October 2008

Here we are at the end of October.  Summer is over, the leaves are turning beautiful colors and the temps are getting a bit cool.   We have a lot to be thankful for and the holiday season is on the way.  The business and investment climate is still a bit crazy, though.
Early this month the [...]

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I just ran a complete search of home sales in Birmingham MI for the first three quarters of 2008. There were 243 home sales (225 sold, 18 pending sales) between January 1st and September 30th, 2008.
I decided to create a pdf file so that readers could take a look at these sales [...]

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HALLOWEEN HOOT- Beverly Hills
The 13th Annual Halloween Hoot takes place Sunday, October 26th at Beverly Park.
* 10 am - Noon - Topping & Gutting Pumpkins (Volunteers needed)
* Noon - 2 pm - Carving Pumpkins
* The first 200 youngsters can carve a free pumpkin [...]

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The Metropolitan Consolidated Association of Realtors released third quarter 2008 home sales statistics for Oakland County today, compiled from information they received from Realcomp, our mls.
We’ve highlighted the report for markets that we serve, like Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Royal Oak and Troy.
In the county as a whole, sales were up by 21.12% year [...]

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This would be funny if it weren’t so true.

Well, it’s a little funny.  In an uncomfortable kind of way.

The abundance of foreclosures may put a damper on Halloween trick-or-treating this year, but it doesn’t have to.

Stage those foreclosures to sell them!

Vignette and surface staging can go a long way to warm up a property and [...]

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This week we got a question from Tim.  He writes:
My son and his family are relocating back to Oakland County after 4 years in the military. Their financial situation is fairly strong. They have a serious interest in a house listed as a short sale. The listed price for the home is about half the [...]

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I spent much of this week with my head blissfully in the sand.  While others fretted about stock market losses and the failed housing market, I just kind of failed to tune in.
Crazy words, I know.  I am hardly apathetic and I tend to be pretty well informed.  But this week, as the sky fell [...]

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The big news this morning is that the Federal Reserve Board moved to lower the federal funds rate overnight by ½%.  Five other central banks around the world also lowered key lending rates in a concerted effort to loosen up lending and pump money into the banking system.
Of course, we’ve all heard about the $700 [...]

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I guess the ex-Mayor of Detroit isn’t planning on moving to his Tallahassee Florida home any time soon (even after he finishes serving his time in jail). The 4 bedroom, 3 bath home that the Kilpatrick’s purchased in June of 2007 for $430,000 is currently on the market for $399,900 with Gary Bartlett, a former [...]

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