Real Estate Blog 
Signs of Life: Buyer Competition Emerges in $300k Price Range
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 9:18pm. 8 Views, 0 Comments.
Last week I helped a couple submit an offer on an Eau Claire foreclosure home priced above $300,000. With all the doom and gloom in the media spurred by July's lower-than-expected housing statistics, we were indeed surprised that there were multiple (!) offers submitted on the property.
Our offer was very strong. Knowing that there were other offers on the table, we wrote it for above asking price and included only a financing contingency. No dice. Someone must have either outbid us (paying well above asking price) or had cash.
I'm bummed that my buyers didn't get the house, but there is a silver lining: The $300k+ price range hasn't seen much movement in the last year or so, but perhaps Eau Claire's high-end real estate market might be starting…
Sold Vs. Sale Pending Signs
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 9:01pm. 51 Views, 0 Comments.
Sometimes my sellers ask me why I generally don’t use that staple of real estate marketing, the SOLD sign. There are two main reasons: To prevent the dreaded “Premature Sold,” and also as a courtesy to the buyers. Instead of SOLD sign riders, I like to use Sale Pending signs instead.
The Premature “Sold”
I’m reminded of the premature sold each time I drive by a particular house located between my home and my office. It’s been for sale for over 6 months with several local agents. One day, a SOLD sign appeared on the sign. Wow, I thought, good for them, they finally got it sold!Then a few days later the SOLD sign was taken off of the sign and was laying on the ground. It stayed there for a few days. Curious, I looked in the MLS and found that the…
Site Updates
Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 8:45pm. 165 Views, 0 Comments.
We've made some exciting updates to the website to make it more useful:
- Added new search by text capabilities. This searches all listings for specific words in the narrative description. Some of my favorites to use are "any offer" "must sell" and "motivated seller." Try it out! Let me know if you can come up with any other fun phrases!
- Using the Property Search dropdown from any page, you can now navigate to a list of all non-sold Discount Realty Works listings.
- Using the Property Search dropdown from any page, you can now search by Eau Claire Neighborhood. This one is a work in progress, as many areas of Eau Claire are not located within an actual, named neighborhood. In addition to somehow handling those areas, future plans may involve some…
What Percentage of Homes Sold in Northwestern Wisconsin are Foreclosures or Short Sales?
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 2:10am. 82 Views, 0 Comments.
This question came about during a roundtable discussion I was involved in with Realtors from all over Northwestern Wisconsin a few weeks ago.
Some agents believed perhaps 50% of all homes sold were foreclosures. Yikes! While that might be true in some hard-hit areas, I told the group that my own experience in and around Eau Claire indicated a rate of perhaps 10-15%.
Fortunately, on April 1, 2010 the Realtors' Association of Northwestern Wisconsin implemented two new mandatory data fields in the MLS to indicate whether or not a listing is a short sale or foreclosure.
Since the data fields have been populated now for just over a month, I thought it would be interesting to run an analysis to find out how many sales in April were noted as short sales and/or…
100th Career Sale!
Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 3:02am. 88 Views, 1 Comments.
Helped a buyer client close on a new condo today. I realized a few days ago that so far in this real estate adventure I had helped sell 99 properties via the MLS. I'm glad I realized this tidbit before the odometer rolled past a century. It's a good feeling. Perhaps if I worked for someone else I would be eligible for a gold watch or a plaque or something. Not much time to dwell though; #'s 101-105 are coming up fast!
And all kidding aside, I am grateful, thankful, and fortunate to have such an awsome client base. My clients do a far better job of spreading the word than I do! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this business for the last 4 1/2 years. Many of you took a chance on a realtively unknown company, person, and business model, and…
Eau Claire Leads the Nation in Construction Jobs (?!?!)
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 2:34pm. 76 Views, 0 Comments.
Eau Claire Leads Nation in Construction Growth
The Associated General Contractors of America analyzed federal employment numbers from January 2009 to January 2010. Of the more than 300 metropolitan areas studied, Eau Claire added the most construction jobs in 2009. The study found that 500 construction jobs were added in Eau Claire last year.
Other Interesting Facts:
- Eau Claire also had the highest percentage increase in the study (+23%).
- Only 9 of the 337 metro areas studied added construction jobs.
- Madison lost 1800 construction jobs.
- Phoenix, AZ lost the greatest number of construction jobs (27,600).
The study seems to underscore two facts: The overall weakness in the construction industry nationwide, but also the surprising…
Office Now Open at 106 E Grand Avenue!
Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 3:32pm. 74 Views, 0 Comments.
I'm excited to announce that our office is now (mostly) operational!
Here's a pic of the inside taken today:
And here's another from the outside:
More photos will be posted eventually.
There is still some work to be done of course...I think it will be a never-ending project to get it the way I want, yet still be economical, attractive, and useful.
Give me a call at 715.559.2942 to stop by! I don't have regular hours yet. I'm out meeting with people so often that I'm seldom in the office for more than an hour or two per day.
Eau Claire County Real Estate Statistics, 2007-2009
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 3:27am. 90 Views, 0 Comments.
Eau Claire Housing Market Remains Stable Over 3-Year Period
| # Sold |
Median Price |
DOM | |
| 2007 |
1139 | $ 134,000 |
78 |
| 2008 | 1039 |
$ 134,500 |
84 |
| 2009 |
1071 |
$ 130,500 | 87 |
I like to tell people I am not participating in the recession. It looks like more than a few others in Eau Claire feel the same way. For all the talk of a real estate bust, the numbers don’t show a substantial decline in either # of units sold or median price over the last 3 years.
The number of single family homes sold has decreased about 6% in Eau Claire County since 2007. The 2009 median price of $130,500 represents about a 2.6% drop since 2007. Average Days on Market (DOM) has crept up a bit but not significantly.
For all practical purposes we can say…
Discount Realty Works is Growing Up!
Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 11:17pm. 197 Views, 0 Comments.
January 22, 2010 was a big day for Discount Realty Works LLC.
Today I signed a lease to rent a commercial office space in downtown Eau Claire. I've been thinking about an office and even casually looking for years, but never could justify spending that much every month.
But a few weeks ago I stumbled across a space that I think will be ideal. It is a small office at street level with big windows in the front. It gets a lot of foot traffic and has parking available. Downtown Eau Claire is all about uniqueness rather than big-box-type stores and already contains many small, niche-oriented businesses. Nothing Artificial, right? These values are in line with ours, and I look forward to joining the Downtown family in February.
The owner of the building…