OK, so you might not have quite enough room to grow any hay. But there’s definitely room for a little organic garden back there in the corner. Three bedrooms, a bath and a half, wood floors, fenced back yard, new kitchen, new roof. Nothing to do but move in. What’s not to love?

PS Did I mention the barn has a fireplace? And an upstairs loft?

PPS Click on any of the pictures to embiggen.

PPPS It’s only $125,000 and it’s going on the market in a couple of days.

I mean, after all, I am the one who once tried to decoupage Cambodian, Thai & Lao newspapers onto a plywood subfloor. It seemed like a hip cutting edge, good really crappy idea even at the time. And I bought those newspapers in those countries. And carted them back to Tennessee, via Bangkok, Tokyo, Chicago & Atlanta. With the express purpose of decoupaging them onto the plywood subfloor of my home. In other words, I went half way around the world in order to buy supplies to crap-ify my kitchen.

Take that Trading Spaces! I bet Genevieve never crossed the international dateline in search of bad ideas.

Either way, please to enjoy! Click to embiggen for the full effect.

Unfortunately, you can’t search listings by paint color (how cool would it be if you could?) but you can search for pretty much anything else. Give me a call if something catches your eye.

You may not realize it but what you are looking at is irony in paint. Karmic retribution. All of the gods are laughing at me. Why, you ask?

Because that’s my neighbor’s house. I’ve done all this poking fun of rainbow-hued siding, salmon colored walls, putrescent green bathrooms and now I’m getting my comeuppance. I can’t say that I don’t deserve it.

And I was so excited when they started prepping it for new paint…

Google lost the email of about 150,000 people over the weekend. Their standard line was that it affected less than .08% of all gmail users. I’m sure that was cold comfort if you were one of those 150,000. Apparently the data was never actually “lost” it was just misplaced for a while.

And yet, being the google-phile that I am, it sent a chill deep into my bones.

But then, a white horse appeared on the horizon in the form of a company who wanted to capitalize on the terror of others. And I totally jumped on that bandwagon with both feet. Backupify is offering free backup of gmail, facebook, flickr, google docs & contacts for one year -20gb worth – if you sign up today (and today only!) before midnight, using the promo code savegmail.

I work with a good number of people who are moving to Chattanooga. Usually, after a long day of looking at homes for sale (28 in one day is my personal record!), they’ll make a decision and then say – panicking – “but I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning, how are we going to sign the contract?”

And then I get to laugh like an evil genius because I know that if you have an email account, you can sign a contract without any more hassle than it is to delete your cousin Howard’s forwarded jokes.

I use a service called EchoSign. It’s secure, completely legal and accepted by almost* everyone. It’s the easiest thing since sliced bread and it doesn’t require a printer, scanner or fax machine. Clickety-click and you’re done. Once everyone has signed, it will automatically send you a copy of the signed contract. There is an audit trail on the back end showing the email address of the person who did the signing so it’s just as secure as your email.

But since this is something that is new to most people, I put together a little video to show you how it works before you actually do it. Please to enjoy!

*HUD, oh HUD, why must you insist on “wet” signatures?

What in the aitch-e-double hockey sticks is a QR code?  Why, I thought you’d never ask.

These are 2D bar codes that are scan-able from your smart phone. Most provide a link to a website but they can also contain email addresses, geographical map coordinates, or even just plain ol’ text. I put one over there ———>>>>to the right that will fill in my contact information into your phone if you scan it allegedly (It works perfectly with my droid but if any of my loyal readers have a Blackberry, iPhone or Windows phone I’d appreciate it if you’d try it and let me know how it works with those platforms).

The best use that I’ve seen in real estate is directing people who serendipitously happen upon a piece of property to a website that will give them more information about that home. Say, for example, you are driving around Red Bank looking for houses and you meander up Red Oak Dr. only to see this great little home. You have no idea how much it costs or whether the inside would make you want to wear shoes in the shower. God forbid you should call the number on the sign! Nobody wants to do that (I’m not sure why, though, I promise I don’t bite…or harass). Anywho, with a QR code on the sign, you just scan it and it takes you everywhere you want to go. See how I even added a little flower – these things are U-G-L-Y. But very functional.

Is a QR code going to sell your house? Probably not. But it might just capture the attention of that guy driving by who thinks “Hmm, I kinda like that house from the outside but not enough to actually call somebody about it.” And every little trick you can come up with helps just that little bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as wonky as the next real estate geek, but there’s not much of a challenge other than trying to make them interesting. So this month I decided to shake things up a bit and try something a little different. I moseyed on over to the Chattanooga MLS and ran some serious spreadsheets.

Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock, there’s not much doubt that we’re in a housing ‘crisis.’ I keep hearing over and over again about how the median home price is falling like one of those crazy BASE jumpers. And I’ve often thought “Hmmm, wonder if the median price is falling because actual prices are falling or because higher priced homes aren’t selling as quickly?” I mean, if you looked at the price of the SAME house, is that falling? Or is that declining median price telling us more about WHICH houses are selling than it is about the price of any given home? How can you adjust so that you know you are comparing apples? How many times can I use the word ‘price’ in a single paragraph? These are the things I ponder in the middle of the night.

So I ran the numbers for all of the Novembers from 2005 through 2010. And here’s what I came up with for your geeked out pleasure:

Total number of sales

• 2005 405
• 2006 388
• 2007 320
• 2008 224
• 2009 322
• 2010 196

Median Price

• 2005 $145k
• 2006 $156k
• 2007 $143k
• 2008 $137k
• 2009 $160k
• 2010 $148k

Average Price

• 2005 $179k – Difference between median & average: $34k
• 2006 $197k – Difference between median & average:$41k
• 2007 $165k – Difference between median & average:$22k
• 2008 $191k – Difference between median & average:$31k
• 2009 $169k – Difference between median & average:$9k
• 2010 $183k – Difference between median & average:$35k

Average Days on Market (DOM)

• 2005 92
• 2006 112
• 2007 126
• 2008 139
• 2009 110
• 2010 143

Average Price per square foot

• 2005 $86
• 2006 $92
• 2007 $83
• 2008  $94
• 2009 $82
• 2010 $83

Average Age of Home

• 2005    34yrs
• 2006    30yrs
• 2007    35yrs
• 2008    40yrs
• 2009    41yrs
• 2010    30yrs

Average Square Footage

• 2005 1,987
• 2006 1,992
• 2007 1,865
• 2008 1,945
• 2009 1,990
• 2010 2,059

What do these numbers tell me? At least according to my interpretation...

Prices haven’t really fallen so much but the number of sales is drastically lower and the average time spent on the market is a lot higher. So you might be getting a similar price for your home when you sell it, but expect it to be a lot harder to get that sale.

There’s been some fluctuations in pricing & $/sq ft but nothing really earthshaking.

The stimulus worked, even if only temporarily. November 2009 was the original deadline for the $8,000 first time buyer tax credit (it did end up being extended but it’s pretty likely that the buyers that closed that month didn’t know that was going to happen when they signed on the dotted line). It isn’t surprising that DOM, median price & average price are all a whole lot better for 2009 than they were for either 2008 or 2010. I think it also explains why the gap between median & average price was so much smaller for that month. First time buyers (read: people looking at lower priced homes) made up a much greater proportion of sales for Nov 2009 than they ordinarily would.

So, to sum up, the sky isn’t falling in Chattanooga. There’s no need for panic. But if you really, really need to sell your house, you’re going to have to bite the bullet and price it very competitively to get it sold in a reasonable amount of time.

All of the images in this post are taken from 302 Red Oak Dr, Red Bank, TN. Click the link for more information on purchasing this home.

If you want to download the raw data that I took this from, you can click on the links and get an Excel file for each year. All of the data is for Hamilton County as a whole and only includes single family homes (with condos) sold through the Greater Chattanooga MLS. Everything you see in this post is reliable but not guaranteed.

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2005

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2006

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2007

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2008

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2009

Chattanooga Home Sales November 2010

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Are you thinking about building a new home? You aren’t alone. Even with the seeming glut of homes on the market these days, lots of people still can’t resist the siren song of the custom built home. Or maybe you are just doing a remodel that involves some rewiring or electrical work (new kitchen, anyone?).

While you are thinking and planning, how ’bout considering adding an EV Charging Station?

What?!? You don’t know what an EV Charging Station is? Horrors! Do you live under a rock?

Yeah, I didn’t know either until 20 minutes ago when I read an article about a hip new company that is providing businesses & homes in Texas with chargers for electric vehicles. Turns out, for the two new electric vehicles that are coming out in the next couple of months, you can use the regular old 120v plug in your garage….but it could take up to 20 hrs to juice up your new little beauty.

Yikes!

A charging station will reduce that time down to 4-8 hrs depending on the model you’ve got your eye on. And the biggest expense of a charging station is going to be running the 240v wire out to the garage, especially if you have to replace your breaker box to accommodate the new line. If your electrician is already standing there in front of you, why not go ahead and have him or her add it now?

OK, so it may not actually be a “must-have” at the moment (yes, I fibbed a little to get your attention), but I’d be willing to bet that it won’t be too long before “car charger” takes on a whole new meaning and becomes a feature that people look for in their next home.

Here’s where I’d usually put something like “Check out Chattanooga homes for sale that already have a handy dandy EV Charging Station” but….well….I got nothing. So instead, just go to my website and search for whatever kind of house suits your fancy.

On another note, if you want to indoctrinate the kids early, buy ‘em this.

If you’d prefer to listen to this post instead of reading it, click to be taken to the podcast: Earnest Money for HUD Homes

Coming up with an earnest money amount is usually a matter of negotiation when you are buying a home. You offer the seller $7.47 and they ask for $12,500.00. You want your buyer’s agent to be the one holding it, the seller wants their agent to hold it. At some point you’ll hopefully meet somewhere in the middle. But that ain’t how it works when you are buying a HUD home in Chattanooga.

HUD requires a set amount of earnest money depending on the price of the home. For offers that are $50,000 or less, $500 is what you’ll have to pony up. If the home you want to buy is more than $50,000 you’ll need to get me a cashier’s check for $1,000.

Regardless, it has to be a cashier’s check. And you have to have it signed, sealed & delivered as of the day the bid is being submitted, can’t wait to see if it gets accepted. Of course, if you are outbid, the earnest money will be refunded to you.

Contact me for more information about earnest money or any part of the HUD buying process. Or check out the HUD homes that are currently available.