The World of Real Estate and Personal Growth

Tom, here.

This is Price-Reduced.com where we talk a lot about real estate and a little about life.

So what in the world is happening in real estate?

A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities Report for 2018 is out. The top four?

New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo.

Ever wonder what $1,000,000. in US Currency can buy you around the world in such places as Monaco, Hong Kong, London, Paris, and Melbourne among others. If you aren’t familiar with the metric system, remember that 10 square meters is about 106.7 square feet. Knight Frank will take you around the world with photos displaying a variety of architecture, enticing descriptions, and the price tag to go with them.

Speaking of Knight Frank, their 2018 Global Residential Cities Index will show what housing prices have done in 150 cities around the world. The name Abu Dhabi sound familiar to you? The average price was reduced by 7.2% in the last year. Real estate prices don’t always go down, but they might not go up as much as in this City you will learn about with 22.3% appreciation.

Does China’s housing prices affect your local market? If so, then you will want to read more about Junes 1% average increase among 70 major cities in China.

As for London, if you want to focus on Luxury Homes you might find prices 15%-20% lower than they were in 2014. There might be some opportunities for you there.

And now let’s look at the US market.

If you are thinking of moving to the State of Texas, have friends there, or are just the curious sort, you will find this interesting.

In North Texas, the sale of million dollar homes increased 4 times the average of other homes in the first half of 2018.

The third fastest growing suburb in America is located in Frisco Texas. Frisco is about a 40-minute drive from Dallas and is located in Collin County where one out of every three homes is new construction. That is a lot of building going on.

Forbes has a great article on the Texas real estate market where you can see at a glance, both the home price changes and average home prices. You can opt for the Dallas-Plano area with an 11% price increase or Corpus Christie where you will find average prices reduced over the last year by 1%.

Did you know that the number of Bank Repossessed homes in Texas are down by 20% year over year?

Let’s go about 1800 miles north and west from Texas to Portland Oregon, Vancouver Washington and the Wine Country of the Willamette Valley.

Just over two years ago I had an offer on a home in the Milwaukie Oregon area. It was up for sale for $269,000. My buyers offered $285,000. $16,000 over asking price. As a seller wouldn’t you take an offer for $16,000. or 6% more than you were asking? So, did my buyer get the house? The sellers said no. After all, they had twenty-seven offers and ended up selling for 9.7% more than they were asking. Oh, did I mention the offer which was accepted was for cash? Who can compete with cash?

Some of the offers I have written recently have been the only offer presented to the seller or sometimes one or two other competing offers.

If you look at the statistics, both two years ago and today, the number of homes being sold would show as the same. However, only by being active in the local real estate market would you be aware of subtle changes such as fewer offers received to get to that one sale. Maybe not every area or every price point, but subtle shifts in the winds of real estate fortunes.

If you are curious about the real estate cycle in our area, see the chart and graph of “RMLS™ Closed Sales by Month and Year”

Now let’s get hyper-local, where the most important real estate in the world is. That space within your heart and mind.

Daniel Simons has a youtube video entitled “Selective Attention Test” which has over nineteen million views. Take a break before you go on and take the test. In the video he has you counting how many times people wearing white pass the basketball. At the end, he gives you the answer. Over 50% of those taking the test, were so focused on what they were tracking they missed out on what some would call the obvious, the gorilla in the room.

You should also watch his follow up video entitled “The Monkey Business Illusion.“

What is obvious to you, might not be so obvious to me.

I recently started taking bushes and trees out of my front yard, Some small and some not so small. In the matter of a day, I had everything chopped down, hauled away, and covered over with bark dust.

Neighbors walking by noticed it was more open and less crowded but most couldn’t remember in any detail what was there, even if they had lived in the neighborhood for some time.

Had I said what I was going to do, my guess is they would have made a mental note of how it looked before I started to work and then compared that to the completed job.

Most people walking by were focused on their dogs or engaged in conversation, not on what was happening.

That is one reason why it is always good to walk through a home twice or bring someone with you. Or at the least, have photos to refer back to.

What you see, or what is obvious to you, is in part based on what your background is and what you are focused on when you go through. One person notices the big kitchen with double oven, commercial gas range, and walk-in pantry to store all the things needed for a gourmet meal. However, someone else may only remember the separate shop building which has heat and air conditioning along with all of the outlets, storage racks, and room to park whatever vehicle ones heart desires.

In conversation as in life, we don’t all see the same thing we look at nor hear the same thing we are listening to. Obviously, right?

Thank you for listening to Price-Reduced.com and always remember, financially speaking, “When it comes to real estate, the best time to buy or sell, is when you don’t have to.

And now for the legal stuff: This is Tom Wilser, Principal Broker Licensed in the State of Oregon with Premiere Property Group,LLC HomesForSaleInOregon.com 503.422.6321 and Licensed as a Managing Broker in the State of Washington with Premiere Property Group, LLC HomesForSaleInWashington.com 360.608.8003 If you don’t want to give up your email or phone number to do a property or home value search in Oregon or SW Washington, then visit NoRegistrationRequired.com