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January Activity Report - Real Estate Update |
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Good morning from Cheviot Hills! It is Sat 1/29/2011 and I thought I’d jot down some notes about the real estate market. There is a ton of activity. Sellers are ready to sell and buyers are excited to see new inventory. Interest rates are at historic lows, and increases are projected. Many long term buyers are thinking about upgrading and locking in a great fixed term rate.
Still, I’m not seeing the inventory pick up yet. When I put a home on the market that is properly priced, there are a minimum of 3 offers on it. There just seems to be a lack of good homes on the market but a plethora of good buyers.
I predict a very active spring. Buyers realize that the market is not going to tank and the ones who sat on the sidelines are prepared to jump in. Sellers know that while we are off our inflated market highs the pricing is still great (up to 04 – 05 levels in some cases) and there are plenty of qualified buyers wanting to get into the market. While prices may not dramatically increase this year, I think we will see healthy activity and a steady uptick in pricing trends.
I have a bunch of pocket inventory – SM, Pacific Palisades, Westwood, Cheviot, Beverlywood. I should be rolling two SM listings out in the next few months, and those are ready to sell now if you’re in the market! |
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Short Sale Alert - New Citibank Contact |
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We have just established a great Citibank contact and can get short sales (on 1st loans) approved within ten days! Of course, we have other strong relationships with major lenders, but Citi approvals are moving at lightning speeds! If you or anyone you know needs short sale advice, please call me! |
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Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Short Sale? |
Not Ben! I recently closed a fabulous short sale on the West Side, and the hardly was even in arrears! That means that the seller’s credit was barely impacted.
They bought their home in 2005 at the top of the market, and put down only 3%. They were totally underwater, and needed to relocate for work. They kept making payments in good faith, and were able to sell their property and move on without a big fat FORECLOSURE on their credit.
There are three reasons a short sale will fail.
1. The package is incomplete. The lender won’t even tell you if the Seller’s package is complete or not. They just won’t respond.
2. The buyer’s expectations haven’t been clearly laid out. If the buyer is not prepared for the long lag in between getting into escrow and closing escrow, they will walk in the meanwhile. Short sales can take a long time!
3. The communication is ineffective. Bad communication equals frustrated buyers and sellers, and banks who don’t respond! This is key.
We make sure that the package is air-tight, make sure the hardship is in place, and that the property is properly marketable. And we make sure that the lender will take what is fair, which may be under 20 cents on the dollar (where a junior lien holder is concerned).
Also, we have state of the art communication methods where everybody can log into our password protected site and see what the last conversation was with the bank.
Even if you have a notice of trustee sale and are 2 weeks from sale, we can save your home and your credit! Just give us a call and we can help you determine if a short sale is right for you. |
Dear Ben,
I had a birthday last week which prompted a few moments of retrospection on the past year. What a ride! At the beginning of last May, we were living in our house in Cheviot. Nothing eventful – it was the same May we’d been having for the past ten years. While we’d been discussing a move for a year to two, we hadn’t done much, if anything, about it. So, go through four more months of same then cut to last September 18th when I was dabbling in my front garden and you rocked up and introduced yourself after another neighbor had tipped you off that I’d idly spoken of selling our house. I remember three things about that meeting: the first was I was already late for picking up my son from school, the second was that I told you we weren’t anywhere near ready to put the house on the market, and the third was that the balloon over my head said “b@//s#!t” when you said you had a couple you were representing who’d be the perfect buyers for our house. For some reason, probably that I didn’t want my kid to be the last one in the sandbox, I agreed to talk with you further if we could put off the discussion until the next Wednesday. That next Wednesday you made your pitch, that Friday we had an offer, by Monday we’d agreed on the counter offer and escrow started that Tuesday. I remember telling people it was kind of like a surprise party version of selling a house.
To bring it up to date, we’re now in the new house in Brentwood. The first stage of the remodel is almost finished, and the second stage is in the works. What I can’t believe is last September 17th, I had no idea of when, if, or how we would sell the house we were living in at the time. A lot of very good stuff has happened in the past eight months. So, I thought I’d drop you a line to say thanks for not being put off by that balloon over my head the first time we met, thanks for shepherding us through the sale and those usual potential glitches in escrow, and thanks for getting the whole process done so quickly.
Warmest regards,
Eric |
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