(BPT) - For years, the real estate market has been a buyer’s world, with ample inventory, fewer qualified buyers, and highly motivated (read: desperate) sellers. This spring, some signs are pointing to a shift back toward a seller’s market. If you’re shopping for a home this spring and summer, chances are you’ll face increased competition from other buyers.

I hope you understand my humor in the headline today. Can you image what our parents would say if we told them just 20 short years ago that we’d have a shortage of homes, historically low interest rates, and lender rebates for buyers? It would have been unheard of.

The Lodi housing market is going gang busters, but don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at the facts. As you can see, the average price per square foot in zip codes 95242 and 95240 have increased 21.8 percent over the last 12 months. This took us from $111 in March 2012 to $135 in March 2013. Never before has affordability been so well married to low prices to create such a romantic market.

Are offers confidential? When you are in the market to buy a home your agent is required to advise you of several things. It’s likely most buyers never really think about many of them, after all why would you, you just want to buy a house.

Knowledge is power! The news is full of information regarding the real estate market. It seems to be the biggest area of growth and restoration for our economy. So it’s pertinent that the information you receive is specific to the local market and not the industry as a whole.

(BPT) - Who doesn’t like to make a good impression? Whether it’s a first date, meeting the future in-laws for the first time or interviewing for a job, making a good first impression can pave the way for some of life’s happiest experiences. That’s especially true for home-buyers, whose ability to secure their dream home depends on first impressing a mortgage lender.

Friday is the best day of the week to sell a home. Homes listed on Friday sell for 99.1 percent of their original asking price, a higher percentage than homes listed on any other day of the week, according to a study by real estate broker Redfin, which analyzed more than 500,000 home listings and sales records.

Everywhere you look low housing inventory is being reported. It’s not just local to our area. Home prices are picking up because the number of homes for sale continues to drop despite sales volume gains. The number of homes for sale fell to 1.82 million at the end of 2012, an 8.5 percent drop from November and a 21.6 percent decline from one year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The CoreLogic Home Price Index, which is based on repeat sales, increased 7.5 percent in 2012, the largest increase since 2006! They also project 2013 home prices to rise 6 percent due to greater affordability fueling steady demand, a lower level of real estate-owned (REO) sales and a low inventory of unsold homes.

According to a Metrolist MLS property search there are only 59 homes on the market in Lodi, With such low inventory it’s no surprise that San Joaquin County experienced a 16 percent increase in average sales price for 2012. The average sales price for 2011 was $176,000 and rose to $205,000 in 2012.

(NAPSI)—It may seem surprising to some, but real estate investors can not only do well for themselves, they can do good for the community, too.

Saying that she never aspired to be a career politician, Alyson Huber finished up her duties as the Lodi area's Assemblywoman on Nov. 30.

We are thankful for a bountiful harvest of wine grapes. Many people enjoy wine, and the word is the yields were strong and the quality in the bottle is going to be great. There's even reliable information that prices are strong.

After 28 years in any business, you might think you've seen it all, but Realtor Larry Underhill says he has encountered something new.

Fannie Mae and Federal Housing Finance Administration moving forward secretively with bulk sales program according to the California Association of Realtors.

Are homebuyers stepping up to purchase homes before home prices rise and mortgage rates increase? CNN says, “Americans are stepping up to purchase homes while they can still find bargains.”

After writing about the bulk sales last week, I am glad to inform you that Congressmen Gary Miller, and seven other California congressional members, including Ken Calvert (R-Riverside), Judy Chu (D-ElMonte), Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), Susan Davis (D-San Diego), and Joe Baca (D-Rialto), introduced Legislation (HR 5823).

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median existing single-family home prices are firming in many metropolitan areas. Improving sales and declining inventory are creating more balanced conditions, according to the latest quarterly report.

This week, I had the opportunity to be in Sacramento at the California Association of Realtors Board of Directors meetings, along with five other Lodi Association directors.

I was reading an Associated Press story about "shadow" real estate inventory this morning and I soon had a sense of disappointment.

Happy New Years to you all. We have survived another overall very difficult year in the general economy and specifically in the housing market. However, I must say that it has been an honor to write this column for you every week. It has also been a challenge to select topics for the discussion that are appropriate for the current events of the day.

2011 has been an interesting year on many fronts. The economy and housing markets have shown promise at times and then dipped again. Gas prices have been up and then again recently down. Europe and banking issues, national debt and credit rankings have all caused the stock markets to rise and fall almost daily.

John Wasik from Reuters recently wrote that “Watching the U.S. home market struggle to rebound is like listening to children in the back of a car. No, we’re not there yet.”

Liz Enochs recently wrote on www.housingwire.com that the U.S. housing market will hit bottom this year and remain flat until 2014, when it will start to slowly recover, according to Rick Sharga, an executive vice president with Carrington Mortgage Holdings. “We’re looking at a catfish recovery,” he told attendees at the Asian Real Estate Association of America conference in San Francisco Friday, saying the market will bump along the bottom for some time before starting to revive.

What a jumbled mess of information we have in the real estate market again lately. Let’s see if we can break it down, at least, according to me.