I often have people question the need for title insurance.  They feel that they can easily go down to the state recording office and find out any thing they need about a property.

I would never want to purchase a property without title insurance.  There are so many ways to cloud a title that I am constantly learning about new ones.  After 17 years in the business, I still find out about new title issues. 

Here are some of the possible problems that title insurance will protect against:

• Invalid Deeds…I once talked to a couple who purchased a property as husband and wife even though they weren’t married.  They did not go through a title company and did not have insurance.  Of course, I declined to list that property knowing that the only way to clear the title was for them to admit to fraud. 
• Unknown Easements:  Often easements will be granted across a 160 acre homestead that is later subdivided.  Will you recognize that the 50 year old easement now runs along your one acre lawn if you do the search yourself? 
• Incorrect Legal Description: It is not uncommon for a property to transfer with an incorrect legal description.  A title company will catch that and help to correct it.

Those are just a few problems, there are many potential pitfalls in the transfer of title that a title policy helps to avoid.  Here is a list of 27 possible nightmares.

Mat-Su Title in Wasilla has an informative website.  They also include some helpful forms.

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Wasilla Real Estate News Statistics for this week show a little life in the real estate market.  I have been waiting all spring for our normal jump and it started to show up this week.

Most of us have been experiencing more calls, more showings, and generally more activity in the market for more than a month but this has not been showing up in the statistics.  Just because people were looking, there wasn’t an increase in pendings and closings. 

This week both of those categories are up more than 30% over last week and over most of the previous 6 weeks.  If this new level of activity continues we will have a pretty healthy market.

I expected to see the total inventory top 800 this week, but with fewer new listings, and and increase in pendings the inventory actually dropped…a little. 

Foreclosure activity does not appear to be driving the market.  I just sent out my new Motivated Sellers list to the subscribers and was surprised at the small amount of foreclosures.  There are only 18  this week out of the 795 total listings.  But those foreclosures are selling.  The lenders are experiencing pain in some outside markets and they don’t want to hold on to foreclosures.

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Dave Johnson of Fishhook Realty questions my weather forecasting abilities in his comments on my last post officially announcing spring.  Look at them, the geese, cranes and ducks are still there under about 4 inches of fresh snow on the Palmer Experimental Farm fields.  It really is spring!

If that doesn’t mean it’s spring, I don’t know what does.  But I will admit that I’m glad I still have my studded tires on.  By the way, we are supposed to take our studded tires off by May 1.

I could barely see this flock of geese glide in for a landing through the snow.  They must be flying on instruments, no VFR for them.  I’m always impressed by the amount of migratory birds that appear each spring. I haven’t seen the swallows yet.  They usually arrive right after the cranes.  Hopefully they don’t go off course in this snow storm. 

So, buck up, this has got to be the last snow fall of the year………doesn’t it????

You have to love living in the Mat-Su Valley, we are so close to Alaska…We get to see things like these two moose munching on the willows in my front yard Tuesday morning…when it still felt like spring.

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Wasilla Real Estate News market statistics for the week ending April 21, 2008.  This includes Palmer and the rest of the Matanuska Susitna Borough.

It is amazing that this week is almost identical to last week.  We had almost the same amount of everything except total active listings.  Those were up by about 20 and will probably go over 800 by next week.

I keep expecting to see a surge in sales for the spring.  That would be a surge in pending and closed listings.  But this hasn’t happened.  They have stayed almost steady at 30 and 20 respectively. 

The average price for pending sales is down this week primarily because of about 4 places that sold for 50–60 thousand.  Don’t worry, they weren’t screaming deals, they were worth just about what they sold for.

I did notice several from the Motivated Sellers list on the pending sheet today.  Some of the motivated sellers haven’t become motivated enough to get their price right yet.  They will, they are going to sell eventually.

I wrote and offer today on a house and received an offer on one of our listings.  There is still a market, we just have to be “in the market”…not “on the market”.  You will know you are “in the market” if you are getting showings.  If you aren’t getting very many showings…you are only “on the market”. 

Just remember, there are about 30 houses selling per week.  And the average price is in the low $200s.  The vast majority of homes that are selling are under $300,000.

If your house is in the $300s or more, you are fighting with over 240 other sellers over 3 buyers a week.  You need to be the among the best 3 out of 240 other houses.  Sorry for the tough news, but you might as well know the truth.

We had one of our $300+ homes pend last week.  These sellers got serious about selling and lowered the price down to where there were finally people looking.  We went from almost no showings to several a week and finally an offer.  That is what motivated sellers do, they get it sold.

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A couple weeks ago I announced that spring had come.  Since then we have had temperatures down to 10 degrees and several good sized snow storms.

So much for my weather forecasting abilities.

But now, someone else has made it official.  The geese are on the fields in Palmer. 

We look forward to the geese arriving there every spring on their way to the nesting grounds and also note the huge flocks passing through in the fall on their way south. 

Take a drive out to Palmer just by the airport to see for yourself.  It really is spring.

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In Wasilla and Palmer, new construction homes still have a large share of the real estate market.  I have been noticing quite a few new houses in the closed sales list every week so decided to take a look at the numbers…here they are.

First lets look at the whole Palmer Wasilla real estate market.

In 2007 for the first 3 1/2 months of the year there were 336 homes sold compared to 245 homes sold in the same period this year.  That is a significant reduction in volume.  Obviously, there are fewer buyers this year.  These fewer buyers have a greater selection. 

In addition, the median price of the sold homes dropped from $213,260 down to $204,675 for this same time period.  The median price is different than the average price and is not skewed by a few very high end sales. 

Now lets look at the new construction market.

In 2007 there were 124 new homes sold in the first 3 1/2 months of the year.  This was almost 37% of the market at the time.  This year 78 new homes were sold to equal about 32% of this years market. 

It is interesting to note that the median price of new construction stayed essentially equal.  In  2007 it was $231,100 compared to $231,300 this year.  Building costs have increased in the last year, but builders have cut some of their profit, and buyers have moderated their expectations so that prices remained the same.

Serious sellers are still selling their homes. Pretty much the only people who are selling right now are the ones who really need to sell.  A lot of  people are holding on to their homes in anticipation of a future price increase if gas line talks result in real progress.

I update a list every week or so that I call my motivated sellers list.  I cannot post this on the web because of MLS rules, but I can email it to you.  If you would like to receive this just send me an email asking for the motivated sellers list by clicking on my contact link above right.

The data above was taken from the Alaska MLS system.  Please see their disclaimer below.

 AlaskaMLS disclaimer…“This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by, and to, the subscribers of Alaska Multiple Listing Service, Inc. (AK MLS, Inc.). AK MLS, Inc. does not guarantee nor is it in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by AK MLS, Inc. is for its own use and may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. “

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The Mat-Su Borough says it’s going to raise taxes this year.  Rindi White wrote this piece in the Anchorage Daily News alerting us to this new hole in our pocket.  Surprisingly, the borough claims that the budget will decrease, but they need more money.  I’m not sure how that works.

What they don’t say is that they have been raising taxes almost every year since 1990.  When your assessment value on your house increases, your taxes increase.  So without having to increase the mill rate, the borough has been raking in more and more property taxes every year. 

In addition to that, the growth in the valley has increased the amount of houses from which they can gather taxes.  Raising the value of an empty lot that is valued at $30,000 to $230,000 with a house on it increases the change into the boroughs till by 6 times.  Of course, new homes equals a higher population, which does increase the work load for the borough…they need to hire more people to collect the money. 

Seriously, I do recognise that a higher population means that the borough needs more money.  But they should be receiving that money already with the increased property valuation of those new homes.  I am having a hard time understanding why taxes will need to go up this year unless they are in fact going to spend more money. 

I have a call in to the borough finance office and also to the employment office.  I hope they can help me understand why they want to raise taxes.  I’ll update this post when they help me clear the tax fog in my brain.

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Wasilla Real Estate statistics, including Palmer and the whole Mat-Su borough for the past week.

The market appears to be holding steady. There are more new listings, as expected in the spring.  The new pending and closed sales have been almost the same for the last 2 months. The following chart shows the stats for this week.

A very interesting phenomenon this week the stark difference between Days on Market, (DOM), for the pending and closed sales compared to the total active listings. I also notice that a lot of homes on my motivated sellers list turned up in the pending list this week…obviously they were good picks. I’m still updating the next one…it should be done soon.

Once more it is obvious that there are two markets out there.  There are 775 homes on the market with only 30 buyers a week willing to write offers on them.  Obviously, they only shop the houses that are priced and presented right, the other houses keep racking up DOM.

To get into the pending or closed category requires both price and presentation.  There are only so many homes that a buyer can see.  I showed 13 homes yesterday priced from $280,000–$380,000.  We started at 1 PM and didn’t finish until 8:30PM.   I don’t usually work on Sunday, but these people had come from outside and had a limited time schedule.  We found a couple interesting homes, but one was obviously priced better than the rest.  Guess which one interests them.

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Alaska Is Huge

Every spring I get inquiries from people “outside” who have never been to Alaska about finding a piece of their Alaskan dream.  They want to buy a chunk of Alaska where they can have peace and privacy.  They know Alaska is big so they expect to get at least 10–100 acres of beautiful wilderness.

Of course, they also expect this to come with maintained roads, electricity, and hopefully public water and sewer as well.  It takes them awhile to come to grips with how hard to find and how expensive land is in Alaska.

Alaska IS huge, click on the top map to get a feel for just how big Alaska really is.  You could almost put one tip on New York City and the other on San Francisco. 

But less than 1% of Alaska is in private ownership.  Here is a map showing who owns Alaska.  Click on it to notice that it is actually a pie chart showing that the US Government owns most of the state. 

Alaska Is Tiny

Here are some more details on how tiny Alaska really is.

You will find that there is about as much private land in Alaska that you would find in the state of Massachusetts.  But much of that land is either remote, (you can’t drive to it), or swampy, or mountainous.  If we are talking about quality land in Alaska on which you can actually build a home, drive to, have telephone service, or farm and garden; it may be as small as the state of Rhode Island. 

You can find land in the wilderness, or on the ocean, (alaska has more than 34,000 miles of ocean front), on a river, or in the mountains.  But if you want all that and also want to drive to work in the morning you better have some big bucks. 

I can find you a piece of the Alaska wilderness for a low price.  But I can’t take you to it.  I don’t own a helicopter.

Palmer and Wasilla Are The Premier Alaska Locations

If you are looking for a real nice property that is close to all of the above, you are looking for a home in the Mat-Su Valley.  Almost any home in the Mat-Su valley is within a 20–30 minute drive of good hiking, mountain climbing, fishing, boating, hunting, skiing and more.  That is why the Wasilla and Palmer area is the bedroom community for the whole state of Alaska.

And that is why I live here and have stayed here for 40 years.  The Mat-Su Valley is the best place to live in the whole state of Alaska in my opinion.  If you are interested in a home here…send me a note by clicking on my contact link on the right.

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This past week has been humming along at about the same rate as the month of March.  The market activity is better than the winter months have been, but it is significantly less than this time last year.   We seem to have a lot of people looking at homes, but not as many actually buying.

As you can deduce by looking at the chart above, the houses that are selling are the ones in the lower price ranges.  The average house on the market is price a lot higher than the houses that are selling. 

That means that the competition in the higher price ranges is fierce.  In fact for year so far, houses over $300,000 have been only 8% of  the total sales while they consist of 30% of the total inventory.  The only houses over $300,000 that are selling are the ones priced very competitively and that are presented very effectively. 

Click on the chart to the right to see the MLS stats for the last 2 years.  Notice especially the bottom line.  this is the line showing total sales for every month.  We are still waiting for a significant bump in sales for this spring.  I believe it will come…but it’s not here yet.

Kristan Cole has some good stats over on her site here.  She shows that the total sales are down almost 30% from last year.    Total volume is also down, as is the average sales price.  The only thing that I might disagree on is her number of a -3% appreciation.  I don’t have enough information to say that yet. 

Even though the average sales price per home is down, that doesn’t say that the average value of each home sold is down.  It just shows that we are selling more homes in the lower price ranges and fewer in the higher price ranges.  We still don’t have enough real data to tell if values are going up or down.  But my opinion is that the lower price homes are appreciating slightly and the higher priced homes are doing the opposite.

If you would like help buying or selling…give a call.  My cell number is 907 232–7900. 

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