Hmm.. So Many Listings To Choose From … Where Can I Get The Best Deal On A New Home?

Most buyers in today’s market are looking for more home for the money.  These home buyers, many first-time home buyers, are looking to stretch their budgets to get the largest homes with the most features .. Oh yeah, and for a significantly reduced price!!

Many agents are coming to us and asking if short sales are best deals for their buyers.  We tell hundreds of Realtors that they must work extra hard when dealing with short sale properties.  Educating buyers on the restrictions and time-frame for negotiating are just a few of the many factors involved with buying preforeclosures (another name for short sales).

Some factors to consider when working with short sales:

1. Offers must be directly submitted to banks or lending institutions
2. It may take up to a month to hear back from the bank on an offer, so tell your buyers that patience is a virtue when it comes to preforeclosures.
3.  Most of the time, banks will not give seller contributions to buyer’s closing costs.
4. Notify your buyers that banks sell all of their real estate listings in “As-Is” condition.  Any repairs will most likely have to be fixed by the buyers.
5. Make sure to check to see if there are any other liens or second mortgages on the property of interest which will have to be removed from title before closing.
6. Finally, most banks will cut Realtor commissions down to 2.5 or 2.0%

As a Realtor, you must understand that short sales are very tedious and sometimes extremely frustrating.  Make sure you educate your buyers and let them fully understand the process of purchasing short sale properties as oppose to buying a conventional home sold by the actual owner that lives in the home.  I suggest that novice Realtors learn from seasoned short sale specialists if they are looking to get their feet wet in the short sale real estate business.  Other agents may want to focus their marketing efforts to conventional sellers’ properties where the deal will go more smoothly, and perhaps your buyers will get even a better deal in the long run at closing!

Many Realtors are asking me what to do when their listings aren’t selling.  Should they encourage their sellers to make modifications to the home? Reduce the price?  Offer incentives such as closing cost contributions?

With a plethora of homes on the market, each seller is faced with at least 5 similar homes in their neighborhood competing against one another.  After 30 days or so on the market, sellers start getting panicky wondering if they will sell their home and start asking where are all of the buyers?

Truth be told that the first 30-45 days when a house is first listed on the market will generate the most showings and interest from perspective home buyers.  Before a home is listed for sale, real estate professionals must be honest with their sellers and get them to price their properties at or below market value.  The market will ALWAYS find the home if it is priced correctly!  Remember to tell this to your sellers!

Another important factor for a successful sale is staging.  Realtors should walk into their sellers’ homes as if they were a buyer and point out the imperfections in order to declutter and rearrange furniture.  Tell your sellers that if they decided to sell their automobile, wouldn’t they get it waxed and vacuumed?  Also, home staging can be very affordable, usually costing a few hundred dollars or less.  As a result, pricing and properly staging a home will generate more action from potential home buyers and ultimately put a sold sign in the front yard, while the competition stays stagnant on the market.

Remember, pricing is the MOST important factor in a home selling in the first few months or staying on the market for 6 months to over 1 year. Ouch!  By putting thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in updates may not ultimately get your home sold for top market dollar.  What if your sellers’ taste in updates are not the same as the potential buyer, and all of the hard work and financial contribution goes unfulfilled?  Fact is that buyers have their own particular tastes and may not see your upgrades as a reason to purchase the home for a higher price!

Many perspective buyers are walking into pre-construction homebuilder’s offices without the assistance of Realtors.

Just last week, a couple called me requesting my real estate services. They told me that they were interested in a pre-construction home in a West Palm Beach subdivision, which the builder’s name I will remain private. They told me that they loved the complex, but that their prices were just a little out of their budget.

After speaking with the couple, I immediately got on my computer and looked up if there were any resales in the community of homes already finished being built on my Multiple Listing Service. Not surprisingly, I found over thirty active listings on the market with three pre-foreclosure listings as well.

The next day, I asked my clients to allow me to accompany them back to the sales center. This time, I requested the sales representative advise us on home many unsold builder inventory units were available. There were over 50 unsold spec-homes that had already been built and were sitting on the market collecting dust. I then asked to speak to the sales manager, who I advised of the more than thirty units currently on the resale market.

The original price that the builder was offering my clients before I showed up with them again at the sales center was $307,000. After my assistance and proper persuasion to the builder, my clients were able to purchase the property that they fell in love with the day before for a reduced price of $22,00 at: $285,000 with my 3% commission!

At first, these clients were opposed to using an agent thinking that they could save money on final price. But, these homebuyers, as well as other persepctive buyers, never knew that there were so many active resale listings in the same community or to know how to properly persuade the developer with stunning facts about the community!

Who says that you do not need an agent when purchasing a pre-construction property?

Inman News just concluded their Real Estate Connect Conference in New
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the leading real estate companies including Century 21, Coldwell Banker, and
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Understand that blogging and implementing new technology into real estate
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bandwagon.

Power Broker Seminars will continue to provide the most cutting edge
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from top-producing real estate professionals across the country.