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Homes for sale in St. Augustine: I’ve Been on the Market 2 Weeks and No Showings? Is that Normal?

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Join us on Facebook.

So you’ve been on the market two weeks now and no showings, and you want to know if that is normal.

It’s normal if your particular subdivision does six sales a year.  In a case like that you’re only looking at one bona fide buyer every 60 days, and maybe you’ve already had five sales this year.  So yes, this is normal.

It’s also normal if you’re in an elevated price range.  In the St. Augustine market it’s not unusual to have over 100 homes priced over $1 million.  Yet, only 14 may sell in a given year.  That means there are only 14 bona fide buyers out there, period.  Furthermore, fully 86% of those homes will fail to sell simply because there are not physically enough buyers for homes in those price ranges.  (As of today the actual number is 93 homes priced over $1M, with 8 sales posted since January 1…not a great price range to be in.)

Real estate showings are cyclic…you can go weeks with very light activity and then four showings in a day, it happens.  But if you are in a neighborhood that has numerous, regular sales it still is not such an issue in the first two weeks, but if it gets to four weeks then it’s time to look at the price, the terms and the housekeeping.

Two famous real estate maxims:

  1. “There is nothing that won’t sell at the right price and terms.”
  2. “No amount of advertising will sell an overpriced listing.”

As a seller you have the sale in your hands.  A Realtor such as myself can get your home seen in the far corners of the world, but if the price is out of line with prices in your neighborhood then the buyers will key into that fact pretty quick.  The internet can make anyone an expert on your neighborhood in a couple of days…in fact a buyer searching for a home may know more about the place you live than you do.  

Also, things like “24 hour notice to show” or “tenant occupied, need 24 hour notice,” or “pick up keys in office” are death knells for a listed property.  You don’t have 24 hours to wait for anything…why should a buyer wait when there are other homes to look at right now? 

A final factor: housekeeping.  Your house doesn’t have to be spotless, but have it looking like it would if you were having a bunch of strangers over for a party.  Get the d*mn exercise equipment and kitty condo out of the living areas and into the garage.  Remove the DVD rack with your Rambo films.  The computer desk should have a computer…that’s it…not three years worth of paperwork piled alongside with cables and wires running everywhere.  Nothing says “keep me on the market forever and bring me a low offer” like clutter.

And no one cares about crown molding.  Repeat after me, “Crown molding DOES NOT add value to a home.”

If you really want to know how your house is stacking up, go to Realtor.com and search for other homes in your neighborhood or price range.  If you’ve got a 3-bedroom ranch built in 1975, you may discover that the price you are offering will also get you a newer waterfront home in the neighborhood right next door, and the probablity is that you are overpriced.  It can be an eye opening experience, but it will also help you sell your home.     

Michael Lescher, a Realtor from the Chain of Lakes (Gurney), Illinois are provided some great insight for this posting.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, no showings | No Comments »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: Are You a Gullible Buyer?

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

Are you a gullible buyer? 

I was doing some market research for a friend this morning and was trying to figure out why, in a subdivision where everything was selling at $250,000, one buyer ponied up $330,000 for essentially the same home. 

I will never know the answer to the question above, but here are two pointers to avoid getting trapped into buying less home for more money:

  1. Look at Several Similar Homes before you Buy. Yeah, I know, you did all your research on the internet and “you know St. Augustine.”  Here’s a tip, ask the Realtor for ALL the ACTIVE LISTNGS in a community, once you decide which community you like.  If you call a Realtor and look at just one property and then write an offer, you’re potentially leaving money on the table.  I suspect that’s what happened up above…in a single penstroke someone lost $80,000 in equity because they didn’t look around, and its their own darn fault.
  2. Use an Area Realtor. I know that when I list my properties in out of area MLS systems (and other Realtors don’t), it gives me a competitive advantage because sooner or later an out of area Realtor will bring in a buyer.  The buyer and the Realtor won’t know that there are actually 20 properties available in a subdivision because they can only “see” five in their local MLS.  So every year I make at least one sale just from this.  To avoid this pitfall just ask the Realtor if they are a member of the local board for the city you are looking in…St. Augustine Realtors aren’t necessarily members of the Jacksonville board (that also serves Ponte Vedra), and Jacksonville Realtors are rarely members of the St. Augustine Board.  You may be missing a bunch of available homes for sale if you don’t ask.   Some areas are true “border areas” where half the listings will be in St. Augustine, half in Jacksonville (County Road 210, for example), so ask if the Realtor is a member of both boards.  

Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, buying in st. augustine, gullible buyer, moving to st. augustine | 2 Comments »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: How FAST Can I Buy a Home?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

 

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

How do you buy a home fast?

Good question.  If you’re paying cash it can be done in a week or under.  It just depends on how comfortable the title company is preparing the title insurance…they might need a few days to do lien research just to make sure title to the property is sound.  If the property your buying has a mortgage on it, it might also take a few days to get official word from the bank on what the payoff is. 

If you need a loan to buy then “fast” might mean “45 days.”  We’ve had some close in 30 days this year but they’re the exception.  Today is August 23…if you wanted to close by October 1 it’s do-able but a lot of things need to go right.  Here’s what needs to happen:

  • You’re going to need a good Realtor and lender right off the bat.  If you’re reading this and need to close by October 1, give me a call at (904) 386-8327, I know some good people.
  • The lender is the first step in that we need to know what you can spend.  You’ll need pay stubs, the last two years tax returns, the last two or three months bank statements, etc., so start gathering those up.  There may be a nominal application fee that just covers checking your credit, or if you’re really comfortable with the lender it will be a few hundred dollars, which includes the future cost of an appraisal. 
  • You may be in the enviable position of being able to afford more than you’re comfortable with.  If you have a monthly payment in mind, tell the lender and stick to your guns.  See what that monthly payment will buy before you decide to up it, which leads us to…
  • If your credit score is bad, you’ll need a higher down payment (10% on a FHA loan), possibly more on a conventional loan.  If you’re buying a condo you might need to put 20% or more down regardless of credit.  For a home in otherwise good condition (not a fixer upper) you can a down payment as low as 3.5% with FHA. 
  • I as a Realtor will help you identify properties right away.  As soon as you decide on one I’ll help you make an offer on it…I could write an entire blog post on making an offer…let’s just hope the negotiations go quickly and to your advantage.  You will put down an earnest money deposit (”binder”) of a few thousand dollars to be held in escrow until closing. 
  • You will not be looking at short sales, because these properties take 90-120 days just to get a “yes” or “no” answer on.
  • We get the signed offer to the bank so they know what they are lending on.  The bank will schedule an appraisal and they will check your income, job status, etc., right up to the day of closing…so don’t spend your down payment or buy a car.  There will be more paperwork and hoops to jumps through as the process winds its way to conclusion…lots of new laws this year designed to keep the process slow and steady and hopefully prevent another housing collapse like we saw in 2006-2008.
  • We do inspections so you go into ownership with your eyes wide open about the home you are buying.  Find something unexpected or just get cold feet?  You should be able to back out as long as you do it by the deadline specified in the contract.
  • A two or three week wait as the bank does its underwriting, slowly.
  • The inspection works out, the appraisal comes in, the sellers want to sell, and you show up at closing with your down payment (the binder should already be there), the paperwork and money from the lender shows up, and you have just bought yourself a house. Congratulations!

I borrowed some of this from Chicago Broker David Hanna’s answer to an online query at Trulia.com.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, buying fast, buying in st. augustine, moving to st. augustine | 1 Comment »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: How do I buy a Foreclosed/Bank Owned Home?

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

How do I buy a foreclosed (bank owned, REO) home? 

It’s pretty simple, really: you find a Realtor and make an offer.

Here are the differences with most other homes:

  • There’s going to be a lot of bank specific paperwork that will need to be submitted with your offer.  This paperwork is very general, and as it’s written it will cover laws in states that you are not living in.  It’s a very good idea spend a few hundred $$$ to have an attorney look it over.  That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to strike things from the contract, but at least an attorney can give you an idea what you are signing.  If the closing is being handled by an attorney’s office, your attorney may be able to talk with the other attorney and strike some things that don’t apply or aren’t in your best interest.

 

  • Typically the closings are handled by attorneys/title companies that are out of area, so you won’t attend a traditional closing.  It will either be done by mail, or you may go to a local title company to sign the documents as a “courtesy closing” location.  The courtesy closing location will not have anything to do with your closing per se, except to provide you a notary and some direction.  This is another good reason to hire an attorney.

Other than that it’s pretty straight forward.  Unlike short sales, the answer (in my experience) on your offer for a bank owned/reo will come back in a matter of days.  But like a short sale you must submit your prequalification and/or proof of funds (for a cash sale) with your offer.  Your offer will not be considered if it does not come with these items. 

The first time you look at a house the utilities will not be on.  If you make an offer and it is accepted they’ll turn the utilities on for a day for you to do your inspections.   

Most Realtors that handle bank owned/reo properties don’t show their own listings…their workload is too heavy….but any other Realtor should be able to show you the property provided you’re qualified.   

We got the idea for this post for a similar question posed on an online forum and answered by Jacksonville Realtor Jason Lindsay.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, buying a bank owned home, buying a foreclosure, buying an reo, buying in st. augustine | 1 Comment »

St. Augustine Homes for Sale: What do Realtors do to Market a House Beyond the MLS?

Friday, August 13th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

What do Realtors do to “market” a house beyond putting it on the MLS…

I found this question while trolling the real estate blogs this morning.  It’s a good question.

I can’t speak for other Realtors, but I can speak for us.  To dumb it down a bit there are four different ways to market a home for sale: networking, print advertising, online advertising, and “other.”

Networking is the most important of the four, and I would include MLS (multiple listing service) in this group. 

Buyers use Realtors to buy homes.  Realtors use the MLS to find those homes.  So when I create a listing in MLS, great care is used in speaking to the Realtor as well as the Buyer.  It affects the headlines I use, the copy, and even the sequence of photos.  Since the Realtors often create the final short list they give to their customers, we pay a lot of attention to their needs. 

The other side of networking is the face-to-face part, and it is just as important.  Certain agents work with certain buyers or certain types of properties.  We make sure they know us and know our properties, so they feel comfortable coming to us with offers and questions.  Most importantly, when we get one of “their type” properties we put a bug in their ear and make sure they know it’s out there.

Print advertising is the thing we wish would all go away…it’s expensive and ineffective for selling homes.  So why do we and other companies plunk down hundreds if not thousands on print?  Because it is effective for attracting sellers and agents.   Sellers live in a market day to day, get the paper every day, and they see so and so advertises.  Must be successful, right?  Possibly.  Companies, ours included, use print to tell other agents, “hey, we’re in business and spending money, come work for us.”  But for the most part it won’t sell your home.

Online advertising is how we find the buyers, so it’s the thing we pay the most attention to (equally with networking).   While we feed our listings to something like 73 different sites, it’s how we do it that’s important.  We structure a lot of these feeds differently, and these are structured strictly for the buyer, to catch their attention, so hopefully they will contact us about buying your home.  We don’t post listings willy-nilly, but are very calculated in how we do it: we want our online advertising to make sense to the buyer so they find what they’re looking for fast and without a hassle.  We use things like social media and blogs as well to accomplish this.

“Other” is more the institutional advertising we do with logo decals, race sponsorships, bike team sponsorships, television, radio, etc.  We’re hoping to catch a customer’s eye or ear.  It’s an indirect way to get the properties we list sold by attracting customers to our firm.  If they have a list of wants and needs we’ll help them find it, and we’ll make sure they see our listings that meet those needs as well.  One of those could be your home.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, marketing besides MLS, marketing plan, realtor marketing | 3 Comments »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: The Latest Bullsh*t Realtor Designation, “the Distressed Property Expert”

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

If you’ve been looking at the real estate print media lately you’ve seen a logo for something called a “CDPE” posted in some of the ads.  It stands for “Certified Distressed Property Expert.”

In my opinion the CDPE is a completely bullsh*t designation.  Here’s why:

It’s bad enough that so many sellers these days have been forced into short selling their home or even into forclosure, but what is even worse is the group of erstwhile agents who have no experience working a short sale or foreclosure having the gall to call themselves “distressed property experts” after attending a two-day training course in Jacksonville.  These are incredibly complex transactions with a host of unwritten rules dealing with multiple lenders, courts, title companies, attorneys, sometimes bankruptcies…not to mention sellers and buyers with varying emotional investment and motivation.  But most of all these are people’s homes that are on the line here, and it takes a lot of balls to put someone’s distressed property on your back when you don’t know what the hell you are doing.

I’m sure the seminar really was a wealth of good and factually correct information.  I’m sure if you knew nothing about working a short sale it was a great way to give you an excellent overview of the process.  But it does not make you an expert because it absolutely takes experience to make you an expert when it comes to short sales.   Even if you acquired every back door telephone number to every bank negotiator from this seminar,  you still need to know the protocol and procedure in dealing with these people, because you may only get one shot. 

There are a lot of very good local Realtors who bought that CDPE designation and who do have actual experience working short sales…these people really are experts.  But when you trot out another ridiculous designation how do you tell the real expert from the phony?   

My partner Kate Stevens is a short sale expert, in fact she’s forgotten more than most people know about the process.  While my other partner Ron and I are involved in the process and the outcomes of our short sales, we always defer to her judgment.  Part of her experience is knowing what to handle herself and what to hand off to an attorney or paid negotiator.  It’s also knowing who is effective at the current moment and who isn’t. 

But talk is cheap: this link will take you to a list of the short sales and forclosures we’ve worked on, their status and their outcome…certainly more and better experience than a two-day seminar. It is our sincere hope that the economy and market improve to the point where we will never have to update that list ever again.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, bullsh*t realtor designation, buying in st. augustine, cdpe, moving to st. augustine, short sales | 2 Comments »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: “Buy and Bail,” Then Get Ready for Deficiency Judgment

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

Word on the street this week from the mortgage brokers is that banks involved in short sales are hunting down “buy and bail” sellers.

A “buy and bail” seller is one that goes out and uses their good credit or cash to buy a new home, and then stops paying on the old home in order to short sell it (or just let it go into foreclosure). 

The short sales may still succeed, according to my sources, but banks are now specifically hunting for these “buy and bail” sellers in order to pursue deficiency judgments after the fact, or won’t waive the deficiency judgment in order for the home to sell.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, buy and bail, short sales | 1 Comment »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: Should My Realtor Hold an Open House?

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

Should my Realtor hold an open house?

To answer your question I’ll quote Dirty Harry: “The question is, do you feel lucky?”

The chances of your home selling from an open house is generally cited at less than 2%.  And these days (due to higher inventories) most of the time you don’t get any traffic at all.  I mean nothing, nada.

But Realtors still do open houses because, if there is any traffic, it’s a great way to meet buyers in the market.

So if you want to take that 2% shot, by all means ask your Realtor to hold an open house.  But understand that if your Realtor hooks up with a buyer at the open house, the agent is going to be obligated to that buyer for the forseeable future, and won’t be able to spend time marketing your house. 

Not only that the buyer will be will be working hard to find and buy your competition. 

Getting back to Dirty Harry, “Do you feel lucky?”

Well do you, punk?

Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, buying in st. augustine, moving to st. augustine, open house | No Comments »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: Are You Paying EXTRA Commission?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

Line 89-Extra Commission on Standard Florida Contract

Line 89-Extra Commission on Standard Florida Contract

 

If you want to see something ugly, just take a look at line 89 (a) of the standard Florida Association of Realtors Listing Contract pictured to the right.

The first part of line 89 (a) is normal…it spells out the commission percentage in the listing agreement.  Whether you love commission or hate commission, it’s how deals get done.  But then it goes on to add “plus $___________ ” .

This tiny little addition in the contract is there to charge you an extra commission.  If someone tries to get you to pay an extra commission, like Nancy Reagan famously said, “Just Say No.”

Back in the days of the boom market some real estate agencies felt that they weren’t raking in enough cash.  There were some real world reasons for this: commission percentages were declining a bit due to market competition, and to attract agents companies had to give the agents a better cut.  So they invented something called a “transaction fee” which was basically just an add-fee of a few hundred bucks that the seller and buyer got hit with at closing, and that was paid directly to the borkerage.  Some people would protest the fee but most people just went ahead and closed.

Then the federal government stepped in and said, “you can’t do that,” because the fee wasn’t part of any real work directly related to a real estate closing.  So the real estate agencies have to put it in the actual listing contract now.

My best advice is: don’t agree to any Extra Commission.  Any company that would turn down your listing because you won’t pay a few hundred bucks is not making sound business decisions.  AND, the listing agent and the agent who brings the buyer don’t see any of that money anyway, so it bypasses the purpose of commission…which is to motivate agents to do all the work in selling the home without getting paid a single dime upfront, or at all, until the house closes.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, transaction fees | 1 Comment »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: Sellers Agent Ethics, or Lack Of

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

I ran across a blog post the other day in which an angry buyer blasted a Seller’s agent.  Apparently there were two offers on the house, and the Seller’s agent had one of those offers…so he coached his buyers to bring their offer up a little higher and get the house. 

The angry buyer didn’t get the house, of course, and called the Seller’s agent “unethical” and even questioned the legality of it.     

There are two issues here, the first is with multiple offers and the second is with the role of the agent.

The only difference in a multiple offer situation and regular situation is that there is no dickering.  Make your best offer first, but there’s no need to offer more than you think the property is worth. 

The exception is where the home is so special, or the situation is so unique that the property is “beyond price.”  In this case offer as much as you can or the bank will loan you.  Early in my career I had a home sell for full price as soon as the sign hit the yard…the person who bought it was moving in from out of state had a brother living in the house right next door.  It was very important for the buyer to get this house, so there was no fooling around. 

The second issue is the role of the agent.  In the case of the angry buyer the Seller’s agent did a great job.  Think about it: he created a situation where there were multiple offers for his sellers to choose from and got them a better price.  For his buyer he coached them to come up just enough to get the house, but not overspend.  It was a win-win for everybody, except the angry buyer.

I think the angry buyer was upset mostly because they didn’t get the house for the price they wanted.  I’m sure their agent coached them to make their “best offer,” and unfortunately their best offer wasn’t good enough.

It would only become an ethical issue if the Seller’s agent coached the sellers to take an offer that was the best offer for the Realtor, but the worst offer for the seller.

In Florida the only way the situation would have become illegal is if the Seller’s agent never presented the second offer, but there’s no legal or ethical imperitive for him to present the offer well. 

If you are in a multiple offer situation and you’re worried about your offer being presented well, then your agent can insist to present it to the seller personally.  However, the seller can refuse this request; it is his property after all and he’s not obligated to listen to anybody but the person he hired.

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Posted in St. Augustine Homes for sale, St. Augustine Real Estate, making an offer on a home, moving to st. augustine, multiple offers, what does a realtor do | 1 Comment »

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