The first quarter of 2008 was a similar reflection of the overall housing market in the United States. A positive note to bring out of the doom and gloom is that we have fared much better than many other state and metropolitan markets. Our average time on market is still under 6 months! Many states are still over a year or longer on market.
The stats do show a slowdown and an adjustment in prices by about $2,000 on average from the 4th quarter of 2007. Average days on market did increase but not by a huge amount as everyone might have expected. The tightened credit market did reduce the overall sales volume, but personally I am very happy with our local market considering the state of affairs for the country. The number of new listings increased, but this is normal for sellers to get listed and prepared for the spring market increase.
Our current trends are looking upward at the moment. Sellers have been reducing their homes to market bearing prices and homebuyers have responded. The response has been much quicker than the previous year as well. Also, after many delays by the government, Seymour Johnson is finally starting to see a trickle of the net gain of approximately 300 families that are moving to Goldsboro. MyGoldsboroAgent.com is booking with buyers fast for the summer months from this historically significant move. Much of the economic development you are currently seeing such as new restaurants, stores, and apartments have been in anticipation of this sudden population increase for Goldsboro/Wayne County.
I feel fairly confident that the military move may be the shot in the arm that our housing market needs until the overall market turns around. This should keep our market balanced and if expert's predictions are correct, the 2009 housing market should be very close to getting back to normal.
Total New Listings During This Time Frame: 477
Average Sold Price: $134,132
Average Days on Market: 144
Total Home Sales Sold Dollar Volume: $32,057,493
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Information About Our Virtual Tours
I was asked a really great question by a home seller recently about the size of our virtual tour pictures compared to some other real estate company's virtual tours. I thought it was such a great question that I decided to include the answer in our company's Real Estate Q&A section of our website. Here is a copy of the answer:
9. Why doesn't MyGoldsboroAgent.com currently use larger pictures and moving-panoramic virtual tours to showcase homes?
Actually, I would love to put big, beautiful photos of seller's homes and fancy panoramas on our website! Unfortunately, the reality is only about 30% of the North American population has a broadband connection as of the end of 2007 (237,168,545 Total Internet Users & 72,313,133 Broadband Connections). The panoramic virtual tours you may see on other REALTOR's websites do look great, but if if a homebuyer is using dial-up, these tours are virtually useless or it may take the potential buyer several nights just to look at a few homes online. There are still areas of Wayne County where broadband is not even offered!
Many studies have been done regarding internet users and webpage loading times. To simplify and make this short, basically, if a potential homebuyer has to wait too long to see a virtual tour, he will "surf" to someone else's real estate webpage that takes less time to load. For example, if you are a home seller with a virtual tour that is too large, your home's virtual tour may not be viewed but a buyer views your neighbor's home up the street because the virtual tour downloads quickly, and that homebuyer falls in love and purchases it, not even looking at your home. This is a scenario that we are avoiding by keeping our home pics and virtual tours at a reasonable size.
As the web technician for MyGoldsboroAgent.com I am walking the virtual tour quality/size vs. download time tight-rope to allow our homes to have the most exposure possible. I am always monitoring website usage and will continue to increase the quality/size of our virtual tours as internet technology increases for the average homebuyer and/or web surfer. The last thing MyGoldsboroAgent.com wants to do is eliminate 70% of the potential homebuyers (refer to statistics above) due to a slow loading website.
Weldon Williford, REALTOR
Broker-In-Charge
MyGoldsboroAgent.com
9. Why doesn't MyGoldsboroAgent.com currently use larger pictures and moving-panoramic virtual tours to showcase homes?
Actually, I would love to put big, beautiful photos of seller's homes and fancy panoramas on our website! Unfortunately, the reality is only about 30% of the North American population has a broadband connection as of the end of 2007 (237,168,545 Total Internet Users & 72,313,133 Broadband Connections). The panoramic virtual tours you may see on other REALTOR's websites do look great, but if if a homebuyer is using dial-up, these tours are virtually useless or it may take the potential buyer several nights just to look at a few homes online. There are still areas of Wayne County where broadband is not even offered!
Many studies have been done regarding internet users and webpage loading times. To simplify and make this short, basically, if a potential homebuyer has to wait too long to see a virtual tour, he will "surf" to someone else's real estate webpage that takes less time to load. For example, if you are a home seller with a virtual tour that is too large, your home's virtual tour may not be viewed but a buyer views your neighbor's home up the street because the virtual tour downloads quickly, and that homebuyer falls in love and purchases it, not even looking at your home. This is a scenario that we are avoiding by keeping our home pics and virtual tours at a reasonable size.
As the web technician for MyGoldsboroAgent.com I am walking the virtual tour quality/size vs. download time tight-rope to allow our homes to have the most exposure possible. I am always monitoring website usage and will continue to increase the quality/size of our virtual tours as internet technology increases for the average homebuyer and/or web surfer. The last thing MyGoldsboroAgent.com wants to do is eliminate 70% of the potential homebuyers (refer to statistics above) due to a slow loading website.
Weldon Williford, REALTOR
Broker-In-Charge
MyGoldsboroAgent.com
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
After the Smoke Clears
Wayne county has been somewhat protected from the mortgage fallout in 2007 due to the fact that our market never seems to have a big price boom like more metropolitan areas. However, we started feeling the credit "squeeze" near the end of last year and it blew in hard the first quarter of this year.
If you know anything about credit scores, you understand how they affect your ability to get a loan. During the great sub-prime days of the past booming years, we saw clients with 560 or lower scores get loans. Now, it seems for even a government backed FHA loan clients need to have 620 or even higher depending on circumstances just to get a loan.
This increase in criteria has caused a slow-down in our market. Homes are still moving and certain pockets of the county still do not appear to be affected. However, we are starting to see very mild price pressures and a slowdown in new construction starts. These price reductions do not seem to be in vain though.
We have seen an increase in buyer activity in the past few weeks. The reductions and/or lack of home price increases, combined with some government tinkering with interest rates, and beautiful early spring weather has stimulated our real estate market. Our company outlook for later spring and summer is very positive. We currently have the most listings in company history and our web traffic is continually increasing. Web traffic is a great indicator of buyer activity since most buyers go to the internet first, before actually calling an agent. The government continues to tinker with FHA loans and interest rates. We'll have to see what affect these things have on the market over the next few months. We are all watching.
I'll have a first quarter report available the first of April.
If you know anything about credit scores, you understand how they affect your ability to get a loan. During the great sub-prime days of the past booming years, we saw clients with 560 or lower scores get loans. Now, it seems for even a government backed FHA loan clients need to have 620 or even higher depending on circumstances just to get a loan.
This increase in criteria has caused a slow-down in our market. Homes are still moving and certain pockets of the county still do not appear to be affected. However, we are starting to see very mild price pressures and a slowdown in new construction starts. These price reductions do not seem to be in vain though.
We have seen an increase in buyer activity in the past few weeks. The reductions and/or lack of home price increases, combined with some government tinkering with interest rates, and beautiful early spring weather has stimulated our real estate market. Our company outlook for later spring and summer is very positive. We currently have the most listings in company history and our web traffic is continually increasing. Web traffic is a great indicator of buyer activity since most buyers go to the internet first, before actually calling an agent. The government continues to tinker with FHA loans and interest rates. We'll have to see what affect these things have on the market over the next few months. We are all watching.
I'll have a first quarter report available the first of April.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wayne Cty. Market Stats. 4th Qtr 2007
The 4th quarter of 2007 was a reflection of the state of overall housing issues facing NC and the nation. Wayne county has grown over past several years, which has lead to a greater number of potential sellers as reflected in the number of total new listings. This new listings figure has continued to rise and has caused a glutton of inventory for real estate companies. The average sales price decreased and the days on market increased even as total volume remained stable. The main issue is that the volume is not increasing to keep up with the number of new listings on the market. At one point during the months of Nov. and Dec. there were over 150 listings in the $200,000 - $225,000 price range alone. So, if your home was for sale in the price range, you were lucky to have a showing with 8-10 in 150 odds per homebuyer. The positives of this market are that we have not seen a great decline in volume and buyer activity is still strong regardless of the negative news and media. Based upon buyer calls and web activity, we see a definite increase in sales volume for the first quarter of 2008.
Total New Listings During This Time Frame: 448
Average Sold Price: $136,073
Average Days on Market: 137
Total Home Sales Sold Dollar Volume: $35,651,068
Total New Listings During This Time Frame: 448
Average Sold Price: $136,073
Average Days on Market: 137
Total Home Sales Sold Dollar Volume: $35,651,068
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
AT&T to Create 350 Jobs, Invest $4.5 Million in Goldsboro
GOLDSBORO, N.C. — AT&T Inc. plans to invest $4.5 million and create 350 new jobs in Goldsboro.
Company officials said Tuesday that hiring for the new positions will begin by next month. The jobs will be at a support center for AT&T's Internet subsidiary.
The center will provide technical assistance to high speed Internet subscribers in the Southeast.
AT&T officials said the center should be up and running in the second quarter of next year.
Company officials said Tuesday that hiring for the new positions will begin by next month. The jobs will be at a support center for AT&T's Internet subsidiary.
The center will provide technical assistance to high speed Internet subscribers in the Southeast.
AT&T officials said the center should be up and running in the second quarter of next year.
Map It! Listing Detail Feature Got Microsoft'd-Update
Hello Everyone!
Now the MyAgent Mapsearch feature is directly linked to the Map It! feature on the listing/home detail pages. This way, regardless of how you found the listing detail page, the link will carry you to the innovative MyAgent Mapsearch page where you can zoom in, get driving directions, and view an actual satellite view of the property through Google's interface.
Now the MyAgent Mapsearch feature is directly linked to the Map It! feature on the listing/home detail pages. This way, regardless of how you found the listing detail page, the link will carry you to the innovative MyAgent Mapsearch page where you can zoom in, get driving directions, and view an actual satellite view of the property through Google's interface.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
MyGoldsboroAgent.com is now Firefox Browser Friendly
A larger percentage of the internet browsing population are using other browsers besides Internet Explorer than ever before. Mozilla's Firefox is the #2 leading browser on the web, currently. This browser, packaged as part of a Google download and available independently through Mozilla, is supposed to be faster, easier to use, and more secure. Firefox, however, reads HTML coding a little differently. This has posed some issues for viewers who have been using Firefox to browse our site. I have corrected all active listings and navigation pages to be Firefox compatible. I will be correcting closed/sold listings as I have time. The internet is always evolving and MyGoldsboroAgent.com is doing everything we can to stay ahead of the curve.
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