Welcome to Fall, where did this summer zip off to?

I've never been much of Hallmark Holiday kind of guy, but I just noticed Grandparents day is September 12th this year... I never knew there was such a thing, but what the heck. I suppose it's not even a bad thing to have to share that with Keldo since they don't give us each our own day.

Interesting factoid about Labor Day... The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. It became a federal holiday in
1894, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshalls during the Pullman Strike (a wilcat railroad strike). President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Now you know...

Rough real estate news the last couple weeks. Nationally it appears that the slow down everyone feared after the expiration of the first time home buyer credit is on us. The good news is that NOCBOR (my local real estate board) reports the 27 % decline in the number of sales from June to July doesn't represent the number of sales contracted in those two months. It represents the number of sales closed according to NOCBOR. There was a decline in the number of contracted sales in Oakland County from June to July, which at this point appears to have only been about 4%.

August’s Oakland County figures for sales contracted appear as though they will be slightly, better than July’s figures. Here is a list of contracted sales (expected to close) by month: March - 1,688; April - 1,844; May - 1,434; June - 1,559 and July - 1,495.

In short, making a one month assessment of the local real estate market is a little misleading given the wide range of dates between contract date and closing date due to the length of time it takes these days to close short sales (3 - 6 months is typical). Also using such numbers does not allow for seasonal differences in sales, a huge impact during vacation months.

So never fear... we are still seeing market improvement despite what you may have read online.

The Fam...

Things are great, although we haven't seen much of anyone this past month, catching up on life and work after the wedding. Almost zero miles on the motorcycles this summer. My fall softball team is off to a great start at 5 wins and one loss (which we will avenge next Wednesday night). Golf league is almost over, and Kelly & I head to San Diego this month for 5 days (she's working I'm going along for the free ride). Lauren & I have birthdays this month... as Dave jr. pointed out this is my last year to be considered the old young guy... I'm heading into young old guy status (49 this year).

Thanks again for all the referrals... I closed a couple sales this month that were referred to me by friends. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

See you in October.

Dave