There’s a lot of furious activity now. I assume it’s because people are trying to slip in under the Nov 30th deadline and get that eight grand from Uncle Sugar.

Most of the homes we saw had little or no interest for us, so I’m planning to write about those homes sometime soon. Right now, I’m also working on the July Sold Homes post. There were ten homes listed as being sold in July 2009 in Babylon Village, so it’s going to be a long post. I should be able to push it out this weekend.

This is an open discussion thread, so I invite any and all readers to pipe up and say something. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.

I’m very interested in hearing fellow home shoppers, especially their impressions of any open houses that they’ve seen, but I’d also like to hear from any sellers and their experiences and observations.

I’m posting this “sticky”, which means that it will stay at the top of the page over the weekend even if I post new stuff afterward. If you’re accustomed to stopping by and glancing at the top of the page to see if there’s new stuff, scroll on down a bit before you click away.

Enojy your weekend, everyone. Happy hunting.

Homes in Babylon

We seemed to be hovering in the low to mid 90’s for total home in Babylon over the summer, but now the inventory is creeping up. 106 is as I as I’ve seen it in some time, maybe since last summer.

Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim at the lower end of the market. We’ve edged up our max price a bit to try and tried to look at a few more homes, but not much really appeals to us.

My feeling is that there’s a lot of “shadow inventory”, sellers waiting in the wings for a real estate recovery. My subjective observation is that there seems to be a higher percentage of estate sales, retirement sales and divorce sales in the mix than there was a couple years back. The recently purchased, nicely renovated homes on MLS have — to a certain extent — given way to the “charming” houses that have kitchens and baths from the Age of Aquarius and need “a little TLC”. In other words, the people who are selling now are the people who need to sell. Those who think they can hang on are hoping to ride out the bad real estate market.

Unfortunately, I’m looking to buy now…right now…and the possibility of better homes being available at lower prices some time next year isn’t helping me out here. For those of you who are still on the sidelines waiting, this coming spring could bring some serious deals.

Homes in Babylon

Numbers haven’t changed all that much since I last did this in April. Some interesting new house to look at this week, including 2 Edward Ave, 19 Nehring Ave and 40 Bacon Lane. There’s also 78 Wampum, a house that should be priced in our range but isn’t.

109 Washington is gone. A commenter reported it as being in contract. As I said in the open house report, I felt it was overpriced but I could see someone really overpaying for it. We’ll have to see what the numbers are when and if it finally sells.

90 The Crescent has been reported as being in contract, but it’s still on the MLS last I checked. There are issues with that house being sold that I’ve agreed not to talk about here. We’ll discuss it more once the sale is final.

This is an open discussion thread, so I invite any and all readers to pipe up and say something. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.

I’m very interested in hearing fellow home shoppers, especially their impressions of any open houses that they’ve seen, but I’d also like to hear from any sellers and their experiences and observations.

I’m posting this “sticky”, which means that it will stay at the top of the page even if I post new stuff afterward. If you’re accustomed to stopping by and glancing at the top of the page to see if there’s new stuff, scroll on down a bit before you click away.

Enojy your weekend, everyone. Happy hunting.

I have to work on Sunday, the big open house day, but Debra may go out on her own and see a house or two.

Homes in Babylon

We say goodbye to a couple houses that got a lot of discussion here on HIB, 44 George and 529 Park, each now sporting a Sold or Under Contract sign. I’ll be interested to see the final sale prices.

Some interesting new houses this week, including 109 Washington and 90 The Crescent. 33 Mason makes it into MLS at $349K asking. The disastrous high ranch at 179 Cadman is back up, now at a merely ridiculous $449K. We saw the Cadman house some time ago. I wrote an open house report about, but they pulled the place off the market before I got to post it.

This is an open discussion thread, so I invite any and all readers to pipe up and say something. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.

I’m very interested in hearing fellow home shoppers, especially their impressions of any open houses that they’ve seen, but I’d also like to hear from any sellers and their experiences and observations.

I’m posting this “sticky”, which means that it will stay at the top of the page even if I post new stuff afterward. If you’re accustomed to stopping by and glancing at the top of the page to see if there’s new stuff, scroll on down a bit before you click away.

Enojy your weekend, everyone. Happy hunting.

Homes in Babylon

The new year is upon us and sometimes it feels like the Red Queen’s race in the real estate market. The faster we go, the further behind we get.

Pickings are slim, as you might expect. Not a lot of sales since the last MLS report. 72 homes may be a record low, since I started looking at these numbers, but that’s probably due to more people pulling their homes off the market in hopes of better times in the spring. That’s a pretty futile hope, from where I stand.

I drove by 401 Park and I noticed that the Realtor sign was gone and a FSBO sign had been erected in its place. That’s a sign(heh) of desperation. Even if they plan to rebate to the buyer the entire 6% they were planning to pay a Realtor, I don’t see how that gets it done in this market.

Our usual suspects are still on MLS, waiting for some buyer with more money than sense to swing by and take the property off their hands. Our old friend, 43 Strong is still there, of course. The ask on that one is down 100K from their initial ask. At $399,000, it’s still way overpriced. Back in 2007, when I first saw the place, I thought it might be worth $375K, now I think they’d be hard pressed to get $325K for it.

As for me, the hunt begins in earnest in 2009. Debra wants us in a house before the baby is very mobile, so we won’t be waiting for the absolute bottom. Get ready for the lowballs, people.

The owner of 18 Annuskemunnica Rd decides to use their MLS listing as a Flickr account. I’ve seen MLS pictures that have dogs (or kids!) in the shot, but this is the first one I’ve seen that’s just the dogs, unless it’s supposed to be a tight closeup of the tile floor.

Personally, I’d like to see more pictures of the bedrooms, but that’s just me.

Things have been a little quiet here at HIB. A new baby and a stagnant real estate market make for very light blogging.

Homes in Babylon

The total homes number is down by nine from the last report. There’s been very little new in the last month and absolutely nothing that I’d want to look at, even just for curiosity’s sake.

As we peruse the list of properties for sale, some of our old friends are still there. 43 Strong Ave is still sitting at $399K. 35 Cameron and 198 Cadman are at $389K. 27 Cedar Street is down to $419K, which would still be too much for that house, even if it wasn’t right across the street from a giant, cinder block, LIRR building.

Homes in Babylon

There’s not a lot new in the mix, certainly nothing to interest us. A lot high-priced, million-dollar range and up homes seem to have hit the market recently. I can’t help but wonder if it’s related to the Wall Street meltdown and issues with the credit markets.

As time goes on I feel that there’s less and less of a chance of us buying something this year unless there’s a really good deal on a house we love and I haven’t seen anything close to that yet.

About two weeks ago they upgraded the look to what you see now in the screen shot. It’s not a bad design, although it looks a lot like web sites I designed back in 2002. The design isn’t very visually interesting, but it’s functional and doesn’t look something from before the dotcom crash, so at least that’s something.

Something else I’d like you to note in the screen shot is the white box in the middle of the map that says “searching”. It’s a little hard to make out, but trust me, it’s there. I’ve seen the searching box a lot lately in the last two weeks because ever since they changed the design I haven’t been able to get results from the Sold Properties search tool.

The availability of the Sold Properties search has always been intermittent, but intermittent is much better than nonexistent or nonfunctional, which is what it is now. I sent a complaint in via their contact form, but I still haven’t heard back. I was looking forward to doing a September sold homes post, but I’m going to have to wait until either they bring the tool back online or I find another way to get the data.

One more complaint, as long as I’m off on a rant here. While I like the search by map feature of the Sold Properties tool, it would be nice if we could have a regular search form without the map so that I could drill down by zip code or number of bedrooms or price or whatever. With the map search I’m constantly trying to get the zoom and pan on the map just right so that I can get all of Babylon in without getting too much of West Islip or West Babylon.

On top of that, with foreclosures on the upswing, Fannie and Freddie in the dumper and a major recession looming, the thought that I might actually buy a house in this market and then see its value plummet like a stone is also freakout material.

On the other hand, home sellers must be freaking out in a big way right now. The summer is drawing to a close and their homes are still on the market. The hot real estate season is drawing to a close and all they have to look forward to is the chill of Autumn and the Fall bargain hunters.

Homes in Babylon

Not a lot of movement in the numbers since the last MLS report. There seems to be more condos for sale. I’m not all that interested in condos these days, but it’s interesting that they seem to be a drug on the market.

A lot of the same suspects are hanging around on MLS waiting for a buyer to come along and snatch the place up. I still see 43 Strong, 35 Cameron and 27 Cedar listed. 223 Locust seems to have dropped off MLS, but there’s no sale listed on MLS and no “Sold” sign on their lawn, so I’m guessing they just pulled ti off the market.

There are a few good prospects on the list, including a re-listed property from last year that we’re interested in seeing. I still have some open houses to write up. I hope to have those in a day or so.

Homes in Babylon

• Total: 97
• Babylon School District: 62
• BSD and Under 600K: 35
• Condos/Coops:12

97 Homes total is a low water mark for sure. I don’t remember the last time that there were that few listings for Babylon. I’m wondering if this is some kind of late season sell off.

That new construction down at the end of Park, near 109, has dropped in price. It’s now in a range of $519K-$529K, down from $549K.

There’s a lot of condos in the listings these days. Four in Village Commons and four in Whaler’s Cove. Last year I was very interested in Village Commons and I thought that their relative scarcity on MLS was due to their high desirability. That seems to be not the case anymore.