The new listing on Arthur has been on the MLS for about 24 hours, and it's a little slow out of the gate - there have been about 25 calls, and three offers submitted, the highest at $180,000 with a $7,000 credit to buyer from seller (net $173,000).  Two offerees state that they are owmer-occupants, one an investor.

It's going to run at least until Monday, so we'll see if momentum picks up over the weekend.

Historically the best offers come in within the first four days - it takes a day or two for buyers to find time to visit a new listing, and then sleep on it, and then write an offer.  Ideally, sellers who have more than one offer should grab the best one on the fourth day and put it to rest - it's not likely to get better if you hold out longer.

In the meantime, some random thoughts:

1.  An agent this week said she has had two short sales in process at Countrywide for FIVE months, and no response yet.

2. Another agent who lists REOs from Fannie Mae, IndyMac, and others but not Countrywide, said she had 18 listings sent to her last month, but only 3 this month so far.

3. New pendings have continued this month, but the resulting closed sales will likely be around last year's total, or less.  Here are the pendings between July 1-16, those in 2002-2007 have already closed:

2002 - 1,203

2003 - 1,517

2004 - 1,339

2005 - 1,326

2006 - 999

2007 - 815

2008 - 1,108 

Of this year's 1,108, only 22 have closed already, and virtually all of the remaining are still within their 17-day inspection period.  If 30% of those fall-out of escrow, the final closings will be less than last year during the same period.

4.  Our long-time tenant moved out of the one rental property I own because of the price of gas.  We ran two ads on Craigslist, one the first weekend of July and one last weekend, and have had at least 100 phone calls and a dozen applications.  The rental market appears to be alive.  There have been a handful of interested parties who have walked from their mortgage, or are doing short sales, but with all the other action I noticed that I wasn't too interested in their stories.  I committed to two different applicants, but both flaked after a few days, the first because her escrow fell-out that she was sure was solid (she signed the rental contract and gave me the deposit).  The others disappeared.

5.  The biggest concern I have for the overall market is how ignorant the listing agents are to the current market conditions.  If you are making an offer on a non-REO house, not only are the sellers dug in, so are the listing agents.  They think their job is to protect their sellers from lowballing thieves.  In the meantime, they aren't selling, and the market is slipping further away, squashing any chance they might have had.  For those who don't need to move, no problem.  But I feel for those who do, and the agent is getting in the way.  I spoke with some sellers off the record who said they wanted to lower their price, and the agent refused - saying that somebody will come along someday.  If you are selling, don't let your agent get in the way of you lowering your price!

An old photo from Arthur - it used to have a roof ornament!