Home Sellers Are Just Now Beginning To Trust A Realtor Again

Well it's taken some time, but I think that Sellers have accepted that prices really have come down. With all the media attention given to the sub-prime mortgage mess and the doom and gloom forecasts we all have been hearing, I think that sellers had taken a position that it's the other guys house that is caught up in the depressed market, NOT THEIRS! But now, I believe most all homeowners have accepted the fact that it's all houses that are feeling the downward sqeeze. With refinanceing not that easy to obtain anymore because it too has been affected by the ever tightening rules governing very liberal lending to credit heavy borrowers, that fixing up the old house might not be an option for some anymore. For some homeowners, they just might shop for another house thats already right for them. And maybe at a great price too!

Sub Prime Mess - Are Realtors to blame

After debating the sub prime mortgage mess for some months now, I firmly believe that Realtors are going to bear the brunt of the blame. Why, because Realtors are an easy target, and not directly connected to the money trail that is created when a mortgage application is created. Underwriters, appraisers, etc., plus the people in the back room that put together some of the most unusual mortgages for individuals to get approved for, have retreated into the darkness. Mortgage brokers by large numbers have left the business and now Realtors will be responsible for keeping the market more stable by creating better reporting on closed sales. Consessions in the purchase provided for extra money to be lent to the buyer by the bank, and the home had to appraise for the full amount. Hello, did anyone anticipate a lower market that would eat up equity and cause a meltdown? Yes, markets always change just like the stock market. Banking is not a new business, it's been around since cowboys. Let's act like we know what were doing in the future.

Staten Island Real Estate - Virtual Tours a great way to promote a home

As a Sales Manager of a Real estate company, I know how important it is to have your listing noticed in the marketplace. Realtors have a really good tool to use.

Virtual Tours offer up a window of opportunity for to the seller, the buyer and also the Realtor. Video, stills or even the fish eye camera provide buyers with not just a snapshot of your home, but provide flow from room to room. When done correctly, and with fair to good quality photos or movies, buyers can get a much better perspective of the property so that they can choose which home they might want to see in person.

Although I'm not a Virtual Tour expert, I have done enough of these tours for my agents to know that they can be done at virtually no cost, and with proper staging look as though they have been done professionally. There are a variety of on line tour sites where you can create a really nice tour by doing the work yourself.

I know that not every house listed is Virtual Tour material at first, but most can be if a little effort is put into it. I'm amazed how many really beautiful homes have no tour visible to the buying public, especially now that Realtor.com offers a link from your local MLS for a small charge. Buyers today shop from their computers for just about everything, house buying is near the very top of the list. This is where most buyers start their search, so would'nt it make sense to go with a tour. Buy a good camera, do it yourself and enjoy the satisfaction of creating your own masterpiece. Your sellers and buyers would appreciate it.

For "2008" - Staten Island Real Estate looks very promising.

Well here goes another new year in the real estate business. In my backyard of Staten Island things look pretty good, although our local newspaper predicts doom and gloom. That's the problem with national statistics, they become local statistics real fast, even though local sales are doing better than the national average. I'm seeing meager price drops, not big decreases, and our local MLS is showing only a small adjustment from last year. Nothing that's going to make a real impact on our market. Hope you are all faring OK in the business. Let's go Giants!!!

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"Stay focused in Real Estate for 2008"

Since January 1, 2008 my Staten Island real estate office has been making deals right out of the box. Also agents are working buyers and we are getting listings too. I admit that some of the sales and listings were being cultivated towards the end of the year, but they stayed together even with all the negative real estate news. OPEN HOUSES are starting to do well too.
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Staten Island Real Estate - What's up with the Sub Prime mess?

Well not a day goes by without us hearing about the big drop in housing sales due to big lending institutions losing money on bad loans. They call them sub-prime loans. Bad credit you go to sub prime, but if you had the worst kind of lender and had good credit you might still go sub prime. But that's a story to talk about at another time.

Local and national media have driven it into a frenzy. We are at a point where negative information about the sub prime industry is about the only thing we hear about in the housing marketplace. It has affected all money markets here and also abroad.

In the first few weeks after the sub prime story broke, one major player after another in the home financing business came out with their loss figures. I can't imagine that anyone could put these numbers together so fast. It was almost like press releases were in hand just waiting for the story to break! And there was no shame in it either. Major banks, Wall Street, anyone who has money in the housing market was willing to put their name out there for all to see.

Then after the dust settled and some businesses said they were closing up shop due to losses, the field of lenders got smaller fast, and we are told that new loans would have tighter pre-qualifications that would leave many buyers out in the cold. But what's really interesting is that Congress, the White House and of course political candidates jumped into the fray like a bear into a beehive.

Don't any of the people in Washington know what''s going on in the home mortgage business? If they can have all types of congressional hearings on lead paint in toys, and steroid use in professional sports, then I think they need to pay more attention to the consumer being ripped off by unmanageable mortgage loans also.

However, all of them are pitching a fix to the problem. Truth be told, the current administration doesn't want the problem, and the incoming one, whoever it is doesn't want to inherit it. Thank goodness this sub prime mess came during active campaigning for the Presidency, rather than early on in a new administration.

It's strange how Realtors across the country expected the problem to show it's ugly head for sometime now, and the heads of financial institutions, the government and Wall Street just woke up to the problem yesterday.

Somewhere in all this, I would have to think is that our great financial minds were asleep at the switch or just left it alone for a reason. I just don't know. If home ownership is one of the most important factors in the US economy, then how could so many dollars be put in jeopardy, funding high risk loans, not to mention lopsided lending practices and low ARM loans that come with easy monthly payments in the early term, and much higher monthly payments later.

Families living their American dream would find out the hard way that keeping a home purchased with such lending practices would not protect them if the market dropped. There's no flipping into a 30 year fixed loan when equity is melting away from the
higher house values of just a few years ago. Appraisers take note!

So now we can put a new slant on the phase "buyer beware". Now, we have to use it in the industry that insisted on credit checks, job verification and history, paid utility bills, references, etc., etc., to protect their interests., while they were far from forthcoming about their lending practices.

Inflated appraisals, point money not available from buyers, but rather borrowed and hidden in the loan. And what about two-headed loans where the buyer could borrow the mortgage money and the down payment too, and of course the already mentioned and dreaded Adjustable Rate loan. All these loans were leading right to higher monthly payments. Payments that choked the wallet of homeowners.

Sure, at some point these homes will find themselves again in the marketplace after foreclousre, but what of the family that lived in one. It's like giving a child a taste of your ice cream, and telling them that's all you get.

Maybe, a lesson will be learned from all this. Maybe it won't. But as a Realtor, I know that if we as real estate professionals are to be kept to a higher standard to protect the public, then lending institutions must be held to these standards too. There's just too much at stake when it comes to family and community preservation.

Realtors can find the best house for a buyer, but we do not loan the funds. Buyers should deal with reputable lenders and not mortgage solicitors that come in the form of Internet or mortgage brokers. I recommend that a buyer have their attorney look over the mortgage, note and terms, so that they will know what they are signing for, and what will be expected of them later. And the loan documents should be available for reading before the closing, not at the closing.

I believe that all of us in the Real Estate business need to be more concerned about this all important part of home ownership. I know I will.

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