Submitting only one offer in a short sale can get you in trouble. (The small fish in the big pond speaks up). This runs contrary to the advice given by almost all the short sale experts on Active Rain.
A couple days ago I overheard an agent tells their client that they only had to submit one offer to their lender in a short sale situation. Whoa! I have learned, the hard way, that when that little voice in my head says "Now wait a minute!" I better pay attention. So when I have a quandary that needs to be solved, I go to the Active Rain search bar and type in my problem. I usually get an answer I can embrace.
•· Numerous offers only clog the system and slow things down
•· Offers are not contracts
•· Buyers insist that you send only one offer (theirs) to the bank
•· Banks are not equipped to sell real estate
•· Offers can be placed in a back-up position
•· And other reasons were put forward
It appears that according to all the prevailing advice, I was overly concerned. Still, the little voice did not go away.
I could ask my Principle Broker for advice. She is tough and smart and I don't like to use her time unless I have an immediate need. I recalled that the Oregon Association of Realtors had a new Risk Management Toolkit and maybe I could find an answer there.
The Risk Management Toolkit, which I assume was authored by the Association's legal counsel, specifically addressed this question. I will summarize what I found.
•1. There is a two agreement nature with short sales. One between the Buyer and Seller and one between the Seller and Lender. The Seller is negotiating with the Lender for modification of the mortgage or note. As with all real estate dealings, material facts need to be disclosed. It would follow that it is in the Sellers' and Lenders' best interest to get the highest price and that the Seller should accept and forward for consideration better offers if they are made. A better offer can be considered a material fact and failure to disclose this offer could be considered Lender fraud.
•2. Offers with escalation clauses should be returned to the Buyer for their final and best offer.
•3. Communicating with the Lender as to how the Seller is going to handle multiple offers is the key to protecting the Agent and the Seller. A cover letter sent in with the first accepted offer should indicate how you will handle subsequent offers. You can state that you will not continue marketing the property and not accept any more offers, you will accept offers only in a back-up position, you will forward all offers, you will forward all better offers, or you will forward offers only up until a certain date. This gives the Lender notice on how the Seller wants to handle the situation and fulfills the requirement for honesty, good faith and fair dealings. If the Lender is silent on this issue, proceed as you indicated. If the Lender objects to the Sellers' policy, then the Seller and Lender are free to negotiate on how to proceed.
Ah! I finally can implement a policy I am comfortable with on handling multiple offers on short sales.
And the voices in my head are gone!
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. Wayne knows houses. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
The Federal Housing Tax Credit has been extended and expanded. I'll explain it here. If you have further questions, give me a call.
$8000.00 first-time home buyer tax credit
•· First-time home buyers qualify for $8000.00 if they have not owned a principle residence during the 3 years prior to the purchase.
•· The tax credit does not have to be repaid if you live in the house for 3 years.
•· The tax credit equals 10% of the home purchase up to $8000.00.
•· The purchase price of the home cannot exceed $800,000.00.
•· The sale has to be completed by April 30, 2010. A binding sales agreement that is signed by April 30, 2010 and the purchase completed by June 30, 2010 will qualify.
•· To receive the full credit, the income limit for single taxpayers is $125,000 and $225.000 for married couples.
$6500.00 move-up or repeat buyer tax credit
•· To claim the tax credit, you must have owned and lived in the home for 5 consecutive years out of the previous 8 years.
•· The tax credit does not have to be repaid if you live in the house for 3 years.
•· The tax credit equals 10% of the home purchase up to $6500.00.
•· The purchase price of the home cannot exceed $800,000.00.
•· The sale has to be completed by April 30, 2010. A binding sales agreement that is signed by April 30, 2010 and the purchase completed by June 30, 2010 will qualify.
•· To receive the full credit, the income limit for single taxpayers is $125,000 and $225.000 for married couples.
The tax credit will reduce your federal income taxes for the year. If you do not owe that much in taxes, Uncle Sam will send you a check for the difference.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. Wayne knows houses. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
I've had it. My auto insurance company, MetLife, has the phone system from hell. It's one of those voice prompt systems where they ask you questions, supposedly "to serve you better", and you respond with spoken words. There are several prompts, some redundant, and the process takes about three minutes to get to a real person. We have five family vehicles that we insure them for about the last five years and I have always tolerated this system. But no more, I'm done with them.
My son bought a Jeep and I was trying to add it to the policy on Friday. This would have been vehicle number six. Two times I went through the whole process only to have my call inexplicably terminated when I got tantalizing close to a real person. On the final attempt I was yelling at the phone, because we all know that these voice systems work better the louder we speak. I then saw that my poor dog was freaking out! She thought she had done something wrong. I immediately consoled her and gave her a treat.
I called my local agent and he answered the phone. He quoted me a price that was actually lower than what I had been paying. This I would have never discovered if MetLife had a better phone system. Their letterhead has the motto "Outstanding People and Service". I don't think so.
Real estate agents have long know the benefits of answering their phones. A missed call can mean a significant portion of our monthly income. Please, Mr. & Ms. Realtor, don't say you provide outstanding service unless you answer your phone.
Update 11/10/2009:I did get through to a MetLife rep today, after 8 voice prompts by me and 4 commercials by them, and canceled my policy. The rep was polite and efficient. He said that on Friday the phone system was dropping calls. I have never had any problem problem with the employees. Getting to an employee was the problem.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. Wayne knows houses. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
I have many gates in my life. Since I own rental property and my children are boys, I have to do many gate repairs. I have learned over the years how to make a gate as sturdy as possible. One problem that stumped me for awhile was the lack of a sturdy gate latch. Almost all the ones being sold were of the same design; flimsy metal and short screws. The screws that attach the metal piece to the gate work loose over time and strip out the holes and never stay tight.
My solution to that problem was to weld the piece that goes on the gate to a piece of angle iron. I then can use 3" screws to secure it in place. This distributes the holding force over a wider area. I have never had to "readjust" a gate since using this method.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. Wayne knows houses. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
In many cases, no personal guarantee is needed when signing a commercial lease in the present economic climate. It's just a matter of firm and sound negotiating techniques. Commercial real estate sales and leasing activity in most areas is just as bad, or worse, as the residential real estate market.
Most commercial Landlords are experiencing high vacancy rates and when they have a prospective Lessee they are willing to make concessions, including waiving the personal guarantee. Lessee's with the financial ability and courage to move forward in the current economic climate are hard to find. Landlords are willing to compromise to get any rent out of vacant properties.
Recently I talk with 2 small business owners, (who were not clients of mine), that had rented office space. Neither one had to sign a personal guarantee. They both told the Landlord that if a personal guarantee was needed, they would go elsewhere. Both Landlords readily tore up them up.
This is a Lessee's market. Push hard for concessions, including no personal guarantee.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
I've always wanted to post my flyers on Craigslist. I know there are websites, such as postlets.com and vflyer.com, which host flyers on the web that you can then upload to Craigslist. I am the first to admit that I am "computer and internet challenged" and these sites may allow me to upload my own flyers, but I could not figure out how to do it. A mortgage broker offered to do this for me, so I have been letting him.
So after the baseball game last night, I set out on figuring how to do it myself. Naturally I started by Googling it. This led me to a helpful video on Utube by deriktutt. (I think there is a Utube video for everything.) In a nut-shell, he said in a Word document write your text, imbed your photos, save in Paint as a jpeg, upload to Photobucket.com, take the HTML that Photobucket.com generates for you and imbed it in the Craigslist ad.
I tried to paste a flyer I had created with Publisher in Paint, but it would not work. Nuts. So after fumbling around for a hour or so, I had that Eureka moment. (I love it when a plan comes together.) I use Publisher 2007 and it allows you to save your flyer as a JPEG File Interchange Format. Bingo! Works like a charm.
So the steps are:
•1. Create your flyer in Publisher and save it as a JPEG File Interchange Format document.
•2. Open a free Photobucket.com account and upload your flyer.
•3. Copy the HTML that is generated.
•4. Create a Craigslist ad and paste the HTML in the body.
So easy even a caveman can do it!
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog
I am a Landlord so it is wise for me to keep abreast of laws that can affect my investments. I will offer a summary of these laws, as I understand them. Further investigation is required on your part.
Starting Jan. 1, 2010 Landlords must disclose their smoking policy in writing.
HB 2393 doubles the fees Sheriffs can collect for performing legal duties.
SB 777 creates a 60 day no-clause notice for terminating a tenancy. Ouch!
There are new laws governing abandoned property.
A Landlord may not charge a pet deposit for a service animal or charge a cleaning fee.
I have only touched on the residential laws that affect me directly. There are several more bills that affect other types of real estate.
Oregon laws heavily favor the Tenant. It's essential to know what is new.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
The Seller of this home is obviously a well-heeled, astute, serious seller. I am in a quandry on what to do if my buyer wants this egg-carton collection. How do I come up with a value for this collection that does not insult the Seller and have him reject our offer, and still be fair for my client? What is the current market value of this collection? I have not seen anything as unique as this on Antiques Road Show and a Google search of "egg-carton appraisers" turned up nothing. I hope this home does not sell before I get this figured out!
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
The Tigard Farmers Market is located at Young's Funeral Home in the parking lot at 11831 SW Pacific Hwy., The Market runs through Oct. 26, 2008 and is held every Sunday from 9AM to 2PM. This is a temporary location until the permanent one is built in downtown Tigard.
In addition to fabulous produce, there are beautiful flower arrangements, craft and food booths, and live entertainment. One thing that pictures cannot capture are the fragrant smells that envelope the Market. Support your local small business owners. Small bills and change are always appreciated and remember to bring your reusable grocery bag.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs and he is also a licensed contractor. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog.
Refrigerator magnets are a sign of just how serious you are about selling your home. If you are going to sell your home, you have to accept that your daily routine is going to be interrupted for the foreseeable future. It cannot be avoided. You will have to keep the house clean all the time and may have to leave your home when buyers come through. If you cannot even make the effort to clean off your refrigerator, do not whine to your agent about the lack of offers.
If your home is not getting very many showing, it could be because your showing instructions may not be buyer friendly.
Wayne B. Pruner is a Realtor® at Oregon First, who works in the Portland and Tigard, Oregon area. He is ready to help you with all your real estate needs. His phone number is 503-891-0795. Here are links to his real estate website and his real estate blog. Wayne is also a licensed contractor.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
Now You Have Thousands of Reasons to Buy a House
gate work loose over time and strip out the holes and never stay tight.
e Lessee they are willing to make concessions, including waiving the personal guarantee. Lessee's with the financial ability and courage to move forward in the current economic climate are hard to find. Landlords are willing to compromise to get any rent out of vacant properties.
Refrigerator Magnets are Toxic
;)
;)
