My Hattiesburg

10 Questions to ask your real estate agent

I found an excellent article that gives you 10 questions to ask your real estate agent when listing your Hattiesburg home for sale.

Q: How are you going to advertise my home?
A: Your home will be in newspapers, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), our realty website, neighborhood postcards, open houses. In addition, our realty company is on billboards, sends mass mailings/emails so we are constantly driving traffic and eyes to your home.
TIP: How often are these things being done? Are we talking daily? Are you onsite for the open houses or is there some lackey standing in for you on the weekend? Where specifically am I going to be in the newspaper? What newspapers? What websites? Who specifically is following up on leads?

Property West of Hattiesburg May Become Oak Grove City Limits

The final meeting of the Oak Grove Property Owners Association is tonight May 23 at 6:30 p.m in the Oak Grove High School auditorium. During this meeting the association will be discussing efforts to turn Oak Grove into a city.

The plans for the city stretch from just north of Hwy 98 to just south of Richburg Road and from just east of Hedgwood Road to just west of Hwy 589. This area covers about 20 square miles and would contain about 10,000 voters.

In order for the Oak Grove area to be turned into a city the association must get 6,667 signatures for petitions to be turned in to the chancery court.

This will be interesting to see how this all works out from a real estate point of view and the effects that it has on the population.

What to Look for in a Home Inspector

When looking for a home inspector you should make sure the inspector you choose has alteast the characteristics below. Choosing a bad inspector could make buying or selling a home a nightmare.

• As of 7/1/2002 all home inspectors in Mississippi are required to be licensed.
• Experienced in home inspections in the geographic area in which your property is located.
• Adhere to the MHIB Standard of Practice/Code of Ethics.
• Stays current in his/her profession by continued education.
• Is accessible to you for question and clarifications before, during, and after the inspection.
• Provides you with a written report.
• Carries Errors and Omissions Insurance.

To learn more about Inspectors in the state of Mississippi visit the Mississippi Home Inspector Board website.

Hattiesburg’s Real Estate Bubble

I have decided to detour from my series for a few days and discuss some things more prevalent to the Hattiesburg area. So here it goes. Hattiesburg is really a unique market in the area of real estate. It just doesn’t seem to slow down but will it? I was just thinking the other day there has to be a point at which the market has to start to decline some. However, with the recent disaster of Catrina and thousands of new people flooding into Hattiesburg I challenge you to predict where that point is. With all this growth and the rate at which it is growing do you think it could lead to a real estate market crash? I guess the question is how big do you think Hattiesburg’s real estate bubble is and how long before it pops or you may not think Hattiesburg will be affected. Feel free to discuss all the possibilities.

Factors of the Market

Before someone decides to buy or sale a home it would be advantageous to have knowledge on how the housing market works. In this post I will be discussing the economical characteristics of real estate. So lets begin.

Economical Characteristic #1: Scarcity
We may not often think that land itself is a rare commodity, but only 25% of the earth’s surface is dry land. The supply of land is not limitless; so the amount of land in a certain area is considered to be finite. Generally, the more scarce land is in a region the more valuable it is. So you see how scarcity plays a factor in how people set prices for real estate.

Economical Characteristic #2: Improvements
Improvement in real estate terms is defined as any artificial thing attached to the land. Building improvements on one parcel of land may effect the price of the land around that parcel. For example, building a new shopping center in a area may cause the price of the real estate in that area to go up but on the other hand building a nuclear power plant in the same area may make the price of real estate to decline.

Economical Characteristic #3: Permanence of Investment
The capital and labor used to build an improvement represents some degree of fixed investment. Whether the improvements are building a new structure or adding drainage, electricity, water, and sewer these improvements are considered long term investments and maybe reflected the price of the real estate.

Economical Characteristic #4: Location
You may think of location in terms of only geography. However, the type of location we are interested in is sometimes refered to as Area of Preference. Area of preference refers to the preferences for one area over another. This preference may be based on such factors as history, reputation, convenience, scenic beauty, and simple geography. It is the unique qualities in preference that make some similar properties retain very different prices. Location is the most important of the 4 Economical Characteristics of real estate.

So before you buy or sale a home you may want to analyze the area you live in using these four Economical Characteristics.