"Now's the Time!"

I just sent an e-mail to a prospective buyer who has been hedging about buying a specific property. "Now's the time!" I urged him.

The rates are great. I've seen 5% flying by me from mortgage brokers and under that for 15 year fixed mortgages. Builders are offering 5% for new home construction with 180 day locks, and their homes would be up by then. It's a buyer's market.

Syracuse and its environs was listed as one of the 4 "healthiest" markets last week. Mortgage brokers and the Greater Syracuse Association of Realtors sent out mass e-mails. The rest of the country - if you consider the major metropolitan areas the rest of the country - may be in dire straits, but we are healthy here.

A check of the Sunday paper shows that almost ALL areas in and around Syracuse have increased in home prices over the past year. Some are dramatic increases; Skaneateles went from $440,000 last year to $540,000 this year. Other suburbs went up only 5%, but they went up! Even the counties and the city homes increased in price.

Why? Because we didn't have the huge inflation and building boom that other places did. The 60 Minutes report on Sunday was terrifying. Blue dots represented foreclosures on a map of one area of California - and it was almost all blue dots. People just walked away because they could.

So Syracuse may not be on the forefront of the wild and crazy real estate market, but in this instance, that's a good thing!