miOaklandCounty.com

Yes, that headline is correct. Sales are up over last year for the fourth month in a row, according to our MLS, Realcomp II. We’ve told you, we are seeing a lot of activity, and we are busier than ever. Spring has sprung! Here is Realcomp’s report
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Yesterday I tried to […]

Dmitry and I have had our busiest Spring in real estate in years in 2008.  We are working with more clients than ever before.  Last week we had a couple of closings and we asked the other Realtors and mortgage brokers if they were seeing what we are seeing: a lot more buying activity in […]

This just in from MCAR, our board of Realtors.
Sales figures for March cooled off a little from the previous two months. In February, for example, sales in Oakland County were up seven percent year-to-year. For March, sales dipped four percent. One likely culprit: the fourth snowiest March since 1880. And home buyers that may have […]

Sure, the Southeast Michigan real estate market has hit a rough patch. There are lots of homes on the market longer than the owners want them to be. But right now, Dmitry and I barely have time to eat dinner together. We are both running in different directions taking care of clients’ needs.
In the last […]

Don’t take my word for it, take the Free Press’s.
Sales of homes and condos in metro Detroit rose 12.8% in February compared with a year ago, according to figures released Tuesday by Realcomp.
There were 3,591 home and condo sales in the metro area in February compared with 3,184 in the same month in 2007. Realcomp […]

When I first landed in the Former Soviet Union in 1992, the average wage was probably about $20 a month and investment was a new concept. Early “business men” were thought of as thugs, and the notion of capitalism was still very foreign. In fact, as a Peace Corps Business Advisor, I was […]

Or, “how bad is the market?” Yep, we get asked that all the time.
First, let me say that we are busy. Our business has been very steady since we started selling homes in 2001. We’ve always looked at this as a business, not a hobby or something to fill our idol time now that […]

Housing market figures for Oakland County in September reflect a decrease in sales activity compared to September 2006: sales and sales volume were down eight percent and 18 percent, respectively.
Among the municipalities experiencing positive sales activity in the year-to-year comparison (with a minimum of 15 sales) were:

Commerce Township, which […]

I can take this discussion in two directions.
First, I checked the sales in the MLS this morning, just like I do every morning (and again periodically through the day). In the past few days 11 houses have rented in Birmingham and Beverly Hills and 6 were sold. I would call that a […]

Last week the Detroit New’s new Real Estate reporter, Nathan Hurst, and I had a chance to talk on the phone. Nathan has been here a couple of months now, and is excited about his new position covering the Metro Detroit real estate beat. He comes here from Boston and Nathan admitted that […]

Consumers might not notice this readily, but a different kind of correction is taking place in the Southeast Michigan real estate market: agents are quitting the business.
The exodus in the mortgage industry began some time ago, maybe more than a year. With refi business falling off and purchases at a lower rate, mortgage […]

Metro Detroit ranks 3rd in terms of the nation’s most affordable housing markets, according to Forbes magazine.  They report these stats:
Median home price: $154,600
Median household income: $63,052
Recent affordable home sales: 87.4%
They explained that it would take just over two years of gross income to purchase a home in a market like Metro Detroit, though many […]