Yippee! The snow is melting in my yard. I was snowed in for a few days but able to get out on Thanksgiving Day. I’m happy I was able to get out my driveway, and manage the icy roads in my community. As usual it is my own driveway and the side streets near my home that cause me the most trouble on snow days. Once I get out to the main roads, there is no problem.
Yesterday I managed the drive from Shelton up to Tacoma with only minor slow downs, and the drive back in the evening was not too bad. Since winter has not officially started yet we here in Western Washington are beginning to wonder what nature has in store for us this year. Usually we have a rather temperate climate — not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter. The last several winters have been pretty mild. We are wondering if we are due for a cold and snowy winter.
I have a client who is eager to get out and see some houses in our area, and in Thurston county next to us, and we’ve been waiting for the snow to get out of our way. Looks like this coming week will work for us.
As for the real estate market, it is pretty darn slow this month and as far as we can tell is going to be slow all throughout the winter. I’ve got some sellers who are still waiting to put their homes on the market, and I see no reason to urge them to list their homes until after Christmas, if not even later. I don’t know about other agents, but I like to see my listings sell, and I really dislike disappointing my clients if their properties don’t sell within a reasonable time.
It is rather challenging to price properties correctly these days as the comps are not often adequate. There are too many short sales and bank owned properties on the market depressing the market. With the way the banks are holding back a shadow inventory of even more foreclosures, we expect to be dealing with bank owned properties for years. If only this forclosure business could be ended for keeps.
Now, I don’t pretend to be an economist, but I can’t help but wonder. What if instead of using billions upon billions of dollars to attempt to encourage the banks to help people stay in their homes we simply invested about 300 million dollars (a lot less money) to our individual citizens who had mortgages under a million to pay off their mortgages. (We only have a population of about 300 million in our nation, so this is very, very doable.) That would keep them in their homes, stop the foreclosures and stabilize things for a while. Of course the bankers would all scream bloody murder because they would lose some money in the deal (money being much more important than people). They want that billions upon billions of dollars from us taxpayers, and they also want the interest from their loans, and the even greater profits they make from kicking people out of their homes. Sigh, it’s really too bad that the Mr Potters of the world won the battle of the banks, and we never learned the lesson of that often repeated Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Tags: foreclosures, it's a wonderful life, snow
