This is a copy of the letter our Sellers received, updating marketing conditions for Sept.

Good day!

This month, we are sending a double-header of pending charts for your review. We are realizing that our market is not quite as strong and busy as last year in the Elmira-Corning area, but we are grateful that it is nothing like the horror stories that we’re all seeing on television and reading about in the newspapers and magazines! While some markets have fallen off in values by 20% or more, and some markets have more houses for sale than they expect to sell in a couple of years, our market is much more stable! We haven’t seen a decrease in pricing, and we have about a six month supply, which is usually considered to be a very balanced market. We never saw the rapid, investor-driven appreciation, so we’re not seeing the “market corrections” that you hear about in other areas. Sometimes, small town living is a good thing!

What is probably affecting us more is the “end of the era” in mortgage lending that we are hearing about on a daily basis! Years ago, if you wanted a mortgage, you went to the local savings and loan, put 20% down, and provided you had stable income and good credit, you had yourself a 30 year, 8-1/2% mortgage. The financing institutions loaned money that they had on deposit, and so they carefully loaned to only good-risk home buyers, and made a decent return on their loans.

With the advent of mortgage brokers, things changed, but only in the past five years or so did they spin out of control. Using OPM (other people’s money), these lenders offered mortgages that were NOT backed with their own money, and offered some unique products that most banks wouldn’t deal with – interest only loans, no-income verification loans, adjustable rate mortgages that only required qualification at the “loss-leader” prices at the time of application (versus at the 2 or 5 or 7 year adjusted rate.) Once reserved for special cases, in the years that corresponded with the housing rush, these products were offered to almost anyone. Not all mortgage brokers are bad people – we count many of them as our friends – but there were some who were driven only by the money that they could make by processing loans, rather than by good judgment and concern for the future of the buyers they were providing with a loan.

Because of the fall-out (the missed payments and eventual foreclosures, plus the drying up of monies that these “sub-prime” lenders can access and loan out, mortgages are becoming tougher to get, which is not in our opinion, altogether a bad thing! Probably worse, though, is the perception that many people have now, that real estate is RISKY or not a good investment, or that now is not a good time to buy. We believe that real estate is a good long term investment, and a tax-protected investment at that, but that real estate is first and foremost, a HOME. Now is a great time to buy – rates are good, employment in our area is stable, and our market is not overstocked or in a supply/demand imbalance.
Spread the news to your friends and associates! We need to make sure that folks in our area are making decisions based on the local facts, not on the sensationalistic national news!

So with that lengthy (but still “surface account”) of what’s going on in real estate in general, please peruse the pending charts for your area and price range. Note our overall statistics at the top. And as usual, if you have questions, comments or concerns, please contact your agent to discuss the “market position” (price, condition, absorption rate) of your house. Thank you for placing your trust in us; we continue to strive to be YOUR perfect partner in real estate.