The Best are Rising in the Birmingham area

The recession is an opportunity, often by fire, for REALTORS to sink or swim. With the many changes in the economy, regulations and lending – It is critical that you have a professional who is up on these changes and has a mastermind group of experts around them in all the specialized areas.

Several top sales professionals have reported their best year ever without the benefit of distressed property sales.

Are we working harder?
Absolutely, more than ever before.
Are we working smarter and tapping into every technological advantage?
For sure!

The difference between these real estate leaders and others seems to be:

a) an intense focus on the business basics
b) a focus on the marketplace and customers
c) an absolute unwillingness to accept anything but results.

These are the principles that the Whitehouse Team lives by.

Good things to remember as we move into a recovery year in 2011.

HOUSING TRENDS

The rising interest rates and first time home buyers are currently driving the housing market. Rising mortgage rates helped push homebuyers into the market place.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes remained flat in December.

Artists Boost Home Prices in Desolate Downtowns

Can low-income artists really revive dying downtown real estate?
The answer in three Detroit zip codes is “yes.”
Click here to read the report!

Tax Deduction for Mortgage Interest Could be on the Chopping Block

It’s been around since 1913, but its time may be up. The leaders in government believe such a change would generate billions of dollars in federal revenue that could be used to cut the deficit while inflicting little pain on most middle-class homeowners.  (How can you raise Billions and not inflict pain on the homeowner? – we are keeping close tabs on this!)

FORECLOSURES & SHORT SALES

Skitish lenders are denying some short sales, citing price concerns, many lenders are opting to foreclose rather than do a short sale. It is important to have a professional navigate those waters for you to make sure that this does not happen. We are there for you.

MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS-supported legislation to allow foreclosed properties to retain their principal residence exemption for a period of up to 3 years has passed both the House and Senate, and is expected to be signed by the Governor in the coming days.

Senate Bill 77 provides for much needed Principal Residence status and tax relief to purchasers of bank-owned properties after the May 1st filing deadline. This legislation has become particularly important since foreclosures, which are non-principal residences, have flooded Michigan’s real estate market in recent years. The current situation prices buyers out of homes by forcing them to qualify for a mortgage at the higher tax rate. Those buyers looking to purchase foreclosed properties are consequently stuck with a significant tax burden for the remainder of the year despite making that new purchase their principal residence. This bill would alleviate that burden by allowing a buyer to immediately make a foreclosed property their principal residence.

The MAR Public Policy staff met with legislators on this bill until the very last hours of the 2010 session to express the importance of making this tax-friendly legislation a priority. We are pleased that legislators on both sides of the aisle supported the passage of this bill, which gives homebuyers significant tax relief when purchasing a foreclosed property.

Your Real Estate Professionals,
Kathie & Doug

Here’s a roundup of what we’ve been thinking about this week, I hope you find it useful!

Bank Fraud in Short Sales – There have been reports of banks demanding a kick-back from the short sale transaction.

And listen here to an actual Short Sale Supervisor talking to an agent about fraudulent kickbacks.

If you see this activity, please report it immediately to your state Attorney General.

We can also assit with your short sale transaction at Strategic Solutions and Settlements.

Jump in mortgage rates, but they are still low – Demand for mortgages fell and interest rates have risen this week as the Mortgage Bankers Association released the results of their weekly mortgage applications survey. There is still a lot of uncertainty about what impact the Fed’s QE2 (Quantitative Easing, Part 2) program will have on the financial markets. 30 year rates are up about a quarter point.

List price cut in 48% of homes - Almost half the houses on the market had a price reduction in October, according to ZipRealty. Detroit-Livonia-Warren was at 23%, Phoenix was the worst with a reduction in 56% of listings, and Denver was the best with a reduction in only 34%. One could wonder if this is an indication how realistic sellers and/or agents are about prices in these markets.

It doesn’t pay to remodel? - Good story by Les Christie at CNN about the possible return on investment from remodeling. There are a lot of real estate investors in the market who would disagree with these numbers! If you read through the data, you see it’s based on survey results, not actual concrete data. — CNN Story

Your real estate professionals,
Kathie & Doug

NEW HOME SALES

Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 6.6 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 307,000 units, their best pace since June, according to data released by the U.S. Commerce Department today.

SEVERAL LARGE HOME BUILDERS DOING WELL

Seven large homebuilders (1000 or more closings) have sold more homes so far in 2010 than they did a year earlier. They are Villages of Lake Sumter, MI Homes, Highland Homes LTD, Perry Homes, Richmond American, NVR and DR Horton, according to Housing IntelligencePro.

HOMEOWNERS LOWER THEIR DEBT

In the third quarter of 2010, 33 percent of homeowners who refinanced their first-lien home mortgage lowered their principal balance by paying-in additional money at the closing table. This is the second highest “cash-in” share since Freddie Mac began keeping records on refinancing patterns in 1985.

NICE TO HEAR SOME GOOD NEWS

Was your Birmingham home for sale and No Offers!

Two reasons homes in Birmingham Michigan fail to sell!

EXPOSURE & PRICE

Did anyone see your home on the internet and if they did see it was it positioned to make them want to move forward and visit the property in person? The price is critical but first they have to see the home when they are searching for what is available for sale. So lets discuss that first.

Start with the understanding that 85 – 90% of all buyers go to the internet to find what they are looking for today. Next to understand is that Google in the most popular of all the search engines when it comes to finding what you are looking to find. That being said you can see how important it is to be well located or positioned on Google if you want the vast majority of potential buyers to actually see your property. We did some research and found that buyer are using some very common Search terms when looking for homes in our area. Those terms are listed below and you can go to Google and insert the search terms or simply click on any search term below and you will be linked to the Google search results for that term.

On the results page you will see “Sponsored Links”. These are people paying by click to be listed on the top. It does not mean that they earned that position it only means they are willing to pay more than the next person in order to show up in  ”Sponsored Links”.  MOST viewer will bypass Sponsored Links and go the “Organic” listing links. These are the people that earned the position they hold. The most current analysis I’ve read indicates that the first position under organic links get over 40% of all the clicks. The second position get around 11%. If these number hold true you can clearly see the importance of great web site positioning when it comes to getting your home found on the internet.

When you click on any of these links notice that the same website comes up in the first few organic position every time. If you were looking to get a home sold in Birmingham, Michigan wouldn’t you think that having your home marketed on such a web site could be very important. With over four million homes on the internet it becomes critical that your homes gets FOUND and great website positioning is the answer.

PRICING IS ALSO CRITICAL……

Not all sellers understand that their asking price is the ultimate determination of whether they will sell their property or not. Not only does the asking price affect if you’ll sell, but when and for how much. The longer it takes you to get to the correct fair market value asking price, the greater your Days On Market are and the more of a negative stigma buyers will have of your property. This can translate into lower offers and ultimately, a lower selling price.

Sure, how well your agent markets the property matters. But even the best agent in the world can’t fool today’s buyer and a good buyer’s agent. Today’s buyer has access to way too much information and data to overpay for a property. And a good buyer’s agent will provide comps and their personal expertise to even the most uniformed buyer so that they don’t make a bad decision and overpay for a property.

It all boils down to finding the right Realtor who does two things:

Makes sure that your home is found by the buyers

Makes sure it’s a Win-Win deal

Banner Headline says New Home Sales Drop by Largest Amount since 1970 

New single-family U.S. home sales fell by an unexpectedly steep 8.5 percent in March and the median sales prices compared to a year ago dropped by the largest amount since 1970, a government report released this week showed. The pace of sales slowed to an annual rate of 526,000 last month, the weakest rate since October 1991, the Commerce Department said.

This may sound bad but it truly is not what it appears. If you look at the fact that builders have been building fewer new homes for some time it should not come as a surprise that they are selling fewer. You can’t sell something that doesn’t exist!

Dan Green from The Mortgage Reports wrote a much more detailed article which is available on his website

You can see from the statistics quoted here that sales are slower but it sure doesn’t show the gloom and doom or huge drop in value that some writers are talking about. These are hard fact from what I consider a very informed source.

REAL Trends, the nation’s leading source of trends and analysis on the residential real estate services industry, is launching a new report on the housing market, the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. This new report tracks actual housing sales from real estate brokerage firms from every state in the nation and compares current month activity with the same month one year earlier. The total sales base being tracked represents over 35 percent of all reported housing sales completed by brokerage firms and will be reported each month. 

I started to write this last night and thanks to a computer’s normal behavior the whole thing trashed and now here I am starting from scratch again. Let’s try one more time.

Last night both of my children (both in their 30′s) were headed home for the holiday and I was sitting here writing this blog with my wife/partner sitting next to me on the couch. Reflecting on last night and the interesting day we have had today I can truly say it doesn’t get much better.

Today, we deep fried a turkey for the first time.  While this may sound simple, safely deep frying a turkey (i.e. not starting an oil fire or blowing up the garage) involved a 6′ ladder, 5 gallons of peanut oil, a homemade pulley system, 3 men and a dog (Kathie and my daughter happily watched from inside in front of the fireplace).  The clear key to success is careful planning and simple common sense and, I’m happy to report, we all enjoyed a wonderfully moist, flavorful turkey (and as my daughter exclaimed in shock, not at all greasy!).  

Even though Michigan has had a difficult economy this year and the TV chefs have grossly overestimated the time needed to deep fry a turkey, we have tons to say thanks for!

For the dinner I’ve just finished, for the family I’ve shared the meal with and for every soldier who has ever served our country and for those serving today I am truly thankful!

Bless each and every one of you and may you also enjoy a blessed Thanksgiving.

The Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber is hosting a FREE seminar entitled, “Understanding Foreclosure: Keeping Your American Dream Alive,” on Wednesday, November 14 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Seaholm High School in Birmingham.

This FREE seminar will update homeowners on the most current information available to help protect their most valuable asset.

Attendees can register by calling the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber at (248) 644-1700 or visiting www.bbccc.com.

One of the featured guests will be

Phil Seaver of Philip R. Seaver Title Company discussing:

Short sale procedures and tax implications

Foreclosure time frames – legalities and realities

Purchasing foreclosure homes – legalities and lack of warranties