Ricky Bruni's (rbruni) Blog

Do Numbers lie ? The local and national news media continue to be doom and gloom about "The Real Estate Market". But which market are they referring too ?  In terms of sales through September 2007, there is little in the Birmingham market (Jefferson & Shelby Counties) to panic about. In fact, I w...

Purchasers who move into their new homes in advance of selling their existing property are potentially at risk with their insurance carrier. The standard homeowners policy is written to protect your primary residence and is presumed to be owner occupied (versus a second home policy or investment ...

We have all heard about the mortgage meltdown, but what caused it ? It has become enough of a hot button issue that many politicians are talking about a bail out. The culprit, as usual, is greed and players on every level are responsible. The answer, and it may be painful, is to let market forces...

Sales in Birmingham, AL, while more robust than many cities and States, have started to trend down. It interesting to note that our local newspaper, and many uninformed R/E Agents, would have said that we have been soft all year. The fact is that our YTD sales through June, 2007 were off only 1.3...

Thomas Sowell, the brilliant economist who explains complex issues very simply, addressed the sub-prime mortgage issue beautifully in his August 8, 2007 article (Sub-Prime Politicians).  There is plenty of blame to go around but he sites that government policies have also contributed greatly. I t...

I suspect most cities are the same. The local newspapers love the real estate community for the revenues we generate for them, but they are rarely proactive in reporting actual local sales data. They love the national market (still don't know where that is) and gleefully share doom and gloom news...

Birmingham real estate sales are still fairly robust but we have finally just tipped the scale backwards. In almost every MLS area, closed sales for the month of June, 2007 were fewer than June, 2006. Additionally, active listings are 2x -3x greater than a year ago...anyway, here is the data