Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Tis the season

Well another real estate year has almost passed in the Sarasota/Manatee counties.

Hundreds of homes along with land has been bought and sold. Millions of dollars in transactions.

Many lessons have been learned in this ever changing market. We have heard about robo-signers on foreclosures, we have seen short sales actually become shorter in the time to close.

We have seen more dips in pricing. We have seen new construction pick up.

There have been some highs in the market and just recently we set a new low.

It all means that real estate will continue to be bought and sold in our area now and in the future.

All the best for the season.

All the best
Greg Owens PA
Realtor
Keller Williams On the Water
941.932.6343
greg@teamworksfla.com
www.teamworksfla.com

Seller beware

Here is a bit of sage of advise when you are short selling your home (trying to sell it for less than is owed lenders of record).

When there is blood in the water the sharks are out there.

It seems almost weekly we get offers on short sales from companies from who knows from where trying to tie up our clients home with no money down and promises they may or may not close.

Some of them may even by legitimate.

When our team short sells a home we ask the buyer to have the escrow money held for at least 60 days or upon lenders approval.

A serious buyer will have not problem doing just that. If they have skin in the game they are likely to see the short sale process through to the end.

This method helps to weed out a lot of the not so legitimate offers out there. They don't want to tie up any money because they want to get out at a drop of a hat.

Often the not so legitimate offers are trying to flip the house. They are trying to find a buyer for more than they offered on the house and to close at the same time.

If they don't find a buyer they dont't close on your home and you have ended up wasting weeks and months for an approval when a buyer willing to put down real money to see the sale through to the end.

All the best
Greg Owens PA
Realtor
Keller Williams On the Water
941.932.6343
greg@teamworksfla.com
www.teamworksfla.com

Short sale reasoning

If you are thinking of short selling your home here are a couple of items to think about.

Short selling is where you are trying to sell your home for less than you owe your lender/lenders or record and you are asking them to release you from the loan/loans instead of coming up with the difference when you sell your home.

First your Realtor is usually not your lawyer or accountant.

I strongly recommend you check with both before proceeding with a short sale. Everyone has different legal and financial circumstances and those experts can advise you of the ramifications legally and financially of short selling your home.

Realtors are there to help sell the home and get it through the short sale process. In our case for instance we have a full time short sale negotiator on the team. Her job is to get approval for short sale offers as quickly and efficiently has possible.

When you do agree to do a short sale the agents job is to get an offer by putting the house on the market at a value that is consistant with what homes are selling for in the area.

Too low and your lender is likely to reject the short sale offer when they do their own appraisal. Too high and no one will make an offer on the home.

After the terms are negotiated between buyer and seller then the offer goes to the sellers lender. The negotiations then start between the seller and the lender through the negotiator. The lender may seek promissory notes, hard money and a number of other items. The negotiators job is to get an agreement between the seller and their lender/lenders.

The reason short sales may take a long time is the lender may only be servicing the loan and has to find the investor who actually owns it. Then the negotiations go between seller, negotiator, lender, investor and back again.

Sounds like it might not work right? Well in fact it does work. It just takes time and patience on all sides.

All the best
Greg Owens PA
Realtor
Keller Williams On the Water
941.932.6343
greg@teamworksfla.com
www.teamworksfla.com

From gloom and doom to hope

The National Association of Realtors recently released the third quarter local market report 2010 for Sarasota/Bradenton/Venice.

At first glance it looks frightening.

On average local homeowners have lost 9 years of equity. In raw numbers locally after 36 quarters equity in local homes was minus $8,700, nationally it was plus $21,500.

The local foreclosure rate is higher than the national average and the economic recovery in the state is slower than the national average.

A lot of gloom and doom.

But what you need to look for is future indicators.

Contruction is on the rise just a bit which suggest stabization of local inventory according to the report.

The 90 day delinquency rate for mortgages went up and the 60 day went down. According to the report that indicates the 90 deliquency rate will soon start slowing down also.

The economy locally is growing and the employment is holding and moving upward.

In the end it looks bad right now but there indictors that we are pulling out of the worst of the housing market locally.

All the best
Greg Owens PA
Realtor
Keller Williams On the Water
941.932.6343
greg@teamworksfla.com
www.teamworksfla.com