Life & Real Estate in Eugene, Springfield & Lane County, Oregon

O brother! Or to be seasonal, o bah humbug!

Poor Santa has recently come under attack for being too fat, as well as "promoting obesity, reckless air travel and a general unhealthy lifestyle" according to an Australian doctor who was only partly joking.  Apparently, the busy man should park his sleigh at the end of each street, walk to the homes, and eschew cookies for carrots at each stop.  So what if he works non-stop most of the year managing elf workers and then distributes gifts worldwide in a 24 hour period?  Santa, who influences the behavior of children everywhere when it comes to whether they get toys, socks, or coal for Christmas should now be a model of healthy living too.

Even before Christmas, he should reconsider whether it is healthy for him or his helpers in the mall throughout the world to encourage close contact with small children who hug him, sneeze on him, and leave his beard full of snot...

So Santa is supposed to be an anorexic man in a bubble?  And a role model for the world? Next, he'll be attacked for encouraging people to waste resources by wrapping gifts! If we see a wardrobe change to a green suit, we'll know he has yet another charge to fulfill!

Given some disclosures in 2009, mostly recently the private life of Tiger Woods - it is not surprising that even Santa comes under scrutiny.  Sponsors have dropped Tiger and caused him to regroup in private, but bottom line, is a sports figure a moral compass for people?  If people drink Gatorade or wear a Tag Heuer watch, are they more likely to cheat on their spouses?  If they cling to an overweight, cookie-loving Santa, will they abandon yogurt and salads for eggnog and a roll of nut bread at every meal?

In our society, public figures are given a whole lot more influence in people's private life than they probably have.  Having said that - and bringing it down to real estate agents - people expect those they deal with in their private lives to act with integrity.  Rightly or wrongly, they may make judgments about your business ethics and personal integrity based on what they may have heard about your private life. (Oh, we could talk once about social media postings again!) If you are overweight, they may be biased though they wouldn't admit it.

Whether you're talking Tiger or Santa or any other public figure whose flaws make the 11:00 news, what a cardboard figure does should have limited impact on how you live your life, but how you actually do live it may impact your business!  With 2010 just around the corner, it's time to  assess your life and goals.

Bob Corcoran

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NAR has recently released the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.  The report compiles the results of 9,138 surveys returned by buyers and sellers who sold or purchased a home between July 2008 and June 2009.  The surveys were sent to buyers and sellers based on deed transfers and other public records.  The complete report is available for purchase at www.realtor.org .  Here are some highlights I found interesting:

•·         47% of all buyers were first time buyers.

•·         62% of first time buyers reported that the primary reason for buying a home was the desire to be a homeowner, 35% of all buyers reported that as the number 1 reason.

•·         The median age of all buyers was 39, same as last year.

•·         83% of all first time buyers are under the age 44. 

•·         62% of all buyers are under age 44.

•·         68% of the buyers surveyed in the Northeast make less than $100,000 per year.

•·         63% of all buyers had no children under the age of 18 residing at home.

•·         Buyers in the Northeast moved an average of 10 miles from where they currently lived.

•·         90% of all buyers used the internet to search.

•·         84% of buyers reported the photos to be the most useful information.

•·         The number one action taken after viewing a home online was to drive by or visit the home.

•·         66% of buyers reported that they used a print ad to search, but only between 84% to 90% (depending on the print medium) reported that those sources were "not useful".

•·         36% of buyers found the home they purchased through an agent, 36% found the home they purchased online, less than 3%found the home they purchased in a print ad.

•·         77% of buyers purchased their home with an agent.

•·         85% of sellers sold their home with an agent.

•·         39% of the mortgages were FHA loans.

•·         87% of buyers viewed real estate as a good investment.

So, besides making a handy list, what else does the report tell us?  It tells us specifically who the buyers and sellers are, what they want from us, where they want to go and most importantly, what their priorities are.  Valuable information for any customer service professional!

I'd like you to be part of the conversation, so if you like what you read here please comment, forward The Lancaster Connection.com to your friends, subscribe and as always, if you have questions, need real estate advice or want to buy or sell a home, you can call or text me at 717-371-0557, email me at Jason@JasonsHomes.com or contact me at the office at 717-490-8999!

Your Friend in Real Estate,

Jason Burkholder

Weichert, Realtors - Engle & Hambright

Search for Lancaster County Homes for sale at www.JasonsHomes.com by clicking here!

Want to see what's happening to home prices in your neighborhood?  Go to www.RealEstateCrystalBall.com !

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."   Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
Patrick Henry

"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford

"We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute." Thomas Paine

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. . ." James Madison

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live..  We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers.  Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.

This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."   Thomas Jefferson