STL Realty Views

News and Views from top producing St Louis REALTORS.

 

March 19, 2015

March 20 MATCH DAY for RESIDENTS!

Resident Physician Heading to St. Louis?

March 20th is the day that many medical residents will find out that they are relocating to St. Louis for one of the many fine medical residency programs in the St. Louis area.   

Having worked with many residents over the years, seeking a home in an unfamiliar area, needing to live within 15 minutes of the hospital but not having any idea about the areas REALLY needs the help of a buyer's agent experienced with serving the needs of medical residents.  This is an extremely stressful process that a specialist in residency relocation can make substantially easier than an average agent.

Unlike most other clients, medical residents usually have a limited time period to find the PERFECT HOME, need someone that knows the real estate market and all communities, and someone who's willing to clear the schedule for a few days to make sure they make the most of their time here in St. Louis.  They also need broker's with encyclopedic knowledge of the banks that offer PHYSICIANS LOANS, and what banks have the best products.  

We've experienced this so much, we've created a special page just for resident physicians and their families as they navigate the St. Louis real estate market.

Medical Resident Home Page

We've had the most experience helping residents find homes near Washington University Medical School / BJC, but also have helped residents at St. Louis University Medical School, Mercy, and St. Lukes.   

Feb. 1, 2015

Don't Try To Time the Market, but......

Time for the Selling Process!

Super Bowl Sunday

As a St. Louis Realtor, lots of questions get thrown my way.  Whether they're from prospective clients, or someone we run into at the bus stop, we're always talking about real estate.

Today we're talking about that #1 Question:   When is the best time to sell your home?

I first heard from stock market analysts that it can be ineffective to try to 'time the market' with stocks.  There are illustrations that establish that by the time people figure out they should be investing, the best growth opportunities pass them by.  That's true in real estate as well.  When the real estate market was at its low point in 2011 -2012, we weren't getting lots of calls from investors, but the ones who did in some cases have already sold and made large profits. 

Timing the market for selling is similar but different.

The main thing to keep in mind is that in a supply / demand economy, selling in the spring time may be a time when competition increases and the balance between listings and buyers shifts into a bit of a buyer's market.  Even if the balance still good, often times the spring market brings home seller's with a more favorable equity position that can price their homes for less and generate a quick sale, undercutting their neighbors that owe more.

Another problem, with real estate sales being highly influenced by weather, the big time to sell can happen during warm spells in January like last week.  We have been writing and receiving lots of offers lately, way before people anticipate.

Cut to the Chase.......

So with all that said, I have my work cut out for me today, because I tell people all year round, if they want to try to time for the spring market, call your Realtor (Preferably one at Premier Realty Exclusive) on Super Bowl Sunday to plan for an early spring launch.

Since we hire the best real estate photographer in the business and there's lots of staging, painting and work that can be done to bring TOP DOLLAR on your home sale, a month may be needed to get things together.  

Get your home value here 

Oct. 26, 2014

Help for Home Seller's!

Home Selling Pain Relief

An Unlikely Tip for Home Selling

For relief from the pain of home selling, we usually recommend that people hire us if they are in St. Louis, and follow directions.

new study reported in Friday's Wall Street Journal suggested an alternative:  Tylenol.

The study had to do with the aversion people have with losing money and how taking acetominiphen can help aleviate the pain.  

The whole study is set to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology next year.  

It's a nice thought, but we'll probably keep suggesting a good Realtor and following directions. 

 

For more information about things that help home seller's, contact the Premier Team for our no obligation list of home selling advice!
 
 

 

Posted in Home Selling Tips
Aug. 19, 2013

Life Works-North Side Regeneration Development

It was Super Exciting to be in the Beautiful St. Louis City's Downtown Central Library, stunning from head to toe! As I sat amongst my fellow realtors, I waited in anticipation. McEagle Properties http://www.mc-eagle.com/ came & presented the North Side Development now known as "Life Works". This development has been in lawsuits for years, but finally in August of this year the courts deemed the TIF (Tax Increment Financing) was appropriate. A gift to St. Louis City & St. Louis County, this development is finally moving forward! This will add loads of beautiful real-estate to St. Louis & we are all VERY Excited! 

The Life Works Development is building a Live-Work-Play Community! It will include 3000+ properties over 4609 parcels of land. WOW! A new exciting addition is the St. Louis City Bottle district! A prime area of real-estate that is North of the Stadium!

For the great St. Louis residence there will be 60% historic redo homes & 40% New construction. They lost 40 buildings to brick thieves and 15 to fires. There has been a major crack down so that has really been minimized! 

McEagle properties is very serious about their vision! They have hired a European Consultants to assist with making it a sustainable area. The focus will be on preservation, safety, & beauty. They want the whole package bustling businesses, schools by using existing buildings & new, transportation-looking into street cars, & beautification throughout! Another neat exploration is http://citytoriver.org/ which will add a much more appealing "boulevard" type thoroughfare in place of the elevated lanes of highway 70 that divide our downtown areas.  The beauty of this plan is that they're nearing the end of their useful life and would need to be replaced anyway!

Another neat fact on this St. Louis real-estate development is 1 out of 4 jobs in the area will be preferential to people that live in the development. Great for the St. Louis community! This will be a 4 phased project with A,B completion by 2024 & C,D by 2030! Hold on to your hats St. Louis folk this should be a very exciting St. Louis real-estate addition!

April 23, 2013

Back in the Saddle

Real Estate is Back

In the past couple weeks, the real estate market in St Louis seems to be back!  Homes are selling, buyer's seem to be out consistently, and the overwhelming desperation seller's seemed to have a year ago seems to have diminished.  In its place is a mild level of confidence that a nicely presented home can sell for the right price.  

There are all kinds of data used to explain the market.  One 'snapshot' that I keep my eye on is the number of homes listed in the past 24 hours, versus the number of homes sold in the past 24 hours as listed ever day in the MLS.  

The above graphic is updated hourly in the MLS that realtors see each day.  

Based on the above numbers; 218 homes were listed today, 256 homes went "under contract" in the past 24 hours, and 155 were either sold (144) or leased.   Not having captured a graphic such as this in the darker days of St Louis real estate, from memory the numbers were a bit different.  The typical monday morning would have 218 listings put on the market, but only 50 homes would go under contract and 50 would sell.  Expired and cancelled listings dominated the market in those days.  

Recent years, the "spring selling season" would take place, but would usually only last for a few weeks in most areas.  By this time, the 'selling season' would be over.  

With great prices and super low interest plus pent up need for buyers to enter the market, our season seems to be going strong!

 

Nov. 25, 2012

Holiday Home Buying Season

St Louis Home Sales DEPLETING INVENTORY


The past few months we've seen our share of home buyers.  

 

Our summer heat wave and drought had the same effect on home sales as it did on rainfall, but as the weather started to moderate this fall, combined with the uptick in home values nationwide, home buyers are fighting to jump into the market.

That seems like good news to the housing market that has been publicly struggling along since the great recession started, but there is a downside to the increased activity.  Buyer's throughout the St Louis market are finding that the supply of homes is smaller, and the competition with other buyer's is making the process more difficult.  

There has always been a tendency for seller's to try to 'time the market';  often taking their homes off the market before Thanksgiving and waiting for the spring selling season to re-list.

Message to Home Seller's:   DON'T DO IT!

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and home buyer's are in hand now, looking for the right place.  Should home seller's go ahead and jump into the market now?  That depends.  One alternative, would be to reach out to your REALTOR now and consult about your local sub-market.  The real professionals out there keep track of their prospective spring listings and start unofficially marketing them within the real estate industry.  

There are always ups and down's about selling in any market.  One good thing about fall and winter sales is that there's not usually as much of a mad rush going on with realtors, title companies, lenders and other professionals.  Home buyer's and home seller's get more attention now, versus the spring when everyone is busy.  

Good news:  Recovery

The transitions we're seeing is direct evidence that the housing market is recovering.  Every sub-market is different, and some areas are doing better than others, but the difficulty buyer's have with finding the right place now will go hand in hand with continued price increases, followed by more of the 'pent up demand' to sell being relieved.  

Happy Holidays from the PREMIER TEAM!

Nov. 12, 2012

What Makes 4SaleStLouis.com a better resource?

11/12/2012 -- Orlando Fl   Here at the National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo in Orlando Florida, I've learned a lot.  Just about every vendor, bank, technology company and new idea is represented.  

While its been really cool to learn about things that we could do to improve our St Louis real estate business, it can be a bit scary.  "How could we do business for so long and not do that?"  When it comes to building a top real estate website, that hasn't exactly been the case.  

Today my day started with  class on video production, and then a blogging and website class.  I took the time to post this blog because so far in this class, most of the important items discussed are things that we've already covered in the short year since we've upgraded the 4SaleStLouis.com site.  

In comparing our site with some of the national real estate websites, 4SaleStLouis.com is the Best resource for St Louis real estate!  The national sites have all the technology bells and whistles, but have the authors of those sites ever been to the Farmers Market at Tower Grove Park, or the Lafayette Square Parlor Tour?  Do they know the difference between architectural styles in Soulard and Shaw?  Do they know the advantages / disadvantages of living in one area of St Louis vs another.  

If you're reading this, you've obviously found 4SaleStLouis.com.  Thanks for visiting, and we hope you consider our site your TOP RESOURCE for St Louis real estate information!

If there's NOT something you want to know about St Louis Real Estate,  Contact us!    We're always hoping to maximize our usefulness to the home buyer's and seller's in St Louis!

June 30, 2012

New Real Estate Wiki

St. Louis Real Estate Wiki

We started our first blog in 2005, not long after we were introduced to the blogging platform in the 2004 presidential primaries. The blog was Lofts in the Lou, and we started it because there wasn't any reliable independant information about the renaissance in Downtown St Louis.

The interesting thing about blogging was that we always were looking for other reliable sources of information about the subjects we were discussing. Since 'all real estate is local' (meaning, that real estate is regulated by local laws and customs) often times 'national' sources of information, or local sources in other areas wasn't adequately meeting our needs in truly providing information.

Of course, our focus primarily was making sure that our real estate wikiclients working with us had the answers, which often times just involved getting them together with the right professionals (lenders, inspectors, title companies, etc.)

Now with our newer site, we have the answer to our long needed information sources. The St Louis Real Estate Wiki!

This part of our site still doesn't surpass the knowledge one would gain from working through a transaction, but it will hopefully provide enough information to give someone the confidence to start moving towards buying or selling their  home.

The St Louis real estate wiki is for information purposes only, and does claim to be legal advice, but it is specific to the St Louis area and our local real estate forms, practices and customs. What's most useful is that it will be an available resource to provide supplementary information for all our efforts to in helping clients understand the real estate tranaction or blog, giving background information specific to the area and the post from real estate professionals actively working in St Louis.

Contact the Premier Team today for topics you want to insight on, or any other real estate needs!

 

May 28, 2012

Free Home Buying Workshop

Home Buyer Workshop 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Eagle Bank and Trust and Premier Realty Exclusive is hosting a FREE WORKSHOP on HOME BUYING 101.  
 
This educational event will be at the St Louis Hills Location, 6725 Chippewa.  There is no obligation to buy or use Premier or Eagle Bank, but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.  

Topics covered are keys to getting a mortgage, benefits of ownership, improving credit scores, loan programs and an overview of the home buying process.
 
We at Premier Realty Exclusive hope that you make the most of this holiday weekend and thank you for working with us.  
 
Contact us at 314-517-5050 if you need anything!

April 27, 2012

Downtown Living Tour 4/28/12!

Downtown Home TourThe time has come for the Downtown housing tour! The downtown tour will be this Sat. from 11-6! What a way to spend your day checking out buildings, design, downtown resturaunts, and more. We have one of the best downtowns there is! I know it is not huge, but it is so beautiful and growing by leaps and bounds.

When I want to have a great meal, downtown is one of the places I hit! Mangos is delicious, Mosaic is trendy, & there is much more.

There is also the City gardens which is a free walk of sculptures and water features. bring the kids and strollers and come see! We have a wonderful city that needs people to support it. Future home of the SLU law school, upscale movie theatre, and much more is coming! What a city!

This year's tour has a new theme, "The Art of Downtown" will be a more intimate tour than before.  Limited to 12 properties, each one having a story or a role in the artists movement downtown.  Premier Realty is hosting two open houses in conjunction with the tour --links below:

Syndicate Condominiums

Dorsa Loft 304

downtown living tour