Avatar's Blog

CB Richard Ellis announced that they arranged for the sale of the Wingate Commons in Fort Lauderdale to Weston Wingate for $3.75 million. Houston based real estate trust, Hines Real Estate Investment Trust is offering $200 million in common shares and is planning a $2.2 billion IPO. The commercial news of sales, increases in prices and soaring times for Invesment Trusts continue.

At the same time, residential real estate news i showing signs of cooling all over the country. And every one of the articles contains caveats that although homes are taking longer to sell and prices are not soaring as quickly as they have been, the housing market is still as hot as ever.

Well, yes. And no. It is not possible for things to be slowing and things to be the same. Simple physics. That said, it is true that the housing market is still hotter than it has been in many decades. It just isn't as hot as it was only a year ago. So buyer beware. I am getting more and more requests for residential bridge loans from folks who are having trouble selling their homes before they buy the new home. They still feel they have to get in on the home they want now before they are bid out or lose the opportunity. However, they are not getting the same response from others when trying to sell their own homes.

Location? Hardly. The requests are coming in from the San Francisco area of CA - from up and down the coast of CA for that matter. Denver, Houston, Wichita, Boston, Atlanta. It seems to me that the problem is more the with the particular sellers than with a specific area. Houses are selling a little slower - that's all there is to it. Some folks aren't quite catching on and they are desperate to get into that ne home before they have a firm sale on their own.

My advise? Settle down, folks. Your house might take a few months to sell, instead of a few days or weeks like your neighbor's home did last year. No big deal. But things are beginning to slow.