Saint George Utah Real Estate, The Importance of Price Reductions

For the one, two, three, fourth uninterrupted month, list price reductions of homes currently listed for sale on the MLS have increased in the United States. The present rate of reductions are now at an unprecedented soaring 27 % (Trulia.com)

With these record-high reductions amounting to more than $30.7 billion nationwide. From what I have read online it looks like thsese seemingly never ending price reductions began in earnest in June of 2010 in many of the harder effect areas. Of Which Southern Utah was one.

As apprehensive sellers, watching their neighbors reduce the list price on their home, have gotten aggressive in their pricing in order to compete… “We would normally expect to see a seasonal uptick in price reductions between June and October, as motivated sellers whose homes are still on the market after the summer selling season aggressively cut prices in an effort to get their homes sold before the holidays,” said Tara-Nicholle Nelson, consumer educator, Trulia.com. Well, that’s happening at an extremly rapid pace.

From SGH see today’s Soutnern Utah MLS Real Estate Hotsheet… the Newest Listings on the Southern Utah MLS NOW! Direct Access Into The Washington County Board of Realtors MLS Listings system for the Saint George Utah Area Realtors… No Registration Required!

Southern Utah MLS Foreclosure List: Direct Access, No Registration Required!

Saint George Utah MLS Hotsheet… See the newest listings on the MLS

Saint George Utah NOD’s Down… Whats the Cause?

With the constant static noise, of bad news regarding foreclosures lately,  SaintGeorgeHomes.net is happy to note that there was a bit of a bright spot on the Notices of Default front for in the month of October,  as recently complied data would suggest,  foreclosure numbers remained steady in October here in the Southern Utah foreclosure real estate market.  As there was much warranted concern regarding the foreclosure moratorium that many of the larger banks had implemented and the back log of inventory that may follow.  Many experts thought that the NODs and foreclosures would fall off sharply, as banks held onto inventory. As of 11/06/2010 there are currently80 homes listed for sale as “Foreclosures” onthe Washington County Board Of Realtors MLS system for greater Saint George Ut.

St George UT.  For thefifth straight month in a row, NODs are down…

August: 191 NODs,

September:  188 NODs

October:  177 NODs.

As of today Notice of Defaults are tracking below 2008 NOD’s,important as it was our high water mark at a horrible time in the U.S. realestate history.

Saint George Utah’s NOD… MIA

With the constant static noise, of bad news regarding foreclosures lately,  SaintGeorgeHomes.net is happy to note that there was a bit of a bright spot on the Notices of Default front for in the month of October,  as recently complied data would suggest,  foreclosurenumbers remained steady in October here in the Southern Utah foreclosure real estate market.  As there was much warranted concern regarding the foreclosure moratorium that many of the larger banks had implemented and the back log of inventory that may follow.  Many experts thought that the NODs and foreclosures would fall off sharply, as banks held onto inventory. As of 11/06/2010 there are currently80 homes listed for sale as “Foreclosures” onthe Washington County Board Of Realtors MLS system for greater Saint George Ut.

 

St George UT.  For thefifth straight month in a row, NODs are down…

 

August: 191 NODs,

 

September:  188 NODs

 

October:  177 NODs.

 

As of today Notice of Defaults are tracking below 2008 NOD’s,important as it was our high water mark at a horrible time in the U.S. realestate history.

 

Fannie Mae and Saint George Utah Foreclosures

 

Fannie Mae’s Home Path Mortgage program offers special financing options and incentives to individuals and real estate investors. Buyers who purchase Fannie Mae foreclosure properties can take advantage of Home Path’s low down payment requirements and flexible mortgage terms.

Properties listed through the Home Path Mortgage website consist of single family homes, townhouses, and individual condominium units. Real estate for sale listings include bank owned homes and foreclosure properties.

It is imperative for buyers to conduct due diligence when purchasing repossessed homes. HomePath properties are sold in “as is” condition and often require repairs or renovations. In some cases, Fannie Mae will invest in minor repairs to improve the property’s marketability.

Properties requiring significant repair may qualify for the Home Path renovation program. Under this program, buyers can apply for a home loan which includes additional funds for repair work.

The Home Path Mortgage program is a good option for borrowers unable to meet conventional home lending down payment requirements. A unique feature of HomePath is borrowers are allowed to obtain down payment assistance from outside sources. These can include grant money, monetary gift or loan from family, friends, employer, non-profit group or charitable organization.

Borrowers can apply for down payment assistance grants through the Department of Housing and Urban Development Neighborhood Stabilization Program. NSP grant eligibility requirements and program details are presented at HUD.gov.

Prior to submitting an offer on Home Path Mortgage properties, borrowers must be prequalified. While mortgage prequalification does not guarantee mortgage loan acceptance, it does let borrowers know how much home they can afford. Borrowers can apply for prequalified lending with the lender of their choice.

First time home buyers can further increase savings by taking advantage of the $8000 federal housing tax credit. This tax incentive is scheduled to expire on June 30, 2010; although mortgage financiers believe the home buying credit will be extended. Individuals interested in purchasing a HomePath property should take advantage of tax incentives, along with first time home buyer programs, prior to the scheduled deadline.

Real estate investors can also apply for NSP grants to purchase discounted Fannie Mae properties. HomePath real estate is listed using the “first look” provision which gives first time home buyers and NSP grant money recipients first dibs on listed homes. Unless investors have received NSP funds, they must wait 15 days before bidding on HomePath properties. Under the program, investors can submit offers on up to five homes for sale.

Investors can use Home Path Mortgage homes as rental property; rehab the home and flip it; or enter into seller carry back mortgages. Seller carry back is a finance option where sellers carry a portion of financing. This technique is often used to sell properties to buyers with poor credit.

Not all Fannie Mae homes qualify for HomePath financing. Only properties presented at Home Path website are eligible for the special finance options. Borrowers should comparison shop to obtain the best rate. An additional 1/4-percent interest rate can increase the overall loan by several thousand dollars. Several local and national mortgage lenders are participating in the Home Path Mortgage program. Learn more about the program and participating lenders by visiting http://www.HomePath.com.

Source: www.HomePath.com

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View All of Saint George Utah’s Newest MLS Listings : http://tinyurl.com/yffwntq This links is into the WCBR MLS Hot Sheet for Today!.

Southern Utah Real Estate … Great State During Bad Times

With the real estate market bouncing up and down during these trying times there are 10 cities that are going to be the places many are going to consider living in because real estate is reasonable and offers a higher chance for job and career opportunities. With the recession affecting the real estate market it also gives way to the fact that smart shoppers can snag serious deals on homes and condos at some of the best prices on the market and many of those real estate deals are in these 10 cities. The ten cities that are featured are in fact scattered throughout the United States from all directions and it’s becoming the choices for many who are moving from high priced places like New York and San Francisco. Below are a list of these cities and how many people are starting to call these cities home:

Raleigh, North Carolina
Boise, Idaho
Cincinnati, Ohio
Chicago, Illinois
Salt Lake City, Utah
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Atlanta, Georgia
Little Rock, Arkansas
Birmingham, Alabama

These 10 cities are going to be a choice for many who are looking for more job opportunities and somewhat more inexpensive living since New York and San Francisco are two most expensive cities to live in right now and many can’t keep up with the rising cost of living in these two cities and are needing more of a break instead of having a financial choke hold. These cities are right now offering cheaper living and better job opportunities especially to those who are in the health care field because the job market for these 10 cities is booming big time and will continue to rise in the next 2-5 years. This is also the time now for many people to go back to school in these cities as well to make themselves more employable for the job market so when certain areas take off people are ready to jump right in and work and not have to face a crisis the way many people did when the recession started and for those who were working during the last recession when Reagan was president who are getting ready to retire, but will find themselves considering these cities as a place to move to because retirees will be looking for more cheaper accommodations and even a second career since many retirees ardent going to get much from retirement which may lead them to move to a more affordable city that offers them a chance to scale back financially and is friendly to the smaller budget.

These cities are also being noted for other things besides cheaper living, but it’s also more about education, career, and the best place to raise a family because some cities aren’t suited for family life and are more suited for different lifestyles. More Midwestern cities such as Chicago are not only career savvy, but also family friendly for the working professional who wants to have an affordable place to raise a family. Southern cities like Little Rock and Birmingham are also good places to consider for cheaper living and a good place to raise a family. With the real estate market in recession mode this is the time to shop for the home of your dreams because the prices are fallen within affordable standards so those who are first time home buyers will snag deals on homes and even rental property because so many people who lost their homes to foreclosure have left a cornucopia of property that’s worth taking a look at. You can get a lot out of this real estate recession by finding cheaper living in the 10 cities mentioned, but you can also find bigger and better opportunities in these cities where you can live in modest comfort without breaking the bank.

Saint George Homes at your service:

View All Southern Utah MLS Equestrian Properties For Sale: http://tinyurl.com/pxdwax

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View All of Saint George Utah’s Newest MLS Listings : http://tinyurl.com/yffwntq This links is into the WCBR MLS Hot Sheet for Today!.

Utah’s Four Corners… How we Lost 2.5 Miles

Tourist love visit the American Southwest tourist attraction called the Four Corners, BUT is it where it should be? For over a century, it has been west of the US Route 160 and US Route 40 intersection, or is it? 

The only place in the entire USA where four states come to a point is the Four Corners. The states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah touch, as seen in these pictures. It forms a ” + ” symbol, and each straight spoke radiating from the center of the plus sign extends in 4 cardinal directions to finish a perfect straight line boundary for all states. The map of the 4 states, with the exception of Colorado ( which has 4 straight state boundaries separating it from surrounding states), shows New Mexico to the south east, Arizona to the southwest and Utah to the northwest showing these straight spokes representing the only perfectly straight lines for each state.

As reported by Associated Press, the National Geodetic Survey now announces that the Four Corners marker, where all these states meet, is off by 2½ miles. The new location should be 2½ miles to the east of U.S. 160 in Colorado and northeast of the San Juan River as it flows into New Mexico. By today’s official marker, it sits at 109 02 42.62019 W longitude and 36 59 56.31532 N latitude, according to the Desert News in Utah, making the “wrong location” too far to the west.

The Four Corners ” + ” marked in concrete on the ground has always been west of the intersection of U.S. Route 160 and U.S. Route 64. Traveling about 5 miles west of this intersection, the landscape continues to be a wasteland of Colorado (or coming from the south through New Mexico or Arizona, the landscape is still void of trees or hills, just flat wasteland, nothingness) in order to get to this tourist attraction.

Supposedly, this 4 state meeting point was surveyed by the government in 1868 in an initial survey of Colorado’s southern boundary.

However, the current claim by the National Geodetic Survey is that this survey is inaccurate. 

A statement made by the San Juan County surveyor David Bronson comment about the present monument, “That’s the accepted location.”

“That’s a long ways to be off,” he acknowledged of the 2.5-mile discrepancy, but stressed to the Desert News that once it was set, it remained.

For travelers not familiar with this tourist attraction, it may not be an insignificant trivia. Travelers who have made an extraordinary effort to go out of their way to traverse uninspiring landscape just to arrive at this very spot, would be very disappointed that the new revelation nullifies their pilgrimage and pictures. 

What is the significance of this new National Geodetic Survey for the four states? What are the major ramifications with the new discovery that the Four Corners is off the mark by 2½ miles to the east, downhill from US Route 16?

1. This predicament poses problems for politicians, communities and the legal system. Utah 

affected by the new location. The use of crude equipment versus the current GPS (global positioning system) resulted in Utah and Arizona to the west losing the most land in the original survey “mistake” while Colorado and New Mexico gained ground. This property is affected by the 2½ miles shift of boundary to the east.

2. It is not clearly stated in the media, but one wonders if an entire rectangular block of land the length of the north south boundary 2½ miles wide. The new boundary further east affects a significant amount of real estate as the states out west are relatively large compared to small states back east. It is not defined, but it does not seem that the new shift east only affects a linear relocation along the boundary that is in between the north states of Utah and Colorado and the southern states of Arizona and New Mexico.

3. Besides acres of real estate, other considerations involve state taxation and water rights.

4. In addition, there needs to be an upfront capital to relocate the tourist facility and new roads leading to the new tourist attraction to continue to attract tourists, particularly foreigners who LOVE the Four Corners. It is an added 20 miles from a very popular internationally renowned Mesa Verde National Park. Perhaps the Obama stimulus could be used to resolve this legitimate issue.

5. The discovery may just be numbers of longitude and latitude, but the significance of this important information is likely to be pursued for long-term,

8. Fortunately all states affected are all within states within one country of USA. The resolution may not be fast or easy, but communities are not torn asunder by citizenship. 

The Four Corners is a popular tourist attraction, especially popular with European and other overseas tourists who make a pilgrimage to this very location in the middle of nowhere just to take the must-have picture . The traditional pose is to stretch a hand or a foot in each of 4 states as seen in these pictures. http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&sa=1&q=four+corners+in+Colorado+&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

Having personally made the trip to the Four Corners twice, it was decided then that the long and uninspiring landscape to the Four Corners was too boring and too much of a hardship to have a 3rd visit. If changes are made regarding the relocation of this site, tourists including myself may again make a bee-line to the Four Corners just to read a plague about the new discovery and it’s ramifications and to take updated pictures.. 

Information that might motivate your next visit to the Four Corners include tourist attractions in the vicinity:

de Chelly National Monument

Hovenweep National Monument

Mesa Verde National Park and Monument Valley

Mountain Ranges in the Four Corners include Sleeping Ute Mountains, Abajo Mountains and the Chuska Mountains

Economic capital and largest city in the region is Farmington, New Mexico.

Source:

Tourists @ 4 corners http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&sa=1&q=four+corners+in+Colorado+&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

Four Corners marker, where states meet, is off by 2½ miles http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2009089938_webfourcorners20.html

Mesa Verde in Colorado http://www.mesaverdenationalpark.explorefourcorners.com/

Four Corners National Parks http://www.explorefourcorners.com/national_parks.html

The new GPS location of the Four Corners http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705298412,00.html

Four Corners marker 21/2 miles off? Too latehttp://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705298412,00.html

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View All of Saint George Utah’s Newest MLS Listings : http://tinyurl.com/yffwntq This links is into the WCBR MLS Hot Sheet for Today!.

Should I Rent or Buy In This Market?

A tried and true real estate belief is – it’s better to own than rent. But, with foreclosures rising and home prices decreasing many homeowners may be wishing they were renters.

Eg, according to the article, Distressed Real-Estate: Priced to Sell in 2009 (The Wall Street Journal Online), “Williams & Williams Inc., a Tulsa-based auctioneer, says its sales of foreclosed homes will nearly double this year to about 5,060. Dean Williams.

As with everything in life, and especially in real estate, whether to buy or rent depends on many things. So, instead of jumping on the real estate buying bandwagon, following are two “white flags” to look out for if you’re considering buying; white because it means that it might be better for you to continue renting.

1. Credit: As in, “What is your score?” Many lenders have programs to fit any borrower’s need – bad credit, no credit, bankruptcies, etc. But, just because you can qualify for a home loan does not mean that you should buy a house. Let me explain.

I have know many a loan officer, so. I’ve seen people with credit scores of as low as 575 get approved for a 100%, no-money-down, home loan. Yes, you read right.

Now there were a bunch of stipulations that came with it – have to be on the job (or in the same line of work) for at least two years; must be full-doc ( provide W2s, bank statements, tax returns, etc.); must make a certain amount of money; etc.

If you have bad credit, I argue that the last thing you want to do is buy a house. Why? A host of reasons; the main one being that you are going to pay more than someone who has good credit. That’s true whether you’re buying real estate, a car, furniture, or practically any other itme.

Let’s use a simple example. Home Price: $100K. Calculate payments based on a 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.5% (person with a 700 credit score) versus 8.5% (person with a 575 credit score) and see what I mean about how much bad credit will cost you.

Monthly mortgage payment at 6.5% = $632.07

Monthly mortgage payment at 8.5% = $768.91

Just over the course of one year, bad credit costs you almost $1,700 ($1,642.08). Remember, this is on the same $100K house.

So, until you can clean up your credit, buying a house may cost you more in the long run – even if your rent is currently more than your projected mortgage payment. Why? Read on.

2. REAL Cost: What most first-time homeowners fail to realize is that owning has much less to do with affording the monthly mortgage payment – and more to do with the real costs of owning. Those expenses that you can’t call a landlord for – a busted heating thermostat, rusted gutters, leaking washing machines, etc.

These are things that must be fixed – now! – or they lead to bigger problems. If you don’t have an emergency fund set aside, you can run into financial problems very quickly.

Falling behind on a mortgage payment is much more serious than falling behind on rent because when a landlord wants to evict you for nonpayment of rent, there is usually a court procedure that can take up to 6 months before you are tossed. Not so with a mortgage.

Many states have foreclosure laws that allow banks to foreclose if you are even one day late with your mortgage payment. Don’t panic. Almost no bank will foreclose that early — but falling 30 or 60 days behind on your mortgage payment can put you in serious jeopardy of losing your home — and there is practically nothing you can do about it if the lender decides to go this route (except come up with the money, including the legal cost incurred by the bank for starting the foreclosure procedure).

In summary, renting is usually the best option until the following situations — at least — have been rectified:

a) Credit: Wait to buy until you have credit decent enough to apply for a good interest rate (ie, stay out of the sub-prime lending market). Otherwise, you are ostensibly wasting money every month.

NOTE: While you’re at it, examine why you have bad credit to begin with. Working on what got you into financial trouble will go a long way towards keeping you out of it again – and possibly out of foreclosure in the future.

b) Emergency Fund: When you are ready to take the plunge, be sure to have an emergency fund in place because when you buy a house – whether it’s brand new or has been lived in before – there will be problems. It’s not a matter of “if”, but when.

c) Lifestyle: As in, examine how you’re going to rearrange yours to fit your new “baby.” Yes, a house can seem like a child – whether there’s the lawn to care for or the walls to paint, there will always be something that needs your attention.

In my experience, houses, unlike apartments, just never seem to be “done.” There’s always something to be re-arranged, fixed, treated, etc. Like a child, it will need your attention for the first year or so. Are you ready to rearrange your life to make it possible?

Only you can answer this question. So, make sure it’s based on sound decisions that fit your credit, spending and lifestyle habits — not just a cultural expression that says, “It’s better to own than rent.”

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Saint George Utah … Camping is in our Blood!

As a Realtor in the Saint George Utah area I have not had as much time with the family lately as I would like. I have been just slammed by folks looking for Southern Utah foreclosure deals…

I am 48 years old now, with a wife and three children. All three of the children are still at home. We have spent many of our weekends and all of our vacations camping with our children. We travel in comfort in our 32 foot 5th wheel trailer.

My camping adventures started many years earlier, as a very young child. My memories of the early years are fragmented, although I have seen the photographs that my parents took on our trips across the great Midwest, from our home in Iowa, out to the wilds of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

In the early years, my parents loaded my older brother and sister, and me, into the backseat of their Rambler station wagon. For three days, the three of us would fight as we drive across Iowa, Nebraska, through Colorado, and into Utah, in a station wagon with no air-conditioning. Having a seat next to one of the 2 doors in the backseat was considered premium real estate, worth fighting for. And fight, we did. For days on end, we fought, until my father would turn around and look at us over the seat, and shout “Do you want me to stop this car and come back there and give you all something to cry about?” I am much wiser, now that I have passed my fortieth birthday, but I still wonder what answer he was actually looking for. What would have happened if one of had actually responded with a courageous “Yes” to his question.

In these early trips out west, my parents fed us pork and beans, right out of the can, everyday for lunch, and often for dinner. “This is Rocky Mountain Steak,” they would tell us. Even then I was certain that those beans had nothing to do with steak. When we complained about the beans, we were given a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, usually on old smashed bread. It was survival.

We had many adventures, and I do have great memories from the earliest of years, of roaming though Arches National Park when it was just a National Monument, climbing under the great arches and filling my little white sneakers with red sand. The arches were phenomenal, and made a great and lasting impression on me. On these early trips, I was allowed to run free and wild, drinking in the beauty and the landscape that was so different from my native Iowa.

When I was 7 years old, my father purchased his first of many travel trailers over the ensuing years. A travel trailer was deemed necessary for our family to continue camping, as there were now 5 children in the family. I had become a middle child, with 2 new younger siblings, ages 4 months and 14 months. We packed our trailer for an extended vacation and adventure of 5 weeks, leaving Iowa far behind.

The design of this new trailer had a significant design flaw, one which we would not discover until we reached the higher elevations of Wyoming and Montana. The heater for this small travel trailer discharged directly into the top bunk, located over the small dinette that converted into a bed at night. My older sister slept in the small dinette bed with the 2 babies. My brother and I, a 7 and 8 year old, slept in the bunk overhead. My parents, concerned for the health and warmth of their 2 smallest children, cranked the heater up, hoping to heat the area in which the babies slept. It was to no avail. The heat that was generated by the heater blew directly into the bunk, and there it stayed.

Hot air filled the bunk, where my brother and I were required to sleep, for many nights to come. My siblings, below in the small dinette, were cold. That caused my parents to raise the temperature on the furnace even higher. I was suffering in the bunk with my brother. We were sleeping head to foot in the bunk, so as not to fight head to head with each other, and his hot feet were in my face. I spent entire nights, with my small bunk window wide open and my face smashed up against the screen trying to catch a whiff of cool breath of air. The nights were oppressive, and I slept very little.

During the days, on this fateful maiden voyage with the new trailer, my father drove endlessly, wanting to view and remember all of the incredible scenery of the great western U.S. Having been up all night in my hot bunk with my brother, I fell almost instantly asleep as my father began his scenic tours. I slept, and my father kept trying to wake me up to see the scenary. In Yellowstone National Park, we ran into snow. My parents turned the heater up even higher, trying to keep my young siblings warm. I slept even less.

From Yellowstone, we traveled on to Glacier National Park. It was colder in Glacier, and the heater was higher. It was there that my parents decided that we all needed showers, and they sent us out of the trailer to use the outdoor showers, complete with cold running water, to clean our cold bodies. To this day, I still remember the cold of that shower, as I ran to and from the trailer through the light snow that had fallen the evening before.

My father loaded us into the ford station wagon and set off to drive the “Going to the Sun Highway” through Glacier. I slept. He tried to wake me up. I slept. He complained that he had driven us all the way out to Glacier and he didn’t want us sleeping through it, but I slept.

We continued these annual trips out west, visiting the western mountain and desert states with the family. As children, we found many unique ways to keep ourselves entertained. My parents liked to sleep in beyond 6:00 am on these trips. My brother would wake up early, and drag me with him on many death defying excursions. One adventure, in particular, led to the two of us trying to hop our away across a raging mountain torrent, in the early hours of the morning. We became stranded on boulders in the middle of the stream, unable to successfully jump forward or backward. We remained stranded until our parents rounded up a rescue for us, hours later, worried about the fact that we had not showed up for breakfast.

One fine evening, on one of our many trips out west, my parents felt it necessary to have some time alone. They left together on a walk one evening, with the parting words that we were to stay away from the creek. My brother rarely followed direction, and this was to be no exception. As soon as my parents left the campground area, my brother immediately ran to the bridge over the creek and swung upside down from the rails. He fell in. He then ran back to the trailer and shed his wet clothes. He stuffed them in the back area of the bunk, where I slept, and threatened me with great bodily harm if I were to tell my parents what had happened. I slept on the wet mattress for 3 nights until my parents, wondering about the musty wet smell in the bunk bed, discovered the wet clothes stuffed in the corner of the bunk bed.

There is also the story of the gum in the campfire. My parents had left us to sit around the campfire on another evening when they were going to go for a short walk, with just the two of them. The five of us children sat around the campfire, bored, until my brother produced a package of gum and we began to throw gum on the fire and watch it burn up. We passed our time away for at least an hour, throwing the gum on various parts of the fire, first on glowing logs and then directly into the fire, all the while watching the gum burn. We were so absorbed in our activity that we never heard when they returned an hour later.

The evening my parents left us by the fire to again entertain ourselves while they walked, we produced popcorn. We excitedly loaded the popcorn into a pan, with some oil, and set it directly on the fire. We were excited as we anticipated the popcorn that we would be soon eating. The popcorn never popped, but it did burn quite well in the overheated pan, and soon the entire campground was filled with the horrible smell of burning popcorn. My parents knew it was their children that had produced the burned popcorn stench, long before they even arrived back at the campsite.

I continued to join my family on great camping adventures until I graduated from college and moved from Iowa. We traveled the Western U.S, and the Mid-West. Over the ensuing years, I have often brought my own family and joined my parents camping, and I am grateful for the many adventures that we have shared throughout my life.

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Saint George Utah Economic Summit for 2010

Well is looks like the 2010 Washington County Economic SUMMIT is just around the corner…Wednesday, January 13, 2010 from 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM (Bonus sessions from 2-4 PM)

Its going to be held as usual at the Dixie Center located at 1835 Convention Center Drive St. George, UT 84790 (off I-15 Exit 6 “Bluff Street”). Registration for Summit 2010 began on Tuesday, December 1, 2009. so if you want to attend you should call fast!

Currently in its 13th year, the Washington County Economic Summit has the reputation of being the premier business planning event of southern Utah. The Washington County Economic Summit has come to be known as “What’s Up Down South,” after its most popular session, the rapid fire bullet-point presentations of future projects that will impact the economy of Washington County for the next 18 months.

The Keynote presenters at breakfast and lunch, as well as two sessions of breakout presentations, round out the day’s events. Also featured are the afternoon “bonus sessions” that extend the learning and networking opportunities after lunch. The bonus sessions are open to the general public at no charge.

The Breakfast Keynote speaker will be U.S. Senator Bob Bennett. And the Lunch Session Keynote speaker will be will be Utah Governor Gary Herbert.

Hands down this should be at the top of your event schedule if you do business in the Washington County area…or if you would just like to find out about the Utah / Southern Utah economic outlook for 2010. In addition to the detailed Real Estate information provided by the Washington County Board of Realtors Vardell Curtis.

Washington County Board of Realtors MLS Hotsheet

Washington County Board of Realtors Forclosures

Washington County Board of Realtors Golf Properties

Washington County Board of Realtors Horse Property

Washington County Board of Realtors Single Family Homes

Southern Utah Real Estate Listings, Links, and Market Statistics

O.K. I have found a way to give out the most current and active MLS activity reports straight from the Washington Country Board of Realtors MLS system, for all of Saint George Utah and the greater Washington County…

The spreadsheet to the right has all listings classes and their respective numbers of currently active listings, pending listings and sold listings for all the greater Saint George area.

New-home sales declined 0.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 342,000 units in May. Meanwhile, the number of new homes for sale fell 2.3 percent to 292,000, which is a 10.2-month supply at the current sales pace.

Regionally, the decline in new-home sales was entirely focused on the South, where sales fell 8.5 percent for the month. Meanwhile, sales of new homes gained 1.3 percent in the West and posted double-digit gains of 28.6 percent and 18.6 percent in the Northeast and Midwest, respectively.

All of that being said… its 6/29/09…I keep these live links posted for the different search criteria that I receive the most requests for.

• Southern Utah Foreclosures
• Southern Utah Adult Communities
• Southern Utah Golf Homes
• Washington City Utah Homes & Condos
• Santa Clara Utah Homes & Condos
• Southern Utah Horse Property
• Washington County Board Of Realtors Hot Sheet

This last handy little link will pull you into The Washington Country Board of Realtors MLS system. From there you can see the newest MLS listings on the WCBR MLS system as well as all price reductions…Knowledge is Power!

As of today June 29, 2009 there are currently on the Washington County Board of Realtors MLS system…

• 80 Active Southern Utah Foreclosures in Saint George Utah on the WCBR MLS system
• 159 Closed Southern Utah Single Family Homes & Condo’s in St George Utah, on MLS from 5/29/09 thru 6/29/09.
• 1,534 Active Single Family Homes & Condo’s in the Greater Saint George area of Southern Utah on WCBR MLS
• 299 Southern Utah Single Family Homes & Condos in the Greater Saint George area currently under contract or “pending”

In any event its off to Twitter…I have few Twitter names, and here are two: StGeorgeHomes or EquityStGeorge. I post these same stats there if you would like to get…”Just The Fact’s” Till Tomorrow. Saint George Homes.