Last week I read an article on MSN Money that was titled Housing Rebound: When to Spot One. The article listed different ways to tell if the local real estate market was on the rebound. One of the clues to check was the local housing inventory. If the local inventory is shrinking the market is doing better, due to less supply. I have posted reports on how many homes were actively listed on the Cabot real estate market.

The last post on actively listed Cabot homes was on June 30th. There were 579 homes listed for sale in the Cabot area. This did not include mobile homes. As of today the 22nd of July there are 523 homes listed in the Cabot area. This is a clear indication that the market in the Cabot area is not as bad as other areas of the nation.

Every couple of weeks I will post the number of actively listed homes in the Cabot area. This will give potential buyers of an idea of the inventory in the area.

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I recently posted an update that focused on Homes in the Cabot area that had 1 acre of land or more. This home located just outside of Cabot is perfect for someone looking for a nice home on a large lot. The home was built in 2005 and has been well taken care of. Though not located in Cabot, it is still in the Cabot school district. Here are some pictures. If you would like to schedule a showing call 501-259-4134, for more information about this home visit www.cabot4sale.com.

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This is an update on the commercial market for Cabot, Jacksonville, Sherwood, North Little Rock, and Little Rock. This update will will focus on sold commercial land, acreage, and commercial buildings.

Sold Commercial Buildings since Jan. 1, 2008

26

Sold Commercial Buildings Jan. 1-July 14, 2007

33

Sold Commercial Land and Acreage since Jan. 1, 2008

31

Sold Commercial Land and Acreage Jan. 1-July 14, 2007

50

Just going back one year it is obvious to see the commercial market is down substantially. Only time will tell how the commercial market will do for the rest of the year.

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The past couple of byers that I have worked with have wanted to find homes with at least and acre or more of land, but something still close to Cabot. After searching for homes with one acre for a couple of clients I realized that there are not many homes on the market with one acre or more of land. In the Cabot area, home with one acre only make up about 20% of all of the homes on the market.

Home with one acre or more make up approximately 21% of the sold homes in the Cabot area this year. The majority of the 21% is priced below 150K. Buyer are looking for homes with a little land. I always hear buyers mention how they do not want to be right up next to their neighbors.

It is no secret that the market has slowed some. If you have been considering selling your home in the Cabot area and it has some land with it, now is a good time. You have a limited amount of competition and buyers that are interested. Feel free to visit our home evaluation page for Cabot Arkansas homes. We also service other areas, so if you are located in central Arkansas we can evaluate your home.

Next post I will give an update of the commercial real estate market for Lonoke County.

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Most people are busy, we realize that. Some people work ten to twelve hours a day and do not have time to go to different lender to get preapproved for a mortgage. We have added a feature to help make the Cabot home buying process easier.

On the homepage of Cabot4sale.com we now have a mortgage application! It is just a brief application that will help buyers get an idea of how much they can spend when buying a home. We will contact you to explain how we will use the application.

Normally, with your consent we will take your application to three different experienced lenders to find you the best percentage rate. That saves you time from calling around trying to find a lender. This will enable you to shop around to find a lender without out doing any work. We will find you the best deal on rates! When you choose who you would like to go with they will need a little more information from you that they can get over the phone and you will be on your way to purchasing a home.

This is just another way we try to offer a Superior service to our buyers.

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The end of June marks the end of the first two quarters of 2008. With all of the media coverage on the real estate market it is not a huge surprise that the Cabot real estate market is down compared to previous years. I thought I would take some time to look at how the first half of this year has compared to previous years in the Cabot real estate market.

There were 459 Cabot homes sold in the first half of 2008. Last year there were 522 homes sold during the first half of the year. In 2006 there were 561 Cabot homes sold during the first half of the year. Compared to last year the Cabot real estate market has seen approximately a 12% drop since last year. 

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I just wanted to write a quick post about the number of active homes in Cabot Arkansas. Currently there are 579 actively listed in the Cabot Arkansas area. Here are how many are listed in each price range.

100 and below- 78

100-150- 190

150-200- 142

200-250- 57

250 and up- 112

My next post will highlight the month of June in Cabot real estate. Be sure to look for the general market report on the home page of our Cabot website.

While doing a market report earlier in the year I noticed that not many homes price above 200K had sold. I wanted to take a minute to show how many Cabot homes above 200K have sold this year so far. Here is what it the numbers look like. There have been 48 Cabot homes sold this year priced 200K and above. Here are the number of homes sold for each price range. 

200-220K 18 

220-240K 14

240-260K 3

260-280K 2

280-300K 6

300K and up 5

When I did this report in the beginning of March there had only been 16 homes sold above 200K.

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I wanted to take time to give a quick update on the commercial real estate in the area. There are not near as many commercial real estate deals done per year as there are residential. This market report will include Cabot, Jacksonville, and LIttle Rock.

This report focuses on commercial lots sold, commercial businesses sold, and commercial buildings sold in the above mentioned areas from January 1st of this year until now. There were 29 sold properties for this time frame. 

There was one commercial lot sold in these areas and it was in Cabot. The lot sold for $270,000

The other 28 properties sold, ranged from $10,000 to $1.35 million.

The majority of the sold property was building and land that was sold.

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This is just a quick post to give Cabot home sellers an idea of what competition you may have in the Cabot area. I just wanted to give a quick update on the number of active homes in Cabot Arkansas. Currently there are 556 active homes on the market in the Cabot area. Here is the price break down.

 Active Cabot Homes 100K and Below- 77

100-120- 79

120-140- 77

140-160- 60

160-180- 62

180-200- 47

200-220- 24

220-240- 26

240-260- 26

260-280- 23

280-300- 20

300 and above- 61

This breakdown may help to give some sellers and idea of the competition in the price range their home is in. If you have any questions or would like a more detailed analysis on your price range don't hesitate to contact us. Go to www.cabot4sale.com to find our number.

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In May of 2008 there were 73 homes sold in the Cabot Arkansas school district. That number is lower than last last year and te year before. Here is a look a at what price ranges homes sold in May of this year.

100K and below- 17

100-120K- 15

120-140K- 9

140-160K- 11

160-180K- 3 

180-200K- 6

200-220K- 2

220-240K- 5

240-260K- 0

260-280K- 0

280-300K- 2

300K and up- 3

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This May there were 26 new construction homes sold in Cabot Arkansas. Some of these homes were built in 2006. On May 31st there were 222 new construction homes on the market. That means approximately 11.7% of the active new construction homes were sold.

19 of the 26 new construction homes sold were priced 150K and below.

3 of the 26 homes sold were priced between 150-200K

4 of the 26 homes sold were priced above 200K

3 of the 4 Cabot homes sold above 200K were built in 2006

Unfortunate I can not look at previous years for new construction homes, but I would imagine this month is down compared to previous Mays. Next post I will focus on all homes sold in May of this year.

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I normally use this blog to post detailed updates about the Cabot real estate market. This blog is used to inform buyers and sellers about real estate. I had something happen to me today that I felt would be helpful for anyone buying real estate.

I have a client that had been looking for a home for sometime and was getting frustrated about not finding something in their price range. They finally found a home they loved, but on the listing is said that flood insurance was required. I told the buyer that normally it is not a good idea to buy a home in the flood zone. You are required to carry flood insurance for the home. They said they loved the home and wanted to make an offer. I recommended that they get a quote for flood insurance before they proceeded any further. They did get a quote and it was $700 for the flood insurance per year. Based on that quote they still wanted to write an offer. The offer was accepted and title work began. When the title company needed to know who home owners insurance and flood insurance was going to be with the buyer called the insurance company to sign the paper work. The insurance company said they made a mistake and flood insurance would be $3500 per year. By then the buyer was freaking out. I said the only thing that could be done is have a surveyor come out and check for elevation. The buyer said they would like to do that and we had it done. After we had the elevation we checked with there insurance companies and the first quote we got was $297 per year. After that written quote we ordered the appraisal ($350 the buyer had to pay for). The next day the second and third quotes came in for the flood insurance and they were $2000 and $2800 per year. I new something was not with the first quote and called the agent that gave it. He assured me and the buyer that the quote was right, but he would double check. He did double check and the quote was supposed to be about $2000. I told him that we paid for a $350 appraisal based on what he said. All he could say was he was sorry that he was that far off.

The buyer had to back out of the deal because of the cost, not to mention how hard it would be to resale the property. The moral to the story is if a home is in the flood zone, do not attempt to buy it. Resale will be tough and flood insurance is not cheap. I hope this may help buyers not make the same mistake and go through the same roller coaster ride as my buyer did.

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As usual, I have posted a monthly market report for homes sold in Cabot Arkansas. The report highlights the number of homes sold in the month of May compared to previous years. It also tells how the market is doing this year compared to previous years.

Check out the market report on the homepage of Cabot4sale.com.

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Every time I meet someone new they ask me what I do for a living. After I tell them that I am in real estate I normally always get the same answer. It goes something like this, "Oooo, how is business. With the real estate market I bet it has slowed way down." I try not to sound like a used car salesman and say the market is great, do you want to buy something. My response is normally, the Cabot market is not that bad compared to other places. I say that because I have done the research and know that it is not that bad compared to towns close in size.

I wanted to give an idea of how the Cabot market is doing compared to Jacksonville, and Searcy. As of May 29th there have been 346 homes sold in Cabot for 2008. In Searcy there have been 129 homes sold. In Jacksonville there have been 137 homes sold.

Just looking at these numbers make me feel really fortunate that I live and work in Cabot were the real estate market is really not that bad compared to other places.

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