Scenes from the street…..

Scenes from the street….. By: Brian Brosen,

NY State MLS Blog Post Contributor

As a Broker who covers a wide area, and one that runs across a fair amount of people on a weekly basis, I am personally seeing more and more cases of homeowners in trouble these days than I have at any other time. It’s a bit ironic, because the pundits tell us everyday lately that the economy is getting better, that growth is starting to slowly happen, and things are looking up, depending on your perspective I guess.

In the Capital District we are very protected from the swings, the storms so to speak of the real estate world over the last 5 or 6 years – no major wild swings ( yes, we had some good appreciation, some even bordered on speculation “ can you say Saratoga” ) – but nothing so extreme that the bubble burst like it did all over the rest of the nation. Nothing highlights this fact more than stats I just saw in the Business Review – from 2005 until 2010, the national avg sales price dropped across the nation about 32% - meanwhile, here in the Capital District, our avg sales price rose nearly 2% - that is a HUGE statement in regards to our market.

We have been bombarded with stories of people losing everything, foreclosure nightmares across the nation for the last 2 yrs – and while that was going on I was out there daily, meeting people, and not really hearing that story too often locally – but like all other trends, we tend to lag behind. I am not speaking, nor could I ever speak, for all the other agents and brokers out there – but I know, I am running across more and more people who are behind, who are close to losing it all, who are barely holding on, who are tapped out in their homes…and they need to sell, some want to, some don’t, and some just don’t seem to care……again, I am only one guy, one broker out there amongst thousands…..but, am I the only one seeing it more this year, already? Is it just my “luck” so to speak to run across a larger portion of these situations than truly exist? Or is there something brewing out there in the hills of Columbia County, in the alleys of Albany, in the suddenly more desperate suburbs of Delmar and the martini hot spots of Saratoga, and everywhere in between that no one is paying attention to?

Just throwing it out there…..i guess the next 8 months will answer those questions.