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home sales: Do You Really Want To Sell Your House? -- By Appointment Only - 11/09/09 06:21 AM
OK.  For whatever reason you decided you want to put your house on the market.  If someone comes along with the right price and the planets are in alignment, you'll accept the offer.  In the meantime, people who may want to take a look at your house can do so "by appointment only" with no lockbox. 
This means:
you need to be home when anyone comes by and hardly anyone will want to come by Yeah, I know.  There used to be a time when there were no lock boxes and agents had to jump through all kinds of hoops to … (11 comments)

home sales: Is the New and Improved Home Buyer Tax Credit a Good Thing? - 11/06/09 07:18 AM
I guess with all the "Calls to Action" initiated by the National Association of Realtors, National Association of Home Builders and everyone else interested in selling real estate and all the peripheral products and service really worked.  Today, President Obama is expected to sign the extension and expansion of the tax credit into law.
Is this a good thing?
Maybe.
My take on this is that humans work toward a deadline.  It's in their nature.  That's why we've seen the uptick in pending home sales and existing homes sales (as opposed to new home sales) in recent months.  First time home … (6 comments)

home sales: Mr. Seller...Let the Buyer's Agent Sell Your House - 10/04/09 06:43 PM
Scenario:  Mr. Seller is very eager to sell his house.  He just "happens to be home" when a lot of the buyers and their agents pop by for a visit. Mt. Seller likes to be the tour guide highlighting all the parts of the house he [the Seller] likes about his house. Mr. Seller also likes to talk money.
Yes, that's right.  Stuff like "I can do this with closing help or I can do that with less closing help or....."  Get the point?
So I get the call from the agent with a low ball offer.  I present to the … (12 comments)

home sales: Buying a house costs MONEY?? Really? - 08/05/09 05:20 AM
During the recent downturn in the real estate market it became commonplace - at least in my little part of the world - for Sellers to kick some money toward the Buyer's closing costs.  So, as it turns out, if the Buyer could scrape together the 3.5% for a down payment (assuming an FHA mortgage), the other costs like State and County transfer and recordation fees, lender fees, title company fees, hazard insurance premiums, prepaids like interest and the like would be paid for out of the Seller's proceeds at settlement.
This is wonderful news for the Buyers because it means … (5 comments)

home sales: Managing Expectations - 08/01/09 02:56 PM
In the last couple of days there have been rumblings about "the bottom" and even a cover story in Newsweek entitled The Recession is Over * (note: the asterisk).  If you watch CNBC at all and you happen to catch a little of it before you tuned in Oprah on Friday you would have heard all manner of people getting all giddy about the stock market rally, and, most notably, about the fact that the economy didn't shrink as much as expected.
That bears repeating -- the economy did not shrink as much as expected. It did not grow/expand. It just … (9 comments)

home sales: HAP Update - A Lifeline to Homeowners in the Military - 06/10/09 05:50 AM
Thanks to a heads up from my clients (an Army pediatrician and DOD contractor) I realized that the Army Corps of Engineers has a program designed to help military families feeling the pinch of having to sell their homes in order to move from one station to another through no fault of their own.  They need to go where the military sends them and, in this housing market, that's not always a good thing for selling a home they may have purchased not too long ago.
Enter: the Military Maven of all Realtors (at least in this area) - Cindy Jones … (3 comments)

home sales: Trapped in Your Own Home - 05/23/09 08:35 AM
I mentioned here before that I try to pay attention to my little micro-niche -- Sellers with Equity.  These are the folks who are current on their mortgage payment and may have even put a little money down on their home when they bought it.  Alternately, they bought their home way before 2000 and, even after recent price declines, they have enough equity in their home to be able to sell it.
I've run across a few clients, recently, that aren't so lucky.
They bought their home sometime during the 2000-2006 frenzy and now, because of the short sales and REOs … (8 comments)

home sales: Buyers Kicking Tires - 03/09/09 09:37 AM
In an article in the Real Estate Section of The Washington Post, a guy is described as having really, really researched the market for a long period of time.  He had spreadsheets and visited a lot of open houses, etc.  He and his lady friend eventually decided to buy a house!  Wooooo! Hoooo!
This reminds me of a recent experience where a couple contacted me through my REALTOR.com listing. They liked the house, it had a Virtual Tour so they had and idea what it looked like on the inside and they wanted to see it. 
Since I'm the Seller's rep, … (15 comments)

home sales: "I Only Want to Work with Listing Agents...." - 02/23/09 09:20 PM
So I get this e-mail lead from RE/MAX Lead Street.  It's an in-house lead generator that distributes potential buyers leads who visit remax.com. It's not the most wonderful lead generation tool on the planet but it's free (to me).
This particular lead is looking at a very nice house that I can comfortably say is in the luxury market tier.  A very nice house with a very nice sales price.  I get a little excited.  "A good lead!", I think. In fact the e-mail accompanying the lead says the buyer is relocating from another area and will only be here a … (12 comments)

home sales: "But...My House is Special....." - 02/17/09 07:23 AM
I guess I really shouldn't be surprised.
I must've been involved - either as a listing agent or buyer's agent - with about 300 houses over my short real estate career and that doesn't count the ones that I visited with my buyer clients while they looked for the "perfect house". Or the ones that fell through.  Or the listings that ended up not selling for any number of reasons. It doesn't count the houses I've previewed to get an idea of the neighborhood and what a buyer client might be looking for or a seller client might be up against … (15 comments)

home sales: 10904 Hannes Court, Silver Spring, MD 20901 - 02/16/09 07:30 PM
This home, located on a quiet cul-de-sac near the Four Corners neighborhood of Silver Spring is perfect for someone who want to take advantage of a great location that is near METRO and the upscale downtown area of Silver Spring and the schools of the Down County Cluster in Montgomery County.
… (1 comments)

home sales: Homes on the Market in College Park and Greenbelt - 05/13/08 06:33 PM
Here's a quick snapshot of the homes on the market in College Park and Berwyn Heights --
Currently Active (I.e., available for sale) -- 160 homes (condos, townhomes and single family homes)Low Price -- $117,900High Price --  $699,900Number of homes SOLD within the last 90 days -- 27
This means that there is an 18 and a half month supply of homes on the market. So if you want your home to sell there are two things to keep at the top of your mind:
Price Condition The price needs to be competitive to homes similar to yours on the market.  … (3 comments)

home sales: Pay Back Time for Appraisers - 11/02/07 02:37 PM
This article in today's Washington Post talks about the current Attorney General for the State of New York going after a subsidiary of First American Corp. for inflating home values through puffed up appraisals under pressure from Washington Mutual - one of the largest mortgage lenders in the country.
The issue here is that, under the threat from lenders to take their business elsewhere, appraisers would turn in appraisals they knew were inflated and unjustified. This,in turn, fueled the rapid rise in housing prices from 2000 to 2005 and the tidal wave of sub-prime mortgages that are causing so many problems … (7 comments)