Puzzling real estate listing ..

Not long ago we heard a lot about how the Deep Creek market was "well and improving daily" and then it was that lakefront sales continue to be "strong." Well given those two statements I am somewhat puzzled by this real estate listing from a local real estate agency. Here you have an approximately $1.3million lakefront listing divided into six fractions. But what is really puzzling to me, however, is that if the market is so strong and was really well and improving daily why are the sellers offering to pay $10k in closing costs and contribute another approximately $10k towards homeowners association fees (although I should add that the listed condo fee over two years comes to about $8.6k not more than $10k but we'll take their word for it)? Could it be that one of the co-owners of this property being one and the same as one of the co-owners of this real estate company does not feel the market is as strong as his staff is leading you to believe?

These type of seller incentives also show that real estate sales data must be taken with a grain of salt. Assuming each fraction sells at full list price it will be listed in the MLS sales data as selling for $219,500 but according to the listing the sellers are giving over $20,000 of that back to the buyers (again taking their word for it), meaning the purchase price which will show up in the data could be inflated by more than 10% over the true purchase price. Using data of such poor quality to make broad, generalized statements about the health of the market can be very dicey and judging by what a co-owner of a local real estate company does to sell his own property could also give one a false sense of security about the health of the market. In this case, I believe what they are telling you via their market updates and what they are doing in their own dealings are not one in the same.

Collectively the real estate agents of Garrett County own a substantial amount of investment real estate so this could be a case of trying to talk up their own investments or what some on Wall St. would call a "pump and dump" scheme. When you see so many agent-owned listings on the market combined with questionable market updates that, during 2008, have declared the market "strong" and "well and improving daily" and declared the credit crisis to be "over" months ago it does raise a few red flags in my opinion. As always, buyer beware.

Where are the market updates that say the market is weak, inventories are exploding, countless agents are trying to sell properties (if it's such a great investment shouldn't they want to hold on to them?) and agents are discounting their own properties? Unless something changes, for more of those type of Deep Creek real estate updates you'll just have to keep reading this blog.

Don't forget to check back to Dan's Deep Creek Blog for future updates.