Input Please

I'm trying to update my website and I'm trying to come up with features that my clients would like and need and I'm open to hear any and all advice. I've been looking at other flat fee companies out there and I believe we offer more services than anyone out there for the best price, if you find someone offering more I'm definitely open to listening to it.

Watch My Neighbors - NEW FEATURE!!

I have a new feature I am providing with my "Standard Listing" upon request that I'm calling Watch My Neighbors. When you list a home (or if you request it) I will set you up your own personal web portal (web site) that will allow you to view all homes currently listed, pending, or sold within the past 4 months. Any time there is a status change, price change or a NEW home comes on the market in your subdivision you will be notified via email to log in and see. This will keep you current with pricing and informed on what's going on around you. I would retroactively add this feature in, but it would be too time consuming with the number of homes I have on the market, but I do recommend anyone interested to request it.

New FLEX MLS

We've had the NEW Flex MLS for a couple weeks now, and after getting the bugs worked out I'm really starting to enjoy it. I think this will be a huge benefit to buyers and sellers a like and will definitely provide a lot more information at everyone's finger tips. Albeit, there are some thing I wish they would have changed that they didn't and there are certain screens that I still can't find, but the buyer's I've been working with have really enjoyed it.

Hope For Homeowners

The new FHA refinance plan is entitle "Hope For Homeowners." The idea is to help homeowners refinance their home to CURRENT market value and hopefully save their homes. This option has a lot of small print, so I'll try to break some of it down for you.

• New Loan Requirement - Requires 30 year fixed rate loan NOT exceeding 90% of the property's CURRENT value.
  
• Write-Down - Noteholders need to reduce the principal balance to achieve the 90 percent loan-to-value requirements. No prepayment penalties.
  
• Noteholder has to pay 3% upfront premium from the proceeds of the refinance. Borrower pays 1.5% premium annually built into the payments.
  
• Shared Appreciation - Requires borrower to share future equity with FHA when the property is sold or the loan is refinanced. First year FHA shares equity 90/10 in their favor which graduates at 10% per year for the next 5 years until borrower and FHA share equity at 50/50 until home is sold or refinanced.
  
• Sunset - Program runs from 10/1/2008 through 9/30/11.

So, in a nut shell. If the lender agrees to write down the loan to 90% of current market value and borrower can document income that they can afford the home and meet credit guidelines, the loan can be refinanced. At first glance it looks like a lender would never agree to this, but lender's do NOT want to foreclose on properties and would prefer to keep a loan on the property if they know the loan will be current. It costs a lener a lot more than 10% of current market value to foreclose on a typical home.

Housing "Rescue" Bill

There is a lot to the new Housing Bill, some good, and so very bad. I will have a few posts over the next few days explaining it as I get through the lengthy bill myself. The first provision I would like to discuss is the one I see as being a huge issue.

The new bill eliminates seller down payment assistance for FHA loans. These were the last 100% financing loans that were still available. I realize that eliminating these may help down the road, let's look at the current predicament that we're in. Currently, the majority of homes being purchased under $225K are FHA loans. We were finally starting to see a turn in the lower end market with a lot of homes selling with multiple offers in this price range. Once these entry level homes start to sell, the sellers are then able to "move up" into larger more expensive homes and thus helping the current market tremendously. The higher end homes can NOT start selling until the entry level homes start to sell and by eliminating the FHA seller contributions you're eliminating tens of thousands of first time buyers.

I will be talking about more aspects of this bill down the road, including the $7,500 tax REBATE/LOAN for first time buyers. If you have a home under $250K and you're thinking about selling, I'd recommend getting on the MLS immediately to take advantage of the influx of buyers would should see over the next 30 days (bill goes into effect Oct. 1, 2008).

As always, Sell your home on the MLS & Realtor.com only $295 www.295List.com

Market Statistics

Current market statistics for single family homes in the Arizona Regional MLS.

42,937 - Active
1,340 - Under Contract but Accepting Back Up Offers
6,445 - Pending
25,467 - Sold since 1/1/08

If you have any questions about these statistics or you would like numbers ran for your area, please don't hesitate to ask.

Sell your home on the MLS & Realtor.com for only $295 - www.295List.com

FSBO or 6% - No Longer Your Only 2 Options

For years home owners have had two choices when it comes to selling their home, they could either go at it themselves as a FSBO and loose the awesome advertising capabilities of the MLS & Realtor.com, or they could go with an agent that usually chages between 5%-7% and eat up a ton of the seller's equity. Now there's a third option that gives sellers the best of both worlds. At http://www.295list.com/ sellers can now list their home on the MLS & Realtor.com, as well as 100+ other websites, yet seller's retain the right to sell by owner and have complete control over their home. You get the best of both world and it's only $295 instead of 5%-7%.

Sell FSBO on the MLS & Realtor.com for only $295 - http://www.295list.com/

What is a Short Sale?

Short Sales are a common topic these days and make up a large percentage of homes currently on the MLS. Simply put, a short sale is selling a home for less than the amount owed on it. Once a seller receives an offer on their property, they can then send the offer to the bank and see if they'll approve it for a short sale. There is a whole lot to the transaction, including sending a "package" off to the bank which will include your financials along with all the listing docs and the offer on the property. Most banks will not accept a short sale unless the property is listed on the MLS because the bank wants to ensure the highest possible sales price.

There are a lot of misconceptions about a Short Sale. Not all short sales are accepted by the bank, a lot of the time the 1st and 2nd mortgage won't come to an agreement so it doesn't go through. In Arizona, the bank is NOT entitled to a deficiency judgement on the first mortgage. There may or may not be tax implications depending on a number of factors, including but not limited to, primary residence vs investment, what type of loan you have on the home, how many loans are on the property.

When considering a short sale you need a short sale EXPERT, someone that has over 100 listings and knows what they're doing, plus you should talk with an attorney. If you're interested in short sales, we currently have over 125 and we have hired a full time negotiator and close well over 70% of all our listings.

Sell on the MLS & Realtor.com for only $295 - http://www.295list.com/

CDARS: Overcoming The $100,000 FDIC Limit

I mentioned CDARS in my last post and wanted to follow up and explain it in a little more detail. If you have over $100,000 in a bank and you want want to be able to make sure it's FDIC insured, this is the program for you, here's how it works:

Mr. Jones has $180,000 he wants to put in a CD, but is now worried about banks failing and wants to make sure it's protected. He takes the money to Bank A and Bank A opens a CD for $90,000, leaving room for interest, and sends the remaining $90,000 to Promontory Interfinancial Network (PIN) which is a company that acts similar to a clearinghouse. PIN then uses that money to buy a CD from Bank B which will have the same yield as the first CD. It appears seamless to Mr. Jones, he has all his statements at one bank and has all of his money insured. Some fees may apply, so please check with your bank.

Sell any home on the MLS & Realtor.com for only $295 - www.295List.com

FDIC - Money Under The Mattress?

This seems to be the right subject for my first real post with all the talk about Indy Mac failing I figured I'd go over the FDIC.

As most people know, the FDIC insures 100% of your funds in a bank (not a Credit Union) up to $100,000. With the stock market declining, real estate declining and banks failing, you may be wondering whether you should pull your money out of a bank and keep it under the mattress and hope there's not a fire. There are far better options. If your main goal is to protect the principal, you still need to hedge against inflation. Although inflation hasn't been a huge problem in the past few years, it's most likely going to be in the future. There are a few options here:

1. Split up your money in different banks. Although this may be hectic and more difficult to keep track of your money, it will be insured.

2. Re-title your accounts. If you have $150K in one account with just your name on it, split the account into two different accounts each being less than $100K and Re-Title the accounts. You can have on that's a joint with your spouse, or have another with yourself and a child named as a beneficiary. Each account is insured up to $100K, so as long as they're differently titled accounts, they will be protected. Talk to a banker more about this.

3. The newest way to Beat the $100K FDIC limit is called Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service or CDARS, pronounced "cedars." This is a way to take all of your money, deposit it and track it through one bank, yet have all of it, up to $50 million (should you be so fortunate) in one place. I will be explaining this further in a future blog.

4. If your money is in a retirement account (An IRA and/or Keogh account) you're protected up to $250,000 instead of $100,000. Now, keep in mind that this is protected against the institution failing, not against a loss. Also, any investments in stocks, bonds or annuities will NOT be covered, only bank bought investments such as CD's.

There's an urban myth that if a bank goes under and the FDIC has to insure your account, that you won't get the money back for months. This is untrue. Most people will have uninterrupted access to their money up to the first $100K. IndyMac customers could still withdraw money from ATM's and write checks this past weekend, and any previously written checks cleared (assuming they were in good standing).

As of March 31 the FDIC had $53 billion dollars and bailing out IndyMac is expected to cost between $4 - $8 billion. By law, the FDIC has to have $1.15 for every $100 of insured deposits.

List on the MLS For Only $295 www.295List.com

Welcome To My Blog!!

Welcome to my blog. I will be using this to update you on our Real Estate market in Phoenix and any national changes that may affecet our local market. I will also be using this blog to give hints, tips and pointers on what to do around the house that will help it sell faster. For example, I get asked constantly if a room should be painted or told the home owners didn't want to paint over a color or paint a marked up wall because the new owners may want to choose a different color. I respond with the same cliche over and over again, "$500 in the can, $10,000 on the walls." In other words, paint the room.

Please feel free to write me with any questions you may have about real estate, whether they're specific or general in nature. I will be happy to answer about town/city comps, or even as small as a subdivision or the sales history of a single house. I will also be going over REO's, Short Sales, Foreclosures, Trustee Sales, etc...

List your home on the MLS for only $295 - www.395List.com