Melanie McLane's (themelaniegroup) Blog

Yesterday’s blog was about the increase in the average sales price in my home market of Jersey Shore A (small town, western Lycoming County, North Central PA, nowhere near the “shore”)  from $107,000 in 2010 to $129,875 (let’s just call it $130,000) in 2011.  That’s a 21% increase. Part of it is ...

Jersey Shore, PA (Lycoming County) is a small borough at the western end of Lycoming County. It's my hometown. NO, we are nowhere near New Jersey or the shore. Our county seat (Lycoming County) is Williamsport, PA. I'm the REALTOR(r) in my town with the greatest experience; our company, Jackson R...

“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”               That is a lyric from an old Cole Porter song, but one of the proposals currently being floated in La-La Land (otherwise known as Washington, DC) would allow for “principal reduction” in “mortgage refinancing and/or modification”. You can read the art...

Monday, August 1st, 2011 my husband, Jim and I opened a real estate   brokerage. To be completely accurate, we re-opened the family business. The   history is this: my late mother got licensed and opened a business in the 1960’s; I   worked with her from my college days (late 70’s) through mid-90...

Last week, I received an offer with an escalator clause. I haven't had many of those lately; this one was curious in a couple of ways. First of all, the difference between the offer and the escalation price was 13%. Usually, even if you are a bargain hunter, you can fine tune that spread a little...

              Two events in the past week led me to this blog.  One was a Facebook friend posting that the listing agent had barred him from entering the house, but would allow the buyers in without him. He received lots of commiseration; but as far as I could tell, I was the only one who asked: ...

              The Wall Street Journal for 6/7/11 contains a fascinating article about second mortgages putting homeowners under water.  You can read the article here: http://tinyurl.com/secondunderwater.  Robbie Whelan does a nice job of  identifying second mortgages as a huge part of the on goin...

A recent Wall Street Journal Article, complete with a graph from NAR, has me thinking that unlike previous recessions, where housing was the strong arm which pulled us out of the economic doldrums, this housing activity, like this latest recession, is very different. [To view the chart, follow th...

A news story caught my ear, and then I looked it up online. The basic truth is that every one cent  increase in gasoline prices takes one billion dollars out of the economy. The full article is here: http://tinyurl.com/4kpu4ej   The immediate point is that billion is no longer available for food,...

There's been a lot of discussion and proposals lately to dismantle Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Both GSEs have been poster children for mismanagement and waste of taxpayer's money-Fannie and Freddie, for example, received more money in their bailouts than AIG did.  There is also a lot of discussi...