Jan

18

Things To Consider When Selling Your Home

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As you know, I am constantly trying to provide nothing but the best, most current and comprehensive information to my clients and website visitors. Things to consider when selling your home fall right in line with this objective.

As a professional business owner, I constantly have to refine my knowledge of the market. In doing this, I receive items like the link below, because my company pays for me to be at the top of my game. Of course, as a Licensed Associate Broker and independent contractor, it’s up to me to use these valuable resources and provide them to you and my clients.

Things To Consider If You Are Selling A House simply and effectively explains the current market. As a professional, it is my job to provide options to my clients. So enjoy the pamphlet. It is packed with useful information. No fluff here.

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Jan

2

Long Island Home Values: Hurdles & Projections

Filed Under Sellers, Sellers & Buyers | Comments Off

If you’re wondering what lies ahead for Long Island home values, look no further than what the experts are saying and what’s happening within the industry. While I do not fully agree with the outlook for Long Island in comparison to the national average, I can say that Long Island will be one of the leading states that will lose value.

What will be the causes of this? The answer is high inventory (number of homes for sale) and lower demand (number of people buying homes). While buyers will be out in full force, given the current low mortgage costs, the number of buyers eager to qualify and buy do not come close to the amount of people trying to sell.

Hurdles To Overcome In 2012

Appraisals will be the number one challenge for homeowners, buyers and agents in 2012.

According to the National Association of Realtors, and from experience talking with agents and dealing with this issue myself, 1 in 3 homes in the month of October 2011, had a low appraisal. This represents many obstacles to a successful sale/purchase.

When an appraisal comes in lower than the agreed upon price, unless an arrangement is discussed prior, homeowners are faced with very few options. I personally had to deal with this situation 2 times in September of this past year and one transaction did not work out and the other, the homeowner and the real estate agents, ended up making up the difference in the low appraisal.

The problem with appraisals is, even if the real estate agent prices the home correctly, according to accurate and recent sales in the local area, the appraiser can (and in this market, often will), find comparison properties that reign in the property value lower. Don’t forget, we are in tough economic times and banks are very tight with their lending so there are pressures on appraisers to get good “grades” from their respective lender lists so that they keep getting appraisal orders.

Pricing Projections

Fitch Ratings, which predict real estate prices, talks about the real estate market, dropping another 13%.

While I do not think that prices here locally will drop this much in 2012, due to the current challenges and downward pressures on prices, it is safe to say that Long Island home values will continue to soften throughout the first half of the new year.

I will be doing a full analysis of the current Long Island inventory within the month of January, so please check back soon or you can subscribe to google feedburner for this website, which will send you any new articles I write.

Bottom Line

It’s going to be important for homeowners to hire a very good real estate agent who understands how appraisers value properties and provides sound pricing advice. Along with a marketing plan, the real estate agent of today must have a keen understanding of today’s marketplace.

For more information on how I practice and live the fundamentals of customer service, visit my website www.TMcRealtor.com.

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Dec

21

The Biggest Real Estate Sale In History

Filed Under Buyers, Sellers, Sellers & Buyers | 1 Comment

That’s what is happening right now. We are in the biggest real estate sale in history. What I’m about to share with you is basic information that may help you understand exactly where we are in the market.

First, let me say that this is not an advertisement for you to call me and buy a house. None of my articles are, but this one started off like that’s what it’s going to be. Again, it’s not. However, this information is so strong, you’d have to be an idiot, not to want to pick up the phone and call me or a friend you know who’s a real estate agent.

Now, let’s get to it. When you talk with friends, you probably talk a lot about prices dropping and mortgage rates being low. If you’re in the market to buy a home, you’re especially talking about this. But what you may be missing is the affordability of homes. Of course, unemployment in the country is high so this is all relative to whether or not you have a job or are secure in your current one, but I digress.

In New York and Long Island, the house payment to income ratio is around 30% less than the 30 year average. What does this mean? It means that owning a home is cheap right now. Of course, we’re talking about Long Island here, where taxes are nuts, but I always like to say, “you get what you pay for”. I’ve lived in other states and let me tell you, I’d rather pay higher taxes to live here, than in another state where you can’t get a decent slice of pizza! Mama Mia!!!

Again, I digress.

The point is, it’s not about low mortgage payments or lower prices. It’s these things that make up the opportunities that are waiting for you to seize.

When compared to median income, if you’re monthly mortgage payment is only 13% of your total income, yes, that’s really unbelievable. I know that the median income on Long Island is much higher than the national average and I know home prices are higher as well, but I’d have to take a guess and say that in comparison to monthly mortgage payments, we’re probably averaging around 20% to 25% on the average.

To own a home on Long Island and have 3/4′s of your income free to pay for things other than your mortgage and own real estate…it’s a no-brainer.

I’d like to take a line from Crazy Eddie (the guy in those commercials years ago)…”It’s insaaaannnneee!”

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Nov

15

74 Good Things to Know About Long Island Real Estate

Filed Under Buyers, Sellers, Sellers & Buyers | Comments Off

With all the doom and gloom we hear everyday on the news (which I don’t watch but hear from others), it’s important to know (or hear) a good thing now and again. While the Long Island real estate market has been deflated significantly, there are some bright spots.

One little tidbit that I know you’re not hearing anywhere else can be summed up with one number. 74.

Daily Closings

That’s pretty encouraging considering all you hear on the news or from friends and family is, “Nothing’s selling out there” or “There are no buyers”.

That’s incorrect. 74 people buy a home everyday on Long Island and that’s impressive.

If you want more information like this or you’re asking yourself why you can’t sell your home, then call me and I’d be glad to share with you our current obstacles on Long Island, that are weighing down prices overall.

I have a FREE conference call on the Market coming up on December 1 at 6pm. Contact me for details. It’s about the Long Island real estate market.

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Oct

18

1 Important Thing Your Agent Should Be Doing To Sell Your Home

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This market is all about fear. As a successful real estate agent, I’ve realized over the last few years, that one of the most critical things I have to do as a professional real estate salesperson, is use my “sales skills” to fight the fear in the market.

What are “sales skills”?
It is a common misunderstanding that sales skills are deceiving in nature and that is true in some cases (as people will try and “sell someone” on a product or service). However, sales skills have everything to do with knowing the product and knowing how to market the product. Just because an agent has their 75 hours of training and a license, does not mean they have developed sales skills.

Fighting Fear
Without a doubt, the greatest obstacle to getting a home sold in this market begins with the fear in the market place. So it’s important, as an agent, to develop a marketing strategy that helps create a sense of urgency for buyers to overcome their fears and actually buy. I specialize in analyzing each of my homes for sale and I look for angles which present opportunity to market any kind of information which helps the home sell. Creating urgency, or the fear of loss, in a prospective buyer or their agent, takes skill.

For instance, I currently have a few homes for sale that if they are not sold, the owners are going to remove the homes from the market and rent them. Now a basic agent would take that knowledge and do nothing with it. They would continue to have the listing remain on MLS or run some poorly-worded advertisement (and waste their money and the owners time and patience).

However, being a highly-trained professional salesperson, I use this information and contact all agents and buyers with any interest in the homes I have, and I tell them via email and phone, that the owners will pull their home for sale and rent it and I give the prospective buyer or agent, an actual date this will occur.

The result is, the reaction and subsequent offers I receive relatively quickly in response of me, having information and knowing what to do with it. Whereas, many other agents wouldn’t do anything, because they don’t know any better.

Bottom Line
This market requires Realtors(R) to think outside of the box and work – hard. If your agent isn’t making personal calls to other agents and following up on every single prospective buyer opportunity, then he or she doesn’t require the sales skills necessary to sell real estate in this tough market.

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keep looking »

Jan

18

Things To Consider When Selling Your Home

Jan

2

Long Island Home Values: Hurdles & Projections

Dec

21

The Biggest Real Estate Sale In History

Nov

15

74 Good Things to Know About Long Island Real Estate

Oct

18

1 Important Thing Your Agent Should Be Doing To Sell Your Home

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