One of the most overlooked items on the purchase contract is the earnest money or good faith deposit. Sellers and agents are so anxious to see what the offer price is, they miss a key component of the offer.

What is a earnest money deposit? There is a good definition & article on the same subject here by Elizabeth Weintraub. My definition would be anything of value, mainly money, put forward by the buyer to show good faith to the seller that they are genuinely interested in buying the property. The deposit, plus the remaining down payment and the loan (or all cash) generally add up to the total purchase price of the property.

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The numbers for the Big Bear real estate market for January 2007 look pretty bad….for sellers, that is. According to the local First American Title Co., there was a total of 77 units that sold during this time frame (Download first_american_jan. 07.xls {Excel doc. 1.61 MB}). That number is down 45% from the January 2006 numbers of 139 total units closed. This makes January 2007 the slowest month in the last 10 years for sales numbers. To really understand the numbers though, this stat refers to the number of closings in January. So, really you need to go back 30-60 days (typical escrow time frame) to see that November & December of 2006 were pretty slow from a buyer activity standpoint. Where the market is right at this exact point is yet to be seen but it feels like activity has picked up a little bit since then. The February 2007 numbers should be out soon and I will report on them as well.

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I just finished a two-day CRS class in Victorville, CA. CRS stands for Council of Residential Specialists, which is a special designation that Realtors can achieve by taking extra education courses as well as completing a certain amount of transaction. There are approximately 50,000 CRS members in the world, with the vast majority of them located in the U.S. This was my first class and my intention is to take a few more this year in order to achieve the CRS designation.

The particular class I took was the Listing Course (CRS 201), which included such topics as performing an effective listing presentation, seller guidance, pricing a home to sell, marketing plans, determining seller’s needs & motivations, and customer service. Although I have been in the business over 8 years and think I have been pretty successful at it, there is always room to learn.

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