Please let me know your opinion on the market direction.

Aloha, I would like to get some opinions on where the market is going.  There is a lot of data out there on things like the Sub-Prime lending mess, interest rates, foreclosures, etc… Where do you think the Oahu Real Estate market is heading?Please let readers of this Blog know your opinion.

It is a buyer’s market so start your offer low, you might be surprised at the price you can get.

Recently, we have had two clients who offered a very low price to start.  The listing agents said the seller will “NEVER” accept the offer.  They said it is lower than offers they have rejected before.  Our clients decided to place the offer anyway because there is no harm done, there were no other offers they were competing against so the worst thing that could happen might be they could say it is too low or they might counter it with a higher offer.Well in these two cases the seller accepted the offer.  One of the listing agents called me and said “I am very glad you did not listen to my advice”.  So go ahead and start your offers low in this buyer’s market, you might be surprised at how motivated the seller is.

Honolulu Advertiser says “Home foreclosures triple”

The latest headline news from the Advertiser is “Home foreclosures triple in Hawaii”. At first glance it sounds pretty bad. 145 foreclosures up from 42 last year. However, as you read further it mentions Hawaii has one foreclosure for every 3,387 households, and the nation average was one per 510 households.

Then it goes on to say in the mid 1990s the foreclosure rate was between 4,000 to 5,000 per year. This really puts the 145 foreclosures last month in perspective.

You can read the article from this link.

I would like to get some discussion going on this blog.  Please let me know your thoughts on foreclosures and the market in general by adding your comments from the link below.