for so long that now they now are going to "wait it out". Question: What are you waiting for? Interest rates to rise? Inventory to get smaller. Which means not only less homes to choose from but possible multiple offer situations. This article from Realtytimes.com addresses this issue.

"...you have plenty of housing inventory from which to choose. Sales are slow, so sellers are offering thousands of dollars in incentives to tempt you to buy. Prices are flat. Interest rates are still historically low. Sounds to me like the buyer who has been waiting on the sidelines needs to get off the fence and pull out his checkbook."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Best Real Estate Quote of 2007

Beautifully stated. This quote by Michael Bizenov, president of Sterling National Mortgage, has Dallas written all over it.

"The sellers are still looking at the price their neighbor got two years ago, and the buyers are looking for the mythical 30 percent price cut [the media keeps ranting about] and they're both wrong," he said. "It'll take some time for the stalemate to end."

Preach on!

Realtors Are Our Own Worst Enemies

Now Realtors are giving into terrible real estate market hype which is REALLY bad! Check out this email I just got from an agent representing a buyer on one of my listings. They made an offer, we countered and now the buyer is having “second thoughts” about raising his offer. Here is the agent’s email to me:

I just don't think my client will come up that high. He really feels it's a declining market. I would love to make this work too but we feel $XXX,XXX is a bit high. I'll let you know when I hear back from my buyer as to if he wants to come up. some. Thanks

Now I could get into how justified my clients asking price is (and it really is) but that’s not the point. The point is that we all know buyers think the real estate market is tanking but if Realtors start buying into the hype then we’re all in big trouble. So consider this a prime example of why the real estate market IS tanking. It’s because buyers aren’t even willing to pay market value for a home and their agents don’t have the wherewithal to educate them. Notice how the agent said “we” feel the price is too high. Not just her client, but the agent who should know the market!

The issues:

· Buyers want to buy below market value or else they move on to the next one.
· Agents aren’t properly educating their clients that not every property for sale is a foreclosure or short sale so they can’t expect sellers to give away their homes for lower than market value.
· Agents blindly let their clients lead them from house to house making offer after offer that is not accepted. After 4 to 6 months of searching the buyer decides to stay in his lease and renew or stay in his house until the market “gets better”.
· Buyers and sellers think they know the real estate market better than the experts which should be local Realtors.
· Local Realtors are letting their clients tell them how bad the market is and Realtors aren’t standing up for themselves and educating their clients.

My question to the buyers out there is what are you going to do when the market gets better? There will be less inventory and chances are you’ll be paying more for the home than if you were to buy it now. So you are willing to potentially pay a premium for the same home years from now rather than to buy it at market value right now? Makes perfect sense to me. (Sarcasm)

My theory on the real culprit behind this? Immediate equity. Too many home improvement shows have shown how young couples live in a home for 2 years and make $100,000 without drastically improving the home. That has never been the case in Dallas and never will be. So I think the buyers are afraid of the commitment a home offers. The average person needs to live in the home for at least 3 years and put at least 5% down (or 5 years if they put nothing down) if he or she wants to sell and break even. But buyers don’t want to hear this. Sellers have put their home on the market after living in it for 2 years with very little equity and can’t sell it at a premium and get stuck. Buyers are catching on to this so they don’t want to “overpay” since they may or may not want to sell within 2 to 3 years and if they “overpay” then they won’t have immediate equity just in case they need to sell and get out.

Dallas Thinks; Therefore It Is

I admittedly don’t keep track of mortgage rates regularly. (I let my client’s lenders handle that part of the transaction) But while having lunch with a lender friend yesterday he said he is closing deals at interest rates under 6%! Yet people still want to perpetuate what a terrible real estate market we are in? It is getting more and more frustrating to repeat the same information to my clients here in Dallas trying to educate them about the real estate market. I guess I’ll continue to sound like a broken record by repeating the 2 main reasons why it’s a good time to buy.

1. Rates are amazingly low.
2. Inventory is great meaning buyers have a lot of homes to choose from. If you don’t want to get into a multiple offer situation then you don’t have to. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.

So I ask my buyers, “What exactly are you waiting for?” and here’s what some of them are saying followed by my official response.

“Rates might go down!” – Uh, like to what? 4.5%? I doubt it. Some people might be able to get a 5.5% interest rate but if it goes any lower than that I will very surprised. But think about the opposite. If you wait too long you might be looking at a 7% interest rate. If you want to play the wait and see game then you might get burned.

“Inventory is high and I keep hearing how bad the real estate market is so sellers should be negotiating down off their asking price!” – Do you know the sellers financial situation? In all price ranges sellers move for different reasons. If you happen to get lucky and make an offer on a home where the owners are getting a divorce and want to ditch the home for next to nothing then congrats. But just because there is an abundance of inventory don’t expect EVERY seller to give away their home to you because YOU think the real estate market is bad. And what’s the alternative? Wait until there is a small amount inventory on the market? That means multiple offers and paying top dollar. So let me know how that works out for you.

“I keep hearing about all of the foreclosures and pending foreclosures. Find me one of those!” – This is my pet peeve and I could spend an hour answering this but the quick answer is that there are literally THOUSANDS of investors combing the Dallas real estate market for foreclosure deals. So when a true foreclosure deal comes on the market there are multiple offers on the property for over list price and the investors are paying in cash which means they can close quickly. But your typical buyer doesn’t want to pay list price (they want to negotiate) and are financing their loan thus needing at least 20 days to close the loan. Which offer do you think the banks are going to accept? My advice is get over the foreclosures and look for a home you want to live in, not the deal of the century.

People don’t realize real estate is local and not dependant on other states. North Texas has been and is doing just fine. But the national media attention has crept into our minds and we can’t shake it. While pondering the phenomenon we are experiencing with everyone and their dog believing the real estate market is bad, I thought of a real estate analogy. There is a house in your neighborhood. Just your average home and the owners keep to themselves. Not many neighbors have seen the inside of the home but it looks to be in average condition. So one day the neighborhood gossip sees the For Sale sign in the yard and the owners packing outside. She skips over to offer her goodbyes and they politely invite her into their home. Meanwhile she sees a couple stress cracks over a few door and window jambs. “The home obviously has serious foundation problems and I think I smelled mold too!” she says to anyone who will listen. Then they tell someone who tells someone else – you get the point. Even when people are looking at the home neighbors feel the need to tell them about the problems the home has and therefore the home lingers on the market and sells for pennies. But guess what? They actually just brought down their own property values by spreading these untruths.

Dallas has bought into the woes of California, Las Vegas and Florida and is actually hurting itself by perpetuating the bad real estate market story. Our city does NOT have foundation or mold problems yet the terrible rumors persist and only time will tell how our own foolish beliefs will affect our real estate market. In the end we only have ourselves to blame.

Subprime Woes Not Felt in Dallas Like Rest of Country

Could this actually be a positive report about real estate in the Dallas area? Why yes it is. Although everyone is still scared of what the future holds it's still nice to show that we are insulated from the doom and gloom of the Florida and California real estate markets. Dallas was 1 of 5 real estate markets in the country in the second quarter to see a gain in sales prices. I like these two takeaway quotes from the story.

"In a lot of places in Dallas, home prices are still going up by double
digits. "In other neighborhoods, they are actually falling. But across the board, the gainers outweigh the losers,"

And,

"The mortgage shakeout is affecting other parts of the country a lot more than it is Texas. We didn't have anywhere near the level or magnitude of subprime loans that other markets did. But that doesn't mean that Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners aren't going to be hammered with a steady diet of bad news about the U.S. housing market. Those negative reports weigh on consumer psychology."

But then this isn't news to me.

Is it really all "Doom & Gloom" for Dallas Real Estate?

This is an email I sent out to my friends and past clients and thought it blogworthy…

A few years ago it seemed the whole nation began to show concern that real estate bubbles throughout the country were about to burst and I tried my best to keep my friends and past clients informed by letting them know Dallas is not directly affected by the decline in home prices in locations such as Miami, Las Vegas and California. Ever since that time negative real estate statistics continued to be published in the media about the declining national real estate market and I continued to defend our local real estate market. I am frequently asked, “Jeff, how is your business doing with the real estate market doing as poorly as it is?” So let me—yet again—answer that question and hopefully quell your fears.

First of all, my business has never been better and thanks to all of you I finished 2006 as the 63rd most productive agent in my company out of 1,300 other agents. This equates to ranking in the Top 7% of Realtors nationwide. Again, a sincere thank you for your support and confidence in my abilities as a real estate professional. I hope to continue that success in 2007...so keep the referrals coming! :)

Second, I would like to address our “poor real estate market”. Brace yourself for this mind boggling statement I am about to make. Many of the doom and gloom real estate reports that are published address NATIONAL real estate statistics and not LOCAL real estate statistics. The average Joe in Dallas reads one of these reports in the Wall Street Journal and thinks his home in North Dallas is immediately worth less. This is ridiculous and I question their intellectual fortitude. Furthermore, the real estate numbers Dallas is producing this year when compared with 2006 might come up short by 2% here and 3% there. (Note: Number of sales are down in many areas but prices are going up!) But remember, 2006 year was the 3rd best year for real estate EVER in our country’s history. So by those standards, 2007 might end up in the top 10 best years for real estate EVER. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Which leads me to this recent report from CNNMoney.com. Out of the 100 largest markets in the country Dallas ranks 9th in projected appreciation (3.6%) from April 2007 to April 2008. Our worst one-year decline of –7.7% occurred in ‘87-’88. Dallas does not see 20% fluctuations which allows our growth to remain strong and steady.

So the next time someone starts telling you how bad our Dallas real estate market is, you can tell them with confidence that Dallas is one of the strongest real estate markets in the country. And if they’re looking to buy or sell you can tell them to call me!