Coastal Florida Real Estate

As the economy continues to struggle, even the country club set is beginning to feel the pinch.  In the past month,  I have talked to member at 3 other local clubs and they all told me the clubs are struggling to deal with the downturn in the economy.  When I owned my own business and worked in one of the most prestigious of these clubs, I would have occasion to talk with many members.  What comes to light is not how much money you have, but your exposure, or risk.

Here is the latest from the local Palm Beach Post.

A West Palm Beach country club community suffering from waning memberships and financial turmoil is considering selling out to private investors, including veteran oilman Thomas O'Malley.

Ironhorse Country Club spent about $3.5 million renovating its Arthur Hills-designed golf course in 2006, but has since seen its members dwindle to about 200.

Bob Naples, president of the member-owned club, said club bylaws call for 350 members, but that the club could probably get by with about 300.

Annual dues for a full golf membership are $5,900 for a family and $5,400 for an individual, according to the Ironhorse Web site

Naples wouldn't go into the specifics of the club's fiscal bind, but minutes to a November town hall meeting reveal there have been discussions of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and privatizing. Foreclosure was on the table at some point, but was ruled out, according to the minutes.

Ironhorse, at Bee Line Highway and Jog Road, has about 325 homes, which range in price between about $300,000 to $1 million. Ironhorse was sued in 2005 for requiring residents to become club members.

The mandatory membership fees were struck down by a Palm Beach County Circuit Court judge, but the decision was appealed by Ironhorse. The case is currently under review in Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal.

My note:  Ironhorse is one the communities around here that offers expansive common areas with a very mature landscape.  Its a great place to play golf and is much closer in town than IBIS.  I have played in 2 golf tournaments there recently, enjoyed both...especially winning one!

Over this coming weekend, I will be putting together a year end wrap up of the Jupiter and Tequesta real estate market.

I'll also be touching on the upscale club market in this area so be sure and check back on Monday!

If you play golf you know there is a saying, “Don’t leave it short”.  This is especially true for the birdie putt.

The teachers say, plan to have the ball go 18 inches past the cup, in other words, do not come up short.  A ball that is even one turn short, can not make it in the cup.

When selling your house, the same principles apply.  Make sure you give it all that is needed to make the sale.

Now, part two of this is the line, “Why is it so easy to make a second putt?”  First, all the emotion is out of it.  (This is the same reason you need a professional to help you sell your house).  Without the emotion, you can freely strike the ball.  Second, you can see where you came up short the first time.  I could tell you many stories of clients who were wrapped up in emotion, would not take good offers I presented to them, only to call me a week later and recant.

Remember, hindsight is always 20-20.

I ran across a great piece on the Internet today.  It was a long email conversation between Malcolm Gladwell, best selling author of "The Tipping Point", "Outliers" and "Blink" and one of his friends.

It's too long to publish here, so go to this link and read it:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/one/091218

Florida’s unemployment rate continued rising to 11.5 percent in November, up from 11.3 percent in October, the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation said today. The rate is likely to hit 12 percent in early 2010, according to both University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith and the Florida Economic Estimating Conference.

Palm Beach County unemployment jumped to 11.7 percent in November from 11.5 percent in October. Martin County’s jobless rate spiked to 12.4 percent from 12 percent a month ago. St. Lucie County’s jobless rate remained at 14.7 percent, third-highest among Florida’s 67 counties.

November typically brings a dip in county jobless rates, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, as employers ramp up hiring for the holiday shopping spree and the tourist season. But not this year, as Florida remains mired in its worst labor market since the deep recession of 1975.

Hop over to my You Tube channel for local real estate market updates

www.youtube.com/richardsites

OK, I'll confess.  I really wasn't that interested in the TW story until I saw what happened to the web traffic searching for something or anything on Tiger.

I had posted a picture of his Jupiter Island estate on my other blog www.coastalfloridarealestate.wordpress.com several months ago and when this thing blew up, the web traffic spiked.  I get the message.  But I didn't have any file photos of hot (or otherwise) babes they I could post.

So, I went to see a $ 2 million condo in North Palm, knew his yacht was there, and I brought the camera.  Unfortunately, it was rainy.  I took the shots posted on my HOME page.  I did walk along the yacht and let me tell you 155 feet is very large.  Its a ship.  Two interesting aspects were the security detail circling the entire time and sizing me up and the keypad for a security code on the gangplank.

The next morning a local radio station was broadcasting that he was aboard. 

As for the condo, it was over the top.  More about that later!

Winter is the dry season here in south Florida.  So why has it been pouring for 3 days?

As of Friday morning, December rainfall averages in coastal Palm Beach County had hit 5.11 inches. That's about 4 inches more than normal. The Treasure Coast was at 4.99 inches, about 3 inches higher than normal.

Few saw rain as heavy as central St. Lucie County, which recorded a torrential 13 inches in the 24 hours that ended at 7 a.m. Friday.

National Weather Center meteorologists said a low pressure system moving northeast through the Gulf of Mexico is what brought the rain, but the overall wacky weather, including record heat this month, is classic El Niño.

The pattern of warm weather in the Pacific, which shows up every three or four years, also helped tame the 2009 hurricane season.

In December 1994, Palm Beach County recorded 10.87 inches of rain instead of the typical 3 inches. St. Lucie County, during the same time period, got 8.54 inches.

While South Florida temperatures will dip into the 40s and 50s over the next couple of nights, the chill will be nowhere near what's going to hit the Northeast. As the front leaves Florida, it's forecast to bring 20 inches of snow to the Washington, D.C., area.

Up to a foot of snow is forecast in parts of Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Okay, it was just a question about the rain, not a complaint.  Given a choice between grabbing a light jacket and shoveling the car out from under a snow drift...I'll take the former.

Take a look at my You Tube channel for a video I posted on the rainstorm in Jupiter Farms.   www.youtube.com/richardsites

Selling your house?

How are you addressing your market position?

Maybe consistent, sensory stimulation is killing the sale.

The human mind is wired to notice change.  Every retailer knows this, does your agent?

Recently, the local Wal-Mart underwent a major interior reorganization.  Same merchandise, different location.  Why... the answer is obvious.  You get used to walking through the store and just look right past the items that are always in the same place. So, knowing this, the store rearranges everything periodically to draw your attention to the merchandise.  OK, so how does this apply if you are trying to sell your house?

Could the simple choice of words make a difference in how your home is perceived?  You bet!  But, the most common thing agents do is reuse the same words everyone else uses.  Need an example?  Look through the ads.  How many ads use the words, stunning, spectacular, spacious, lush landscaping and I could go on.  But the point is synonyms are easy to come by.  Might it improve your position just a little to find some different words to use?  Maybe.  Wal-Mart thinks they can sell more shirts just by moving them to the other side of the aisle. That's only a slight re-positioning but it usually only takes a 1% improvement to sell your house.

Another thought.  If your home is being advertised by an agent who places an ad in the same place every week, you might try moving it to another place in the newspaper.  Or course, around 85% of buyers start their search on the Internet so reread my piece on my HOME page about IDX positioning.  The newspaper is where agents advertise themselves using your home as ad filler.

I can't guarantee that either of these things will make a difference.  But if you go over to my PAST SALE page you will see that it really does only take a 1% improvement to get your house sold.

Feature creep is a common problem caused when helpful engineers put so much stuff onto a unit, it becomes for all practical purposes unuseable.

The same thing is happening to the Internet.  I've spoken with web developers who tell me when developing sites for clients, you must stay current with the "trends".  That's why the website today are so jammed with information and radio buttons and tiny fonts you can't find anything.

Google knows this all too well.  Take a look at their search page or Chrome.  They are sticking to the idea that you only use a fraction of the information anyway.  Take a look at the TIVO remote above and the number of buttons squeezed onto the surface.  Isn't the joke, "Just have your kids do it for you?"

When it comes to your web presence, don't let a web site loaded wth feature creep kill your buyer experience.

Jeff Greene, a Palm Beach/Miami real estate mogul, will move this month into Palm Beach’s La Bellucia oceanfront mansion.  The home is an Addison Mizner designed estate with 200 feet of oceanfront land

La Bellucia, built in 1924, has nine bedrooms and nine-and-a-half bathrooms. It sits on 3.8 acres just south of the Bath and Tennis Club.  This section of the Island is known for huge estates and Rush Limbaugh lives right down the street.  Its also in the neighborhood of the former Kennedy compound which was oceanfront as well.

Greene purchased the 12,000-square-foot home Dec. 4 for $24 million from NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcom Glazer who paid $14 million for La Bellucia in 2000 and had planned to remodel the home. Those plans never materialized, so Glazer decided to sell.  So, he made a $ 10,000,000 profit during the real estate boom to bust of the 2000’s.

So maybe there is still hope for Greg Norman with his $ 60,000,000 asking price on Jupiter Island, down the street from Tiger.

BallenIsles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens has opened their new fitness center which cost $ 26 million.  BallenIsles, one of the premier clubs in the area, was built in the 1970's when land was not so precious and as such has a more leisurely feel inside the grounds than some of the more recent clubs.

The trend toward more updated fitness facilities though was in fact spurred on by these newer clubs such as Mirasol Country Club.

BallenIsles is located where PGA Blvd. meets the Florida Turnpike and is across the street from Ray Floyd's Old Palm Club, just east of Mirasol Country Club and PGA National Resort.

Recently, Jonathan's Landing in Jupiter underwent a major renovation of its fitness center and while touring the facility with a Board member was told this is the new standard and we all have to move with the times.  Clubs everwhere are having to find new and innovative ways of attracting and retaining members.  Especially since the upfront cost to join many of these clubs runs around $ 150,000.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, Zandi has some sobering predictions: Home prices are going to fall 5% to 10% more -- and over 30% in places like Miami -- between now and this time next year. Then they might start turning around. (Emphasis on "might.")

At the top of Zandi's list of worries are foreclosures -- specifically, the millions of loans that are in foreclosure or headed there that can't or won't be modified. According to RealtyTrac, nearly 2 million housing units in the U.S. are in foreclosure or bank-owned, and millions more are likely to join them.

Zandi estimates that 2.4 million homes will find their way into foreclosure next year. He expects banks to start putting those properties on the market more aggressively during the first half of the year, resulting in a flood of cut-rate inventory that will drag prices down.

All those factors are figured into Economy.com's housing price outlook for 2010 -- as are local figures for income, population, interest rates, and foreclosures.

The results are broken into 100 metropolitan areas. (Last year the projections were pretty accurate, forecasting a 14.5% decline in 2009; the actual figure is likely to come in around --13.2%.)

As the sea of red above shows, the numbers are negative across the country.

The weakest areas are Florida, California, Nevada, and Arizona -- what Zandi calls the "usual suspects" -- where foreclosures are highest and likely to rise. The worst market: Miami, where the 2009 median home price of $183,530 is expected to fall 33%.

While watching the news this morning on the snow storm the country is dealing with, I thought it might be appropriate to post a few pictures of the Jupiter weather.

These shots were taken at the Admirals Cove Marina.  Admirals Cove is about 10 minutes from the Atlantic via the Jupiter Inlet.

This is the view from behind the clubhouse looking east toward the Intracoastal Waterway.

Our temperature here today is a record setting 87.

Last night, while watching the news I heard Brian Williams make a funny comment.  He said the severe storm that was covering almost all of northern America "came out of nowhere".  Just a second!  We have satellites with cameras so powerful they can read your license plate number from space and cover every inch of the planet and yet a monster storm came out of nowhere.

Does this mean the weatherman stepped out for coffee and came back to find the screen covered with a huge storm? 

As for Jupiter, we are still enjoying this unseasonably warm weather with the temps breaking records in the upper 80's.

What:	Come play in a mound of snow and in a fun bounce house! Enjoy cookies, hot chocolate, holiday music and see Santa!!! Donate a gift to The Children's Home Society and receive a complimentary initial chiropractic evaluation (exam, x-rays, consult $350 value)from Spine Design Chiropractic and a Free consultation at Jupiter Law Center. Quarterdeck will have Kids' Nite - kids eat free with the purchase of an adult entree. All proceeds benefit The Children's Home Society!
Where:	Behind Quarterdeck Restaurant 1102 W. Indiantown Rd Jupiter, FL 33458
When:	3 pm - 7pm
Event Dates:	This event takes place on 12/17/2009.

Governor Charlie Crist today, as part of his continued focus on strengthening Florida’s economy, met with Florida realtors to discuss the state’s housing market. The Governor applauded the contributions of Florida’s realtors on the consistent increase in home sales over the last twelve months. He also encouraged the realtors to take advantage of the extended federal tax credit for homebuyers made available through the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009.

“There are great opportunities right now for Floridians and newcomers to Florida to take advantage of tax breaks, bargain prices and beautiful Florida real estate,” said Governor Crist. “I am encouraged by the continuing rise in home sales.”

According to the Florida Association of Realtors, single family home sales in Florida have consistently increased over the last twelve months. Home sales are up 26 percent for the 12 months ending in October 2009, and condo sales are up 33 percent for the same 12 month period. Meanwhile, October 2009 also saw the first year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity since July 2006.

During the housing boom, millions of Americans tried to make money by buying and then quickly reselling new houses and condominiums. That kind of flipping stopped several years ago as home sales stalled amid a surge in foreclosures and curtailed lending.

Now, a different breed of flipper is proliferating: one who seeks bargains at foreclosure auctions. Unlike the boom-time flippers, the latest generation needs cold cash, lots of local-market knowledge and strong nerves.

According to the Wall Street Journal in this article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126022588878780861.html, we are seeing a comeback of the flipper.

A little background: Before a lender can take possession of a home through foreclosure, a public auction of the property is held, typically in or outside of a county courthouse or at the office of a trustee appointed to handle the sale. These auctions often are called trustee sales or sheriff sales. If investors are willing to pay more than a minimum amount set by the lender, they get the property, and the bank gets the cash. Otherwise, the bank gets the house and faces the expenses of fixing it up and selling it.

This isn’t a game for amateurs. Typically, the auction buyer needs to pay a big deposit immediately and the full price for the home within 24 hours or so. That means there is no time to arrange for a 30-year mortgage. Buyers need lots of cash or access to hard-money lenders. They also need intimate knowledge of neighborhoods to know how much they can safely bid. Usually, they don’t get a chance to view the interior of a house before bidding. Nasty surprises can include cement poured down the toilet or granite countertops ripped out by a disgruntled former occupant. Even the palm trees may vanish.

I have shown clients bank owned properties that were stripped of everything, everything.  One situation I know of involved a house in an upscale neighborhood where everything was taken from the kitchen, cabinets, countertops and appliances.  Hey, in tough times granite counters and 42" cabinets are worth something on the black market.

As times get tougher, more things will certainly vanish.  The article says even palm trees may go.

In the states where home prices have fallen the most, many loca l real-estate markets are dominated by foreclosed property, dragging down the value of neighboring homes. Barclays Capital estimates that banks and mortgage investors have 639,000 foreclosed homes for sale across the U.S., largely concentrated in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. That’s equivalent to more than 10% of expected U.S. home sales this year.

Another human element is that the owner may be renting and the tenant not know the house is facing foreclosure.  So, the owner who is not making mortgage payments is collecting rent.  One day the tenant arrive home to find his stuff sitting at the curb courtesy of the local sheriff.  I know personally of this happening.  All legal methods, but heartbreaking in any event.

I always find stories of the quick road to riches interesting.  Whether its Spanish galleon treasure, gold at Sutter’s Mill or flipping houses in  LA, we are all sure they we can do this too.  Its sort of like being a movie star, you look at them and say “Hey, that could be me!”.  These are certainly fun stories to read.   For every person that hits the jackpot, plenty more go broke or mad trying to find the pot of gold.  Watch “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” with Bogart.  Johnny Horton sang about this in “North to Alaska”, the lyrics of which are, “Where the river is winding, big nuggets they’re finding”.

Get your Jupiter/Tequesta real estate updates on: www.CoastalFloridaRealEstate.net  or check out some of my real estate market updates on: www.youtube.com/richardsites.

PS:  Yesterday, I got an inside look at Frenchman’s Creek from Lisa Moore.  What a fabulous community.  Update coming soon, so keep watching.

PSS:  Growing up in Miami, this was the only Flipper I knew.

Flipper

Another great treasure hunter was Dick Anderson, who made his gold find in the American River near Tahoe.  He used a dredge to suck up river bottom and found a lot of gold.

When you hear a diagnosis from a Dr. that you have a disease, or ailment, what do you do?

1.  If you think it is not serious, just take your pills and go about your business.  If you hear that you only have bronchitis, would you get a second or third opinion?  Probably not.

2.  If it seems a little serious, what now?  Ask a friend what they think?  More likely you will Google the problem to try and add to your knowledge base.

3.  If it's really serious, now what?  You would probably get a second opinion, maybe a third.  Even insurance companies know this is prudent and will pay for these 2nd & 3rd opinions.

4.  Keep going to doctors until you find one that says you don't have a serious problem.  This is what Steve McQueen did and his obit says he died in Mexico.  John Lennon did this too.  I once read that he denied that smoking could give him cancer.  Denial is certainly the easiest strategy.  Think how much easier things would have been on the Titanic if they just denied they were taking on water.

I believe that in an attempt to get listings, real estate agents take a lightweight approach to the problem of correctly setting the price hoping for an uninformed buyer to stumble on the property and pay more for it than its worth, or take the listing and hope to get the price down.

HOPE IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE SELLING STRATEGY.

Isn't there an old saying, "Give it to me straight, Doc".

One of the symtoms of LRS is quoting high listing prices to console sellers.  This is like the doctor telling you that you will be fine, while saying to himself this guy's gonna be dead in 6 months.  Agents also tell me they put homes in the newspaper because that's what the sellers want to see.

Back to our Dr. analogy.  So, Doc says you have serious problem.  You say, "What should I do" and he/she replies, "We'll do whatever you want".  Don't you want a professional consultant to tell you the truth??

I attended the celebration of life (funeral) of Pat Rood, one of Jupiter's most famous and beloved women.

She and her husband Roy were two of the most admired, loved and respected couples this area has ever produced.  Married for 57 years, they met in a small store in Jupiter where he was working to establish his landscape business, Rood Landscape.  8 months later they were married in Arcadia, LA.

They moved to Jupiter Inlet Colony on Jupiter Island, on a lot Roy bartered for and lived their entire lives in this modest house.  God blessed them with 2 children, Nelson and Vanessa.  Nelson is an exact copy of Roy and Vanessa looks just like Pat.

Roy and Pat were ALWAYS seen together and the list of their loving accomplishments to help others would fill volumes. Their landscape company did most of the estate landscape installations on the estates of Jupiter Island.

One of their finest accomplishments was helping to establish Jupiter Christian School where today 600 students are enrolled.  Both of my boys either attended or graduated from JCS and my wife is the Fine Arts Director.

It's quaint to say, "They don't make 'em like that any more but in this case its absolutely true". 

I posted a long diatribe on using correct pricing and the sad tale of a man who still thinks his house is worth what he paid for it at the top of the market.

I bet a quarter that he would list the house at a price that supports his theory that it is special even though there is not one shread of evidence to support this.  I'm glad they don't have a mortgage to support.

Another agent listed the house at 90% of what the owner paid for it 3 1/2 years ago, let me rephrase that, at the absolute top of the market.  This real estate market would clear up fast if agents would stop doing this kind of pricing.  Does this sound quixotic?

So, it seems they believe the market has declined only 3% per year since the boom stopped.  I wonder when they stopped reading the news?

HOPE IS NOT A SUCCESSFUL SELLING STRATEGY.

So, somebody out there owes me a quarter. 

Recently, I had the good fortune to talk with a man about selling his home in an upscale community.

The home had been listed with 2 other agents for a long time without selling.  Now, the interesting part.  He purchased the home at the absolute top of the market here, late spring 2006 and has been trying to sell it for more than he paid for it without making any substantial changes.  And, he told me there were very few showings.

OK, if you've been following me on this blog or over at my other blog, http://www.coastalfloridarealestate.wordpress.com you know that I am constantly talking about the value of a statistical analysis of the market in order to determine correct pricings.  And without question a quick sale is the key to the most net income.

For example:  A home I priced at $ 620-635,000 was listed with another agent at $ 699,000 (just what they paid for it) and sold 9 months later for $ 630,000.  What were the carrying costs of a home that size for 9 months?  If he had started at $ 650,000 he certainly would have walked away with more money.

A home in Jupiter Farms agreed with my pricing then refused a cash offer.  I pleaded with the to accept the offer. 18 months later, they took $ 58,000 less...oh yeah with another agent.

A "very special" home which I told the man who bring the upper $ 700's is still on the market 3 years later and is now down to $ 729,000 and falling.  But, its a special house...too bad the buyers don't know this.

A home in an exclusive community had a severe problem that we quickly discovered was keeping buyers from making an offer even though we had lots of showings.  When the stubborn seller addressed the problem after 9 months, the house sold almost immediately.

A "For Sale By Owner" in The Shores of Jupiter called to get my opinion on why is house wasn't selling.  Upon arriving, the problem is so obvious you could have tripped over it and the solution would have cost maybe $ 300.  Oh yeah, he was so sure that the house as special, he went ahead and bought another.  So, he has owned 2 homes for the last 3 years.

When the doctor gives you a dianogsis, he doesn't have to plead with you to follow a course of treatment.  Why in real estate is there a need to plead?

So let's get back to the story at the top.  His house had been priced at nearly $ 500/foot and the only sale of houses like his in size or price was sold at $ 307 a foot and those in his community are priced at a median of $ 355 per foot.  OK, so I didn't get the listing.  When the new listing comes out, I'll post what the listing price is.  I've got a quarter riding on this that I can tell where it will be priced.

The list of well known “folks” who call this Coastal Florida region home has another celebrated resident.  In addition to the well known Tiger Woods, Celine Dion, Greg Norman, Keith Hernandez, Michael Jordan,Ken Green, Mark C., Nick Price, Dan Marino, Steve Marino, Jim Palmer, Mike Schmidt,Burt Reynolds, etc, etc., John Perkins is a Palm Beach Gardens resident.

The latest issue of Jupiter magazine has a feature story on Perkins who rose to national prominence with his book,”Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” which I read and found thoroughly fascinating.

What is interesting to me is that people who can afford to live anywhere…live here. 

Because people who can live anywhere want to live in places like Admirals Cove, Frenchman’s Creek, Frenchman’s Reserve, Mirasol, BallenIsles, Jonathan’s Landing, Ritz-Carlton, Bear’s Club.  And these are just the big name communities.

Need to learn more? 

Follow this blog, my website:www.coastalfloridarealestate.net or I post videos regularly on the Jupiter/Tequesta and Premier Club Community lifestyles at:   www.youtube.com/richardsites

The unemployment numbers were released this morning and showed that the unemployment rate was back to 10%.  Never mind the economic implications, let’s talk about selling your house.

I have posted time and time again the importance of using statistical data to properly price your house.  Here’s a portion of the story from Marketwatch on the unemployment numbers.  Note the use of statistics:

Nonfarm payrolls dropped by a seasonally adjusted 11,000 in November, the fewest jobs lost since December 2007. Payroll losses in September and October were revised lower by a total of 159,000.

Details of the report were largely favorable. Hours worked rose, temporary-help employment increased, and a larger percentage of industries were hiring. However, the number of people unemployed for longer than six months rose to 5.9 million, accounting for a record 38.3% of the jobless.

Service-producing industries added 58,000 jobs, the second straight increase. Goods-producing industries cut 69,000 jobs, the fewest in 18 months, according to a survey of hundreds of thousand of business establishments.

A separate survey of households showed employment rose by a seasonally adjusted 227,000 in November and unemployment fell by 325,000 to 15.4 million. About 100,000 people dropped out of the workforce. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by two-tenths from a 26-year high of 10.2% in October to 10% in November.

An alternative gauge of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part-time, fell to 17.2% from 17.5%.

Total hours worked in the economy rose 0.6%, the largest increase in more than six years. The average workweek increased to 33.2 hours from the record-low 33 hours in October.

Average hourly earnings rose 1 cent or 0.1%, to $18.74. Average hourly earnings are up 2.2% in the past year.

In its survey of 400,000 business establishments, the government found that employment fell by a seasonally adjusted 11,000 to 131 million in November. Government employment rose by 7,000.

Employment in the goods-producing sector fell by 69,000, including 27,000 in construction and 41,000 in manufacturing. The average workweek in manufacturing rose to 40.4 hours from 40.1 hours.

Service-producing jobs rose by 58,000, including 86,000 in professional and business services and 40,000 in health and education. Temp-help jobs increased by 52,000.

Retail industries cut 15,000 jobs. Finance cut 10,000 jobs. Information cut 17,000 jobs.

Of 271 industries, 40.6% were hiring in November, the highest in 18 months.

The employment participation rate fell to 65% from 65.1% as the labor force dropped by 98,000. The employment-population ratio was steady at 58.5%.

The unemployment rate fell for most major demographic groups. For whites, the rate fell to 9.3% from 9.5%. For blacks, the jobless rate dropped to 15.6% from 15.7%. For Hispanics, it fell to 12.7% from 13.1%. For men, it was 10.5%; for women, 7.9%; for teens, 26.7%.

The number of people who were unemployed because they had lost their job (as opposed to re-entering the workforce or looking for their first job) fell by 463,000.

The numbers get sliced every direction to try and make sense out of what’s happening.  So, how does this apply to Mr. &  Mrs. Seller?  When pricing your home, how did you arrive at the price?  GFA?  What someone down the street said they got for their house?  A nice, boilerplate CMA with an agents picture on it comparing 3 houses?  An appraisal by a certified, residential appraiser?  Think about it.

When analyzing a property, you can be just a specific as the gov’t, slice the data up and you should still arrive at the same pricing.  This is the strategy I employ with Dynamic Market Positioning.  Want to know more?  Tired of the house being on the market and the hidden costs of carrying it eating up your “hoped for” profit?  It doesn’t have to be this way.  In Jupiter and Tequesta alone, sales for November were up dramatically over November 08.

Remember: HOPE IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE SELLING STRATEGY!