Real Estate Blog

If you’re putting your home on the market, better be sure you’re ready to tell all — good and bad.

Original post:
Tell All, Safest Way To Sell A Home

One reason that brokers and agents like buyer-broker agreements is that the buyer’s agent knows up front what level of commission he or she is working for. With a buyer-broker agreement a buyer’s agent is not hesitant to show property where the seller may be offering a low commission or even no commission at all. This is because the commission is going to be paid by the buyer. (Typically, a buyer-broker agreement will stipulate that the buyer’s obligation will be offset by any amount the seller is paying. For example, a buyer-broker agreement might call for the buyer’s agent to receive a commission of 2.3% of the selling price. If, in a given transaction, the seller had agreed to pay the buyer’s agent 1.5%, then the buyer’s obligation would be .8%)

Excerpt from:
Defaulting Buyer Owes Commission Under Buyer-Broker Agreement

One reason that brokers and agents like buyer-broker agreements is that the buyer’s agent knows up front what level of commission he or she is working for. With a buyer-broker agreement a buyer’s agent is not hesitant to show property where the seller may be offering a low commission or even no commission at all. This is because the commission is going to be paid by the buyer. (Typically, a buyer-broker agreement will stipulate that the buyer’s obligation will be offset by any amount the seller is paying. For example, a buyer-broker agreement might call for the buyer’s agent to receive a commission of 2.3% of the selling price. If, in a given transaction, the seller had agreed to pay the buyer’s agent 1.5%, then the buyer’s obligation would be .8%)

Source:
Defaulting Buyer Owes Commission Under Buyer-Broker Agreement

Recently we considered a situation where a buyer, who had executed a buyer-broker agreement with his agent, backed out of a purchase transaction. In that case, the buyer owed a commission to his agent because the agreement stipulated that the commission was earned when the buyer entered into the purchase agreement.

See the rest here:
Listing Agent May be Owed Commission Under Various Different Circumstances

The difference between a mediocre transaction and a great one is the care that goes into the process. You can be a home buyer and make an offer to purchase, then end up regretting your decision.

You can be a homeowner and accept an offer, only to feel remorse at the day of closing. It’s a business transaction and your mind confirms this … but your heart just won’t cooperate. If it’s such a wise financial move, then why doesn’t your gut feel better about it?

Has real estate lost that loving feeling?

“It used to be that home buyers fell in love with a house. Now it’s a commodity, an investment,” Pat Von Mosch, Connect2Agent member and real estate agent in Anoka Minnesota, shared with me. ”People are more upwardly mobile now. Real estate has become a fax/email deal. Sometimes I never even meet the other real estate agent.”

How very different it is from the coffee table deals of yesterday. It used to be typical for all parties to meet at some point, and almost all offers to the seller were presented from the listing in person to a homeowner. Now a homeowner receives an offer by cell phone, fax, email or text.

In a house purchase, our habits of brevity online won’t always cut it. Here’s how to make a change.

The ability to communicate in a high-touch world should sharpen our senses of communication and free our minds a little more. We can be enabled through words, song and video to make our point at the touch of a “Ctrl” command and a tap of the “Enter” key. As consumers, we are becoming good at expressing ourselves online … but sometimes we fall short when it comes to real estate.

Our habits of brevity and acronyms can leave a large margin of error.

We need to flex our old-school speech skills and become a bit more expansive when we’re talking real estate.

• If you see a listing you like online, do email it to your real estate agent. Make sure to include an explanation as to why it intrigues you.
• When your real estate agent asks what you think your house is worth, do speak up. Don’t just name a price. Explain where you got it from - remodeling in the kitchen, upgrades in the bathroom, your cul-de-sac location, a neighbor’s house down the street, a website online with a house value option, etc.
• Don’t skim the terms of the Purchase Agreement. Do read it word for word before you sign it. Do ask questions if you don’t understand. Don’t make an assumption that something is in there. It might not be.

Has real estate lost that loving feeling? Only if you let it. A real estate transaction’s success rests on communication.

Speak up and get involved.

Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson

Continued here:
Has real estate lost that loving feeling?

The standard California residential real estate purchase contract, which is produced by the California Association of Realtors

I recently had a listing expire after three months on the market. Nothing has sold in my client’s neighborhood for almost a year, so it wasn’t a big surprise. We gave it a shot and it didn’t work out for us. No biggie. She was prepared for the possibility and has no hard feelings toward me.

Here is the original:
Dear Seller: What’s Your Plan B?

If you bought your house only a few years ago or are entering the real estate market as a first-time home buyer, chances are you researched real estate online before you were within one to two months of making a move. The ability to search listings and home values online, along with getting school and community information, has become synonymous with the home buying process.

It hasn’t always been this way.

I had the opportunity to take a time travel through real estate to the year 1975. Steve Osmar, Connect2Agent member and real estate agent in Lansing Michigan, navigated past and present real estate practices … buckle up as we take a trip back to get to the present and future of real estate.

It’s the year 1975. The United States was in a recession similar to the country’s economic climate today. Greater Lansing was vey dependent on General Motors, which had gone through a lengthy strike. The country was coming out of an Arab Oil Embargo that raised gas prices.

Real estate systems were starting to evolve. The method for keeping track of real estate listing data had just gone through an upgrade, from an index card system to a catalog that was updated weekly. Access to the listing data could only be obtained through a real estate broker/agent.

Documents for real estate resembled handshake-type deals compared with the paperwork that exists today. A listing contract was the length of a letter-size piece of paper; there were no agency disclosures. An Offer to Purchase agreement was one page, which included room for the seller’s acceptance and any counter offer.

Searching houses online didn’t exist. A typical home search process would involve looking at several houses. Once a buyer found a house, it was common to have the buyer’s parents come out to give it their stamp of approval. There weren’t any home inspections at this time, so parents tended to be very critical of the properties.

Osmar remembers one father who walked through a real estate showing.  He spent 1/2 hour alone in the bedroom, inspecting details as minute as the white caulking on a window sill, running his finger along the caulking to make sure it was sealed properly. This father felt ultimately responsible for his children’s final choice in their home purchase.

Now, home inspection contingencies on a contract and seller’s disclosures are standard components of an Offer to Purchase agreement.

Traveling back to the future, what does Osmar see differently in the real estate market today? There is twice as much inventory coming onto the market in the Lansing area. In the 33 years Osmar has been selling real estate, the only other time he saw prices go backward was in the 1980s.

What can consumers expect to see with Lansing real estate in the future? Osmar doesn’t have a crystal ball, but he believes the local Lansing real estate market is near the bottom. He said the market will start to take an uptick in sales when it can get rid of the REO (real estate owned) properties.

All real estate time travelers wanted: If you sold or bought a house 10 years ago or earlier, Connect2Agent would love to hear your story. We invite you to share by commenting below.

Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson

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Ask any real estate professional what they would warn a buyer or seller to steer clear of and they would tell you without hesitation: the national real estate news. Why? Because each real estate market has an individual story all its own. When a consumer reads a story in a national magazine or watches a show about real estate on TV, the individuality of each market seems to morph into a Stepford Wives syndrome.

To set a good national real estate story straight, you need to debunk the myths of each market and go straight to a local real estate professional.

I discussed some national real estate concerns with real estate professionals in different markets. These real estate markets all go to school in the U.S. and may bear some resemblance to each other, but they are as unique as the punk rocker, the cheerleader and the geek.

Because all real estate is local.

Skip Smith, real estate agent and Connect2Agent member, told me:

“The housing boom started in California, then moved toward Las Vegas and into Salt Lake City real estate, like a locust migration. It died out after it got up into Ogden and we were left sitting with a whole bunch of new construction in which investors handed the keys back over to the banks and walked away from the houses.”

(Salt Lake City real estate snapshot courtesy of Skip Smith.)

An epitome of this situation was a new construction development in the southeast part of Salt Lake City. Smith had a listing where the seller had purchased the property at $1.25 million in a market where the property should have appraised at no higher than $999,000. The seller is now listed at $795,000. The bank will end up eating a short sale on this property when it sells.

There were nine other houses in this subdivision that were sold with inflated prices like this.

As far as the real estate industry is concerned, Smith saw many real estate agents getting into the business from May 2005 to May 2006: “So many agents got into the business and are now starving. It’s a buyer’s market in Salt Lake City Utah, but some real estate sellers end up listing with whoever estimates the house value the highest, even though in the end it sells for less than originally valued.”

Smith recounts a story of a listing he was competing for against four other agents. He quoted the homeowner a list price of $249,000 with a predicted sales price of $243,000 to $245,000. Another real estate agent got the listing, who had priced the house at $264,900. The final sales price when the house closed was $244,500.

As to the overall health of the market? Salt Lake City is not as bad as the rest of the country, Smith said. The interest rates are at 6.5 percent, much lower than most of his 26 years of selling real estate. He believes Salt Lake City is at the bottom now, so it’s a good time for real estate buyers to get out and purchase.

To be continued …

Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson

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Y’know, it’s tough being a listing agent. No matter how good of a job you do, the margin for error is huge. If you sell the house too fast … you blew it on the price and “cost your seller money.” If the house takes too long to sell, well, we all know what happens then. We didn’t live up to our promises and we disappointed our seller.

The rest is here:
Two Types of Seller’s Regret — Which Would You Prefer?

By delivering excellent service on a consistent and ongoing basis, your current client relationships will spawn repeat business and referrals that draw new clients into your business. As a result, your success will reap yet more success, your business will grow bigger, and you’ll need to provide superb service to an ever-growing group of people. At some point you’ll face the important but difficult task of transitioning from an individual service provider to a service provider who works with a team to communicate with and serve clients.

Defining Your Service Standards

Who says banks should say who gets to buy a home? Right now, banks are turning away good borrowers, choking home sales. What’s the answer? Seller financing. There’s just one little problem. Real estate agents need to tell sellers that it’s an option.

Source:
Realty Viewpoint: Get Creative With Seller Financing

It is yet another sign of the times that the California Association of Realtors (CAR) has released a form entitled “REO Advisory”. REO stands for “real estate owned” and is the common term for property that a lender has acquired through foreclosure. Actually, CAR has released two forms — the second specifies “REO Advisory (Listing)” — but the two are identical as to their contents.

Here is the original:
New Form Points Out What’s Required, What Isn’t In Foreclosure Properties

According to a statement by an executive vice president at Global Insight, one-quarter of homes for sale by December 2008 could be bank-owned. Foreclosures depress any market and in a decreasing market, an increasing number of home sales are short.

Originally posted here:
Realty Viewpoint: How To Make The Short Sale

Charles was confused he was trying to buy a four-plex, but just did not understand the real estate jargon.

Credit:
Trust Deeds, Mortgages, Contracts, Warranty Deeds: What are They?