May 6, 2013 – CBSHOME Real Estate (CBSHOME) and david day | associates (dda) received a platinum award of merit from the Omaha chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) for millennial market research and subsequent workshops for CBSHOME agents.

“We wanted to develop an effective marketing strategy, targeting the Millennial generation,” said CBSHOME President and CEO Joe Valenti. “We looked to dda to help us conduct research, and communicate insights and tactics with our agents.”

dda’s cross-analysis of local and national market research yielded specific strategic recommendations, and equipped CBSHOME’s Realtors with a clear understanding of the audience segment and unique language to engage Millennial customers effectively. Agents reported putting the tools into practice immediately.

dda and CBSHOME were recognized in the Market Research: Large Business category by the panel of Kansas City AMA chapter judges, who evaluated local marketing collateral and campaign materials on the basis of Objective, Execution and, most importantly, Results.

“We helped CBSHOME refresh its brand a few years ago, and love the continued opportunity to help it thrive,” said David Day, dda founder, president and creative director. “Agents indicated that their understanding and ability to effectively engage with Millennials increased by 150 percent based on our workshops. Winning an award from the AMA for our research just sweetens the results.”

About david day | associates

dda is a strategic, creative partner that uses a proven process of discovery, clarification and activation to get to the heart of a brand, and help it connect with the people who matter. Our Omaha-based company collaborates with brands to shape identity from the inside out through research, design, development and management of communication channels, including online, interactive, print, personal, environmental and ambient media. Learn more about who we are, what we do and why we do it at dday.com.

About CBSHOME Real Estate

CBSHOME Real Estate is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. It is the region’s leader in residential real estate with six sales offices throughout the Omaha Metro area. HomeServices of America, Inc. is the second largest full-service residential real estate brokerage firm and the largest settlement services provider in the United States. For more information, visit www.cbshome.com.

Available Now. Our new App.

CBSHOME’s Mobile App.  A new mobile app that will change the home search experience.

CBSHOME Real Estate is the Omaha Metro areas BEST real estate resource.  Now you can use our cutting edge technology on your iPad, iPhone, or Android device.

The CBSHOME Omaha Real Estate Search app provides you instant access to all listings in the Omaha and Council Bluffs MLS areas.
Quickly locate homes using our exclusive Home Scan feature; a tool that uses augmented reality to overlay property information right onto the device’s live camera feed.  You will love the ability to point your device towards a home or down a street and have instant property information.

Additional search tools include a map search, address search, open house search and nearby properties for sale.  Find a home you love? Save it to your personal CBSHOME page, making it easy to view that property from the app or CBSHOME.com.

Many National news sources have come out and said “2012 will be the year the real estate market turns around.”  In fact, there have been so many news stories about the positive real estate market that The KCM Blog authors wrote a post about it today.

We thought we would give our CBSHOME Blog readers a local perspective about the market.  As you may have heard before, Omaha is not affected by the “swings” seen on the East and West coasts.  “The Omaha market has shown very good stability from 2010 to 2011.  Average home prices and closed transactions were up 1-2% from 2010,” said Joe Valenti, CEO of CBSHOME Real Estate.  Other factors that contribute to our stable real estate market is a low unemployment rate (around 4.5%) and a strong farm economy.

“We project that 2012 will continue to show reasonable improvement in both the Omaha economy and the housing market,” said Valenti.

If you would like to read the other news sources about the positive outlook for 2o12, please visit the article “Real Estate 2012: Many Positive Outlooks.”

If you are interested in local housing trends, you can visit our Market Trend Reports on our website!

CBSHOME Real Estate proudly announces our new market update powered by the CBSHOME Research Center. So why did we embark on this project? Joe Valenti, CEO and President of CBSHOME Real Estate explains “With CBSHOME being the leading real estate company in our community, we felt it important to provide the best possible local housing information for our customers!!  The housing economy in Omaha is much better than what you read on a national basis and we want our customers to be able to see and understand the local real estate market.  This information source will accomplish that goal!!  We can also drill down to more specific information for neighborhoods in order to help our customers make their best possible housing decisions.”

The Housing Report produced 4 times each year visit now

The Housing Reports are printable reports produced on a quarterly basis for the Metro Omaha area including Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie county. Each report shows market activity for the last 15 months. In addition, four Omaha Metro quadrants will be reported defined as Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest. Each report will include housing trends such as properties for sale, under contract, and sold.

CBSHOME’s Director of Business Development, Henry Kammandel adds “These reports will continue to support the fact that the Omaha Metro Market is not depressed as national reporting has tended to make everyone feel.  Every market is different and CBSHOME  is providing  local reports that will be refined down to certain sub markets within our community as we progress.”

Local Housing Trends updated monthly online visit now

Monthly online updates will be posted around the 10th of each month to our new Local Housing Trends page on CBSHOME.com.  This page will be “the source” for housing trend statistics in the Omaha Metro and surrounding areas. Many smaller segments of our community are available here.

The statistics are provided for small segments of Omaha as well as our entire market area including Council Bluffs.  Both the Housing Report and Local Housing Trends are powered by Trendgraphix, Inc., a national company specializing in analyzing local MLS data.The data source is provided by Great Plains MLS and Southwest Iowa MLS, and is more current than information made public in county records.

Months of Inventory is part of both the Market Housing Report and the online Local Housing Trends. Henry Kammandel notes that “When we compare Months of Inventory using 6 months as a rule of thumb being the stable indicator and comparing August 2011 to August 2010 Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie counties have shown improvement.  Douglas County in August 2010 was at 8.1 months and in this August 2011 is at 6.1 months.  Sarpy County in August 2010 was at 6.7 and in August 2011 is 5.1 while Pottawattamie County August 2010 was at 10.8 and as of August 2011 is at 5.1 with 94 properties under contract for this month.  We are very positive about the local conditions.”

A recent SmartMoney.com/MSN Article named Omaha, Nebraska as one of “America’s Lowest Risk Housing Markets.”

The article pointed to Omaha’s population growth, steady housing prices and Omaha’s low unemployment.

View the entire article by clicking here, “America’s Lowest Risk Housing Markets.”

OK, you’ve found the house that works for you! Now… What do you offer???

First and foremost, have your agent prepare a market analysis on the house to give you a range of what the house could expect to sell for. Maybe that range is where the house is listed, maybe it’s higher or lower. Whatever that is, expect to probably pay close to that amount after all of your negotiations are done in most cases.

In Omaha, the average List to Sale price ratio over the last 16 months has been 96-97%. Of course you can offer whatever you wish, but if you really want the house, you may have to pay close to or over list price for it, especially if there is more than one offer in play, or if you are asking the seller to pay closing costs on your behalf.

List to Sale Price Ratio

Throughout my career, especially in the last two years, I have had several buyers who were bound and determined to make absolutely ridiculous offers simply because of the advice they have been getting. I call it the: “My Grandma’s cousin’s neighbor’s hairdresser’s Uncle Joe got HIS offer accepted!” syndrome.

You certainly can’t blame them. An excited buyer; especially a first time buyer, is getting information from ALL of the people in their lives. Well meaning friends and relatives, coworkers, any number of Internet sites, even a few ‘not-so-well-meaning’ friends or relatives. They all have the long lost relative twice removed who found that proverbial ‘needle in a haystack’ when they were looking for their house.

This summer, unfortunately, I had to let a buyer go out on their househunting quest without me. It was a nice young couple who were listening to all the wrong people. I met them at a home in the 140,000 range. I referred them to CBSHOME Mortgage and they got approved for approximately 105,000. The only houses they wanted to look at were listed between 140-150,000 and were houses in fairly good condition. They wouldn’t look at anything that needed work. This was because someone at work who literally, had an uncle Joe who got a 150,000 house (assessed value) for 105,000. Nothing I could say would change their minds about the price range they wanted to look at. I politely wished them well. Last I checked, they were still in their apartment and hadn’t gotten their ‘steal’ yet.

A side-note: There are certainly some properties in our market that come onto the market at a price that may be considered ‘a steal’. I’m not talking about those, just the ones that are priced fairly and competitively. Of course there are always those exceptions, those ‘needles in haystacks’ but trust me, they come along few and far between.

I also want to emphasize that I do work and negotiate very aggressively for the buyers I represent. But representation doesn’t JUST mean getting the lowest price. There are many more facets to properly representing a purchaser today in our market.

Please don’t let your search for a ‘steal’ keep you from finding a home that could suit ALL of your needs that you might have to pay close to a fair market value for.

And if you are “Uncle Joe”… Congrats!

Finally, some good news for the housing market! 

Omaha doesn’t seem to experience such extreme highs and lows like other parts of the country resulting from the economy, but new housing sales data shows that the country is beginning to recover as a whole.

Read more.  http://rismedia.com/2010-10-25/existing-home-sales-show-another-strong-gain-in-september/

Omaha is being praised (again) for being a great place to live!

CNN Money recently featured Omaha in one of their online video reports.  The video highlights Omaha’s strengths as a community; including our low foreclosure rate, steady growth, diverse economy and low unemployment rate.

Click the picture below to watch this great community video.

Wow!  2010 has been a busy real estate year for CBSHOME Real Estate!  Our year-to-date numbers are in and CBSHOME is taking off!

If you are considering selling or buying a home, why not work with the best!  Click to begin your home search or to find a CBSHOME sales associate today!

According to the Sunday Omaha World Herald article here;

Two Omaha-area housing subdivisions have filed for bankruptcy, the first in a wave of what could be a dozen or more reorganizing their finances. Housing developers have thousands of vacant lots on their hands at least twice as many as a healthy supply and some are defaulting on the bank loans that got their projects going. Banks are suing the developers personally to exact payment.  For residents of affected subdivisions, the future of their neighborhoods, tax burdens and property values are at stake.

As the market struggles to climb out of a recession, some subdivisions are stuck with millions of dollars in debt and scant tax base to pay the bills. Even with a recent pickup in home construction, industry officials say, bankruptcy is now inevitable for a string of subdivisions. They agree that too many inexperienced developers and too many inexperienced investors jumped into the market. Meantime, easy financing encouraged developers to start larger subdivisions with more lots than were necessary in the immediate future.

Banks, now, are expected to tighten lending requirements and developers will create fewer lots at once. Compared with the boom years, banks and developers now have access to more comprehensive data on lots and sales.  Prospective homebuyers looking to build in one of the subdivisions might find a bargain, but also will want to ask questions about the development’s finances and plans.

If you read this article be assured that none of the CBSHOME subdivisions are involved in the defaults and bankruptcies.

Joe Valenti, Executive Vice President of CBSHOME stated how fortunate we feel that none of our subdivisions were mentioned in the article.  John Allen, who has been developing subdivisions for over 30 years and as CBSHOME’S website for lots and developments, BuildWithCBSHOME.com states, has developed approximately 17 residential areas with thousands of home sites in the metro area.  He has worked diligently with our financial partners, land engineers, SID experts and others to develop the best possible subdivisions.  We continue to work with our agents, builders and financial partners to build homes in all of our areas even in these very challenging times.  Shadow Lake, Cinnamon Creek, Falcon Ridge, Whitehawk and Southwind have been very successful and are moving along very nicely.   We are seeing new activity in the Northwest metro area with the opening of two grade school facilities in both Castle Creek and Pine Creek subdivisions.