Jim Gillespie, president of Coldwell Banker was recently interviewed on Fox Business news and he said alot of great stuff (you can watch the video from the link below or just click play on the YouTube.com version under the link). In summary he suggests two things:
$15,000 tax credit for all buyers of primary residences: I am in such agreement. The 8,000 has done a great job getting the first time home buyers out there, a $15,000 tax credit to all primary home buyers (not just the first time home buyers) would really get this market moving!
I’m finding that the majority of the homes that are moving are $200,000 and under and a large portion of those are already vacant. If we could get the homes in the higher price point moving it would start a healthy domino effect. What is hurting the home seller right now is the pricing of all the bank owned homes that are hitting our market (in Portland, Oregon anyway) and more home sales (that such a credit would encourage) would prevent more homes from going into foreclosure and allow more home homeowners to sell at a price that isn’t short of what they owe the bank.
Lock in the interest rate for 12 months at 4% or 4.25% for a 30-year fixed:Because so many buyers are “waiting” for interest rates to drop further (of which they may or may not do) we have alot of buyers out there that are sitting on the fence. If we were to lock something in for a pre-determined amount of time there would be no more waiting. This would really unclog the pipe
So what’s the deal? With this all the chaos in our economy starting in the housing market I don’t understand why our government doesn’t want to start repairing our market by focusing on the housing market. These two things alone would do wonders at moving the inventory and bringing a balance to the home market. GO JIM!!!
-Kristie McD. Your Portland Real Estate Agent!
Tags: coldwell banker president, fox news, interest rates, jim gillespie, Tax Credit