Posts Tagged ‘St. Augustine Real Estate’

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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: I Paid CASH, Can the HOA Foreclose on My Home?

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

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

So you bought a house, paid cash (no mortgage), but you decided that you didn’t need to bother with those Homeowner’s Association Dues.  Bad move on not paying the HOA dues. 

In Florida an HOA can foreclose if you don’t pay the dues.

Ditching HOA dues is like ditching a speeding ticket: sooner or later it catches up with you, it will cost more to settle than if you would have just paid it, and it will possibly involve attorneys. 

Basically, if you are behind on your dues the HOA can file a lien on your property forcing you to pay the dues before you can sell.  But if they don’t want to wait for you to sell they can ask the court to foreclose and use the proceeds from the sale to pay the dues.

So if you have issues with the association try to work with them, and be a part of the association, before it gets that far.

I’ll give you an example.

My friend bought a house in a new development in 2005.  In 2009 the developer turned management of the association to the homeowners.  Now, in this community about 25% of residents keep their lawns golf course manicured perfect, the other 75% keep their lawns up, but don’t otherwise irrigate or fertilize.

This summer has been the hottest in Florida in over 50 years, the fourth hottest on record and in our part of the state we had something like a record 45 days in a row above 90 degrees.  Even if you irrigate regularly this has been a hard summer on grass, with burnt patches and thin growth. 

So in my friend’s development the HOA sent out a letter to about 3/4 of the folks demanding that they get rid of the burnt patches, edge, weed…all this goofy stuff.  For my friend to comply to these standards he would not only have to hire a landscaper, but he would have to install a irrigation system.  Furthermore, to meet these standards from the HOA he would have to irrigate everyday, which would be illegal (you’re only allowed to irrigate two days a week here due to water conservation rules).

So he is going to be friendly, but firm, with the HOA and work with them.  He’s going to site all the points above.  He will continue to take care of his lawn.  But he will not reach for an artificial standard that would force him to bear undue cost or violate the law by watering illegally.  And if the HOA doesn’t back down he can then move towards legal action, should he choose.

Better the homeowner initiating the lawsuit than the homeowner’s association.

This post was inspired by an answer posted in a Truli online Q&A forum by New Smyrna Beach Realtor Donna Concannon of Prestige Properties.  And thanks to my dear friend Jake for the HOA example.      

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Posted in HOA dues, HOA foreclosure, HOA lien, St. Augustine Real Estate, buying in st. augustine, moving to st. augustine | 1 Comment »

Homes for Sale in St. Augustine: I’m Buying a New Home, I Don’t NEED an Inspection!

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

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

Buying new?  Don’t think you need a home inspection?

What are you crazy?

Look a home is a home.  The only difference between a new home and a re-sale home is the age of the materials. 

You would inspect a 5-year old home wouldn’t you?  Would it matter if the home was new or 5-years old if a subcontractor forgot to blow the insulation in?

Using a home inspector on a new home helps you in two ways.  The first is it helps you create a punchlist for items that aren’t done yet, so that the builder can fix these items before you move in and before you close.  The second thing is that it will find items that simply were not done: electrical outlets that weren’t connected, insulation that wasn’t blown in, a toilet that was broken during installation and is leaking.

So get a home inspection and get some peice of mind. 

This blog post was inspired by a similar blog post from Realtor Carla Muss-Jacobs in Portland (Beaverton), Oregon.

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Posted in St. Augustine Real Estate, buying in st. augustine, home inspectors, moving to st. augustine, new construction | 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 »

Are You a St. Augustine Tourist + Moron = Touron. Find out Here.

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

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

We love our tourists in St. Augustine.  We are grateful for their business and that they decide to spend their money and their time here.

Unfortunately, some of those who come to visit are called “Tourons” by those of us who live here.  That’s Tourist + Moron = Touron for those of you not in the know.  Are you a Touron?  Find out on this post I did for my personal site.

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Posted in St. Augustine Real Estate, tourist moron, touron | No Comments »

First Time Home Buyer in St. Augustine: Should I Rent or Buy?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

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

You’ve never owned a home before and you’re thinking about buying one.  Here’s some things to consider: 

Just because you’re not an investor doesn’t mean you’re not worried about depreciation. If you don’t plan on living in this house for more than three years, consider renting.  While the residential market in St. Augustine has stabilized (the exception being condos), there is still a possibility of depreciation or no appreciation in the short term.  If you move in three years your closing costs will wipe out any minor appreciation gains you make.  Another plus when you rent: anything that breaks down is somebody else’s problem.

But:

Chances are good you’ll have a lower monthly payment if you buy. Interest rates are so low and home prices are so good your mortgage (plus your escrows for taxes and insurance each month) will be less than rent for a comparable home.  

If you buy a condo you could get a mega-good deal, but the condo will likely depreciate a bit by next year.  But that may be okay…the low interest rate plus the price could likely offset the depreciation (versus paying more for the same condo at a higher interest rate down the road…plus the payment will be going against the principle versus being lost as rent over that period).   

And finally:

Rent will go up every year but your home payment will remain stable.  The principal and interest payment on your home will never change, but your rent will.  If you escrow* your taxes and insurance, these two items will likely increase at least a bit every year, so your overall home payment will go up to…but not as much as rent, especially over the long term.

*Most banks like you to escrow your taxes and insurance so the money is there at the end of the year to pay both.  Since both go up, and both are tacked to your monthly home payment, it goes up.  Banks like it this way because in the case of foreclosure a) if taxes are owed the government get their money first and b) if the house burns down they can only collect on the lot the home was built on.  But some banks let you pay the insurance and taxes yourself when they come due, so if you feel comfortable doing that, by all means do so.

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Posted in St. Augustine Real Estate, buy vs. rent, buying in st. augustine, first time buyer, moving to st. augustine | 1 Comment »

Condos for Sale in St. Augustine: Affordable + Oceanfront, Yes You Can Have Both!

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

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

The Beach at Beacher's Lodge, St. Augustine

The Beach at Beacher's Lodge, St. Augustine

We have a great new listing at Beacher’s Lodge in St. Augustine and you are going to love it.

Beacher’s Lodge sits right on the ocean at 6970 A1A South in the Crescent Beach section of St. Augustine.  Each unit in the complex is a studio efficiency with an ocean view.  Beacher’s Lodge has a conference center, pool and private beach access.

For a second or vacation home it’s a great deal.  While it typically costs $250,000 for an ocean view condo in St. Augustine, you can get this one for the (current) list price of $89,900.  And, when you’re not using it, you can rent it out for (the current rate) of $119 a night.  On the day of this posting, August 5, 2010, (a Thursday) the parking lot at Beacher’s Lodge was full and the unit was being rented for a week…very good signs if you are an investor. 

If you’d like to see more photos just click on the image to the left, or if you have any questions just e-mail me at Sean@StAugTeam.com.

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Posted in 6970 A1A South St. Augustine, Beacher's Lodge St. Augustine, Beachers Lodge Crescent Beach, St. Augustine Real Estate, buying a condo in St. Augustine, buying in st. augustine | 1 Comment »

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 »

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