Dean Graziosi Real Estate Blog

Putting your house up for sale requires a great deal of time and money, both of which can take an emotional and financial toll. That’s why it’s so important to get all the facts before you decide to sell your home.  And the first question  you need to answer is: Will I hire a real estate agent?

Reasons in Favor of Hiring an Agent

1. A real estate agent is a trained, certified professional with the necessary experience and expertise to sell homes and properties in your area.
2. Agents tend to be more objective and detached from your personal point of view, and will work hard to sell your home since it is how they make e their commission.
3. Real estate agents will help you establish a reasonable price for your home, based on their knowledge and training.
4. You do not always need to be present in order for your agent to show your home to prospective buyers.  Your agent can absorb some of the responsibilities that tend to get in the way of the things you need to be doing as a buyer and a seller.

Cautions When Hiring an Agent

1. Make sure you are hiring someone with enough experience, who is connected to the community in which you are both selling and buying a home.
2. Choose an agent who charges a reasonable commissions by comparing the commissions of other local agents. You could spend more money than necessary on an unreasonably high commission.
3. As the seller, be aware of the pricing and value of your home.  Make sure your agent has not priced your home too low simply to make the sale.  The price should be in your best interest and should be comparable to the listing prices of other similar homes in your area.
4. Sometimes, your agent may arrange showings for your home at short notice which may prove difficult for your busy schedule.  Good communication is key.  Let your agent know your expectations upfront and communicate any dissatisfactions with him/her immediately.

The  bottom line:  While many people decide to sell their homes themselves, the decision to hire an agent is a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Diligently research your local market, get recommendations and referrals from friends and family, and interview a few real estate agents that seem like they might be a good fit for your needs.  And most of all, take the time and do the work needed to make the most informed decision possible for yourself and your family.

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You’ve figured it all out: You want three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and hardwood floors throughout.  Central air is a must.  Gas heat is negotiable.  While a garage is essential, you prefer a two-car but can settle for a single bay, as long as the plumbing and electric are new and the foundation is sound.  And you want it all on at least two acres in a low-traffic neighborhood perfect for raising children.

Now you’re ready to start looking for your new home!  Right? 

Well, maybe not. 

Unless you’re one of few Americans who can drop a lump sum of money into the seller’s hand, you need to qualify for the loan that is going to help you purchase your future dreams.  And while the financial challenges of purchasing a new home can seem overwhelming, the following steps will prepare you financially. 

You should start this process a year before you plan to buy your first home.

Step 1: Give yourself a little credit

Banks and mortgage lenders want to know two primary things about you before they will give you money: (1) that you are going to pay back the money you borrow from them, and (2) that you are going to pay it back on time.   Therefore, lenders will place great emphasis on your financial history, basing your likelihood of timely repayment on your past willingness and ability to do so.

If you have struggled with prior loan repayment, or have yet to establish any credit references, you should start to develop some.  One relatively easy way to begin to establish credit is to deposit $1,000 in the bank and take out a 12-month, $1,000 loan.  The goal is to pay this loan off 6 months. If you are able to do this at least twice during the year before you apply for a home loan, you will begin to establish a record of paying off your loans on time.

Step 2: Raise your score
Remember: high scores = low interest rates. Both of which you want.  There are some things you can do to raise our credit score NOW in order to get those lower interest rates later.  While paying all your bills on time is critical, it is also essential to pay more than the minimum monthly balances on your credit cards, and to maintain zero (or very low) balances on all your credit cards.  Also, it is possible to negotiate with creditors to have negative items removed from your credit report. 

Step 3: Save for a Down-payment
Again, start saving NOW!  Budgeting is essential, and you can’t begin this process too soon. Always remember that the down payment and closing costs are additional financial obligations beyond the purchase price; by setting aside a certain amount every pay period for at least a year, you can accumulate enough to cover these costs when you are ready to buy.

Finally, remember this:

Start saving now.  Start planning today!

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Selfish mortgage practices and unscrupulous loan officers  have left the state of Florida in real estate hell. Congress has acted upon the publics distress by passing several legislative acts to assist struggling home owners. The most popular being,  President Barack Obama’s much advertised plan available at his websites, http://www.obamahelpforclosures.com, and the home recovery act website, http://www.homercovery.org.

The Impact of Florida’s lending Practices and Foreclosures

The Center for Responsible Lending, available at http://www.responsiblelending.org, an organization committed to protecting home ownership and family wealth, staked Florida’s 2010 foreclosure projections at 1,482,279. Florida’s high foreclosure projections, thankfully, doesn’t spell the end. While, the pan handle state did project almost 1.5 million foreclosures in the state, the number of foreclosure sales is relatively small, reaching only 112,836. Florida’s low foreclosure inventory, when considering its projection rates,  is equally impressive. Only 484,421 homes remained in the states unsold category at the end of 2010’s first quarter.

The state’s total past due mortgages is a million, all by itself. When looking at the numbers presented by Florida, just for the first quarter of 2010, it’s easy to see how they came to their current sky-high foreclosure projections. When the first quarter of 2010 came to a close the state of Florida posted 875,869 past due mortgages. Florida, expectedly, had a major change in foreclosure starts. Using the time frame of the past 4 years, 2006-2010, Florida has had an overall foreclosure increase of 731 percent.

As the result of all these drastically changing factors, the average loss, per home, for the pan handle residential real estate market was $41,271. The total loss of wealth due to Florida’s foreclosures, across the years of 2009-2012, is projected to be a real estate zeppelin, in the $330 billion range.

The Impact of Texas lending Practices and Foreclosures

Texas has done surprisingly well, enduring the burst of the housing bubble. Texas has had a medium rise in foreclosures as compared to the rest of the large states in the country. Between the years of 2006 to 2010, Texas foreclosures have risen 67%. At the end of the first quarter of 2010, Texas had survived 204,464 foreclosure starts. This was quite a feat, just of itself.

Over the same period of time, the state only sold 67,669 of its foreclosed homes, leaving Texas with a inventory of just under 65,000 foreclosed homes. The annual loss per home in Texas, was recorded by the state, as relatively small $3,030. In the end, Texas residential real estate compiled a total loss of $20 billion. As of the last quarter of 2010, Texas is embarrassed by its total of 337,620 past due mortgages. The number of private homes in nearby foreclosure in Nevada, are 6,596,254, an outrageously high number for such a low loss per home.

This shows that the cost of doing real estate, with the right agent,  in Texas can still be worth its weight in housing gold.

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Going through the process of buying a house can be s very stressful experience. Since there are a lot of things to keep in mind, buyers will have the tendency to become overwhelmed. That is why it is advisable for you to create a home buyer’s kit so that you can help your buyers understand the entire home buying procedure. Here are the things that your kit should have:

• Always provide a clear and easy to understand overview of the entire steps that the home buying process requires. This includes the basic timeframes, the financing options for your clients, the procedure of searching and visiting homes, choosing the best house for the family, and so on. The overview should also include a list of all the financial lenders, lawyers, contractors, and other vendors in the area that you recommend.
• Give the buyer an overview as well of your services. They should know how you will manage all the real estate transactions from the very beginning until the end. This should include your contact information, the kind of communication that they will be expecting from you, and a copy of your working agreement.
• Encourage your buyer to put up a list for criteria clarification. They should be able to compare what they need in a home versus what they want to have. Ask them to list all of their need and wants to check the different priorities and then find out which features and benefits are non-negotiable.
• Guide your buyer so that they will have an idea as to how they can search your website as well as the public MLS so that they can find listings. Advise them to search in print medias and mailings as well. However, explain to them clearly that they should contact you immediately once they find something that they like so that you can find out more regarding the property.
• Ask your buyers to bring with them a worksheet that they can fill out so that they can rate different criteria of the homes that they will be visiting. This should include the property exterior, location, interior rooms and so on. In this worksheet, they should be able to take down notes of what they like and don’t like about the property.
• Every time you show homes to your buyers, make sure that you print out details of the property that they will be viewing, as well as a map of where you are headed so that that they will be able to keep track of the day’s itinerary.

By following these steps, you should be able to create a home buyer’s kit for your clients. This should clear up some confusion and they will no longer feel overwhelmed during their home search.

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The United States east coast region, namely the New York, Maine, and New Hampshire real estate markets, have been slowly suffocating under the assault of a worldwide real estate recession.

New York: Owning, Not better Than Renting

The percentage of New York residents who are currently home owners, is an relatively small 48.69 percent. Renters in New York reached 43.20 percent, leaving just below 10 percent of the N.Y.’s properties vacant. The most common type of real estate in New York is the single family detached homes, with 41.65 percent of the real estate falling into that category. Apartment complexes, otherwise known as high rise apartments, are the next best bet for the real estate investor in New York, eating up 32.43 percent of the total real estate owned in New York.

The New York apartment real estate markets are on fire, the high rise apartment properties are a large chunk of available real estate industry. That becomes more apparent, with the next revelation of N.Y.’s real estate numbers. The amount of real estate being consumed by small apartment buildings in the state are nearly half that of  high rise apartments. Mobile homes sales in the state, also,  makes an impact on the real estate markets and economy of New York, small as it may be. The amount of real estate being owned by mobile home owners and sellers rests at  2.7 percent.

The median home value in the state averages out to be just under $323,000. The majority of the rest of the real estate sold in the state of New York, 32.04 percent,  are homes selling in the $219,000+ range. The average rental rate for a New York apartment flies throughout the roof at $1,152.00, per month. After reflecting on these numbers any agent can see that the largest real estate market in New York is, easily, the residential markets.

Maine Real Estate

The state of Maine has been one of the best real estate markets in the country for private homes. Since 1990 the appreciation rate of Maine real estate has risen 5.77 percent, sadly, in the last 12 months it has dropped 2.61 percent. Residential real estate prices in Maine climb all the way from the bottom rung, up to the top shelf. The cost of residential real estate in Maine has followed close to national trends, as said by the Maine Real Estate Information System. The median price of Maine homes have gone up by 2.51 percent over the last 12 months.

New Hampshire real Estate

New Hampshire has been doing a bit better in this respect than New York, but not nearly as strong as Maine. New Hampshire appreciation rates have climbed over the past 10 years , 9,62 percent, but across the last 12 months the residential real estate in New Hampshire has plummeted 4.48 percent, but turned it around during the last quarter, rising 0.16 percent. In 2010, the all important median value of a residential piece of real estate, namely a single family home, lists at just below $260,000. The median income of New Hampshire home owners was $49,467, but per capita the state averages a poultry 23,844, making that high end mortgage payment all that much harder to accomplish.

Most of the Illinois economy is manufacturing based. It manufactures everything from iron and steel, to chemicals and computer hardware. If the industry markets of New Hampshire are crushed by state and national legislations, as many politicians wish to do, then New Hampshire’s real estate industry will crumble as the legislations grow.

The Overview

After researching and reading all the real estate facts for N.Y., Maine, and New Hampshire, the only conclusion that can be reached is, the most commonly bought and sold pieces of real estate on the northern east coast is residential homes and apartments, specifically  three bedroom homes and high rise apartments. For in more information on these states and others go to… http://www.neighborhoodscout.com.

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