Reflections on the 2010 Fresno Real Estate Market

It's been a tough year for most people in the 2010 Fresno real estate market. As an agent, I've worked mostly with buyers, and a few past client sellers. My sales numbers and income are down a bit, largely due to the frustrating process of working with banks and their REO inventory or loan processing for buyers. With so many bank owned REO properties out there, I don't have much choice but to work with them. The frustration comes from the offer and answer process. They take so long to give an answer to an offer. I made one offer that took 28 days for a reply and we were bidding $10,000 above their asking price! Most of the time it took 2 weeks to get an answer, and this is clearly too long. Short sales are another bad scenario. I reluctantly worked one buyer in a short sale that eventually fell thru. The listing agent promised "Oh I can close my short sale listings in 60 days!" What a crock that was! After 120 days, the short sale lender told us to start over! so out of total frustration the buyers decided to find another property to buy. As an agent, I just don't care to work the short sales, unless they can change the way they do business, and speed up the process, and until then I will only list and sell traditional type sales or bank owned property sales. For buyers, I feel sorry for them because getting a new home loan is like getting "raked over the coals" with having to justify income and credit scores. They make it tough to qualify for any type loan anymore. I am truly thankful for my past clients and referrals. I know that I am truly blessed with the leads I get from the internet. I have very high ranking on Google for many relative keywords, and this continually drives traffic and prospective buyer and seller leads to my website at http://www.fresnohomes.net/. , and for this, I am very grateful. I've had 3 nice sales this month of December, and that's going to make for a good start in 2011. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.