Gayle's Blog

This is GREAT info to pass along!  Thanks to my ActiveRain friend June who lives in North Carolina.

Gayle

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Monroe and Sterlington,LA Housing Market Update August  19, 2009   

How many homes are for sale in Monroe, 71201/71202,71203 and Sterlington, LA 71280?  

As of Aug. 19, 2009, there are 408 homes listed for sale in the Monroe and Sterlington areas, east of the Ouachita River in Ouachita Parish. The average listing price is $205,594.  The majority (230) are 3-BR homes; 112 homes have 4-BRs.

How fast are homes selling and how much are they selling for in Monroe and Sterlington?

From May thru July, 150 homes have sold on average for $156,134. Prices varied, but statistics show that homes sold for 96.63% of the listed price and stayed on the market for 114 days before closing. Keep in mind these figures are the AVERAGE.

Great Reasons to Live in Monroe, LA 71201/71202/71203 and Sterlington, LA 71280

• Beautiful waterways with public access
• Outstanding restaurants, parks and comprehensive shopping complex
• Higher education: University of LA Monroe and Delta Community College
• Lower than average cost of living
• Sports and cultural activities available for all ages 
• Friendly neighbors, attractive neighborhoods, easy access to services
• Growing economy

If you would like to know about your specific neighborhood, call or send me an email and I will get that info to you--pronto!

Gayle Causey
318-614-5615
http://GayleCausey.com
Keller Williams Realty
Monroe, LA USA

West Monroe / West Ouachita Housing Market Update August  19, 2009   

How many homes are for sale in West Monroe, LA 71291?  

As of Aug. 19, 2009, there are 283 homes listed for sale west of the Ouachita River in Ouachita Parish. The average listing price is $187,792.  The majority (176) are 3-BR homes; 66 homes have 4-BRs.

How fast are West Ouachita homes selling and how much are they selling for?

From May thru July, 155 homes have sold on average for $158,169. Prices varied, but statistics show that homes sold for 96.5% of the listed price and stayed on the market for 121 days before closing. Keep in mind these figures are the AVERAGE.

Great Reasons to Live in West Monroe, LA 71291 & 71292 and Calhoun, LA 71225

• Public schools with consistently high test scores
• Community features outstanding restaurants, parks and movie theater multi-plex
• Lower than average cost of living
• Sports and cultural activities available for all ages 
• Friendly neighbors, attractive neighborhoods, easy access to services
• Growing economy

If you would like to know about your specific neighborhood, call or send me an email and I will get that info to you--pronto!

Gayle Causey
318-614-5615
http://WestMonroeRealEstate.com
Keller Williams Realty
Monroe, LA USA

Here's an inside look at how the typical house-hunting process goes. When someone tells you that they bought the first house they saw and they found it online, just know that it took a very long time to get to that "first house we saw."
Let me know if I can help you look online or in person.

Gayle Causey
Keller Williams Realty, Monroe, LA 
Find your house with your mouse at http://WestMonroeRealEstate.com

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Shrinking the real estate listings universe

Mood of the Market

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, August 17, 2009.   Inman News

I recently heard cable culinary commentator Alton Brown quote Miss Piggy as having said that "(a)fter all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual 'food' out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps." I'm rapidly coming to feel the same way about all the trouble my clients go to house hunting on the Web.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I am not one of those brokers who thinks that putting listings on the Web was the final nail in the coffin of the professional real estate service industry. Rather to the contrary, actually; I'm a buyer's broker and grew up in the Internet era. So I've always seen the availability of free listing data online as an empowerment issue. It empowers my clients to have two or four or 10 sets of eyes looking for homes for them, and it empowers me to take a half day per weekend off, as I'm not the sole source of listings for them.

My clients are clear on the vast value I provide to them in their decision-making process and transaction, so the Web listing sites are no threat whatsoever.

In fact, assuming that my clients' ultimate happiness with their home is directly proportional to the repeat and referral business they send my way, and assuming (as I believe) that providing clients direct access to listings on the Web makes it more likely they will find a home they're happy with over the long run, it's not just in their interests, but also in my best interests for them to have the easy ability to find and view listings online.

And in that vein, during my initial client meetings I often let clients know the various modalities in which I will send them listings, then also discuss with them which public listing sites I like, how to use them, and how to inquire with me about interesting listings they find on these sites. Then I deliver my benediction and send them off to the Web to house hunt to their hearts' content, until we meet again.

So, I find listings and show them homes for sale. And they look online, too. First, on occasion at work. Then, during their evening reality show viewing time (come on -- who isn't online during "Real Housewives" and "Top Chef"?). And before long, they're up at wee hours of the night e-mailing me properties' multiple listing service numbers and addresses -- often properties that don't fit the search criteria they had given me, but are of interest nonetheless. (Behold the power of Web house hunting: it allows buyers to grow their flexibility with zero perceived pressure from me!)

Lately, though, after all that work, I get their e-mails and start whittling away at their list of listings to my (and my clients') joint chagrin.

How do I shrink this expanded universe of online listings? Fast, and a lot?

Let me count the ways I have to strike properties off my dear buyers' lists of potentials:

1. Infeasible and likely interminable short sales. (I don't automatically exclude all short sales, just the ones with indicia of can't-be-done-itude.)

2. Properties that are already in contract. Due to a lack of time or attention, or the occasional extenuating circumstance, these listings' status has simply not been kept up-to-date by the listing agent.

3. Properties that can be financed only via an act of Congress, or one of God. These include the properties listed as "no kitchen," "no plumbing," "no FHA" and/or "no conventional (loan)." Doing business as: all cash. Sometimes, for entry-level FHA buyers, these can also include listings that were recently bought at auction and are being flipped by investors who have owned them less than a couple months or condos in complexes with sky-high delinquency rates on homeowners association dues or rock-bottom owner-occupancy rates.

4. Tenant-occupied properties with tenants who ain't going nowhere. My area has rent and eviction control laws. The going rate for getting a tenant out is about $6,000 -- unless the seller is willing to deliver it vacant, these listings are quickly scratched off the list.

5. Owner-occupied properties with owners who make it too hard to show the place. By appointment? Fine. But 48 hours' notice to be given via an inaudible cell connection to someone who doesn't speak English, doesn't speak Spanish and also doesn't have any idea why on earth I'm calling them, to boot? Sorry -- off the list.

6. Bogus listings. By this I mean all the preforeclosure homes that some Web sites show as for sale, which are actually not for sale but have received a notice of default or trustee sale. In my experience, many of these homes will be rescued from foreclosure via loan modification or some other miracle. Those that aren't rescued won't be "for sale," strictly speaking, for months or years. Not actually for sale equals: off the list.

I'm a big believer in what I call Expectation Management, or the theory that what you can anticipate won't hurt you. So my initial client meetings these days are chock full of anticipatory adages, like, "Don't get your heart set on any given home until we get a signed contract back, because of X, Y and Z," or, after a warning and explanation about my list-slashing propensities, "We're on the hunt for a needle in the haystack -- just know that going in."

Nevertheless, with all that said, buyers are independent thinkers, and almost inevitably descend through the (admittedly twisted) version of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief: House Hunt Edition.

Stage One: Denial -- Before writing an offer on a short sale: "Short sales can't possibly take that long to hear back from the bank. I heard on the news that banks want to cut their losses." After 10 weeks of waiting for a bank's response to their short-sale offer: "I don't want to see any more short sales, if you don't mind."

Stage Two: Anger -- at the system, the market, at themselves (or their spouse) for having waited too long for "the bottom." Anger at their friends who bought in January. I won't elaborate any further, as you can probably imagine the phraseology involved at this phase.

Stage Three: Bargaining. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, so this looks less like bargaining with God, and more like, "I invoke the Law of Attraction to manifest a full slate of homes actually available and really for sale to view this weekend. I promise in turn to focus my mental energies on the home I want to have." Sound crazy? Go rent "The Secret."

Stage Four: Depression. "Maybe it's not meant to be for me." This, until some online house hunting during the final episode of "Project Runway" turns up a few more listings that sound like they might be good options.

Stage Five: Acceptance. "OK, Tara. I get the needle-in-the-haystack thing. Let's keep looking."

At this point, personality plays a big role in exactly how events unfold. Some buyers elect to wait until I weed through all the truly available listings and send those to them. Others keep up their online house hunts but maintain a deep emotional reserve on a "don't get your hopes up" theory.

Many take a few days of house-hunt vacation -- it helps to unplug from the frenetic clicking and go spend some time in nature or at the spa, or something. Just not house hunting. No matter what route they take, the eventual path is to a post-close of escrow appreciation of their home akin to an epicure's affinity for artichokes.

Agreed, Miss Piggy -- lots of work for the marginal reward (the potential for finding a place on their own that I wouldn't have found or sent over to them). But in terms of the feelings of power and control over their own destiny: well worth it, nonetheless.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Ask her a real estate question online or visit her Web site, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

PLEASE heed the advice below! I'll never forget one Saturday when a customer who was under contract to buy a house drove up tp show me his new BMW. Yes, it was a beauty, but it kicked him out of the home-buying process. I guess he planned on living in that car, 'cause he sure couldn't buy a house for several months!

Gayle Causey
318-614-5615
http://GayleCausey.com
Keller Williams Realty, Monroe, LA USA

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Thanks to Florida Real Estate and Homes for Sale in the Tampa Bay area:

Delhi is a small town east of Monroe with a laid-back, Southern feel. It is the largest town near one of north America's greatest historical treasures, Povery Point.

Poverty Point State Historic Site (East of Monroe and north of I-20 on LA 577 northeast of Epps) -
The site is considered one of the most significant archaeological finds in the country. It has a complex of Native American ceremonial mounds built between 1700 and 700 B.C. A museum and guided tours interpret a culture that once flourished on the site.

Like most small towns in the Mississippi River Delta, Delhi has been hanging on, barely surviving for the past 30 years or so. That's about to change! Delhi is about to become a star of the future, not just the past!

Conagra Foods, a leading producer of prepared potato products, announced plans to build a sweet potato processing plant near Delhi that will create a minimum of 500 new jobs over five years.  Officials said the jobs will average $34,000-$35,000 per year plus benefits. An LSU economic impact study shows the project also will produce at least 1,400 additional indirect jobs.

"This is a project that can change the face of the Delta," said state Sen. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, who has been working on recruiting the company for two years. "It will have an enormous impact. Words can't describe how I feel about this project."

The Delhi plant will be the company's first facility dedicated to year-round processing of sweet potatoes.

Delhi is also home to Poverty Point Reservoir. The 2,700-acre, man-made lake that is the center piece for Poverty Point Reservoir State Park offers visitors an outlet for fishing, a variety of watersport activities and now championship golf. Located on the grounds are a new state of the art RV park as well as 12, two-bedroom lodges, some set above the water.  http://www.crt.state.la.us/Parks/ireservoir  I've seen the cabins available for rent, and they are very nice!

Black Bear Golf Course  - A "must play" on Louisiana's Audubon Golf Trail, is located near Delhi and offers various levels of challenge to golfers. After the 18th hole, enjoy a  meal and refreshing beverage at the Waterfront Grill. and Black Bear Golf Club, a member of the Audubon Golf Trail.  The golf course takes its name from the Louisiana black bear which are often sighted on or near the reservoir.

Delhi is a little town with a bright future!  Congratulations!

Gayle Causey, GRI, ePRO
Keller Williams Realty
Monroe, LA USA
http://GayleCausey.com

Good advice! Please don't let this opportunity slip through your fingers.

Gayle Causey, 318-614-5615
http://GayleCausey.com
Keller Williams Realty, Monroe, LA, USA

North Louisiana is not immune to the problem of domestic violence.

These articles appeared in today's newspaper:
1.  Man arrested on aggravated assault with a knife charge.  He held a knife to his wife's throat and said, "I'm going to kill you."
2.  Report: Man hit girlfriend in face, neck.
3.  A man was arrested early Thursday on assault and domestic abuse charges.  The man allegedly slapped the victim across the face with an open hand, forced her out of the house and pushed her down some steps. The man then chased the victim down a driveway with a shotgun and discharged it.
4.  Woman charged in domestic abuse. Suspect is accused of pushing the victim into a bedroom and attempting to suffocate her. The suspect demanded the victim's car keys, and when the victim said no, she resumed trying to suffocate the woman. After the victim told the suspect she would call deputies, the suspect bound her, taped her mouth and pushed her into a closet, pushing a dresser in front of the closet.

Thank goodness for The Wellspring!  The caring professionals and volunteers offer a safe haven for victims of domestic abuse. Victims sometimes arrive during the night with their children and no possessions. They not only need to be protected, they often need help in starting a new life without the abuser.

The Wellspring provides housing, clothing, counseling, help with finding a job and a way out. 

The Wellspring office (318-651-9314) is at 1515 Jackson St., Monroe, LA.  They need donations to help  victims get on with their lives. If you have any household items such as dishes, pots & pans, furniture, toys for the children, or even soap and toothpaste that you can share--all these items will be put to good use at the Wellspring safe havens.  See more about these valuable programs at http://www.wellspringalliance.org/

Northeast LA Realtor Association supports the Wellspring. I hope you will, too.

Gayle Causey, 318-614-5615
http://GayleCausey.com
Keller Williams Realty, Monroe, LA USA 318-812-7653

The entire Ouachita Parish community is invited to participate in the 2009 Ouachita River Water Sweep at 9 a.m. Saturday, August 1, 2009.

The city of Monroe, city of West Monroe and Ouachita Parish will join the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and Keep Louisiana Beautiful in a nationwide event to clean local waterways and shorelines.

The 2009 Water Sweep will begin end at 1 p.m. Local volunteers are asked to come dressed to pick up litter.

Sign up is at Bawcomville Recreation Area off Kings Lake Road in western Ouachita Parish; Lazarre Point in West Monroe; Forsythe Park on Forsythe Avenue in Monroe; Moon Lake Recreation Area at 191 Moon Lake Road, north of Monroe; and Sterlington Recreation Area, off Highway 2 on Broadman.

Boaters can place items on the Corps of Engineers barge traveling from Lazarre Point to Moon Lake.

Prizes will be awarded to the individual who picks up the most trash, the family who picks up the most trash, the youngest participant, the most unusual item picked up and to the person with the best story.

Groups and individuals can register the day of the event at any of the five staging points.

Our Ouachita River is so beautiful, and such an asset to the area. Please come out and help!

Gayle Causey
http://GayleCausey.com
Keller Williams Realty
Monroe, LA USA 318-812-7653

For the past couple of weeks, people in Monroe and West Monroe have been watching the Ouachita River even more than usual. Why? Because a beautiful 2-unit condo building is about to COLLAPSE into the River!

 For those of you who are not from this area, the Ouachita River was extremely high for several weeks. This caused the river bank to become totally saturated. When the river began to go down, the bank became unstable.

Officials report that the river bank has failed in numerous places along the course of the Ouachita, but it's too expensive to repair. It would take a couple million dollars for EACH location to be shored up and/or stabilized. Can you imagine?

The unlucky owners of this building were able to save their belongings, but both units will be in the river soon. It's just a matter of time. By the way, there's a small wood house behind that tree to the right that will be going into the river soon, too.

Here's a shot of the high water a few weeks ago. I wish I had taken one of the area where the condo is located, but I had no idea of what was to come!

I'll keep you posted as the situation unfolds. 

Gayle Causey, 318-614-5615
Keller Williams Realty
Monroe, LA USA
http://GayleCausey.com