The Bosshardt Blog

Spring has sprung: Signs of a new beginning in the real estate market

Posted by Lem Purcell, Director of IT & E-Business, Bosshardt Realty, 03/20/2009

Well, today is the first day of spring.  A rebirth. A new beginning.  Call it what you may, poetically or not.

Spring means a few things here in Gainesville.  First, the weather turns a bit warmer after a few brutal winter nights in the 40s and [gasp] 30s.  Second, the Parade of Homes is just around the corner.  Third, the Gator roundballers are in the Big Dance and aiming for another championship.

Okay, 2.5 out of three ain't bad.  At least the Lady Gators are in. . . .

This year, however, spring adds a fourth dimension.  Here at Bosshardt, we track a little stat we call "12-month over 12-month market volume."  It's a simple analysis (with a fancy name) of a month's total sales volume plus the previous 11 months of sales volume.  Then, we compare the current figure to the same 12-month sales volume from a year ago.  Why 12-months? In a mid-size market like ours, simply comparing one month of data to another can be misleading.  A 12-month analysis irons out any anomalies and outliers resulting from, say, a big commercial sale or investor run on condos.  As a result, we get a more accurate picture of macro-level trends and market health than we would with a short-sighted look at 30 or 60 days of data.

To the point: With February's numbers, we found, for the first time in 24 months, a reliable sign that the bottom has passed and we are now on the road to recovery.  For two years, there's been a steady and predictable decline in the 12-month over 12-month comparisons, ranging from -15% in 2007, to -20% in early 2008, and finally to December 2008's all-time low of almost -40%.  In January, however, we saw a modest uptick - a 12-month over 12-month drop of "only" -38%.  It was not big news at the time, as we'd seen a couple of other improvements over the past months that proved to be only a blip.  In February, however, the trend continued with an improvement to -37%.  A modest swing, to be sure, but nonetheless, a subtle indicator that the bottom has passed, and perhaps predictor that the recovery of the housing market (and, correspondingly, the economy as a whole) is beginning.  Here's the graph of 12-month over 12-month comparisons (click to enlarge):

   

The red line represents the actual data, and the dashed line is an Excel-generated trend line predicting the general direction of market health over the next two months.

What does this mean?  Well, if you've been hesitant to pull the trigger on that home purchase, I can say, objectively, that now just might be the time to fire away.

Happy hunting.   

First Time Homebuyers: Tax Credits, Bond Money, and SHIP

Posted by Aaron Bosshardt, COO, Bosshardt Realty, 03/17/09

I've had a lot of questions lately about first-time home buyers and how the incentives out there work and whether or not they can be combined. Let me start first by addressing the Federal Tax Credit that is available if you buy now and the one that exists if you bought in 2008.

For first-time home buyers who are buying now, the tax credit is not a credit you get at the closing table. You send the IRS form 5405 to the IRS and expect a check after you have closed. Previously, in 2008, you were not able to combine state or local bond money and the federal tax credit. The credit changed if you bought in 2009 so that you can also get bond money and the credit. The credit has always been available to low income buyers and it "stacks" with SHIP buyers. It is important to note that SHIP buyers receive their funds at closing, and the buyer credit has to be filed for after closing. I made sure recently and asked our local SHIP program at Alachua County Growth management:

We are not aware of any eligibility guidelines for SHIP recipients as it relates to the federal tax credit. What may be an eligibility issue is their definition of first time homebuyers in comparison to our program, which defines it in a much broader way.

In short, if you want both, make sure you qualify for both. For all information and guidelines on Alachua County SHIP, go here.

Other significant changes: if you bought in 2008, you will have to pay the credit back. The new credit available for 2009 buyers has no payback provision. Here is a link to the IRS page for information and the form 5405.

For a comparison sheet between the old tax credit end the new one, here is NAR's cheat sheet.

RETS make a deal: Bosshardt site area's first to integrate emerging technology

Posted by Lem Purcell, Director of IT & E-Business, Bosshardt Realty, 03/10/2009

 I am pleased to announce the arrival of RETS technology in the Gainesville real estate market.

RETS (Real Estate Technology Standard) is a relatively new flavor of IDX (Internet Data Exchange) that provides a standard language for live sharing of MLS listing information across the Internet.  In plain English, it's a live feed directly from an MLS system to its recipients, whether it be a broker's management software or, in this case, a web site available to the public.  RETS has already been utilized for a while in major metro markets but was not in use in Gainesville . . . until now.

Traditionally, the listings information you see on a realty's web site is provided by a text-based IDX feed file, sent once a day, from the broker's local or state MLS.  In this format, listings information can be up to two days old (more, in some cases) before it makes its way to the web.  Thus, new listings, price reductions, updated photos, and other important listing information can take up to 48 hours to propagate to web sites and you, the user.

Not anymore.

We here at Bosshardt decided that the old way just wasn't good enough for our valued site visitors.  Accordingly, our in-house programming team went to work with our MLS provider (MarketLinx, who deserves big kudos for putting together the RETS feed in the first place) to integrate RETS with the BosshardtRealty.com web site.

The results? Our listings information is now updated with live data every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  In other words, when you search Gainesville real estate (and Alachua County; over 6,200 listings as of today) on the Bosshardt web site, the information you see there is never more than 60 minutes old.  We're the first in this market to do it, and it's a powerful, powerful enhancement for both our buyers and sellers.  I couldn't be more excited about it and invite you to take full advantage of the market's most up-to-date real estate information on what is already Gainesville's most popular realty web site.

More BosshardtRealty.com updates to come.  Enjoy!