Well, here it is 2009 - I have been selling Real Estate for 22 years this coming July. As all of 'old Timers' know ... things have really changed! 
I have been brainstorming to figure how to generate the income; 2 of my good listings would be expiring 11:59 pm 12-31-08 ... I wasn't able to convince the sellers to let me continue to try to get their homes sold ... Both would be keeping the homes if at all possible ... one had decided to rent the home out, the Husband has been living in Southern IDAHO the past Year & 1/2 working and they decided to just rent it so the wife could join him down there ... so I most likely will get to put that back on the market in the future ... and the other seller hoping to particiapte in the Bailout Plan ... I had already lost another of my listing the 28th of October, with the sellers calling me up to see if they could just withdraw their home from the market, before it expired ... as they had been called by their Mortgage holder and offered assistance with the 'Lenders Bailout Plan' The owner telling me, the economy had been rough, (no KIDDING!?) they were only 1 payment in arrears but their lender called them and offered them quite a deal...they would be restructuring the loan to the fair market value, reducing the interest rate at a fixed rate and then washing away the EXTRA owed if the debt was higher than the value ... wow ... that sounds like a sweet deal.
of course I released them from the listing ... I had only had it on the market approx 6 months ~ Listing Date 5/28/2008 Expiration Date 12/31/2008 Off Market Date 10/28/2008 Days On Market 153. the Original Price was $275,000 (they had an appraisal from just the year before for that amount) to the final Asking Price $249,000 ... my sellers were MOTIVATED, really they were ... We ( my business partner & me!) had only spent 4 of our Sunday Afternoons in their home having Open houses. Advertised the home many times, over & over! We had only advertised it EVERY MONTH in the Local Monthly Homefinder... in fact it would be in the November issue, the 6th month ... but this is OK ... I will just steer those buyers to another Great house similar to theirs should I get any calls on that AD that was already printed ... we would receive our 300 copies November 1st! we had a great Virtual tour of the home also, a professional one! (our cost $125.00) We had showed the home many, many, times ... as it was a great looking , up-kept home ... I thought it was priced pretty darn good with all that it had to offer ... but we could not find a buyer... so most of us Realtors know the rest of the story! ... but as the Broker/Owner, the one that pays all of the bills... we really understand.
I was contacted last week - Date Ordered: 12/24/2008, by a company I do BPO's for ... they needed an Opinion of Value on this home ... I thought hmmmm, I accepted the order & I did it ... I read through all of the criteria of the order and it was not mentioned as to disqualifing me from doing this BPO because I had it listed before ... and I certainly would be honest and unbiased ... so I did the BPO ... Obviously another Realtor in the area had done a BPO on the property before I was hired to do one. When you have done enough of these BPOs you know the system ... and when I chose from the drop down menu the location of the property, I entered the Urban selection ... it had a pop-up that said 'the last record they had of the subject, the Realtor described the property as Rural, did I want to explain my choice?' my comment: 'this is a nice older home, I am familiar with it from being on the market, I have shown is several times. It is certainly not Rural. It is located walking distance to downtown' ... well by the time I had completed the Broker Price Opinion ... I can assure you I was not too far off on the final listing price we had on the home ... on the BPO I came in with As-Is Value of $234,000 ~ list price of $239,000. My final comments on the BPO were: the subject is an older home, will always need upkeep and repair. It has a lot of yesteryear charm. Home is lived in with a busy family of 5 with 4 big dogs, whom were lucky dogs and got to sleep upstairs in the master bedroom area with owners. The home is well cared for. But the reason for lack of sale at the time of listing would be just slightly overpriced at time of withdrawal from the market, and extremely overpriced at the beginning of the listing. Home had an odor, smelled of dogs, not necessary a urine smell, it had a musky smell, lived in. this is a nice older home, I am familiar with it from being on the market, I have shown is several times.
So wow ... why didn't it sell while I had it listed ... It certainly was not from lack of advertising, marketing, showing, brochures, signage, trying! ... Blame it on the Economy!? 
The BPO order sat in my Agent Menu Portal for about 3 days ... they must of read the guidelines also ... wondering if I was really allowed to do this BPO, since I had had it listed at one time ... with it finally getting accepted ... So I will atleast get back $65.00 for the BPO to help pay for my efforts when I had it listed!
So I will be interested in seeing how much these sellers are going to be helped with the Bailout Assistance ... I suppose they could get a better interest rate - Weekly Mortgage Rates ~ Freddie Mac National Averages 30 Yr Fixed 5.14% 15 Yr Fixed 4.91% ... but can the value be that far off? I know that the sellers still had room to negotiate when we had it listed at $249,000 ... so it is not like they owed $275,000 that the appraisal came in at a few years earlier. I will give them a call next week and see how things are going on the Bailout Assisitance!
and I am wondering if I should let my house payment fall 30 days late ... 
Comments(12)