Real Estate Information

Knowing your credit score is one of the easiest things you can do to help you buy your first home.  Credit scores are used by lenders to decide if you are likely to repay money they loan you.  Credit scores, or FICO scores, are assigned based on information in your credit report.  Everyone is entitled to one free credit report form each of the three major credit reporting agencies each year.  

Before you begin the home buying process, have your Realtor recommend a lender.  Meet with the lender to establish your purchasing power by getting preapproved for a loan.  As a part of this process, the lender will run your credit report and be able to discuss your credit score with you.  The lender cannot give you a copy of the credit report, but you can order your free one at that time.  Any score over 680 is generally a good score for mortgage purposes.  Lower scores may still be eligible for a first time homebuyer loan, but may be considered “sub prime” and charge a higher interest rate to offset the “risk” of a less then desirable credit history.

Knowing your score before you start can help you to avoid dissappointment when deciding to buy a home.  A low score can be raised with some time and corrective credit behaviours.  So, even if you have a problem with your credit score, if you find out about it early, you can work to improve it. 

Get started now investigating your credit score if you want to buy a home before the December 1, 2009 deadline for the $8,000 incentive that is given to first time homebuyers.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, please go to http://solonglandlord.com/first-time-home-buyer-dos-and-donts/do-you-know-your-credit-score.

Even more than usual, you need to be able to rely on your seller in a short sale.  There is great deal of material that has to be gathered by the sellers for the short sale package.  It all has to be accurate, with no misrepresentations, in order for the mortgage lender to accept the short payment.

You need to pick good people to work with.  Short sales are difficult enough.  If the sellers are not truly fine people who deserve to be rescued, do not rescue them.   If you have a hard working family, take good care of them and they will treat you well; but do not sign up to be abused.

One of the reasons to do short sales is to get undying loyalty from clients and referrals of all their friends.  If the client is the “south end of a north bound horse”, most of their friends are probably jerks.  Do you want to spend your life working for people like that?  

Pick your clients wisely, rescue the good people and help save America from the financial crisis.  But, there are some people you should walk, no run, away from.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, please go to http://shortsalesr.us/short-sale-dos-and-donts/dont-represent-jerks/.

Many people think negotiations start when the first offer is signed and end when a contract is signed. It actually starts at the first point of contact with the client, and does not end with the closing of the sale. In most sales, there are at least two major points of negotiating: the first stage being to get a ratified contract and the second stage being to resolve any repair issues.

The unknown is scary. Most people do not know the entire process of buying and selling real estate. Walk your client through all the steps in the negotiation, tell them what to do and what not to do, and answer all their questions.

Before you start, figure out where you need to end up. Most people just jump in, and flail away. Instead, figure out where you are, then where you want to be. Do not just figure out one ending point, look at the range of acceptable results.  The party with the most alternatives in the negotiations has the most power.  As a part of this strategy, you can make a list of concessions that you are willing to make and ones that will never be made. This will help you decide what to concede first. It also helps to have a list of minor concessions, so that you will have something to throw in to give your counter part one last victory to put the deal together. In short, visualize most of your moves before you begin. 

For a more detailed discussion on this topic, please go to http://createagreatdeal.com/featured/go-nowhere-without-a-game-plan/

http://createagreatdeal.com/featured/go-nowhere-without-a-game-plan/

Open houses can be fun to visit and get ideas, but attending open houses probably isn’t the best way to find the right house for you. 

You cannot always tell if a home meets your criteria by what you can see riding by, or by reading an ad.  Searching the computerized MLS for homes with the features you want, then looking at twelve pictures on the computer screen is a much more efficient way to pick the homes you want to see.

It just makes sense to work with a Buyers Agent, one with your best interests in mind and who can identify those homes that meet your criteria.  If you are already working with a broker, it is important to make that clear as you attend open houses.  If your real estate agent cannot attend the open house with you, take along a business card or otherwise let the agent at the house know, so that you will be given the proper respect for being properly represented.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, please go to http://solonglandlord.com/steps-for-first-time-home-buyers-to-take/first-time-homebuyers-and-open-houses.

If you are trying to avoid foreclosure, you need an offer fast. Negotiate with the Realtors through the MLS by putting something like “submit all offers, we do not care about the selling price” in the MLS listing. You will probably get “less than wonderful” prices, but you will have an offer to submit.  Negotiate the price with the agent doing the Broker’s Price Opinion for the lender that is considering the short pay. Use the independent authority of comparable sales and the preparation of pictures of defects and bids for repairs to keep the price in line with reality.   Negotiate the time for review and the postponement of the foreclosure by using every form of persuasion possible.  Most of negotiating success in short sales comes from preparation. If you can convince the lender that they never want to own this house, the negotiations on the short sale go better.

Part of a Realtor’s education in negotiation is that once you get an acceptance from the lender, do a “nibble”, a negotiating technique that gets you the one last part of the deal that you need. Some people who provide Realtor training call this without recourse, but the real term is to be fully released from the balance of the debt.  If you do not get an approval from the lender that the buyer will accept, you still have accomplished getting a short sale file open and established a method of communication with the negotiator.  Even if you did not get a deal accepted by the buyer, hopefully you have a price from the lender that they will accept in another short sale. Getting an acceptable price greatly helps your negotiating with future buyers.

Negotiating an “as is” sale is difficult in a short sale. In most short sales, you can accomplish “as is” using gradual persuasion.  Tell the buyer’s agent that the lender will probably insist on an “as is” sale, but you will see what you can do.  If you get multiple offers on a short sale, a smart buyer’s agent will put the “as is” term in their offer to make it more acceptable to the lender. The buyer’s agent will know that the mortgage lender wants to deal with an agent who knows how to close the sale, and who will not “nickel and dime” them after the contract is approved for a short pay.  So, if you represent a buyer, make the terms of the contract as easy as possible for the lender to approve.

If you want to pick up all the tools of real estate negotiating, look for my book Create A Great Deal, the Art of Real Estate Negotiating. It will help you in every part of real estate, but especially in short sales.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, please go to http://shortsalesr.us/short-sale-how-to/negotiating-short-sales/

Posted by Lisabeth Tunell:

I just came back from the festival in Virginia and it was fantastic!!! The weather could not have been better on Saturday, unfortunately it did rain on Sunday but that did not deter the festivities or the wineries or breweries from the tasting tent. It was held this past Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 a to 9:00 p at the beautiful festival venue, Blue Cow Pavilion in Floyd, VA. which is located at milepost 170.5 off the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. 

Posted by Lisabeth Tunell:

FINALLY what we have all been waiting for.....Trader Joe's in Raleigh!

How many of us have driven to Cary to go to Trader Joe's for "Two Buck Chuck?" Well as of October, or so we have been promised, we only have to drive to Holly Park Shopping Center, conveniently located at Wake Forest Road and Interstate 440. Lat Purser, a Charlotte company's Raleigh division has spent more than a year totally overhauling the shopping center.  Despite months of delays the exact date is still in limbo but the month has been established. Fans of the California grocer fretted as the project was delayed in the city approval process but Lat Purser installed a sign Wednesday in front of the now-under-construction store declaring "Trader Joe's Coming Soon". The 13,000-square-foot store will be fully enclosed in about two weeks and work on the building is expected to be completed in September said Chad Cooper, who is overseeing construction for Indiana-based MDC Construction.

Posted by Lisabeth Tunell:

This years festival runs Friday 6 to 11 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with an eat-local theme.

The festival attracting more than 25,000 people will feature live music, food, a car show and children's games. On Saturday, a locally raised pig will be roasted all day and served to the crowd.

Organizers could not find a local organic farmer who could supply 3,000 lbs of meat for Saturday's pork cook-off, they did purchase hams and shoulders from pitmaster Ed Mitchell's network of Eastern North Carolina farmers, who raise pigs that are hormone-free, antibiotic-free and fed all-natural grain.

Mitchell, who co-owns The Pit in Raleigh, will not only judge Friday's ribs cook-off between 9 and 11 p.m. but then at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Mitchell will then judge the shoulders and hams cook-off with the help of Walter Royal, executive chef of Raleigh's Angus Barn and the musical chef Mel Melton of Papa Mojo's Roadhouse. Should be an interesting event......

For more information, go to www.hogdays.com

Posted by Judy Burrell.  This week is Triangle Restaurant Week in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area.  From May 11 through May 17 more than 50 great restaurants are offering Fixed Price Lunches for $15 and Dinners for $25.  You will be able to enjoy an appetizer, an entree and a dessert for the fixed price fee.  What a great opportunity to try out a new restaurant or visit one of your local favorites!

To find a list of which restaurants are participating in the Triangle Restaurant Week please visit www.trirestaurantweek.com.  There you will find out where you can go to enjoy this fun idea in dining.  But hurry, it is only for this week, May 11th through May 17th.  Bon Appetite!

Posted by Lisabeth Tunell:

Recently my husband and I had plans to take our daughter and 3 of her friends away for spring break and 4 days before we were to leave "we" the parents almost did not get to go.....

Our passports had expired in January of '09 and there was no way we were boarding any planes with expired passports regardless of having birth certificates, drivers licenses, marriage certificate, voter registration cards, library cards, YMCA membership cards, Sam's cards, business cards, credit cards and all the cash in the world....we were NOT boarding any planes. I stand corrected, we could GO to Mexico but upon our return we would not be allowed back into the United States. That posed a little problem and as much as I would have liked to extend my vacation reality would eventually set in.

Needless to say PANIC set in. After numerous phone calls and some very nice, informative people that we spoke to on the phone we finally go to the one person who could actually help.

You need a letter from your Senator to present at the Special Issuance Agency in Washington, DC. Have the Senator's Office alert the Special Issuance Agency staff that you will be arriving at 8:00 a.m. to submit passport renewal applications. My advise IS to ARRIVE by 8:00 a.m. since ours took 7 hours to process. Please remember that you will need to take your current expired passport book, (2) new passport style photographs, the completed DS-82 (which you can download beforehand), and method of payment, $135.00 per person (payable to U.S. Department of State). Another important thing that we were told but forgot when we got there...we ended up standing in the LONG line that starts to form outside the Passport Office BUT when you are renewing you actually go into the building next door and go up to the second floor. There was NO line :).

The drive to DC was long and there was NO place to stay in and around the area unless you wanted to pay upwards of about $350.00. We choose to drive around and back out of the city limits to find something suitable in the $80.00 range. It was nothing to write home about but the free coffee in the morning was good.

My advise to all who travel and a good friend of mine gave me this advise is, when making your air travel plans ALWAYS check your passport expiration date. One last thing I will say is that if the person in the Senator's Office had not followed through with with what she said she was going to do (letter, phone call, emails, faxes, etc)we would not have had such a spectacular time with my daughter in Mexico. We would have been shall we say left out in the cold...Burrrr! and might I add what a "Sunny" disposition she had throughout the whole situation.