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Category: Real Estate (page 70 of 266)

August 1, 2009

Realtors in the Coffee Shop and Everywhere

by

Realtor, Attorney

Author website

Time for a little fun, and time to laugh a little at my own profession and at myself. Okay, I’m in a coffee shop. I’m doing some work on my laptop, checking and answering emails, and writing some articles. So imagine the humor in the following scenario. I’m a Sequim Real Estate agent writing on my real estate blog when a customer walks into the coffee shop. Now I rarely pay attention to what other people say, but if they speak loudly and the words catch my ear, I can’t help it.

I hear one of the employees serving coffee say to a customer, “Oh, you’re a Realtor?” The reply was from an older woman whose health did not look good, and carried little enthusiasm, “Yes, I work for [so and so broker],” to which the young female employee loudly and enthusiastically replied, “I’m a real estate agent too!”

I laugh to myself, because one of my observations is that every Tom, Jane, and Mary got a real estate license because it seemed like an easy way to make money. Does anyone not have a license?

I look around the coffee shop. There’s an old man with thick spectacles sitting two tables away, apparently reading the classifieds. He doesn’t move at all for minutes. Has he died? No, he turns to the next page. I wonder. Is he a Realtor?

A woman and a girl about 13 years old are sitting across the room at a little round table. Is the little girl a Realtor? No, I remember you have to be an adult to get a license. I think.

Two bicycle riders stagger into the shop, all sweaty and obviously hot and tired. Are they Realtors? Could be, but I hear no dialogue on real estate issues emanating from their mouths. But I do pick up some phrases, like “It’s hell out there,” and “a person could die in stuff like this,” and “I don’t know if I can make it.” Wait a Read more

August 1, 2009

Banks Have All The Money – Money Is The Root Of All Evil – Therefore Banks Are Evil

by

Associate Broker

Author website

Another “Don’t Ya Just Love Working For Free” Story

In the minefield of residential real estate lies the ubiquitous short sale. Fundamentally, all  short sales have a commonality – the market value of the property does not exceed the disposition costs plus mortgage liens and other encumbrances. A short sale requires a successful negotiation with the lien holders – and the operative word here, boys and girls, is successful.

It was the summer of 2007, I found a nice big lake lot for my clients. After many years struggling to advance in their careers, they finally reached the point where they could build their dream home. Their kids were now adults, and it was time for them to begin to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

With a builder in mind, they set out to acquire this lot and begin construction on a 3500 sf 5 bedroom 4.5 bath home. The bank had many requirements, including a set of plans and specifications, as well as a variety of documents from the builder.

The bank – that shall remain unnamed – would only finance 70% of the appraised estimated value of the completed property. Not an uncommon practice – as it gave the bank a level of protection in the event that the future wouldn’t turn out as planned… and we all now know what happened to the residential real estate market since the summer of 2007.

The house was slated to be completed in April of 2008 – a goal that seemed more than attainable. Eight months to build a  home like this would be considered child’s play for any builder. Unfortunately for all the parties involved – that wasn’t the case.

The builder was having problems with his other projects – so much so that he was having great difficulty even getting started on this project. The owners threatened to pull  him off of the project if he didn’t get started – so after several months with nothing taking place on site, the construction began.

Although the house was making progress – and the builder assured the owners that the house would  be complete by the one-year Read more

July 30, 2009

Realbird’s Free IDX Alternative: (Eeeee….aaaaahhhh…aahhhhahhhhhhah)

by

Retechulous...

Author website

 

I just recently realized that Realbird offers the syndication based total IDX solution on the cheap for Real Estate Agents that I was talking about here a little while back.

 

Considering the whole MIBOR thing that went down a few months back, here below is how we might expect some local MLS board officials to be reacting to the product?

[Click to play obnoxious but hilarious vid in new tab/window….]
picture-23
Caption: Local Boards React To Free Real Estate Data For Real Estate Agents

 
Shouldn’t the freak of nature that is a free, framable, “google based” solution for displaying all that precious real estate property data have a whole lotta folks up in arms somewhere?

Oh well…doesn’t matter. Dead horse maybe… The important thing is this. I found a relevant way to share that video.

That and…

The Realbird search can likely replace your current idx solution, and is pretty darn feature rich for the money. An ad supported version is free, and to remove ads and allow tight, framable integration with your website costs an easy $99/year (That’s $99/12 per month, if you’re doing the math.)

 

Sure, I know… it’s not every listing in the local MLS system. Even though Realbird’s property search results appear to be limited to what’s available in google base, it’s enough in my opinion. All our search page needs to do these days is keep my visitors engaged for a while until they fall into one of our nifty lead capture traps, right? I’d argue that the day has pretty much arrived when a 3rd party providing a partially complete snapshot of local real estate market inventory based on data provided by syndication partners is pretty much as good as what most fully populated with local board data idx solutions have to offer.

 

To see what I mean, check out Central Pa’s cheapest and arguably most comprehensive Real Estate Search portal at Central Pa Living.Com.

 

And keep in mind just a few of the features on that page which the local board prohibits from being displayed on that page:

 

  • The ability to display property description remarks within the listings!
  • RSS feeds Read more
July 29, 2009

Want a free GPS-aware smart-phone client to search the complete Phoenix MLS? BloodhoundRealty.com has one, thanks to SmarterAgent

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We signed up for our own version of the SmarterAgent smart-phone MLS client. We’ve been live since Monday, but it proved its value and then some yesterday afternoon.

Cathy was out with buyers, and they asked the most dreaded question of all: “What about that one?” Not every house with a sign is for sale, and, even then, most homes for sale don’t meet your search criteria. That’s why we don’t have that listing with us. But Cathy whipped out her iPhone and did a GPS-based search on her own location. Voile! Three bedrooms. Too small.

That’s not in the SmarterAgent marketing patois, but it doesn’t have to be. The software rocks in anyone’s hands. We had been looking at pure iPhone solutions, but the SmarterAgent tool is simultaneously more robust and more broad-based: It provides a GPS-aware MLS search from virtually any smart-phone. You can also search by map, by address, by MLS number, by neighborhood or subdivision, etc. The user interface is easy to navigate, and the level of detail on the listings exceeds many desktop-based IDX systems.

I wouldn’t want to use this client for showing purposes, but it’s a nice tool for buyers to use as they explore neighborhoods. And, as above, it’s very useful to working Realtors to deal with on-the-fly questions about properties. The best part is, if you follow through and inquire about a property, the phone call — and an email — comes to me. We have the email set up to echo to all of our mail clients, so we don’t miss anything. And the email includes the listing agent’s phone number, so we can track down specific information quickly, no matter where we might happen to be.

If you’re a Realtor working anywhere but Phoenix, I think you should get this thing. It’s a pain in the ass to get in Phoenix, and, besides, my plan is to suck all the oxygen out of the SmarterAgent space in Phoenix.

To that end, here’s how you can help: Write a post on your own weblog about how you intend to look into this cool new tool, and Read more

July 25, 2009

Why should you enlist a buyer’s agent to help you buy a home? Because you’ll get a much better deal — even if you pay full price

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

Are home-buyers best served by the vigilant efforts of an experienced buyer’s agent? Consider a transaction we have in play right now.

The buyers are a young couple, about to be married. They have about $10,000 in cash.

With a conventional loan, they could put 20% down on a dismal starter home. Or, with Private Mortgage Insurance, they could put 10% down on a nicer home.

But with an FHA loan, $10,000 is 3.5% down on a $285,000 home. We can argue the wisdom of making so small a down payment, but the FHA loan program is the path to homeownership for millions of Americans.

And $285,000 is too much house for our buyers. They found a nice lender-owned two-story home in the suburbs selling for $169,000. The down payment on that home would be $5,915. But the closing costs would probably run to another $5,000 — which comes to more money than they have.

They qualify for the $8,000 first-time home-buyer tax credit, but they won’t get that until they file their tax return. They also qualify for a state-funded grant program that will contribute up to 22% of the purchase price — but which can’t be used for the down payment or the closing costs.

Here’s the deal we put together. We offered $175,000, $6,000 over list price. In exchange, we asked the seller to contribute 4% of the full purchase price to defray the buyer’s closing costs.

The down payment will be $6,125, leaving the buyers $3,875 in cash to pay for the endless expenses of moving into a new home.

And there will be about $2,000 left over after the closing costs are paid. This will be used to buy down the interest rate. The buyers will end up with just over 25% equity in the property for a cash outlay of $6,125 — all at a very low monthly payment. And they’ll still have their $8,000 tax credit to look forward to.

This is the kind of outcome a skilled buyer’s agent can achieve.

 
Steal this book: So far I’ve written two columns on this theme. If Read more

July 24, 2009

What’s an “Exit Strategy” and why does it matter to the housing market?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

I originally wrote this and posted it on my new site, Straight Talk About Mortgages – The Bigger Picture, but I’ve been urged to post it here as well.    So, I’m doing that.   Why have I set up another site?   It’s pretty simple…..

The financial and real estate world that we are in are much more complex than most of us have ever experienced in our life times.   As part of what I’m going to be rolling out soon which I’m calling, “Straight Talk Lending,” I believe that it’s important that people have the an understanding of the bigger issues that are and potentially will be influencing their business, lending and real estate decisions.

Typically once a week, I’m going to take an issue and dive into it on a much deeper level.   The opportunity to explore what it really means and how it’s going to impact the mortgage and real estate worlds is an exciting challenge and I hope it will be beneficial for many others as well.

Tom Vanderwell

Now for the post that I wrote:

What is an Exit Strategy? and Why Does It Matter to the Housing Market?

Thursday, July 23, 2009

By admin

Okay, anyone who has watched the news, or at least the financial news in the last week, especially after Bernanke’s testimony before both the Senate and the House has heard talk of an “Exit Strategy.”    I think that it would be well for us to take a few minutes and look at a couple of questions relating to that issue:

  • What is an “exit strategy?”
  • Why is an exit strategy necessary?
  • What does it mean for the housing and mortgage markets?
  • What should I do to prepare myself and/or my clients for what’s coming?

Before we get into those questions, here’s a clip from Bloomberg that talks about an exit strategy and what Bernanke might be thinking and planning.   This interview was done last week and was looking forward to Bernanke’s testimony this week.

Now, time to dig into the details of it.  What is an exit strategy? It’s pretty simple:

How in the world is the government going to get out of owning an Read more

July 22, 2009

Search Engine Marketing is about Conversations – my (errr…) Manifesto

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Somewhere near the top of the Cluetrain Manifesto, you will find the following statement:

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.

These words were penned in same general timeframe (read: +/- a couple of years) that Sergey and Larry were cooking up a way to measure and evaluate those conversations for their relevance.

It was the late 1990’s and while the conversations, the communities that house those conversations and the algorithms that evaluate them have all increased in complexity, THE FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLE (in my opinion) HAS REMAINED RELATIVELY SIMPLE AND UNDEFILED.

I offer the following opinions for your consideration:

The goal is to BE an authority.

To do that is more than just knowing your stuff.

You must enter the arena of ideas.

You MUST write. (see above.)

You must converse. (markets are conversations…)

You must converse on other peoples sites as well as your own. And in their online communities as well. And even borrowing their authority where allowed if you do not yet have enough of your own. (If you only discuss your thoughts with yourself, then you by definition cannot be considered by others to be an authority.)

You must be authentic. (see above again.)

You must build and form solid lasting relationships that are reflected online as well as off. That includes respecting the writings of other and linking to ones that are authoritative. You cannot get long term without giving.

You must participate in the ongoing discussions of your industry AND MORE IMPORTANTLY LOCALLY – with people who can actually become clients. You need to be a respected voice both by colleagues and potential clients.

You need to find the biggest microphone available to reach out to the widest audience, not to overtly promote or argue, but to converse, engage, brand, market and build.

That may include many types of earned media.

My authority building approach over the past couple of years has morphed to coach and consult and teach folks to have conversations in places where Google and other search engines Read more

July 20, 2009

Consider a Seller-Paid Rate Buy-Down Rather Than Price Reduction

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

Listing agents, considering offers might advise their sellers to counter-offer with a mortgage rate buy-down strategy rather than to reduce the sales price.

rate-buydown

We like to help our agents with charts from our Mortgage Lens program.  The chart helps to illustrate the power of leverage, to both the seller and buyer, and gives us a shot at the loan business.

(N.B.- The chart shown doesn’t match the scenario below)

Here’s a scenario designed to meet both the buyers’ and sellers’ objectives:

The property is listed at $300,000; an offer comes in at $283,000.  One of the most important benefits of the lower price, to the buyer, is the lower mortgage payment.  An 80% loan on $300,000 (at 5.25%) would yield a P&I mortgage payment of $1,325.  Lowering the price to $283,000, would lower the loan to $224,000 and the payment to $1250/month.

Consider a mortgage rate buy-down as the counter-offer. For two discount points (about $4800), the seller could reduce the rate to 4.75% and the payment to $1251.  The buyer gets the payment he wants and the mortgage rate buy-down strategy saves the seller some $12,200.

July 18, 2009

With MLS listings available everywhere on the internet, why do you need a buyer’s agent?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

Here’s an intriguing question: Given that it’s so easy to search for homes on the internet, why do you need a buyer’s agent?

Face it, if you use the MLS search tool on my web site, you’re seeing exactly the same listings I see. And you know better than I ever could what you like and what you don’t like.

By now, the home search process is at best a partnership between the agent and the buyer. In some cases the buyer and I will work together to perfect our search criteria. But many buyers simply search the available inventory on their own, emailing me the MLS numbers of the homes they want to see.

So why do those buyers need a buyer’s agent?

Realtors hoarded the MLS data for so long that even they came to believe it was the source of their value to buyers. But this is very far from the truth.

You don’t need me to search for listings, although I’m happy to do that. And you don’t need me to open lock-boxes. You need a buyer’s agent to guide you through what is in fact an arcane and perilous process — potentially a financial disaster. You might not need me to find your next home, but you need me to make sure that you get it — or that you pass on it, if that is what is truly in your best interests.

A skilled buyer’s agent will write the kind of purchase contract that will prove surprising to you at every turn, with every term and condition tailored to achieve your best advantage. Your agent will supervise the inspection process and negotiate the optimal solution to the repair issues. Your agent will be prepared for every pitfall in the escrow process.

If you bought and sold houses every day, you could do all these things yourself. It’s because you don’t — and because the seller and the listing agent are looking to take advantage of your naivete at every turn — that you need a skilled buyer’s agent as your steadfast champion in Read more

July 17, 2009

A Sailor Jerry Moment

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

tattoo

The base anticipation that precedes any journey to a new destination is always more vivid for me than the denouement that accompanies the physical descent to earth.  With rare exception (perhaps Paris and maybe Vegas), the image I conjure up in my two dimensional mind beforehand always seems to fall somewhat short of the real 3-D deal.  On our first trip to Maui, for example,  my notion of grass huts  and Woody Wagons clamped with surfboards was quickly dashed the moment I spotted a Costco and a  Wal-Mart just steps from the arrival terminal. It was raining  ukuleles that day and the lone, Port Authority hula dancer was, how shall I say… Samoan? I was expecting something a bit more, I don’t know….svelte?; like the subject of one of  those Sailor Jerry tattoos I threaten to get stenciled across my chest every 120  lunar cycles or so—-pure 1950’s  South Pacific paradise-of-the-mind stuff. I think we  bought our own leis for 8 bucks each at the gift shop, rented a Taurus from Avis, and called it a day.

And it’s not just Hawaii. The same holds true for Jamaica—or as I like to call it, The Bangladesh of the Caribbean, with its human squalor, smelly ceviche,  and over-abundance of  muddy water. Even the Antiquarium in Boscoreale, Italy, beneath the shadows of a nearby looming housing project,  is sequestered by a string of barbed wire and discarded heroin needles. Not that I don’t enjoy myself abroad, mind you. I’m an enthusiastic traveler, to be sure. The foreign landscapes that ultimately unfold just never fully mesh with the spatial images dancing around in my head before touch down.

Alaska was pretty spot-on but to be honest, I wasn’t expecting  too much from that particular latitude. And while I did not get a tattoo while docked in the port of  Juneau,  I was presented with a  shiny new Rolex Datejust in our cruise ship cabin later that evening.  Since I’m clearly never retiring from anywhere,  my wife decided to give me my ceremonial timepiece a few decades early— for my 50th birthday.  Just so you know, Read more

July 17, 2009

Now Could Be A Good Time To Buy A Top-Notch Home

by

Associate Broker

Author website

Some Well-Maintained & Updated Homes Are Better Values Than Foreclosures

When all of the comparable homes in an area are foreclosures and short sales, you could get a really good deal on the nicer, well-maintained and updated homes.

A broker recently called me regarding one of her listings. It’s a super nice property that’s been upgraded to the hilt – but every single comp within five miles that has sold in the last twelve months has been a foreclosure or short sale. Her problem was not that her listing wouldn’t sell – but that it might not appraise.

In certain areas, finding good comps for nice homes has become quite difficult – and depending upon the appraiser, you might not get the appraised value that is specified in the contract. Obviously, this is more of a problem for the sellers than for buyers.

When home prices are rising, homes that are not in good condition often sell for more than they should – and will appraise for more than they should, as well. The nicer homes tend to pull the values up. But in a declining market, homes that are in need of repair – or a quick sale – tend to pull the values down… therefore the sellers of nicer homes find it difficult to obtain top dollar – or a higher appraised value – for their properties.

So while you’re out trying to find the best foreclosure or short sale for your clients – take a look at some of the nicer listings. If you find a motivated seller, the best deal just might not involve a foreclosing lender.

July 15, 2009

Just had to share this….

by

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

I was doing some research today and came across an article on Realtor.org from 12-01-2006 about The Top 25 Most Influential Thought Leaders in Real Estate. After a list of 25  builders of the status quo, they had a runner-up list of 15.

Robert Schiller made that list, here is the “why”:

Got big media coverage equating rising real estate prices with the tech bubble, but we haven’t heard the pop yet.

Robert Shiller scored instant media celebrity when his 2000 book, Irrational Exuberance, predicted the tech bubble’s explosion just weeks before the fact. Four years later, when he tried to apply the same principles to the real estate boom, he found out that all investments don’t behave alike. Shiller contended that rising home prices weren’t based in the fundamentals of population growth and supply and demand; they were bubbles, destined to pop.

To the contrary, NAR economists predicted that market slowdowns would largely be gradual—a trend that’s playing out today. Shiller’s failed bubble scenario demonstrates that sometimes even smart guys get it wrong.

Yeah, and sometimes economists who work for the status quo get it SO wrong it makes you laugh out loud.

By December 2006, wasn’t it already becoming clear that sub-prime was a the tip of the iceberg? The Kool Aid must have been strong at Realtor.org for them to tempt fate so blatantly.

July 14, 2009

On Mortgages and Moral Compunction

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

What would it take for you to walk away from your mortgage?

Kenneth Harney, in his column Nation’s Housing, reports on an interesting study recently done by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.  This study took a look at homeowner’s attitudes toward mortgage defaults, specifically what’s come to be called “strategic” walkaways or decisions to bail on a mortgage due to purely economic reasons.  The study found that “26% of the record number of home mortgage defaults across the country” were strategic – the homeowner had the ability to pay the mortgage but chose not to because the debt was greater than the asset.  In other words, one in four of the current foreclosures is not due to hardship, but rather a lack of compunction.

My partner and mortgage rate expert, Brian Brady, has for some time now railed against the disappearance of moral compunction with regard to mortgages.  His contention, as I understand it, is that moral compunction was  priced into the model by lenders.  There has historically been a stigma attached to not paying one’s debts, especially one’s home mortgage debt.  This may or may not be true; I am no expert on the history of mortgage defaults in our nation, but it is certainly compelling.  If accurate, the obvious question then becomes: to what degree did moral compunction affect rates and if it is indeed gone, how much higher will rates go?

There is no real mystery to how mortgage rates are priced.  Mathematicians create models of mortgage “behavior” based on the 4 C’s: Capacity, Capital, Collateral and Credit.  Of these four, Credit is really what we’re talking about here.  Your income, your assets and the property’s value are theoretically objective but your credit… well, it’s not really credit that’s being measured here is it?  It’s your Character; your likelihood to honor your debts, although lenders don’t like to say that because it has a snooty, superiority quality.  Make no mistake though, character is most definitely being evaluated during the loan process.   So the question seems to be: How do these Read more

July 14, 2009

Viable Business Models ….

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

After reading through John Rowles’ post about Glenn turning things profitable. (Hope that sticks for you Glenn, way to go.) And reading Michelle’s comment, where she rightly noted that Glenn has made changes to his model to get profitable, I thought some further comment is in order.

When I raise my glass to toast Glenn’s accomplishment, I am toasting HIM, and not his business model. Of course he has made changes (in my opinion–they were needed). Yes, he made a hugely difficult decision to cut staff in order to GET profitable. He made many other changes as well that were equally crucial.

It was countless moves that many others in his shoes might not have done and it was agonizing (I am sure) for him at times.

There have been numerous firms that have gone under trying to see “how low they can go”…commission limbo is VERY hard on the dancers as opposed to selling value. Looks easy, but it ain’t. How many caracasses of those companies have we seen strewn along the way.

After reading Rowles’ post I then flipped over to Joost De Valk’s post on his blog about the business model for WordPress and how theme developers vs plugin developers are being treated.

He argues that there should be commercially supported plugins (read: not free) as well as free plugins (GPL- or gnu public license) on the WordPress plugins site.

I agree.

Plugin developers (if they are good enough to develop commercially viable plugins SHOULD be able to charge and charge what the market will bear.) Those who want to work for FREE are able to do so. (They will starve.)

In my own business at EricOnSearch, I have used several models (started with full service SEO, then went to Coaching, and now emphasize joint ventures with select partners).

There are lead generators out there who are profitable and there are many who never will be and will die or sell out due to lack of cash. (How’s the burn rate, fellas?)

I guess the bottom line is this. I like freedom. I like people who succeed. I celebrate profitability. (and there are some profitable lead Read more

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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