Trulia Is In The House!

Pardon the pun, but has anyone noticed the Trulia search box on the right side of my blog?

They have a new program which allows you to put a search box on your website. When someone does a search using that box the results open up in a page branded to your company.

I thought that was pretty cool when I first read about it. I didn't completely understand how it might work, but it was interesting enough for me to submit my application to Trulia to see if they would accept my blog as a site for the search feature.

I didn't think I had a snowballs chance in you know what after I answered some of their questions, like how many visitors do I get a week?

After about a week I received an email saying I had been accepted and accompanying that email was a form I needed to fill out and send back to them. That was simple enough.

There was another form talking about web programming of headers and sizes of logos etc, which really sent me for a loop. I had no idea what this might cost me, because I certainly didn't have the expertise to figure this out.

WHAT TO DO?

What I did was just let the person know that I had no idea what he needed from me. His response almost floored me. He basically said well "Tell me a little about your website and what your purpose for having it is and let me see what I can do". So I did and within a couple of weeks of trial and error, my new friend at Trulia got me up and running.

I just wanted to relay that story. It just goes to show you; That if I can do it, anyone can!

Realtors Home Sales Statistics For Jan 2008

Gary Woods sent out his updated statistics reviewing the market in January 2008. He has compared those numbers with Jan of 2007. One thing to make a note of is that this information only reflects the sales that were reported to The Santa Barbara Association of Realtors. There are transactions that aren't reported and I'll review them when they are available.

Total Active Listings; Jan 07 605, vs. Jan 08 676 UP +10.5%
This certainly shows that there is still a good selection to choose from when buying a home

New Listings; Jan 07 155, Jan 08 151 DOWN -2.6 %
Pretty much that same number for both years, not much to really draw any conclusions from

New Listings Median List Price; Jan 07 $1,295,000, Jan 08 $1,299,000, UP +0.4%
This tells me not much has changed when it comes to the sellers expectations of what their property is worth. The real issue is how many of these properties will sell and at what price.

Properties that went into Escrow; Jan 07 88, Jan 08 56, DOWN -36.4%
Number of Sold Properties; Jan 07 60, Jan 08 40 DOWN -33.4%
This is the trend we have been seeing for the last 6 to 7 months. It continues to tell me that there is a pent up demand we will get hit with shortly.

Median Sales Prices; Jan 07 $1,200,000 Jan 08 $1,130,000 DOWN -5.9%
The median price seems to continuu to slip and this isn't any surprise either. I'm not certain the lower price is really that significant though.

Median Sales Price without Montecito/Hope Ranch; Jan 07 $975,000 Jan 08 $920,562 DOWN -5.6%
This statistic really goes to show you that the median price decrease is the same pretty much across the board.

Average Sold Price; Jan 07 $1,928,066, Jan 08 $1,981,600 UP +2.8 %
I just feel like prices aren't going to continue to slip that much and this is representative of that.

Average Sold Price without Hope Ranch/Montecito’07 $1,338,922 ’08 $1,124,367 DOWN -6.1%
This number of course counters my last comment, but I do think prices will slip, just not that much. I have heard people predict a 25% decrease....... I don't see it.

Sold Volume Jan 07 $115,684,000 Jan 08 $79,264,025 DOWN -31.5%
This of course is representative of the number of transactions and a little lower median price.

Get Your Real Estate Documents Online

I first began working in the Title Business for Safeco Title Company in Los Angeles County. I was a messenger and one of the items I would deliver were blank documents to escrow companies and real estate offices.

The supply of these documents in the warehouse seemed to go on forever. The only other place I knew of to get these documents was the good old Stationery Store.

There isn't any reason to go to the Stationery Store anymore to get blank copies of Grant Deeds, or Quitclaim Deeds.

If you didn't know already our website has many of the most commonly needed documents for handling real estate transactions.

This of course has saved us money, in that we don't have to print them and keep them on hand for our customers and transactions.

It has also made life easier for people who need these documents because you can get what you want either in pdf format or in a Word document. You can save them to your computer and fill them out as you need them.

So, check out our blank real estate document library to see if we have what you need. I would always recommend talking with an attorney and or cpa before using these documents so you know you are using them correctly.