Want to Sell Your Home?

Find a terrific Publicist (Real Estate Agent) who knows how to create some pizzaz, a unique attraction around your home. You may not realize how special your property is, only your agent appreciates what a jewel you have. This is what goes through his mind as he takes steps to  present this for sale.

If your agent is competent and articulate, he/she will be able to present a side of your property that the buyer does not appreciate; the features that make your home a discovery that creates a need that otherwise did not exist. This is creative selling at its best.

There are logical calculated steps you can take to sell your home faster including:
= Reducing the sales price: Check out the neighborhood for comparable properties pricing.
= Repairing and updating to the home: It's surprising what you've overlooked over the years, and not always that expensive to upgrade vis-a-vis return in sales appeal.
= Replacing dated appliances: Ditto the above.
= Home Staging: Staging by a competent decorator can do wonders.
= Offering seller-financing to a buyer: Nothing like a little financial incentive to add appeal.

A Good Time to Buy

The 2007 National Housing Pulse Survey from October 2007, indicates that 59 percent of Americans think .
And yet, these are the figures that are completely out of sinc with logic :
    = Existing Homes Sales dipped to 4.97 million in October, the lowest since 1999
    = New Homes Sales counted 728,000, just off its 12-year lows
    = The supply of homes on the market is now at 10.8 months

Can you believe the power of the press? Only the negative thoughts are spewed out by print and TV to fill space. And their audience absorbs it. Thus, many are missing some prime opportunities.

Yes, home values are relatively low and so are mortgage rates. What appears to be happening, however, is mortgage guidelines are getting tighter by the week. Even strong credit borrowers coud well have financing difficulty as soon as six weeks from now. It looks like now is a good time to buy if you consider the strong possibility that financing may be too challenging soon for some.

So, Is It A Buyers Market?

Can it be described as "A market condition characterized by an abundance of goods available for sale”...a reasonable description of a buyer’s market? Is a decline in pricing reflecting a buyer’s market?

Well its a buyer’s market, or was, in terms of availability. This condition has been changing. Rather than reducing the price in the So. Bay, where pricing is all in the Jumbo Loan category, sellers are becoming holders. Its becoming a Holders Market... ‘Why sell now when I can get my price’ is becoming le mot du jour.

So in simple terms, if you can find it, buy it. And don’t overlook the historically low interest rates that are still in place. Do your homework. Determine what the going prices are and go from there. There are certainly buys to be had, but they’re not what they used to be. The buyers who are laying in the weeds waiting for big downturns in pricing are missing some good buys. I’ve sent listings to clients with $25K-$240K reductions, that did not draw a walkthrough. This is making a pass on a Buyers Market. I hope The Media doesn’t exercise the same mind control in the up-coming elections. P.T. Barnum would have had a field day.

Could The Miserable Housing Starts Be An Indicator Of The Housing Market's Recovery?

Not if you believe everything you read in the press. These writers present only what appears on the surface. Yes, Housing Starts plunged last month. Does this mean the Housing Market is in the toilet?

The government has just released September 2007's Housing Starts data for the country. A "Housing Start" is a new home on which construction has commenced.
= Versus August 2007, starts are down 10.2%
= Versus September 2006, starts are down 30.8%

Headlines are saying that this is bad news for the U.S. economy, proof that real estate is in a tailspin. That the ”nightmare” is ongoing. As usual, the press hasn’t done their homework. If Housing Starts are down, it means that the housing supply will also be down shortly. Add to this scenario, builders who are no longer adding new supply to the housing market, the existing demand for homes are allowed catch up. At this point we see a rebalancing of the Supply and Demand, as home values rise.

The result
= Todays buyers will buy with confidence, realizing the investment value of their purchase.
= As values rise, mortgage lending risks decline and helps more people get approved for more types of mortgages.
= More buyers will be able to get approved for more types of mortgages.
= Rising home values create wealth in the form of home equity. Home prices aren't being supported by the existing demand, which tells us that it's time to cut the supply, and that's what the builders are doing.

So, this is one approach for the media to present a more realistic explanation of what’s current in real estate.

Ah, la fin de fumer!

Yes, come January, smoking will be banned in all restaurants and bars in France. In theory, the ban has been in effect since 1991...a ban except for specified “smoking” areas. Of course the majority of space in each establishment became the smoking area.
 
It looks like one of the last poignant characteristics of French life is finito. Come January you risk a 75 euro ($107.00 US) fine if you light up over your demi et cognac. This is the first hit. In recent years tobacco taxes have been jacked up 40 percent, bringing a packet to around five euros ($7.00 US), one of the highest on the continent.

“A world is collapsing,” writer Philippe Delerm wrote in a front-page ode to the cigarette in Le Monde newspaper, referring to the alluring image of the chain-smoking intellectual.

Whatever that look, it’s certain that French bars, impregnated with nicotine since Sartre hung out at Les Deux Magots, Giacometti littered Montparnasse with butts, and Gainsbourg’s grave was lined with Gitanes, are rapidly approaching the end of an epoch.

Nearly everyone it seems would like to quit smoking, what has been accepted over the years as a natural element in French life. With the elimination of the smell and stained interiors, the dingy walls and human odors will be questonable replacements.

Is Le Parfum de Cigarettes Air Spray in the works?

Things Looking Up?

Things are starting to look up in real estate from what recent reports and the NAR indicate. It may be a temporary positive glich, but with widening credit availability and low interest rates holding steady it sure does look like a recovery is slowly under way. I’m sure this is no news to anyone in the business. Of course everyone likes a positive attitude...why not?

Conforming loans are becoming very available at historically attractive mortgage rates. There have been adjustments in pricing for jumbo mortgages, and subprime mortgages are being replaced by FHA loans.

One thing that gives the market perspective is the news that 2007 will be the fifth highest year on record for existing-home sales. 2005 was an unsustainable peak. It was overloaded with speculative buyers. These spec excesses have been removed from the market, and home sales are starting to return to normal.

 NAR President Pat V. Combs, from Grand Rapids, Mich., and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt, said, “Housing is still a good long-term investment, and we’ll be seeing a broad, modest improvement in home prices in 2008.  With widely varying conditions, the best advice for consumers is to consult a Realtor® in their area to learn about local market conditions because supply and demand can change from one neighborhood to the next.”

Of course loans in our neighborhood are in excess of double the $417K conforming rate. (Jumbo rates are in the 7.11% range, conforming loans are in the 6.0% range.)
Jumbo loans are a little more problematic than conforming loans. 

Only when the creative mortgages experienced in 2005 return (what?), will real estate return. Or, mortgage lenders would be required to follow good faith and fair dealing requirements, with a fiduciary duty toward borrowers.

Anything’s possible.

One man’s opinion. 

Who Needs A Partner?

It seems that partnerships are the way of the future. Why? I’m a loaner myself. I sure don’t want to check-in with a partner every time I make a decision.

So what’s the advantage? Businesses—successful business— are run like a business even if there are no partners. There’s a structure to a business. Things get done on schedule, there’s plan, ergo a business plan.

There is a growing trend from Sole Proprietor (SP) to Business Owner (BO). The thought precesses are totally different. Think about it. The SP has only one-on-one thoughts and the possible repercussions there of — “If I do this, I can expect this.”

There is a shared decision in the case of the BO. When a business relationship is established, a business plan is agreed upon. The weakness and strengths of each member are established at the outset. They marketing their business and the value of teamwork.

New  business names are beginning to show up, in combo with the parent broker name.
The business functions as a freestanding business, however. How to create a Marketing Plan and structure a new business approach to real estate can be found at: http://www.buildmybusiness.com

Mortgage Loan Rules Tighten

Not that long ago, outbidding on properties was common practice with “jumbo” loans—over $417,000. Homes on the market now have became abundant, the sub-prime meltdown has led to tightened lending even for credit-worthy borrowers, including shoppers in their price range who needed so-called jumbo loans.

Lenders recently started to shun these larger deals that, according to Andrew LePage, an analyst with DataQuick Information Systems, accounted for almost 40% of purchase loans in Southern California in the first seven months of 2007. Last month, Southland home sales dropped to their lowest level for any August since 1992 as buyers, sellers and lenders held back in the uncertain market and deals slowed or stalled

Some lenders are slowly starting to return to business, but the rules have changed for borrowers: They need much brighter credit scores, a fuller financial profile and larger down payments. Plus, buyers can expect to pay higher interest rates than they did just a few months ago.

Among the changes, many lenders have backed away from 100% financing; when it is still offered, the terms are much more restrictive.

"I like to tell people that 90[%] is the new 100," said Barry Kaye, a Beverly Hills-based mortgage industry consultant. And the deposit needed on a loan of up to $1 million has gone from 5% to 10% in the last year, he said, assuming the borrower meets the new lending criteria. The changes are being felt largely by those seeking homes costing roughly between $800,000 and $2 million, he added.

New strategies in putting deals together are beginning to show up, including sellers paying points to buy down the buyer's interest rate, making deals contingent on buyers first selling their homes, or even more modest incentives such as paying off homeowner association fees.

“Once, a selection of widely available loan programs that existed, have disappeared or now require larger down payments, higher credit scores and more thorough income and asset documentation, said Ed Craine, vice president for the California Assn. of Mortgage Brokers. "Some people have found the original loan they qualified for no longer exists."

It is still possible to borrow, though that may require a little extra effort.

"Things are in a pretty bad way right now," said Brian Martucci, head of online mortgage broker GetLoans.com, who believes the situation will become much worse before it gets better.

Martucci, based in Washington, D.C., sees more lenders going out of business and a growing supply of homes as a result of foreclosures, developers who overbuilt and buyers who can't find financing.

He predicts it could be another year until the full extent of the foreclosure crisis is known and even longer before the lending market regains its momentum. "There's a lot of unwinding to come. We're all heading for the same pain."

Locally, Gary Bluman, owner and president of , based in Brentwood, takes a more sanguine view.

"We're telling our clients that based on history, values will come back and that now is a good time to buy for the long term," he said. "We're not expecting a big slump."

CAN YOU BELIEVE, “St. GREENSPAN” DIDN’T KNOW?

Even Alan Greenspan didn’t realize the danger to the nation’s economy as a result of faulty mortgage loans. As Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wouldn’t mortgage fall under his watch? His explanation is in “Fed Speak,” as are all communications from the Federal Reserve.

As I understand it, the idea behind the Federal Reserve is to keep things running smoothly, so banks that are members of the Fed are federally insured, which should be reassuring to depositors. It seems that there were fraudulent practices that were swept under the rug: the Feds ignored, lenders denied, and borrowers are hung out to dry with.

So now we discover that Alan Greenspan wasn’t the financial genius he was thought to be,or he was asleep at the switch? His explanation: "It’s difficult for regulators to control." And unfortunately it seems his replacement is proving no more helpful controlling the mortgage loan business than he was.

As home buyers and sellers ponder what to do next in today's volatile real estate and money markets, the conflicting opinions of industry professionals may not offer much help. Greed, the original raison d'être, continues to triumph.

A number of loan programs, once widely available, have disappeared, or now require larger down payments, higher credit scores and more thorough income and asset documentation. Some people have found the original loan they qualified for no longer exists.

Credit tightening at the jumbo end of the market, means agents are having to learn "different ways of putting deals together." Deals that include sellers paying points to buy down the buyer's interest rate, making deals contingent on buyers first selling their homes, or even more modest incentives such as paying off homeowner association fees.

It looks like the borrowers and their lenders are proving more creative than the Feds when creating a means of dealing with this conundrum.

 

 

 

Chicago Considering Adopting Paris Self-Service Bike Scheme.

Chicago? (Kind of hard to get around in the snow with a bike. And the humidity without A.C. might be unbearable at times.)

How did the South Bay (So California, USA) overlook this opportunity to put a major dent in the areas of horrendous gas consumption, and to help get the absurd gas guzzling vehicles off the road. After all, who needs $40,000-plus ego satisfying vehicles for transportation? The French know how to do it...small cars are derigueur. (The price of petrol may have something to do with this.)

But this aside, bicycles are practical. Parking isn't a problem, the cost of renting is far less than gas, and vehicle cost is eliminated. And of course, there is no pollution.

In Paris it works like this: Riders can pick up a bike at any time of day or night, after lodging a 150-euro safety deposit. The first half hour is free, with prices rising to one euro (1.4 dollars) for every extra half hour.

The "Velib" scheme in Paris has 10,000 bicycles at 750 hire points dotted around Paris, with plans for 20,000 bikes at 1,400 hire points by year end.

Residents of the South Bay pride themselves in physical fitness and outdoor sports. Here’s a plan with fascinating possibilities. (Of course freeway use is not recommended.)