Is Activity Up?

MLS reported single family sales for the month to date in the greater Chico are 39 compared to 42 for same time last year, pretty much the same. If I haven't pushed the wrong buttons the pending sales show 99 properties in the same geographic. That's a bunch, but of course not all of those are going to close. We have some of those "pendings" and one of them is very doubtful. Still, that's a lot of activity. The buyer inquiries in our offices are up and our attitude is quite buoyant. One of the activities I watch are the length of visit for those who visit our web site. The activity level is about the same, but the length of average visit is up quite a bit. I interpret that as a sign of seriousness of intent. Part of the excitement in our office stems from our extension of mortgage services into the commercial arena. We have located some lenders with an aggressive approach to the business, making it much easier for borrowers to qualify. Commercial lending need not be as difficult as banks tend to make it. With these new avenues open to us we're going to extend our geographic reach a bit, and at the risk of seeming to load this blog for the search engines I'll name some of the cities we'll be serving. From Marysville, Yuba City on the Southeast, Williams and Colusa on the Southwest, up through Oroville, Chico, Orland, Willows, Corning, Red Bluff and stopping at Redding on the North. Although we are a "hands on" office, maintaining close ties with our clients, the nature of commercial lending doesn't require the repeated personal contact that residential sales does, so we can handle the broader territory without straining our resources.
To touch on the business outlook again in residential real estate, we repeat our position that now is a good time to buy a home, and the increase in activity would seem to indicate that people are agreeing with us. Interest rates as of this writing for 30 year fixed rate mortgages are well under 6%. Gas prices have inched up, but only a bit. Just the usual seasonal greed from the oil companies. Employment remains high, and certainly the high inventory of homes makes the buying environment very favorable indeed. The lenders we deal with are very responsive and if you wish to do so you could very easily be in place to watch Santa come down the chimney in your brand new home this Christmas. We'd naturally like to be part of the process.

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