Ramesh Nyberg's Real Estate Blog

Don't shoot the messenger, it will just give him something more depressing to write about. So, smack him silly, and give him a copy of "The Secret." What I am talking about is today's big article in the Miami Herald.
In the first three paragraphs of the piece, which is about the economy, a total of 110 words, the following words appear, in order: grim, painful, pain, bad, troubles, stymieing, and the phrase "Under water".

Ok, I don't believe in rose-colored glasses. 27 years in law enforcement taught me to face reality straight on, and reality is often not very pretty. But I also believe that if you immerse yourself in nothing but negativity, and you focus only on the downside of things, that is precisely what you'll expect, and very often, what you'll get.

As I've said many times, you will rarely, if ever, read in the Herald that sales of single family homes in Miami-Dade have doubled since last year, or that the inventory has gone down--a very positive sign--for two consecutive months. You WILL read it here. And you will read other things that will keep you not falsely hopeful, but confidently informed.

We all know the economy is in tough shape--and that it likely will get worse before it gets better. But wallowing, hand-wringing, and mourning it won't get us out of it. Positive thinking, and positive action will, and even if it takes a long time, it will help us deal with the "pain" of being "under water."

The U.S. general who told the German commander "Nuts," when asked to surrender during the latter part of WWII died yesterday. If you watched either "Battle of the Bulge," or "Patton", you know the story. His units were surrounded, with seemingly no way out, and the Germans told him to give up or face non-stop artillery bombardment. And he told them, "Nuts." Instead of focusing on how tough and dangerous his situation was, he steeled his men, motivated them to dig in and fight, and had faith in the help that was on the way, in the form of Patton's division. And he got bailed out.

So, join me as we march our troops in 2009-let's stare the recession in the face, say "Nuts" to failure, and make as many good things happen as possible.

...is NOT a train after all.
Okay, I am officially changing my status from "cautiously optimistic" to "pretty darn excited." Here's why:

The December sales stats are out, and the outlook continues to brighten, this time more significantly than we have seen all year. (If you want to see the actual charts, just click here, or click $ales by the Numbers, from the column on your left) First of all, the inventory (unsold homes) of single family homes in Miami-Dade decreased for the third straight month. It is the first time we have seen that number since December of '07.

Pending sales rocketed up to 932 homes under contract, the biggest number we have seen in at least over a year. Consider all this happening in a holiday month, and the turnaround we are looking at is almost Dolphin-esque. 

I've been making lots of calls for showing appointments lately, and more and more, agents are saying, "Sorry we just went under contract."

Many of my customers are now telling me what I've been saying in this blog for months: to land a well-priced foreclosure, you need to act fast, and you need to offer either full price or as close to it as you can.

Yes, it is still an overall buyer's market, but foreclosures are a sub-market all their own, and it has started to become a feeding frenzy.

I'm actually excited about 2009. This month already has me hopping.

As always, I welcome your feedback and comments.