Real Estate Briefs

Home Sales Down Nationally, Up Locally
Buyer wariness is resulting in slower existing home sales across the US, the Associated Press reports. The drop of 4.1 percent in July from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.33 million units was the lowest level since January 2004, the National Association of Realtors reported.

The picture is different here in Thurston County, where the Olympic MLS statistics show that homes are selling quicker (average days on market down more than 7% between June and July) and for more (average sale price was up 5.3% between June and July). OMLS numbers also show the average home selling price up 21% over a year ago, to $301,129.

Real Estate Superstitions
Will your home will sell faster if you bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down in your front yard? That's what some believers assert. Or maybe it's a buried statue of St. Joe in the backyard that brings homeowners good luck when selling their house. Those are among the practices mentioned in a Daily Press story today. Of course, we're certain that non-Catholic/Christian real estate sellers have a host of other beliefs. What's your story?

Subversive (or Subverted?) Website
Is a certain FSBO website a front for terrorists? Or is it an innocent pawn, hacked into by bad guys? Those are the questions being asked of www.fsboa.com, an ordinary looking for sale by owner site. The insidious part is that if you add a couple letters to the URL, you end up on what frontpagemag.com asserts is the official website of Syrian terrorist Abu Musaab Al-Suri, al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya al-‘Alamiyya (The International Islamic Resistance). Whatever the truth in this case, take this as a warning to 1) know who you're doing business with, and 2) watch for signs of undesirables hijacking your own website for their purposes.