Real Estate in The Midlands

I am a realtor with over 10 years of experience and what I am seeing in the real estate market now is something very interesting and complex. What I am seeing is a abundant amount of errors in the economy that have caused so major corrections to occur in real estate. The flaw in that is that the correction needed can not be implemented with out some changes with out some financing adjustments. That is where the rubber hits the road.



There is an abundant supply of homes in some areas to include Lexington, Chapin/Ballentine, Forest Acres, Irmo, Lake Murray area, and other parts of Lexington County and Richland County. I have wrote several posts on my blog about South Carolina Market Conditions, HUD's attempt to help Home Buyers, News about Real Estate in South Carolina and other topics on Real Estate in 2009, but the question is still asked of me daily is " Are Houses Selling?" or "What is going to happen to House values?"



Edwin's opinion and only his is that there must be some corrections made and some team work with banks and other financial institutions for anything to happen in a timely manor.



Step 1 is to keep Mortgage Rates under 6% and there be no Large swing in rates. With swings in rates you get people refinancing but that last time I checked only helped bankers and appraisers and didn't build houses or sell houses.

Step 2 is for it to be mandatory for banks to work with Realtors,sellers,buyers and all other parties in a timely manor on short sales. The process currently is bogged down and is perceived as a nightmare to get involved in. So potential buyers are leaving the people that need the help the most.

Step 3 halt all foreclosures if home is occupied and mandate the bank work with local Realtors to create a short sale opportunity for primary residential buyers. This people in homes not on streets. This keeps banks working for solutions. Cause when banks foreclose, homeowner is out and the bank fire sales the home. The net effect is the same except putting someone out on the street.

Step 4 New construction that is out in the market place, make some type of incentive or work with other local builders to finish the homes. This way banks can sell finished products. The typical homeowner is not real interested in buying a 1/2 finished house. Secondly there is a slim to none chance of getting a loan to finish the house for the consumer. So the net effect of doing nothing with these homes is that the neighbor home values fall, the condition of 1/2 done house gets worse and banks loose more money. Fix the house sell it for below market. The net effect with this is a builder with no job gets work, bank gets house sold, the neighbors don't loose thousands.

Step 5 Banks to have systems in place to lend money. The model that worked 2 years ago about lending money to anyone that had a pluse and no downpayment and apprasials for what ever value the consumer wanted doesnt work now and we see it has huge side effects. The current model is not the answer either with tightening the credit requirments, large down payments which actually is scaring buyers is not the answer. We might need to find a banking policy model from 8-10 years ago that worked with people that had credit issues, but was willing to work to get the loan done but was fair to all parties including banks and consumers.