Baltimore Raven's Stadium

Ok who loves the Baltimore Ravens?  A show of hands please.  Most that I run across in my area are serious fans (except for my husband who has shed more blood as a result of the Washington Redskins then anyone I know).  But even he was thrilled to go down on the field at Ravens (M &T) Stadium this week.  Very cool experience.  But let me go back to what we were doing there.

We attended a Coldwell Banker Sales Blitz for the top agents for 2010 in the Mid-Atlantic region of Coldwell Banker.  It was held at the Club level of Ravens Stadium. We had informative mini break out sessions on everything from short sales and REO properties, making a great video, to software demonstrations, social media discussions and vendor displays.

This was followed by a trip down through the inner workings of the Raven’s stadium on a massive freight elevator.  I felt like I should run out through the opening to the field like the professional players. (Ugh, note to self, you can’t run you’re in heels and that just won’t work).

The child in all of us came out.  Well in most of us anyway.  We were given mini footballs when we arrived at the sales blitz, and who can resist throwing a football on a professional football field. Also we’re sales agent, can you say photo opp???

I digress.

Soooo  we took some pictures, we all played like kids and had a fun time on a beautiful spring day in Baltimore with our fellow Coldwell Banker agents. All felt right with the world.  It didn’t hurt that I won a little money from a cash drawing that was held….Score!

Probably didn’t take enough pictures, but wanted to share what pictures I did take. FYI – for the record I do like the Ravens.

Coldwell Banker Top Agents

Monica & Kevin McNamara at Raven's Stadium

Bayside 2 bedroom condominium with all the comforts of home. Newer masonry building with out door pool. Interior features to include gas fireplace, luxurious master bath, and other appointments. Conveniently located to shopping and restaurants and within walking distance to the beach.  Offered at: $269,900

This is an article from Realty Times that is just so “right on” with their information, I felt compelled to share it in it’s entirety.

It has long been a motto of real estate, and the saying goes, “location, location, location.” It’s what sells a property, they say. But recent times have brought to light that the real deciding factor on how fast, or even if, your home sells all comes down to price.

It’s not that buyers are attracted by shiny, new things, but in a sense they are. When a home or condominium is newly listed it gathers a lot of interest. The listing agent may send out emails, webcasts, and virtual tours. They launch their entire marketing program. Even the MLS indicates the home as “newly listed.” After a few weeks, however, if no momentum has been built, the property will then face a must steeper challenge on the road to selling.

First, homes that have been on the market a considerable time lose their competitive advantage. A buyer may see a home hasn’t moved, and may come in with a low offer price. Depending on how desperate the seller is, they may feel obligated to take this offer.

Second, no one wants their home to sit on the market. It can interrupt plans to move and to buy. One of the best game plans is to price your home to sell.

This means taking a good, hard look at the area comparables. How much have homes been selling for in your area? How does your home compare in terms of amenities? Your real estate agent can be invaluable when it comes to correctly pricing your home. Sellers judgement can be easily prejudiced by emotional attachment to the home and hopes for certain profits.

If your area is experiencing a strong buyers market, that means you need to be even more competitive. You may need to price your home a little lower than you had hoped for. If you are in a sellers market, you can generally ask for a bit more in the asking price.

One tried a true method a REALTOR will use to snowball interest in a home is to actually underprice it. If your home is in a desirable location and you undercut the competition, you may find yourself fielding multiple offers. How does that work?

A group of buyers are all looking for a home in your lovely neighborhood. Comparable homes to your are priced around $250,000. So, you price your home at $220,000. Buyers jump at the chance to get such a bargain deal …. buyers being the operative word. This can create a bidding war between buyers who have fallen in love with your property. In many cases, the final sale price ends up being more than you would have gotten had you listed at a higher initial price.

Have your upgrades priced you out of the competition? Renovating your home with upgraded fixtures and granite counters can be very appealing. But if homes in your neighborhood are basic models with Formica counters and fewer fancy upgrades, you may have a hard time finding a buyer who will shell out more. This is one way location is very important. You must make sure you’re aren’t overpriced for your location. Depending on your area, you may have to eat the costs of some of your previous upgrades in order to get a sale.

And finally, are you being greedy? Sometimes people have a magic number in their head of the profit they’d like to make by selling their house. They already have that money spent on the upgrades and toys they’ll buy for their next home. But selling is a time to be realistic.

Rely on your real estate agent to guide you in pricing your home. And good luck selling!

THANKS TO  Carla Hill of REALTY TIMES “From The Market To The Street”

Don’t foreclose! Do a short sale

Short sales are the hottest thing going in the distressed-property market, and the trend is expected to get even hotter in coming weeks, when the government starts handing out cash to encourage lenders to close these deals.

“Banks have ramped up short sale approvals,” said Duane Legate of House Buyer Network, which connects short sellers with buyers. “They’re hiring a lot of the people who once worked in the mortgage-lending industry and moved them over to short sales.”

These transactions, where lenders allow homeowners to sell their houses for less than they owe, accounted for 17% of all residential real estate sales in February, up from nearly 13% in November, according to a monthly real estate market survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.

And Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the country’s largest mortgage servicer, has more than doubled the number of short sales it processed in recent months.

Elizabeth Weintraub, a Sacramento, Calif.-area real estate agent who handles many short sales, was amazed at how quickly a recent deal went through. “Bank of America approved it in 24 days,” she said. “That flipped me out.”

This is a huge change from even just six months ago when the short-sale market was stalled and most people would describe the process has real estate hell. Because lenders stand to lose so much on these transactions, they have been reluctant to make short sales happen, often waiting months before getting back to potential buyers.

Beware: You lost your house but still have to pay….
“In the past, many short sales would never come to fruition and the ones that did averaged over half a year to complete,” said Chris Saitta, CEO of Equator, which produces short sale software.

“Things would just fall into a black hole and not come out again,” added Weintraub.

And even when banks did agree to the sale, the process could be further complicated if the original owner had a second mortgage.

In most cases, the first lender is repaid in full before any money flows to a second-lein holder. And because most distressed borrowers are severely underwater, there’s usually nothing left to send on. As a result, second-lein holders are left holding the bag and have been killing many deals.

But that has been changing. For one thing, banks realize that they make out far better financially with a short sale than a foreclosure. “The lenders lose 50% on a foreclosure and only 30% on a short sale,” said Glenn Kelman, founder of the real estate Web site Redfin. “And short sales offer a way to get distressed properties off their books quickly.”

And on April 5, lenders and mortgage investors will have even more incentives to offer troubled borrowers short sales instead of foreclosing.

Under the new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, borrowers will earn a $3,000 “relocation incentive” and servicers will get $1,500 for handling a short sale.

The investors who actually own the mortgage notes will get $2,000 in exchange for sharing proceeds of the short sales with any second-lien holders. And, finally, those second lien holders will receive up to $6,000 for releasing their claims.

Lenders participating in the program must also determine the market values of properties early on and inform the owners of just what price they’re willing to accept. Then, if owners come back to the lenders with bonafide offers, they have to be accepted within 10 days.

Equator’s Saiita anticipates a short sale explosion in response to the new program. “The challenge will be handling all the volume,” he said.

The company has already tweaked its software, which 58 servicers use, to handle the new HAFA rules. And that should help reduce the time it takes to execute a sale, which currently averages 88 days.

The boom in short sales may accelerate the end to the foreclosure crisis by cleaning out the overhang of borrowers in distress and replacing them with more stable homeowners.

Plus, these sales are better for distressed borrowers because their credit scores suffer less. Going through a foreclosure can knock 200 points off a FICO score, twice as much as the penalty for a short sale.

Re-Print of Article from CNN Money.com

It doesn’t mean doing whatever it takes to get a deal done.

It doesn’t mean undermining the very fundamentals of our profession just to line your own personal bank account.

It doesn’t mean trying to sell real estate outside of your area of expertise.

It doesn’t mean delivering poor customer service, but promising the sun, the moon and the stars to unsuspecting buyers and sellers.

I’ve been on this soapbox for a while.

My very first blog post addressed this issue.

Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of conversation surrounding our real estate community’s absolute need for change within our industry. As it stands now, most states require a bare minimum pre-licensing class, take a State administered test, and you have a real estate license. Oh, by the way newly minted real estate agent, congratulations, you are now qualified to help home buyer’s and sellers make decisions regarding possibly the single largest investment in their lives.

What other business can you start with no inventory, no operating capital (besides minimal dues), and only a 40/60 hr (whatever your state requires) time commitment? You pass a test you’re now a bona fide real estate professional. Sounds pretty bad huh… I think it is.

Here’s some of the changes that I think need to occur:

First and foremost have higher admission standards. Require a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree to qualify for a license. You could take classes working towards your real estate license while attending college, or if you already have a degree, and now want to obtain your real estate license, we should then have in place higher pre-licensing requirements. Let’s mandate that those choosing to enter our career (and I call it a career) make a real commitment to learning and understanding the field they are entering. Also, for those that are already in the business, we need to increase the continuing education requirements in order to keep your license.

Getting a real estate license should not happen by default. In too many instances that is the case. In my market, for example, there are many licensees who have retired or left other jobs, re-located, and then decide they’ll “sell a little real estate” part time for a little extra cash. Isn’t that scary? When that individual brings me an offer on one of my listings, I cringe. Inevitably, they are at best, ill prepared, and have presented an improperly executed offer to purchase. I find myself doing their job, because they are clueless. This person is not best representing their customer or client, and furthermore, these kinds of stories continue to feed the public perception of our industry.

I’ll go on. Once you have met the educational requirements and earned a license, there now needs to be supervision of this person who has just been turned loose as an agent. State mandated programs, administrated by the Broker of Record would be appropriate. A Broker must have a pre-approved instructional program in place to educate this new licensee. There is so much more to selling real estate that is not covered in our current day pre-licensing courses.

Let’s talk specialization and different levels of qualifications. We must train in specific areas; i.e – foreclosures, short sales, commercial real estate, 2nd home ownership, investment properties, farm properties, condominiums, industrial properties, leaseholds, etc. etc. We don’t want a licensee who is not qualified, to be able to list, sell and/or lease any type of property they want. There should be a system in place to have mandatory educational requirements in order to work, and represent yourself as a “specialist” in a given area of expertise. Yes, I know there are GRI, CRS, CCIM and so on. But we are not required to have these designations to sell or lease properties within these different speciality markets.

Ok, enough, you get my point. With the ever changing economic climate, and the uncertainty of our housing market, we have to enact stronger guidelines. We need highly trained real estate professionals, who can offer sound advice and guidance to home buyers and sellers. We have to position and empower our National, State and Local Boards, as well as the Departments of Licensing Regulation in order to “Raise The Bar” in our industry.

We need to deliver truly AMAZING service in order to thrive and survive!

An Agreement of Sale to purchase real estate is a legal document and should be reviewed very carefully by all parties to the transaction. A buyer or seller that is unclear or does not understand all aspects of the Agreement, should most certainly speak with their REALTOR for clarification and explanations, and consult an attorney if they choose to do so for further review.  Real estate agents are not attorneys, but they can point out to their customer/client the areas on the contract that require the initials and/or signatures of those involved in the transaction, and give them information regarding the many forms and addenda that must accompany a typical real estate purchase.

As a practicing residential real estate agent, I cannot stress enough the importance of having a properly executed Agreement. It may seem tedious to a buyer or seller to initial and/or sign on so any pages.  But it is very important to have an enforceable agreement.

Navigating what feels like a quagmire of a 40 – 50 page document can seem like an overwhelming task (and most of those pages require an initial and/or signature).  Ask for help, get clarification and understand what you are signing.  Attention to detail is a must!