What A Difference A Year Makes
I remember way back in the day when we had a pool here in Sea Isle. The year was 1964 and it was located on 63rd Street across from the Shopping Center. The whole community used it. It was like a family barbecue that happened every day. I remember that all of the concrete walkways had these big letters written on them. NO RUNNING ALLOWED. Those words were there to try to keep us kids from hurting ourselves. I never could get the message and I got scraped up pretty good. They say that we live and learn. Some of us just live and then live some more.
Real Estate in Sea Isle City sold and grew at an unparalleled rate between 2001 and 2005. Many of us were moving very fast with no regard for the potential consequences when the market stopped dead in its tracks. The 32 month correction period was a bitter pill for the Candy Cane Crowd to swallow and just when it seemed as if we were coming out of it, The unprecedented events of Fall 2008 happened and things got WORSE. I felt like you do when you set up for a big party and then nobody shows up. I couldn’t get a person to talk to me about Real Estate, selling or buying. I was sitting at work looking at my computer. I needed something to do.
I like project work, the kind of job that you never complete. It just keeps adding to itself and get’s bigger and bigger. A little over a year ago I started a project. It began with me taking a look at how our rental owners were doing. Our rental business had increased significantly that past summer after making some changes to our website and it was already on my mind so I decided to go a little deeper. As I went back through years of rental income data, I uncovered some important information that I began to share with the owners I was working with. We managed there rates through the winter and spring, adjusting up & down as we went along and when the year completed itself, we were able to look back on some spectacular results. Income was increased in just one year by 10% to 30% I have developed a rate setting and activity tracking tool that I am now using very effectively with a number of rental property owners.
In August when the late summer lull hit I started to look at the Sale data going back to 2004. I have been working with that information for the last six months and have started to use it in my work this fall with buyers and sellers. As we begin the year 2010 the market here in Sea Isle City is getting stronger. The data shows that the New Construction price on the west side of Landis Avenue has been stabile for over two years. This category has long served as our baseline, the number that everything else adjusts to. That it has settled into a solid place is allowing the rest of the categories to adjust to it, finding their correct relative positions. We have sales in the beach block and beach front categories that we have not seen for years. In the last 12 months, the critical beach front category alone tells quite a story, with seven beach front townhouses going under contract. In the 12 previous months, that number was two.
We are walking out of this, one step at a time. As I move into my 53rd year I am starting to see those words from 1964 again and again. They have finally made an impression in my minds eye. NO RUNNING ALLOWED. If last September had not happened, I might not be able to see that. If last September had not happened I would not know what I know about my business. In the long run it might end up a good thing. Imagine that.
Thanks
Steve