Tips to make your real estate buying experience a smooth one
According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure activity in South Florida will continue at high levels through 2010 and there will be a glut of inventory through 2013.
In the current market, 60% of active buyers interested in distressed propertys and 40-50% of sales involve a foreclosure or shortsale.
I read a blog today that seems to defy the thought that Fall is not a great time to list your home for sale. Conventional wisdom says that once a new school year starts, the sale of single family homes slows significantly. Students are settled into school, parents into their work schedules, and holidays are right around the corner. As such, most sellers wait until Spring to list their homes for sale.
Since the time a house sits on the market affects its sale, timing the market right is extremely important and is probably second only to price. The fact that inventories decrease in the Fall and Winter, is one of the reasons the KCM blog recommends listing your home now. It also suggests that buyers are more serious now and, that with interest rates at historic lows, more motivated.
What do you think? Would you be more likely to sell or buy in the Fall or late Spring/early Summer?
I received a list of comparables from an agent that was making an offer on one of my commercial listings. The comps resulted in a significantly lower price than what the sellers were looking for and my knowledge of the market told me something was wrong with his research. I went through the table he had prepared and compared his square footage to the square footage in the tax rolls and realized that the program that he was using did not always have the same square footage as that in the tax rolls. Since the discrepancy between the square footage of the subject property between one program and the tax rolls was almost 12,000 square feet, I recalculated the average price per square foot, which he was using to come up with his price, based on the tax rolls. The average was $30 per square foot higher than the one he had used, which resulted in a $400,000 difference in price in the sellers favor.
Now the tax rolls don’t always have the correct square footage, but if square footage is being used to arrive at a price, make sure all of the square footages come from the same source. If he had used his original average price per square foot but multiplied it by the subject property’s square footage from the program that had the higher square footage, the price difference would have been $700,000 in the seller’s favor. That is why it is important to compare apples to apples.
There are currently 36 short sales, single family homes, listed on the MLS in Coral Gables. They range in price from $3.95 million to $250,000
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The recent decision by some banks to freeze their foreclosure process while they investigate their procedures for handling foreclosures has a mixed effect on South Florida’s real estate market. While it may be a good thing for distressed owners who really want to keep their homes, it is probably not a great thing for current buyers and the overall real estate market. The reality of too many homeowners who bought at the height of the market, owners who are currently underwater, unemployed, or simply bought way more house than they could afford when banks were in a lending frenzy, means the majority of homes in foreclosure now probably will still be there at the end of the investigation. Yes, there are stories of homes foreclosed improperly, including that of an owner who had paid cash on the house, and many of the banks and their foreclosure attorneys have become mills that may have filed paperwork incorrectly or downright fraudulently (this is the fraud capital of the United States, unfortunately). These procedures should be investigated, stopped and punished. In the meantime, buyers who are currently under contract are in limbo and the real estate market, which has been slogging through high inventories, may slow since approximately 40% of the home sales in South Florida are made up of bank-owned properties.
The new “AS IS” contract has changed to clarify areas that were vague in the previous contract. These clarifications include, but are not limited to:
Overall, these changes help both the Buyer and Seller by setting the expectations for each party. Let me know if you would like a copy of the new “AS-IS” contract. For clarification of the contract and legal opinions, please contact your attorney.
The new “AS IS” contract has changed to clarify areas that were vague in the previous contract. These clarifications include, but are not limited to:
Overall, these changes help both the Buyer and Seller by setting the expectations for each party. Let me know if you would like a copy of the new “AS-IS” contract. For clarification of the contract and legal opinions, please contact your attorney.
Just heading back from Charlotte, North Carolina, where the real estate market is still really slow. This 1993-built, 1472 square foot, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath, pool home in a neighborhood close to an amusement park, shopping and downtown is being offered at $164,900, which is less than the the median home price in Miami-Dade, ($182,900 in August, 2010). Although the pricing is lower than our median price, they have had very few showings since it was listed. For the most part, single family houses in Miami-Dade under $300,000 are selling fast and with multiple offers. There are currently only 74 active listings in Miami-Dade on the MLS that were built in 1993 or later, with 3 bedrooms 2.5 baths, under $200,000.
Now is the time to buy a home, really. If you don’t believe me, read who is saying that buying a home now is a smart move.