Travis A Martinez, Real Estate Consultant

You are not alone.  Rest assured that many people are in your shoes.  Does that make you feel better?  I did not think so. So what are you going to do about it?  Homes are not selling, property is staying on the market for longer and longer.  I anticipate that this will start to turn around next year.  But that ...

As many of you may be aware, the President signed the Housing Stimulus Package last week.  What does this mean for you? Well if you are a first time homebuyer this could mean that you get a $7,500 tax credit.  If you are a FHA buyer this increases your loan limits.  If you are in Foreclosure this new law could provide for some ...

The prevailing interest rate is often referred to as the "cost of money."  Or more simply put the amount that you have to pay to use someone else's money.  Typically long tern money (30 year mortgages) is more expensive then short term (10 or 15 year mortgages) money.  Another way of looking at this is as an ...

When I go to list a home or a piece of property for sale I give my client a window that I recommend that they list their property at, for example $435,000 - $450,000.  Of course I fully expect that most of them list in the upper proportion of my window.  I would do the same thing in their shoes and expect that the home would ...

I was a little appalled this morning when watching the Today show that they had a gentleman that said "Don't you dare buy now!"  He was a TV personality that you often see on shows like CNBC's Mad Money,  he was also the co-founder of TheStreet.com, Jim Cramer.  He obviously has a background in investing in Wall ...

I constantly get asked, "what is the real estate market doing?" Well, there is how the market is doing in Ravalli County: In the first quarter of 2007, 170 properties were sold that compares to 192 in the first quarter of 2006. There were 588 new listings put on the market in the first quarter of 2007.  The average days on ...

Everything in the lending market changes quite frequently.  That is why I am in the selling side of real estate.  My take on the situation based on different conversations with mortgage brokers and investment planners is this: Some companies made some poor decisions in lending to people that did not have good credit.  Because of ...

As many of you heard yesterday as I did the stock market took a turn for the worse.  This appears to be due to the foreclosure rate going up as much as 25% (based on what source you look at) mainly from sub prime lending.  What is sub prime lending?  Well, it is when some one has less than good credit (usually a score of less ...