Archive for the ‘For What Its Worth’ Category
Why Buy Today?
On a previous post about buyers just caring about the price, someone from Mesa, AZ left the following comment and questions:
My husband and I just made an offer on a bank owned home in Mesa, AZ. We are first time home buyers. The house needs no work at all and has only been on the market about three weeks - my realtor suggests that we pay the bank what it wants $229K and then try to get 6% closing costs and 3% toward downpayment. We also qualify for the Ameridream program for FHA. Is that good advice if it is all about the price? It is in a great community, etc., and the house was appraised at 255K last year. Even with this market, the bank got a previous offer. In this market, how does one go about making an offer and knowing it is fair? We just don’t want to get ripped off. Thanks for any advice you can give us.
Not being in Mesa, I can’t intelligently comment on the price of the property, but I can tell you how I approach it with my clients here. It starts with questions:
Buyers Just Want Price
You think?
From Bloomberg:
"Buyers just want price,” says Mike Morgan, a Stuart, Florida-based lawyer, real-estate broker and consultant who researches property markets for hedge funds and financial institutions. "Buyers have become educated and they can easily cut through the fluffy incentives.”
"On one $429,000 home a client wanted me to sell, the seller wanted to give the broker a $30,000 bonus on top of the commission. I told him it wouldn’t help. I told him to just drop the price.”
Then there was this advice about marketing strategy:
Morgan suggests you sell exclusively through Internet-based property sites and local Multiple Listing Services. He has found that newspaper ads, signs and open houses don’t work as well as the Internet.
"If you don’t get any calls on your listing price after a week, drop your price $10,000 or about 2 percent of your original asking price,” Morgan says.
"The market will tell you what the price of your home is. You better be priced 10 percent under your competition — and then be prepared to think about accepting offers under that.”
This isn’t news, or at least it shouldn’t be. It is an inconvenient truth many agents won’t speak. In the spirit of the current election season, I have this message for those agents who tell you that you need to siphon off what’s left of your equity to pay them more: "It’s the price, stupid."
San Diego Foreclosure Bargains - Fact or Fiction?
The most common "I want a killer deal" inquiry I get are from those looking for foreclosure property in San Diego - at 50 cents on the dollar. After all, it is a buyer market, sellers are desperate, and foreclosures almost out number real estate agents right?
Well… not quite. But how about $90,000 under market, when the market is was $399,000 based on identical units selling just two days earlier?
San Diego Property Taxes - It’s That Time of Year
Lest we forget, November 1st marks the date the first installment of property taxes are due. The dates tend to confuse many property owners, so below is some basic information about taxes for real property in San Diego County.
Citi to California Home Buyers: Just Say No
Times, they are a changin’ in the California mortgage business.
Last week we had Bank of America notify 7,000 mortgage brokers that their services will no longer be needed after New Years Eve, only to have Citi take it one step further on Halloween and tell California home buyers, "Thanks, but no thanks".
California Tax Refunds For Fire Victims
Immediate tax relief in the form of tax refunds is available to victims of the wildfires in the seven Southern California Counties of San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside, The Franchise Tax Board (FTB) announced.
Bank of America To Cut Off Mortgage Brokers
Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, the nation’s second-largest bank, announced on Friday that it will shut down its consumer real estate division and its wholesale lending unit, which offers residential mortgages through over 7,000 independent brokers, at the end of the year.
The move signals a commitment to focus on direct-to-consumer lending through its banking centers and loan officers, said Floyd Robinson, Bank of America’s president of consumer real estate and insurance services. “While we are extremely proud of our strong track record in the wholesale business, we believe our long-term opportunity lies in maximizing our more competitive retail channels.”
Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief On The Fast Track
Someone lit a fire under Rep. Charles "Charlie" Rangel, which is good news for the San Diego real estate market in general, and many homeowners trying to determine the lesser of two evils, foreclosure or a short sale and the tax liability which goes with it.
Short Sale Overview Short-circuited by Realtor Trade Group
The other day I wrote a post about a short sale as a viable solution. The subject has been bandied about as an alternate solution for a homeowner who may be faced with losing the home to foreclosure. It has become the agent listing tool de jour. However, it is complicated and there are tax and legal issues that go beyond the scope of what most agents are qualified to address with most potential short sale candidates.
I view myself as a problem solver, negotiator, and marketing expert, then as a real estate sales person. My logic is simple. I believe that when buying or selling real estate, you need access to as much factual information as possible in order to make an intelligent decision, or rather, the best decision possible for that particular situation. Given that mindset, I set out to provide an unbiased, intelligent overview of the issues surrounding short sales.
I did some homework and found an excellent piece written by the legal eagles at the California Association of Realtors (CAR). I prefaced the post with this:
Short Sale Tax Relief Introduced in Congress
Rep. Charles "Charlie" Rangel , Democrat from New York and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, today introduced H.R. 3648 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude discharges of indebtedness on principal residences from gross income, and for other purposes.
