Insigniaresidential - FSBO

Focus on property value, comparable sales

Q: My wife and I have perfect credit and have stayed in our small affordable home for the last five years. We chose not to trade up because we believed the real estate bubble would soon burst, and hoped we could maybe pick up the broken pieces and buy a more expensive home on the cheap.

Today we looked at a beautiful home that is worth less than the mortgage amount. The problem is that the whole house will need new carpeting thanks to the people's dog not having being well-trained. Further, the current owners are chain smokers.

How do I determine how much lower than the asking price should I offer? And more importantly, why is the owner involved in the negotiating if the lender is the one that really loses out?

A: Until the lender forecloses on a property, the ownership doesn't change. That's why you're negotiating with the homeowner and not the lender. If the lender foreclosed, you'd be negotiating with the lender's real estate agent or the lender's own representative – which might not be any easier.

What you need to do in this kind of situation is focus on what the property is really worth. Take a look at similar homes (in a similar condition) that have recently sold. How much did they sell for? If they were in better condition, you can subtract the price of replacing the carpet, painting the walls, and doing whatever else you need to do to get the house into perfect condition.

It's possible that the home's list price already reflects the lower prices of homes sold in the neighborhood. If that's the case, yucky carpet and smoky walls or not, if the price of the property is on par with what is selling, you may not be able to get any more cash off the top to cover these necessary improvements.

The next stop is to present your offer. The seller may or may not agree to it. If the seller agrees, you'll still need to get the lender to agree to the terms of the sale – if the price means the lender will have to accept a short sale. Make sure you get the lender involved early on, or you might waste everyone's time.

And here's another concern – if there is more than one lender, you'll need to negotiate with both or all of them simultaneously. In cases where the primary lender is going to have to take a haircut, there will be no money left for the second lender. But that doesn't necessarily mean the second lender will agree to the sale.

When going into a short sale, know that the deal will typically be much more complicated that you expect. I'd hire a real estate attorney to help with the negotiations, and rely perhaps less on your agent.

Q: I am buying a new home that is not under construction yet. My contractor has asked for a "commitment letter" from my bank. My contractor then said that we would write up a contract.

When do I need to hire a real estate lawyer? And, since I am a first time homebuyer who can I go to with all of my questions?

A: Yes, you should hire a real estate attorney as soon as possible. Especially because it sounds like you have walked in off the street to a subdivision and are not working with a real estate agent.

I don't know what state you're living in, but I think that if you don't work with a real estate agent, you need to hire someone to work on your behalf, walk you through the deal, answer your questions, and make sure your rights are protected.

A real estate attorney fits that bill. You can find a good one through your local or state bar association.

Nothing great has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances.

With the downswing of the economy, people are getting worried about selling real estate. Headlines forecast doom and gloom for the housing market. The truth is that houses that are priced right can sell under the right circumstances. There are several methods to present one's real estate so that it will sell more quickly.

1. Be neat – be excessively neat. People who come to see one’s house are looking for well-kept real estate to invest in. They do not want to see dirty carpets or soap scum on the shower walls. It goes beyond the items that would actually be damaged by messiness. The key is to give a good first impression.

2. Get rid of odors. Leave the house for awhile and then come back inside. Odors will suddenly stand out more noticeably than after one is in the house for several hours. Find where the odors are coming from and do whatever it takes to get rid of them. To make the house seem even fresher, open windows for a short while before the real estate agent comes to show the house.

3. Fix up the front. The very first impression potential buyers of real estate see is the front of the house. The front door should be freshly painted or cleaned. Light fixtures by the door should be polished and shiny. It helps if plants and flowers can be situated near the front door.

4. Do not overwhelm potential buyers with clutter. Some people are of the opinion that a house is meant to be lived in, so they leave things lying around all over the house. That is not a good attitude if one wants to sell one’s real estate. Things should be put away, or disposed of if they are no longer needed. Clutter makes the house look smaller and leaves a poor impression.

5. Simplify decorations. If home decor is strange or unusual, it is sure to be the most vivid memory the potential buyer has of the home. Even if the home is filled with family pictures all over the walls, it detracts from the general ambience of the room. It may look great to the owner, but the buyer only sees a mish-mash of faces looking out from the walls. Simpler is better.

6. Make the rooms look bigger. People often look for real estate when they are upsizing their households. One should be aware that their potential buyers most likely want more room and not less. Rooms should look less full rather than more so. Smaller beds, less clothing in closets, and less furniture in each room will help the room look larger.

Real estate is doing well considering the state of sales in other parts of the country. However, the competition is still fierce. Only the homeowners who make their homes look appealing will stand a very good chance of making a sale. Buyers are still out there; it is just a matter of making a good first impression.

It seems everybody knows you can help the planet—and save yourself some cash—with big changes: adding spray-foam insulation to open walls, say, or installing a tankless water heater. But there are lots of simpler, lower-cost ways to improve your eco-scorecard, too. Here are some low-stress steps to take around the house to reduce your carbon footprint, create a healthier home, and lower your monthly bills to boot.

WORKSHOP
1. Unplug your power tools. Figure out which cordless tools (like drill/drivers) get the most use, then unplug the chargers on all the rest. Most cordless tools have nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries, which will hold some charge for up to a year. They lose 15 to 20 percent of their juice each month, but only take a couple of hours to power up again. Newer tools with lithium ion batteries lose just 2 to 5 percent of their charge each month, so they'll be ready to go even if you haven't charged them in ages.

2. Spread sawdust on your floor. Take the superfine shavings captured by your dust collection system, wet them down, then push them around with a stiff broom to sweep your concrete garage or workshop floor. The mix is as good as a power-guzzling shop vac at picking up dust but doesn't swirl it into the air.

3. Up the wattage on lights. Where you still use incandescent bulbs (with dimmers or three-ways) on multiple fixtures in a room, try consolidating. One 100-watt incandescent emits more light than two 60-watt bulbs combined but requires 17 percent less power. The 100-watter also uses the same energy as four 25-watt bulbs, but pumps out twice as much light. Just be sure your bulbs don't exceed the maximum wattage recommendation for each fixture.

Buying a house is definitely one of the biggest decisions you and your family make in life.  Having the right mind set and having the right agent are some of the important things to remember.  Her are some things to know when buying a house.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Eric Hollis / Champion realty Inc. whom I highly recommend and here is his site that includes his contact info!   www.houseinannapolis.com

1. Don't buy if you can't stay put.

If you can't commit to remaining in one place for at least a few years, then owning is probably not for you, at least not yet. With the transaction costs of buying and selling a home, you may end up losing money if you sell any sooner.

2. Start by shoring up your credit.

Since you most likely will need to get a mortgage to buy a house, you must make sure your credit history is as clean as possible. A few months before you start house hunting, get copies of your credit report. Make sure the facts are correct, and fix any problems you discover.

3. Aim for a home you can really afford.

The rule of thumb is that you can buy housing that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary. But you'll do better to use one of many calculators available online to get a better handle on how your income, debts, and expenses affect what you can afford.

4. Don't worry if you can't put down the usual 20 percent.

There are a variety of public and private lenders who, if you qualify, offer low-interest mortgages that require a down payment as small as 3 percent of the purchase price.

5. Buy in a district with good schools.

In most areas, this advice applies even if you don't have school-age children. Reason: When it comes time to sell, you'll learn that strong school districts are a top priority for many home buyers, thus helping to boost property values.

6. Get professional help.

Even though the Internet gives buyers unprecedented access to home listings, most new buyers (and many more experienced ones) are better off using a professional agent. Look for an exclusive buyer agent, if possible, who will have your interests at heart and can help you with strategies during the bidding process.

7. Choose carefully between points and rate.

When picking a mortgage, you usually have the option of paying additional points -- a portion of the interest that you pay at closing -- in exchange for a lower interest rate. If you stay in the house for a long time -- say five to seven years or more -- it's usually a better deal to take the points. The lower interest rate will save you more in the long run.

8. Before house hunting, get pre-approved.

Getting pre-approved will you save yourself the grief of looking at houses you can't afford and put you in a better position to make a serious offer when you do find the right house. Not to be confused with pre-qualification, which is based on a cursory review of your finances, pre-approval from a lender is based on your actual income, debt and credit history.

9. Do your homework before bidding.

Your opening bid should be based on the sales trend of similar homes in the neighborhood. So before making it, consider sales of similar homes in the last three months. If homes have recently sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make a bid that's about eight to 10 percent lower than what the seller is asking.

10. Hire a home inspector.

Sure, your lender will require a home appraisal anyway. But that's just the bank's way of determining whether the house is worth the price you've agreed to pay. Separately, you should hire your own home inspector, preferably an engineer with experience in doing home surveys in the area where you are buying. His or her job will be to point out potential problems that could require costly repairs down the road.

Provided by Money.CNN.com

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Could designations of Zip codes, metropolitan areas and entire states as "declining markets" hinder a real estate recovery and hurt minority groups and moderate-income buyers disproportionately? Growing ranks of critics say yes.

Since late 2007, most lenders, insurers and mortgage investment firms have compiled lists of markets that they regard as higher risks because housing values are dropping. In those areas, borrowers are charged higher rates and loan fees and are required to make bigger down payments -- costs that can rise significantly when applicants have credit scores below designated minimum levels.

In some cases, the extra fees can add more than two percentage points to the interest rate and require much more cash up front. At their extreme, declining-market designations remove entire categories of real estate from financing eligibility. Some private mortgage insurers, for instance, won't touch second homes or rental-home investments anywhere in large swaths of Florida and California.

Industry estimates on affected Zip codes range from 8,000 to more than 12,000 across the country. Many parts of the Washington area are included.

But now a broad reaction against such policies is taking shape. Some groups are demanding that lenders and investors abandon or modify their approaches and are urging mortgage insurers to loosen up on theirs.

An alliance of three real estate trade groups representing Hispanics, blacks and Asian Americans recently asked the mortgage industry to get rid of its patchwork of proprietary -- and often contradictory -- lists and replace them with a single, more flexible and transparent policy for assessing the "true risk" on real estate in local markets.

Timothy Sandos, president and chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, said current policies have the effect of cutting out or penalizing huge geographic areas that contain many smaller sub-markets where values are relatively stable or do not pose exceptional risks. Sandos wants greater emphasis on what appraisers find and document about the direction of local markets, rather than computer-generated statistical models.

This "would allow homes to be evaluated as individual risks," Sandos said, rather than painted wholesale as "declining" when they are not. Minorities and moderate-income households may be disproportionately affected by such broad-brush designations, he added, and they are often less able to come up with the higher down payments and extra fees demanded. That makes selling and buying tougher in their neighborhoods, lowers demand and prices, constituting what Sandos calls "a circular, self-fulfilling prophecy," with the designation fueling further decline.

Sandos' group wrote the critique with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, which represents black real estate professionals, and the Asian Real Estate Association of America.

The biggest real estate lobby, the 1.3-million-member National Association of Realtors, also has weighed in on the issue. In April 11 letters to the chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Richard F. Gaylord, the group's president, asked the two companies to "discontinue the policy of stigmatizing entire Zip codes" and metropolitan areas as declining markets because they "typically include widely differing" neighborhood conditions.

Although Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's policies permit lenders to make exceptions to declining-market designations, Gaylord said "the reports we hear are that [lenders] are extremely reluctant to do so" -- for fear that they'll be forced to buy back loans if borrowers default.

Steven Brooks, executive vice president of Flagstar Bank, a lender based in Troy, Mich., confirmed that, as a general rule, if Fannie Mae's automated underwriting system identifies an area as declining, "we typically will follow that" in underwriting and pricing a loan application.

However, he said, "on a case by case basis" -- when an appraisal comes in with a strong, well-documented valuation -- "we do make exceptions" and override Fannie's automated advisory.

Spokesman Brian Faith said Fannie Mae has "sought and received input" from consumer and industry groups on the issue, "and we take it seriously." Faith said Fannie is "considering making changes and refinements" in its policies but has no specific details. Freddie Mac spokesman Brad German said "we are always reevaluating" policies, including this one.

For the time being, if you own a property or plan to buy in any of dozens of metropolitan areas and thousands of Zip codes dubbed declining, expect to pay extra when you apply for a loan: at least 5 percent extra on down payments, a higher interest rate and maybe a more limited menu of loan options.

That's the case even if the property is gaining in market value and sales in your neighborhood are on the upswing.

Post provided from Washington Post

Valley homeowners who are trying to sell have some steep competition these days:  motivated lenders.  A little more than 49 percent of all the resales recorded in Pinal County in March were bank-owned properties.  These REO - real estate owned - homes that have gone back to lenders through foreclosures are selling for real deals, of course.  Because REO properties make up so many of the sales in Pinal County (which includes Queen Creek and Maricopa) the foreclosure properties are determining the area's home prices.

Maricopa County's REO sales are climbing as well, but make up a smaller portion of the area's housing market.  About 22 percent of all resales in Maricopa County were REO in March.

Motivated investors with empty houses are also a big part of metropolitan Phoenix home sales.  In March 55 percent of all the homes that sold were empty.  These properties are going to continue to dominate the market because foreclosures continue to climb.  While REOs aren't good for home prices, it is good that they are selling.  The housing market won't recover until supply drops significantly.

Source: Catherine Reagor, Arizona Republic 4-27-08

If you're thinking about investing - now is the time to pick up some great deals on properties priced below market values.  Call Maria at 602-366-5073 or email me at Maria@SolerEnergyProperties.com if you'd like to see what your options are and what kind of deals are really out there.

A knot is a useful tool for many purpose, and is one of the oldest tools used by people. The king of knots, called the Bowline Knot, functions as a very useful rescue tool, a tool to anchor ships to posts, a tool for lifting object or people, a tool for hanging things, and so  many other purposes. I like to think of this knot as a metaphor to describe economic cycles, real estate, mortgage, market cycles.

Having been a boy scout as  youth, I studied knots, and had opportunities to practice, demonstate,  and use knots in my boy scout training, and outdoor activities.  I am so grateful for that opportunity. I have had occasions to demonstrate my scout knotting skills through the years especially in camping situations as I am an avid camper.  Now that I have a son, I get to help him learn the knots too, and their uses: square knot, two half hitches, taut line, clove hitch, sheet bend, and of course, the king of knots, the bowline, which is also, my favorite knot.

To create the bowline knot, you form a loop and hold it with your left hand. Then, you take the bottom end of the rope with your right hand, and take it around towards the back of the loop, and into the loop leaving through the front, and going around the standing top end of the rope, called the tree (for fun), and then, back into the loop from the front, or the cave (for fun). Next, we take the non standing rope end, the bottom end, and tighten it away from the standing end of the rope and pull it snugly. We now have a tightened loop, that stays in place, and does not slide. If it slides, it is not a bowline. If there is no loop, it is not a bowline.  The loop needs to be larger than a simple hole. If the ends of the rope are coming apart, then there is no proper knot, since the whole operation gets messed up. The ends may need to be whipped with string to keep the strands united, or the ends can be fused to keep the ends united. With knot tying, practice is the key to success.  With economic planning, practice, trial, error and more practice is the key to success.

Just like making a bowline knot, you must follow the correct instructions when managing economics, and finances. Use loops when appropriate, make sure the ends are secure, make sure the right end is going into the loop in the right direction, and make sure the length of the rope is adequate and the loop is of adequate size for the purpose of making the bowling knot in the first place. Good economics requires planning, and direction. When there is some trouble in the financial world, I think of someone incorrectly tying a knot, such as a bowline knot. There is a process of making a knot, such as what I described above for the bowline knot. It would be a good idea if politicians, so called experts, business leaders, and individuals, spend time practing making knots, and practice the correct process with regards to economics and finances, whether mortgage finances, or real estate finances.

Just like knot tying, financial planning needs to be:
1. Simple and not difficult.
2. Must not unravel, or come loose.
3. Must be useful, and practical for many specific purposes.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Blvd, Suite B103
Tallahassee, FL 32309
850-339-5753  Blog: http://KennethFach.wordpress.com

Each office is independently owned and operated.

Annapolis real estate is always a great investment. You will find that real estate in Annapolis holds its value quite well and is always in demand.

Having the right real estate agent means having an agent who is committed to helping you buy or sell your home with the highest level of expertise in your local market. This means also to help you in understanding each step of the buying or selling process. If you are in the market or thinking about being on the market, please visit my friend's site http://www.houseinannapolis.com/

 What an interesting graph! Total listings since 2002 have ranged from a low of under 10,000 to a high of 60,000.  On the other hand, Solds have remained more consistent, with a low of 2,000 to a high of 10,000 a month.  There is currently an 18 month inventory of properties in the Phoenix area.  The moral of this story?  If you don't NEED to sell your home right now, it may be best to wait until the market evens out a bit and there is not such a big disparity between listings and solds.