Insights For Search Predicts Real Estate Collapse

In the past we have posted several times about how financial market traders can use relatively simple chart patterns involving higher-swing-lows and lower-swing-highs to successfully trade the stocks & commodities markets, options market and with other investing.

I was doing research on this powerful trading concept this morning and was thinking the incredible real estate market decline could be a good example of how well it can work. Therefore, I went to Google’s “Insights For Search” and searched for “MLS Listing” which is a widely used real estate term by home buyers and sellers.

This is the explanation of how Insights For Search works from Google: “Google Insights for Search analyzes a portion of world-wide Google web-searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. You can choose to see data for select Google properties, including Web search, Images, Product search, and News search.”

The Google Chart displays the most perfect long-term examples I have ever seen visually depicting the great power of swing highs and swing lows. Starting in 2004 the chart shows a series of 8 important swing highs and 6 major swing-lows. Of particular importance is the Dec 06 swing low which broke the old support level established Dec 05 by that major 2005 swing low. Once that old support level was broken in Dec 06 it conformed a major real estate bear market. The market is believed to be the most severely depressed real estate market of all-time, especially in areas of the U.S. such as Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida.

If you were buying/selling real estate the chart clearly shows starting in the year 2005 you should have been selling (not buying) real estate based on the important July 2005 swing-low (which you knew about at the end of August 05, and was confirmed Nov of 2005 which was the month the previous major swing-low was confirmed. The next series of 4 major lower-swing-highs which were in mid-2006, mid-2007, and early-2008 and 2009 confirmed the bear market was ongoing and getting even stronger.

The strong nationwide real estate decline started in late summer of 2005 in several Sunbelt states at the end of Aug 05 (at least according to my knowledge and statistics). However, it got underway a little later in other areas of the nation and the media often reports the bear market started during the year 2006. In my opinion this chart is one of the most picture book perfect and accurate examples of how powerful swing-highs an swing-lows can be. It is something you should always look at and take into strong consideration while trading the markets or investing.

Maybe the U.S. Housing Market has Bottomed-Out?

This could be the great news everyone is waiting for regarding our incredibly bad real estate market. The early indications are no where near definite or even mildly conclusive and is at best circumstantial. However, it is the first good news on the nationwide housing market we gave seen in ages.

First, the media is reporting over the past few days some good signs of a recovery in housing, sales and construction stats. The media is also full of stories about lots of foreign investors buying homes in the U.S. Just this morning ABC’s Good Morning America reported the National Association of Realtors reports existing home sales for February 2009 were the best since July 2003.

GMA also reported “housing vultures” (including many foreign investors) were buying homes in high numbers (sometimes 100 homes at a time in bulk) and the investors were going on real estate tours of the U.S. Investors from places such as Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China and of course U.S. Investors too.

Next I would like to report on personal experiences in my area in Arizona. First, we have noticed far more Realtors with buyers touring the neighborhood recently. On another personal level we have seen a noticeable uptick in traffic going to a real estate website we run FreeMLSlisting.com.

In fact, a check of yesterdays traffic data reveals more visitors on Mar 23 2009 vs any other day on the chart, which covers a few months of web site visitor activity. Looking at more statistics supplied by Google we noticed an important statistic had its best day yesterday since Nov 3 2008.

Please keep in mind the upbeat information is by no means conclusive or proven to be statistically valid but nevertheless it certainly is quite encouraging to the nationwide war on foreclosures and the real estate market to say the least.

Home-seller edge thanks to new type MLS listing

What with the real estate market being so terribly depressed and nationwide values declining home-sellers need every possible advantage they can get. Perhaps the best possible edge for home-sellers in today’s very tough real estate market what with all the low-priced foreclosures and recession is to enjoy a degree of price flexibility. Thus, if need be, the seller can drop their asking price even below the ideal price they had in mind and under the competing neighbors home price too.

That’s tough to do when needing to pay a Realtor® 6% or 7% commission to list and sell the home. However, the seller can now pay about one-half of the usual costly commissions by getting in the MLS basically free (no commission to get listed) and then only paying the buyers agent upon successful sale.

Here is an example of the substantial savings. Let us assume a property sells for say $500,000 and the home seller seller offers a 3% commission to the Buyer’s Agent. Based on a $500,000 sale price the commission would be $15,000 due the broker who actually brings he buyer, and a small flat rate listing fee of $297 to pay the referral firm to send the listing to their business associate real estate broker who lists the property in the-MLS. The typical fee just to get listed on the MLS is a additional 3%, or $15,000 in our example.

Using this example, the total savings in real-estate commissions is $14,703. Now, for the comparison in savings if you listed your home with a traditional broker for say 6%. The commission on a $500,000 sale with a 6% commission rate would be a high $30,000 which is 3% more commission and $15,000 in money vs a flat-rate mls listing. How incredible is that anyway!

This is the latest and best way to list and sell your home at substantial savings. America’s #1 flat fee mls listing firm with experience doing unique flat-fee mls listings dating back to 2002 is FlatFee.org. With Nationwide Coverage areas, Low Price fee and good customer service with client satisfaction, where very low overhead keeps the MLS-Listing cost so extremely low, Which low-cost gives you good price flexibility if needed, but without surrendering so much of your equity to the real estate brokers.

How to Apply now for Loan Modification Program

President Obama’s government loan modification and loan refinance program part of the gov bailout package was announced on March 4 2009. At first glance it appears to be somewhat complex with a number of rules and requirements for qualification.

Rather than analyze it here in much detail we suggest the best option for you to pursue if you need help with your mortgage payments is to visit to the new government website FinancialStability.gov and apply for the refinance or modification programs immediately.

Apparently there are two different programs from what we understand. One involves modifications providing you are no more than 5% underwater and 60 days or more past due on your home loan payments. The other apparently relates to homeowners who are current with payments but possibly are more than 5% upside-down. Please do not quote us on that and investigate the Affordable Home Modification plan yourself because the program facts, rules and requirements are not real clear at this time.

A good FICO Score is critical

Lenders use your FICO Score more than other factors when considering your home loan, credit cards or other loans and financing. That is why you should try to stay up-to-date on what your Fico score currently is and always be on he lookout for ways to improve your FICO score. There are good ways to make your fico score better. One of them is effective, simple and surprisingly easy to do, which will be discussed in an upcoming post.

Renting Vs Buying

We all want to purchase a home, it’s basically the American dream. Owning your own home is the dream of millions of people across America. If you are currently renting, I’m sure it is a dream of yours as well. For many years we’ve been told that you are literally “wasting” money by renting an apartment or a house.  Read more

Getting A Mortgage

In the past few years it was becoming increasingly easy to get a mortgage to purchase a home. The qualifications for receiving a loan was definitely relaxed. This was done to enable those with lower incomes to be able to acquire their first home. As a result, new loans were introduced that catetered specifically to lower income families. Read more

Profiting From Foreclosures

It’s really unfortunate that the economy has taken such a downturn in the last couple years. Just a few years ago the prices of houses were at all time highs and people were feeling secure in their investment. Unfortunately things have taken a turn for the worst and foreclosures are now at an all time high. Read more