Birmingham Alabama Real Estate Blog

I want to take a moment, first, to introduce a guest writer to all of you, Rob Wood of Standifer Insurance Services will be guest writing each month to educate our public about the insurance industry, trends, and programs available to help you in the insurance process. Rob works in both Georgia and Alabama. Let me add also, that we have multiple reasons for including him in our blog. One, he has helped many of our clients with their insurance needs helping them getter better rates and/or better coverage. Second, he is our insurance agent as well. We trust Rob with our insurance needs and, in our opinion, you can too. 

Man vs. Machine

Why having an insurance agent is in your best interest.

Have you ever had a question about a product or service that you have purchased, and when you call the phone number to have your question answered you are greeted with the lovely recorded message telling you to "please listen to the following options as some of them have recently changed"? If you are like me, I get very frustrated because if I could speak to a human being, then I would probably have my question answered fairly quickly. These days we have, as a society, made price over service, one of the main factors when it comes to making a decision on a purchase.

Now I like to save money just as much as the next person, but I don't want to put myself in a bad situation just to save a few dollars. Now when it comes to insurance whether , there are a lot of people who feel it is a necessary evil. 

Insurance can be expensive and confusing. Insurance policies sometimes have a lot of ands, ifs, and buts in them and unless you have extensive knowledge about insurance laws and practices you can be left in a precarious situation should you need to use it. This is where having an agent, who can explain the coverages to you, is extremely important.

If you simply purchase a policy on the internet or over the phone with a company based on how much it costs, how do you know what you are buying? Is it enough coverage? Is it too much coverage? What does it cover? Who do I talk to if I have question or a claim? These are very important questions. I can't tell you how many times I have talked with people who thought they had coverage for something when they didn't.

Don't let a lizard tell you that cutting out the middleman to save a little bit of money is better than letting the middleman work for YOU to save you money.

Use an agent that you trust who will take care of you through the process and be there for you when you have a question down the road. There are times when I can bear bad customer service... in the drive thru or in a check out lane, but when it comes to protecting the things that are most important to me bad customer service is unacceptable. When you purchase insurance, talk to an agent and make them earn your business, you deserve good customer service.

If you would like to contact Rob Wood about any Insurance Needs:

Rob Wood, Standifer Insurance Services

277 Village Parkway, Helena, Al 35080

205-664-3200, 205-664-5080 fax, 1-866-664-3200 toll free

robwood@allstate.com

I got this list today and thought I would share them with you all. I have a question before you read them, are your classified ads yielding the results you want? If not, you may want to try some of these.

Can I be honest with you? I can assure you, with a pretty solid certainty that we will do a better job getting your home sold.

What is really happening in the Birmingham Real Estate Market? Is it as bad as we hear on TV every night? I am submitting to you that, NO! it is not.

 I recently came upon a report done by our local MLS which shows the trends of the Birmingham Area Market since 1994. In other words, it has context to go along with the data.

 I have recreated here a chart with the given data to show what is really happening in our local market. 

* Indicates data through October of 2007 

Let me note that it appears as though sales are way down this year, but we are anticipating 17,500 homes being sold for the year based on current trends.

As you can see from the chart this would bring our second best year ever, and if the sales price remains the same it would be the highest sales price ever. Now, for all those disgruntled home sellers out there, I know you may not be seeing this directly right now, but also note that this increase is the smallest once on the chart, so you may not be seeing it correlate with the increased cost of living.

So what does this mean for home sellers and home buyers out there? For home buyers, you can still get a home at a great price. For home sellers, homes are selling in the Birmingham Real Estate Market! We promise they are, due to the almost 40% increase in inventory you may not be seeing it as fast as the past sold. Average days on market is up this year.

 The Birmingham Alabama Real Estate Market is still doing well, and this is just another reason why it is a good place to be.