Attention, Move up Buyer

The Argus Leader delivered the message so well recently, “real estate sales plummet in Sioux Falls”. They were comparing 2008 sales over 2007. They were down 12%, and the average home price went down 6%.

It’s hard not to love the Argus, or most news media for that matter. You must think I’m joking, and you’re right, they are rarely positive or upbeat. We all know they get paid to scare us, the more attention we give them, the more advertising they sell. But, in this case they are mostly right. The difference between their thought process and mine is I think it’s great for our economy in general and buyers in particular.

What’s good about our real estate market today is ‘you can buy more house for the money’. It’s a simple fact, lower prices and lower interest rates allow you to get more for less. And that’s a good thing!

Here’s an example:

One year ago a house selling for $340,000, would have a mortgage payment of $1720 (not including taxes or insurance), this is based on a 30 year, 6.5% fixed loan, with 20% down. The same house today is selling for $300,000, and with an interest rate of 5%, the monthly investment is only $1289. This is a savings of $431 each month, plus the down payment is $8000 less. That’s a savings of over $25,000 during the next 5 years; or if you like, keep the payment at $1720 @ month and reduce the term to only 17 years.

Now, if you have a home to sell you may dismiss this thought, thinking you can’t sell, price is too small, or the task may be too daunting. I’m here to let you know it can happen much easier than you may think.

Last year, of The Tony Ratchford Group’s listings we got the seller 98% of their asking price, and averaged only 51 days on the market to sell; the number of homes we sold was UP 17% (not down 12%). Our process works!

The point of this message is simply to let you know there are great opportunities for you, and selling your existing home can be accomplished, and you’ll get a great house for less money.

You can dismiss this thought, or wait for the news media to tell us when it will be all right, or you can move forward with our assistance.

We invite you to call,
Tony Ratchford, Real Estate Broker, CRS, SRES, ABR