HomeGain Advisors Group – April 2010 Conference Call Recap

The HomeGain Advisors met for their quarterly meeting last week on Thursday, April 22nd. The Advisors represent top real estate agents across the country who provide insight into HomeGain products and services, market trends and Realtor behavior.

We had several interesting discussions with our Advisors Group last week that are worth sharing with our Blog readers — about market conditions, overcoming issues created by appraisers, and whether there may be implications from either terminating or extending the first time buyer tax credit .

Market Conditions

Agent Advisors in Massachusetts and Maryland reported that the market (and business) is good. Maryland foreclosures and short sales are drying up. Colorado is seeing an uptick — although there are still a lot of foreclosures, there are less short sales.

Arizona and Florida real estate agents reported the market continues to decline, with lots of foreclosures and people still defaulting. In Florida, it was reported the real estate market has 40% short sales — and one agent commented that he had only 4,968 listings vs. over 8,000 at the same time in previous years.

Appraiser Issues

Agents reported that banks, particularly Bank of America, are still not approving loans, which is making things challenging, even if a house is listed at the right price. To overcome issues, they are trying to meet with appraisers and educate them on value, and educate clients, too.

Home Buyer Tax Credit

Only Massachusetts Agent Advisors reported that the buyer tax credit had any impact on business, that it positively affected home prices and helped get the real estate market going. Massachusetts has not announced any plans of extending the tax credit this year. (California is the only state to do so thus far.)

Louis Cammarosano commented on a NAR statistic that was released that day — that 44% of buyers were first time buyers — and that it seems that the market is nationally skewed toward investors (19%) and first time home buyers.