Be thankful for uptick in real estate outlook

If you can cut through all the noise out there – politics, taxes, jobs – there are some promising indicators in real estate that make this Thanksgiving a time to stop and appreciate the signs of hope.

First of all, speaking of noise, the election is finally over.

While politicians on both sides of the aisle keep slinging mud on each other, Americans just want some certainty so they can back to work making things actually happen and taking action to improve the situation, rather than ranting about whose fault it is.

According to Bloomberg news, housing starts in the US climbed 3.6% last month to an 894,000 annual rate, exceeding their highest estimate.

Thank you.

Federal reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said, “The housing market has shown some clear signs of improvement, as homes sales, prices and construction have all moved up since early this year.”

Citing housing gains for one, “If we look through this volatility, I think the recovering is gaining momentum,” Harm Bandholz, chief economist, told Bloomberg.

The national Association of Home Builders said their Housing Market Index moved up five points to 46 last month, the highest reading since May 2006.

The median price rose 10.9% year in October compared to a year ago, the fastest increase since January 2006.

We’ll take all those goodies, thank you very much.

You got your record low mortgage rates helping things along. Definitely be grateful for these percentages because we all remember the flip side when rates where four to five times what they are now.

Then there’s the technology, which is always improving and making our lives easier.

Google , Amazon, Apple and others just introduced 7” tablets all for great prices, some as low as $199.

Can you imagine, you now have an incredibly powerful computer in your hand that gives you access to the world (via the Internet) for about $5 per month (considering a three-year lifespan of the device).

That’s exciting – something you definitely want to be thankful for.

SpatialMatch is another incredible technological advancement – you can literally place a gigantic neighborhood database on your website for free. (That’s right, watch for next week’s column.)

WordPress sites from HJWebsites, empowers you to add content to your site, without paying a web designer.

Amazing stuff. Yes, we do appreciate it.

It’s been a rough last few years.

But if anything, Americans are resilient.

Take the pilgrims for example. They certainly did not have it easy (for example, they couldn’t watch football after their big meal and probably tossed turkey parts to each other in the yard for fun. Now we have three NFL games on Thanksgiving).

But they made it. That same spirit of perseverance is alive and well today. Embrace it.

To see the upbeat Bloomberg article, go here.

To boost your web strategy to capture these gains in the real estate market (with more to come), here are the links to SpatialMatch and HJWebsites (WordPress for Realtors).