The “Good Old Days”   by Gerald Frendt

Everyone reading economic statistics is relishing the return to “the good old days”.  Local real estate practitioners yearn for the days when the homes they showed were furnished and offers to purchase were made to happy and excited sellers, sitting at their kitchen table.  They will have to wait awhile longer.  

 The local real estate market, thru May, indicates an upturn in the amount of closings, but a continuation of the decline in average sale price.  The 685 sales was a 21% increase in the number of residential closings, in St. Clair County, compared to the first five months of 2008, but the average sale price fell by 32% to $75,700.  These figures are compiled from two Multiple Listing Services (Real Comp and MiRealSource), and do not include private sales.  The market is working.  The supply of homes on the market is down 21% from the “high water mark” hit in the fall of 2007.  First time home buyers, eligible for tax incentives, and investors are taking advantage of a “bargain market”.  Bank and government owned properties comprise more than 70% of this year’s residential sales.  In the city of Port Huron, less than 20% of the homes sold were privately owned. 

 Much has been written about the “plight of sellers”, during this downturn in the real estate market.  But there are many others who have experienced economic distress as a secondary effect of the market.  Because average sale prices were declining while the number of homes sold increased, the actual residential sales volume decreased by 19% from the previous year’s volume.  Real estate sales agents are paid on a commission basis and are usually considered independent contractors, not employees.  While there has been a considerable decline in the number of active agents, the market volume has declined much more.  The remaining agents are dividing up a proportionately much smaller pie.  Those who did leave the business, do not collect unemployment.  They slip through the cracks when unemployment figures are released, and their loss of income is not measured. 

 The problem for brokers is even worse.  In order to survive, leases have been re-negotiated, administrative staff reduced, and advertising scrutinized.  Equipment purchases have been delayed.  Every dollar saved in this manner is one less dollar received by those providing those services, so the effects of a declining market are pushed down to another level.  Title insurance companies, and mortgage brokers have been effected similarly.  The market is working, and more changes will be forced upon all of us in the real estate industry.   Even if the recession had not happened, our industry  would be going through change forced by the trend to Internet delivered services.

 When we finally emerge from this recession, the real estate business will look quite different from when we entered it, and we will probably never return to what will be remembered as “the good old days”.