Hi, Troy Chowanec, RE/MAX Realty 100. Coming to you today from Crystal Ridge in Franklin, Wisconsin with your weekly market update. Today is Thursday March 15th 2012. I got an email from the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors this week with February statistics for home sales in the greater Milwaukee area. In Milwaukee County, home sales were up 21.1%. We had 493 Sales over the 407 sales we had last year. Almost 86% of these sales were though, were for homes priced under $200,000. In Waukesha County home sales were up 32.1% over last year. There were 222 sales vs. 168 same time last year. 41.3% of the homes sold though were under $200,000. An additional 30% of the homes that sold were between $200,000 and $300,000. The GMAR is saying that this is the 8th month in a row that sales are up by double digits over last year. This is really encouraging news.

The CSS (Centralized Showing Service) report this week shows that we currently have 874 listings that RE/MAX Realty 100 is representing Sellers on. We had 774 showing requests last week which means that you had an 88% chance of having a showing on your listing. This continues the trend another week where listings are down over last year and showing requests are up. So the market continues to tighten and we are continuing to see that there is a lot of garbage on the market and the good properties are getting lots of showings.

If you have any questions about how this affects you or impacts you please give me a call. Until next week I hope you have a great St. Patrick’s Day and enjoy this wonderful weather.

Hi, Troy Chowanec, RE/MAX Realty 100, Coming to you today from the Milwaukee County Sports Complex in Franklin, Wisconsin. Today is March 8th 2012. I want to start with a foreclosure update. A week ago I was talking about the Robo-signing Scandal and what that might mean for inventory. This last week the (Milwaukee) Journal Sentinel posted an article that said foreclosure filings in the SE corner of the state were up 7.2% over last year. In Milwaukee County we had 527 foreclosure filings in the month of February (2012) verses 487 last year (February). That’s up 8.2%. Waukesha County seems to be our glimmer of hope at the moment in February we only had 105 foreclosure filings in Waukesha County, down from 131 in (February) 2011. Most of the short sales and foreclosure properties I have been looking at with Buyers have had some real condition issues and this is going to be a problem for financing. Most of my Buyers are not cash Buyers, so these properties are going to continue to sit and probably have to have further price reductions until a cash Buyer can come along and see the value and can actually make some money on rehabbing the property before re-introducing it back into the marketplace.

Showing Report
CSS gave us statistics again. That’s the showing desk we use for scheduling all of our showings at RE/MAX Realty 100. We currently have 861 active listings represented by RE/MAX Realty 100 and we had 656 showing requests (last week). Showing requests were actually down this last week over the previous six (weeks.) But it’s still higher than it was last year at this time. Last year same period in February we had only 587 showing requests and over 1000 listings. So showings are still strong and inventory is still tighter than it was last year.

The last thing I want to talk about today is an article I read on the CNBC.com website. Essentially it says that almost 25% of all homes in the United States are currently under water. Meaning that those homes have mortgage (balances) higher than what the home is currently worth. That was for the 4th quarter 2011 that they were reporting. So this is a real concern as we look to see the bottom of the market here, hopefully more people will get equity as we go into next year and start to see an improvement in the house values. Thanks for taking a minute to watch this video. If you have any questions please feel free to email or call me, I’d love to see what I can do to help you out. Have a great day!

Hey, Troy Chowanec here RE/MAX Realty 100, Coming to you today from Grobschmidt Park Part of the Milwaukee County Park System in Franklin Wisconsin. Today is March 1st 2012. So here’s you’re weekly market update.

Starting with a report I read on CNBC.com with respect to the inventory of homes for sale nationally. Currently we are at 2.31 million units available on a national basis but that’s the lowest levels we’ve seen since March 2005. 35% of all sales nationally are distressed sales. That means Short Sales, Foreclosures or some other form of distress. I would anticipate as we go into the spring and summer market that will represent a larger number of the sales because banks are going to start releasing those properties that have been held back because of the robo-signing-scandal into the market place.

On a local level we currently have 3530 Active single family home listings in Milwaukee County. They have been on the market an average of 190 Days, and the average asking price is $167,114. Contrast that with the Pending home sales, there’s 415 of those. The average asking price of those properties is $117,500 and they have been on the market only 138 days. So that means that the properties that are selling are priced $50,000 less than the average asking (price of the active listings) and they have been on the market 52 fewer days.

I have some preliminary data for February home sales. There were 283 single family homes that sold in February through the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) in Milwaukee County. The average asking price is $118,883 and the average sold price was $112,192. That means that homes that actually Sold in February were getting 6% less than the average asking price. I don’t know how that is going to change except for we need to have a continued tightening of inventory and a better supply of higher priced homes that people are finding of value.

Currently, RE/MAX Realty 100 is representing 862 sellers, that’s 25 more than last week and we had 722 showing requests. That compared to last year means we had 168 fewer listings this year over last year, yet we had 201 more showing requests over last year. So chances are you had a showing last week or the week before. If you haven’t then we need to see what’s going on with respect to price and marketing. If you have any questions feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d love to hear from you. Until next week we’ll see ya then.

Hey everyone, Troy Chowanec, RE/MAX Realty 100.  Today I am coming to from Historical Area at Lions Legend Park in Franklin Wisconsin with your weekly market update.

I want to talk today basically again about what is happening in the market with respect to showings and listings.  We continue to see a tightening of listings that we are taking as well as an increase in showing requests.  In 2010 (week ending 2/20/11) we had 992 listings represented by RE/MAX Realty 100.  This year we have 837, that’s 155 fewer listings for the same period over last year.  The quality of the listings overall seems to be down.  Now I don’t want my Sellers to be offended by that because I think that my properties are really good properties.  But generally speaking a lot of the foreclosures and short sales out there are of poor quality and have a lot of condition issues. Showing requests last year, Last year we had 483 showing requests at this time (week ending 2/20/11).  This year showing requests are up to 734, for the same period, that’s 251 more showings on 155 fewer listings.  So, as you can see, showings continue to increase while listings and inventory, the supply continues to tighten.  That’s really exciting.

The data I’m reading right now is suggesting that we are going to continue to see a tightening of inventory as we go through this year.  And then next year, as the inventory starts to continue to whittle down we’re going to start to see prices start to increase.  They are not projecting price increases until sometime this next year in 2013.  This year we are supposed to see a continuing decrease in the number of listings that are out there and it’s going to continue to be a challenge as we continue this year because we may see some continued pricing pressure as we go through the spring market.  Hang in there, I hope you had a showing this last week.  There’s a good chance that you did and if not give me a call and lets see what we can do to make your property more attractively priced so that Buyers will see it as a bargain and will want to come and get a showing.  If you have any questions feel free to call me or shoot me an email.  As always, I’ll see you next week.  Have a great day, Bye!

Milwaukee Market Update Troy Chowanec, RE/MAX Realty 100, 15 February 2012. From Whitnall Park, Franklin, WI, Along the Root River.

Hi, Troy Chowanec here, RE/MAX Realty 100. Today I am coming to you from Whitnall Park in Franklin Wisconsin, and I am actually standing along the Root River today on one of the many trails that run through this park.

This week I got an email from the MLS with a statistical update, giving us some valuable information to consider as we look at the market and conditions today. New listings currently are down 72.4% in the month of January over last year with 550 new listings taken. Pending sales are down 80.7% over last year and inventory levels are down 13.8% over last year. There’s currently 8632 units for sale in the MLS. Prices continue to soften. We saw median sales price go down $159,750. However, Days on Market, properties have stayed on the market a little bit longer. They are currently at 125 Days on Market. Supply continues to decrease. We actually have a 10.9% decrease in our market supply. That leaves us 9.3 months supply of inventory in the system. 9.3 (months supply) represents a buyers market. When we get down to 6 (months supply) that would be a balanced market and anything under 6 (months supply) it becomes a sellers market. I would anticipate as we go through the spring market we could see a little fluctuation there and it will really depend on how many new units the foreclosure market introduces into the supply chain.

Active listings right now that our company represents according to CSS (Centralized Showing Service) is 840 units. And last week we had 674 showing requests. That means you had an 80% chance of your property being shown if you had your property listed with us. If you have any questions about market statistics or how this affects your or your property please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’ll be happy to answer those questions for you. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you next week.

Hey everybody, Troy Chowanec here RE/MAX Realty 100, coming to you with a weekly market update. This week I want to start again with the CSS report as always. I want to explain last years statistics over this years statistics quickly. In 2010 our company had 1005 listings that we were representing Sellers on. Last year at this time we had 344 showings on those listings. This year listings are down by 18%. We have 833 active listings company wide and showing requests are actually up to 627. That’s a 47% increase over last year at this time. So that’s really exciting. Last year you had a 34% chance of having your home showed during this period of time last year ending February 5th. This year same time, you had a 75% chance of having your house showed. So I hope you were one of the 75% that had a showing this last week. The showings actually were down a little bit over last year (week) this time. I attribute that to the football game that happened on Sunday. Obviously people were distracted by that and fewer showings happened as a result. Another thing I want to talk to you today about is the 3.8% sales tax on properties sold beginning in 2013. I actually got a couple of emails on this. One from a client a couple of weeks ago and one again yesterday from a friend of mine, And definitely some concerns out there over this 3.8% sales tax that’s going to help fund the new health care bill that has been put forth by our current presidential administration. So I went online to our WRA, Wisconsin Realtors Association web site and I was able to find a nice piece put together by the National Association of Realtors. And in that piece it gives several examples of how this 3.8% tax will actually affect most consumers (property owners) in real life. And, Surprisingly the impact is greatly reduced over what I thought it was going to be. If you have specific questions about what you are reading in this thing that I’m attaching to the email today, feel free to give me a call. I’d be happy to answer those questions if I can. I’m not a tax expert, if you have specific tax questions you should probably rely on your tax professional for that advice. I’m concerned about it but not as concerned as I was initially because I think that the impact is going to be far less that what everybody probably originally thought as maybe they were getting these emails. Well, that’s all I have for today. If you have any questions feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d love to hear from you and have a great weekend, Bye!

31 January 2012, Interview with members of the Wheel ‘n Chip Society at Wher Nature Center in Whitnall Park, Franklin Wi, working on preserving some endangered trees by cutting down non-native trees choking off the sunlight causing the tree stress. Wehr Nature Center Wheel ‘n Chip Society Franklin Wisconsin meets on Tuesdays year round from 9-11am Anyone wishing to participate is welcome.