Agents Heaven - Real Estate Blog

VIDEO: Borat Shows You How To Shop For Real Estate In U.S. and A.

In your efforts to find that perfect home for you and your family, have you ever stopped and asked yourself “what would Borat do?” No? Well, too bad I’m going to show you how he shops for a new home anyway!

(A slight “content warning”… not bad though. PG-PG13 at worst I’d say.)

Tags: home buying, funny, real estate shopping, borat, sacha cohen, sacha baron cohen, funny real estate

Can’t Get Rid of That Home? Try These Tried & True Home Selling Methods in This Buyer’s Market

As the current mortgage situation weighs on the overall outlook for the real estate market, it’s tough to say “it’s a buyer’s market”, as many people are concerned we’re not even close to the bottom yet, and things will get much worse before they get better. Others disagree.

The trouble is, it’s tough to know who’s right. Many of the “experts” are bloggers who’s existence depends on negative developments in the real estate market (evident by their very blog names), so can you really trust them? We’ve heard “experts” say that the “real estate bubble” was about to burst for years, and it never happened. Even now, we’re still in slowdown rather than a crash. Could it crash? Possibly, but we aren’t there yet. We still occasionally see positive numbers pop up in months where negatives were predicted, indicating a softer blow than some seem to be almost hoping for.

Home prices have definitely fallen, and seem set to fall further for some time. Some call it a buyer’s market, others call it the calm before the storm. Either way, the ball is certainly not in the court of the seller at this point, especially with the existing homes on the market piling up. If buyer’s have good credit and can get a loan, one could argue that they’ve got their pick of the litter.

Because of this, BankRate.com offers all you sellers some tips on moving that real estate. It should come as no secret that this one is becoming more common, and almost expected as buyers get more and more picky:

• Closing costs: What buyer wouldn’t welcome some help with those teeth-gritting closing costs (legal, title, filing fees, etc.) that, according to a Freddy Mac estimate, typically run between 2 percent to 7 percent of the loan amount?

Do read the rest, but that one is far and away a buyer favorite incentive.

Tags: buyer incentives, realtor incentives, selling my home, selling your home, buyer’s market, FSBO, real estate incentives, selling real estate, real estate for sale, selling homes, homes for sale

Real Estate Buying & Selling Tips Galore

Cruising around the web today I ran across two sites offering you tips on various aspects of buying and selling real estate.

A blog entitled Oppertunity Land (not my spelling!) has a posted a list of excellent tips for home buyers. An interesting read, and the author promises to add to the list in the future. You should definitely check out all the tips offered, which you would use throughout the buying process, but the first one stands out to me, as it’s something I find myself telling people all of the time:

1) Know Your Budget Sounds obvious but there are buyers out there today who have no idea how much it is likely to cost them to buy a home, or what they can afford. Work out what you have coming in, and what you can afford to spend each month including all the household bills.

Seriously, it’s disturbing how many people simply don’t get what they can and can’t afford, and that’s exactly why we’re facing the current mortgage crisis. Whether it’s a home or supersizing your fast food - 1. Do you need it? 2. Can you really afford it? A Big Mac might not sound like much, but it adds up… no self made rich person will tell you they got their with stupid spending habits.

The bottom line is that people need to take responsibility and ask themselves “can I afford this?”, and when you screw up, don’t ask the government to bail you out… because now you’re hurting the rest of us! If you find yourself in trouble, you’d be better off checking out these tips on avoiding foreclosure.

The OC Coastal Real Estate Blog is also offering up a list of 10 tips relating to real estate buying, selling, and investing. It appears they had some formatting issues, as the post isn’t broken down in to paragraphs, but it’s worth a read because there are a few nuggets you could take away from it.

Tags: first time home buyer, home for sale tips, home buyer tips, home buying tips, real estate tips, home selling tips, first time home buyer tips

Buyer’s Market = Time To Buy That Vacation Home? Forbes.com Tells You Where to Buy.

There are more existing homes sitting on the market than ever, and with home prices likely to dip significantly, it may be just the type of buyers market you’ve been waiting for, before you seriously considered vacation home shopping.

I’ll let Forbes.com fill you in on all the technicals, as they’ve done the leg work on determining the Best Place To Buy A Vacation Home.  If you find statistics and appreciation values boring, HouseHunting 101 links you directly to the lists of the best places to buy vacation homes in each region of the country, in the Forbes.com famous “In Pictures” sections.

Of course if you aren’t filthy rich, that information may not serve as much more than entertainment.  However, a blogger at Move.com noticed a link buried in the middle of the Forbes.com piece that points to something more useful to the rest of us:  In Pictures: 10 Undervalued Vacation-Home Spots.

If you’ve got the resources and the credit, there may never be a better time than now to buy that vacation home you’ve always wanted.

Tags: buy vacation home, home prices, buy real estate, cheap real estate, lower home prices, second home, vacation real estate, buyer’s market, vacation homes, vacation property, buyers’ market

WSJ: 5 Homes You Could Never Afford

A few days ago the Wall Street Journal posted an article on 5 homes currently hoping to beat the current record home sale price of $103 million. Read all about these homes
that you’ll never… EVER be able to afford, in an article that’s written like a playoff season sports article, handicapping the tournament.

5 Homes enter, 1 home……… sells for a few million more than the rest.

h/t Luxury Clues

Tags: million dollar real estate, expensive homes, espensive real estate, overpriced homes, donald trump, overpriced real estate

Think Real Estate is Expensive In Your City? Think Again!

It’s no secret that home prices have surged over the past few years, particularly in the already price Northeastern United States and the West Coast. It’s sad when you live in one of these areas, and see that you could have 2 or 3 times the house for the same price in the south or midwest…

But quit your crying, it could be worse! Forbes has just published a list of the World’s Most Overpriced Real Estate Markets. Here’s a taste:

Monaco’s housing market earned a P/E ratio of 74.07. What’s more, the well-earned moniker of “tax haven” apparently doesn’t apply to transaction costs, which rack up to a 20% premium when buying and selling a property.

Rome landed at No. 2 with a P/E of 50.51; it’s a slow growth market, which remains very expensive. Representing North America in the world’s top 10 were Los Angeles (5th place at 26.88) and Vancouver (6th at 26.81).

Who cares about cities outside the US you say? Well, Forbes supplied a list of America’s Most Overpriced Real Estate Markets as well.

Take San Diego. A slumping housing market, where only 5% of residents can afford the median home, and a high price-to-earnings ratio made the oceanfront city our most overpriced real estate market. Had weather been included as a statistical measurement, there’s no doubt San Diego would have avoided our list of top 10 most overpriced cities–but we didn’t factor in sunshine.

We incorporated a second metric: an affordability index. Calculated from National Home Builder Association and Wells Fargo (nyse: WFC - news - people ) data, the affordability score is the percent of the population who can afford to buy the median-priced home, assuming a 6% mortgage rate. In a city like Los Angeles, No. 4 on the list, a wee 2% of homes are affordable for residents pulling down a median income.

(emphasis mine)

Read on and thank God, your lucky stars, or whoever it is you thank, that you aren’t crying yourself to sleep in your checkbook every night like the folks in these cities.

Tags: unaffordable homes, home prices, real estate prices, affordable homes, affordable real estate, expensive real estate, unaffordable real estate, expensive homes

July New Home Sales Rise as Real Estate Market Continues to be a Mixed Bag

The media would often have us believe that the current mortgage crisis has us on the verge of some massive economic collapse, yet we continue to see strength in the economy and surprising numbers in certain sectors of the real estate market.

The mortgage situation isn’t something to ignore, but we heard the cries of “real estate bubble about to burst!” while in reality it put up record numbers. We still hear those cries today, but it’s tough to take the alarmism seriously given the history. All we’ve seen thus far is a relatively moderate slowdown - a deflation rather than a pop - and it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Shouldn’t anything putting up record numbers year after year eventually slow down?

Most of the problems we’re experiencing are related to mortgage loans taken by people who couldn’t afford to pay them. This isn’t to say they can’t impact us, but it’s important to put the current problem in context.

All that said, the real estate picture continues to be a mixed bag. Every month or so the analysts are “shocked” by positive numbers put up in the housing sector. They certainly don’t put the legitimate concerns to bed, but they do deal a blow to the chicken littles out there.

Today we learn that “new-home sales” rose a significant amount in July. Again, it’s not the rosiest all around picture, but it certainly should calm the nerves of folks who continue to brace for the worst… as they’ve been told to do for years:

Sales of new homes perked up, while factory orders took off in July, raising hopes that the economy can safely weather financial turmoil that has shaken Wall Street.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales rose 2.8 percent in July, after falling 4 percent in June. The increase in July lifted sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000 units. A second report showed that orders to factories for big-ticket goods jumped 5.9 percent in July, the most in 10 months.

Of course, the surge was localized:

By region of the country, the improvement in sales in July reflected gains in the West and the South, where sales went up by 22.4 percent and 0.6 percent respectively. Sales, however, tumbled 24.3 percent in the Northeast and were down 0.9 percent in the Midwest.

And again, it’s not all good news:

Even with the overall increase in home sales for July, sales are down a deep 10.2 percent from a year ago, underscoring the toll of the housing slump.

But it’s important to keep in mind that no bubble has been “popped”, and we continue a slowdown that has (so far) been pretty manageable. Before the chicken littles get you too spooked over the mortgage crisis’ implications, consider this: Who would have thought we’d not survive steady $3 per gallon gas prices, but have a booming economy in the face of it?

Tags: real estate sale, real estate market, new home sales, home sales, new real estate, house sale, home buying, real estate slowdown, new real estate sales, housing, home buyers

Must Read Tips: 4 Ways To Avoid Foreclosure

While I’d like to focus this blog more on the positive and on purchasing and selling homes, I can’t ignore the F-word… FORECLOSURE! Now, there’s a lot of chicken little “the sky is falling” noise going on in the media over the mortgage/foreclosure situation that continues to slow down the previously surging real estate market, but the one thing to remember is that in most cases these foreclosures could have been avoided, and the root of the problem was too many folks buying something they couldn’t afford, often with adjustable rate mortgages.

You may or may not be one of those people who jumped in with their feet (and empty wallet) first, but if you are concerned about home foreclosure (however you got to this point), David Faulker offers some priceless advice on ways to avoid foreclosing on your property. Yes, though it’s not easy, it is possible to avoid the benefits to your credit and the rest of your life going forward are immeasurable.

4 Ways To Avoid Foreclosure by David FaulknerAny one of us can hit the financial wall at any time, and without warning. But even if the loss of a job or unforeseen medical bills or other emergency have exhausted your financial resources, those to whom you owe money, including your mortgage holder, still expect to receive their scheduled payments.

If you have failed to pay your monthly mortgage payment for long enough, your bank or lender may have presented you with a notice of foreclosure. But if you know you are going to have difficulty meeting your mortgage payments, there are some steps you can take to try and avoid foreclosure.

Special Forbearance

If you know your financial shortfall is only short-term, speak to your lender about having your monthly mortgage payments lowered until you are back on your feet. If you can provide sufficient evidence that in a reasonable amount of time you will be able to resume your regular schedule of payment, your lender may allow you to a void foreclosure by catching up on the amount you have missed. This process is called Special Forbearance.

Use Your Equity To Refinance

If you’ve lived in your home and made enough mortgage payments to have built up a sizable amount of equity, which is the amount of money for which your home has been appraised minus the balance you have remaining on your mortgage, you may be able to refinance your mortgage. You can get the cash equivalent of your home equity, use it to avoid foreclosure by paying off your existing mortgage, and perhaps even negotiate lower interest rates and lower monthly payments on your new loan.

Look For A Loan

If you haven’t lived in your home long enough to build any appreciable equity, and your credit rating has not been lowered because of missed home payments, you may be able to avoid foreclosure by borrowing the money to pay off your default. You can look for a conventional lender, or perhaps get help from family or friends. But if you are going to get help from a conventional lender to avoid foreclosure, you should do it at the first sign that you will have difficulty meeting your mortgage payments, so that your credit record remains intact.

Sell Your Home Yourself

If all else fails, you avoid foreclosure by beating your mortgage holder to the punch by selling your home before it goes into full foreclosure. While you will have to give up you home, and may not realize any cash from the sale, you will have managed to avoid foreclosure, saved your credit rating, and can look for a mortgage on a new home with a price within your budget. As long as you make your payments on your new home as scheduled, you need never fear the stigma of foreclosure and you should have a solid financial future.

You can also find more info on auction foreclosure and real estate investors. Foreclosureshomeguide.com is a comprehensive resource to get help about property Foreclosures.

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Tags: foreclosure, the sky is falling, foreclosure crisis, real estate foreclosure, home foreclosure, mortgages, mortgage foreclosure, mortgage crisis, foreclosed homes, foreclosed, foreclosing

Attention First Time Home Buyers - Choose A Realtor Wisely

Veteran Nashville real estate broker Pam Rumley has written an excellent article on what to look for in a Realtor, and I highly recommend first time home buyers or otherwise inexperienced home buyers give it a read, as choosing a Realtor is one of the most important decisions a person makes and it’s easy to overlook many of the considerations Pam talks about. Even experienced home buyers could benefit from Pam’s advice, because many of her points are things you wouldn’t necessarily think to consider before settling on a Realtor.

Realtors - How to Find the Right One for You
By Pam Rumley

Why is it important to find the right Realtor? Because this person is going to be representing you in one of the most important transactions in your lifetime. Unless you have a huge portfolio, a home purchase will involve more money than you normally deal with. Treat this transaction with the consideration it deserves and don’t leave anything to chance!

It’s critical that you take the time to interview several different agents before making a choice. The worst thing you can possibly do is to find a home that you like…and then call the Realtor who has their name and number on the yard sign! In the first place, this Realtor is representing the seller of that property…and you should have your own representation. Secondly, you don’t know this agent’s personality or work ethic. You don’t know the scope of services they offer…or their background.

Before you start looking for a home, it’s vital that you talk to different agents until you find one that is a good match for your personality. Find answers to these questions:

• What services do they offer to homebuyers? Do they offer total representation, or has their broker “designated” them to work with you? Will they be available to “preview” homes for you in case you can’t be there?
• What is their experience level? The search for your new home is a journey, sometimes encountering problems that you don’t anticipate. An experienced agent has likely run across more issues than an inexperienced agent…and can head-off many problems before they take root and grow.
• Does this person smoke (or have a problem with people who do)? This can quickly become a problem because you’re likely to be spending a lot of time with them. And even if they don’t smoke in the car, the smell might bother you. Or vice versa. If you smoke, it might be a bother to them. And don’t forget a problem just as bad…perfume! Many people are allergic to perfume…and can’t stand the odor. These are odd questions, but I see them come up more often than you would think!
• Do you get the feeling that this person is “pushy”? Or just trying to make a sale? If the Realtor seems pushy to you, you might wonder if they are pushy to others. Will they possibly antagonize the sellers or their agents in an attempt to negotiate for you? You will surely want a strong negotiator, but there is a fine line between effective negotiation and causing negative feelings with people involved in the other side of the transaction. When sellers feel pushed or insulted, most negotiation stops right then and there!
• Does this agent have strong political or religious views that you don’t agree with? Often, when spending several hours at a time in the car…these issues can come up and cause a conflict between the agent and their clients. I’ve had more than one person call me and say that they’re looking for a new agent because they are being “preached to”. And, it can be very offensive behavior.

These are just a few ideas to think about. Your relationship with a Realtor is often short-term, but can be very volatile. Even in the best of circumstances, pressures can build because there are so many chances for problems to arise. Finding the home…negotiating with the sellers and their agent…applying for a mortgage…working with a home inspector…termite letters…title searches…the list can go on and on. And problems often arise…and the way they are handled can make all the difference in whether you have a smooth or rough transaction.

You might want to ask the agent how they would handle a particular problem. Get a feel for the way this person answers the question. Are they giving you an open, honest answer or do you sense a “bristling” in their answer.

Establish the way you prefer to communicate. Do you want phone calls? And if so, what time of day is better for you? Or, would you prefer e-mails? Always make sure you understand each other.

Finding someone that you can trust and feel comfortable with does take some effort, but the resulting smooth transaction will be well worth that effort.

Pam Rumley is a veteran real estate broker in the Nashville, TN area. She is a true Exclusive Buyer’s Agent, which means that her office never takes listings. This fact assures that there is never a conflict of interest regarding your real estate transaction. You can be assured of receiving 100% of her attention and loyalty - 100% of the time!

For more information, visit her comprehensive website http://www.NashvilleRealEstateAuthority.com
Be sure to check out her “Real Estate University” section, where you will find more informative articles on a variety of topics concerning homebuying.

Pam is easily reached at pam@pamrumley - so be sure to check in with her.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pam_Rumley
http://EzineArticles.com/?Realtors—How-to-Find-the-Right-One-for-You&id=558461

Tags: find an agent, real estate search, real estate agent, realtor search, realtor, find a realtor, real estate market, real estate shopper, find real estate, find a real estate agent, real estate

Healthy Northern Virginia Real Estate Market Bucks National Trend

There’s been a lot of doom and gloom in the media over the nation’s current real estate situation, but rarely do you ever hear about those areas of the country who’s real estate markets are telling another story.

Northern Virginia is one of the areas who’s real estate market continues to thrive:

While the real estate market across the national capital region is mixed, according to housing sales and price data released Wednesday, new numbers from a local real estate trade association show the market in Northern Virginia is strong.

Average home prices in Northern Virginia have increased by 3 percent to $554,274, while the number of home sales inched higher by 0.1 percent from July 2006, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.

The AVERAGE home price is over half a mil? Ouch! But it could be worse.

If you can afford it, Virginia is arguably one of the best places you could choose to live on the east coast. You’ve got mild winters, hot summers (but not insanely hot), and a pretty good all around quality of life. I guess the only important thing to remember is MAKE SURE YOU CAN AFFORD IT…. or else you could wind up looking like this guy:

Tags: virginia real estate market, northern virginia real estate, northern va real estate, n virginia real estate, va real estate, virginia real estate, virginia home listing, va home listing