Archive for the ‘cooling market’ Category
How to Get a Home Loan After Short Sale
Short sales are not uncommon in today’s real estate market. Currently, they make up more than 10 percent of home sales and that number is rising.
If you have been forced to sell your previous home short, there is a way to get another mortgage. Banks are starting to lend money to people who have worked hard to scrub up their tarnished credit history and other financing options are available.
- If you kept your mortgage paid until the closing of your short sale…you may qualify for an FHA loan right now. If you were in loan default, you will have to wait 3 years to apply…however, if you had extenuating circumstances that led to your default, the 3 year waiting period may be waived.
- If you qualify for a VA loan (veterans) you can apply for a loan within 2 years after a short sale.
- If you are applying for a Fannie Mae loan you will have a 2 year wait with a 20% down payment….10% if you have qualifiying extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, Fannie requires a 4 year waiting period for down payments between 10%-20%…and, a 7 year waiting period if your down payment is less than 10%.
- Freddie Mac requires a 4 year wait, or two years if you can prove extenuating circumstances.
- Banks and credit unions may give you a loan within 2 years with a 30% down payment. If you have extenuating circumstances, they may waive the waiting period entirely.
- Two other options to consider are seller financing or a lease-purchase. You may have to settle for less than your dream home since sellers who agree to these type of arrangements often have less desireable property that they haven’t been able to unload using normal methods.
Everyone deserves a second chance. If you have been forced to sell a home short, if you have worked hard to rebuild your credit and if you have steady employment, selling your home short won’t keep you from owning your own home, again very soon.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. Our network of brokers can list your property on the MLS and all the major real estate websites for one, low flat fee…and let you sell your home yourself. Save time and money, yet reach all the buyers in the marketplace. It’s a win – win!! Call us today at 1-800-381-9496 or visit our Why6Percent.com for details.
How to Market Your Home
MARKETING YOUR HOME IN A COOL MARKET
Topics:
1.) Taglines
2.) Descriptions and Details
3.) Photographs and Video Tours
To see great marketing idea’s, just take a look at a few InfoTube home ads. I look over new ads each day and see so many creative ideas. Many ads instantly capture my attention, using descriptive words to share great things about the home. After reading the description and viewing the photographs, I often wish I was in the market for a home.
Advertising your home in the newspaper, Craigslist, MLS, magazines or the internet is expensive and time consuming. What can you do to make your ad standout ad? What can you do to make your ad memorable?
Using a Tagline is one idea. We are all familiar with taglines, “I’d rather fight than switch”; “Calgon, take me away”. Taglines differentiate your home from all the rest. Review your marketing to discover if adding a tagline will help you.
What is my Tagline?
Ask yourself, “Why did I buy this House?” “What do I Love about this House?” Maybe “Great Location” came to mind. Perhaps, it was “Superb Schools in a Family Neighborhood”; Maybe, “Incredible Views” blew you away when you first saw your home. What you love about your home is your tagline.
Use a tagline to get attention. Build on the tagline to keep it. In the description of your home, use words that paint a picture and draw the reader in. If “Incredible Views” is the tagline, a good ad might read something like:
INCREDIBLE VIEWS!!! Breathtaking Mountains and Postcard Sunsets are included with this home. From the flagstone terraces to the gourmet kitchen, no detail has been overlooked. Located minutes from downtown in a superb school district, this home offers the best of everything.
Open House Sunday 1 – 4
Tip for Your InfoTube Ad:
Communicating pertinent information puts your home on a buyers “Must See” list. Unlike classified or magazine advertising, words at InfoTube are free. When writing the description for your home ad and brochure, remember you are not charged for writing “living room with cozy fireplace”, instead of FP in LR. Use our Room Description fields to detail features of your home.
For example: Kitchen: Gourmet kitchen is fully equipped with mountain views; new, stainless steel appliance’s, granite counters, plentiful storage and a breakfast room.
Tip 2: Pictures paint a thousand words. Home Ad’s with attractive photo’s are viewed ten times as often as those without. The first picture should be the best one, as it is the one that appears on the search screen.
To improve the pictures of your home: Take exterior photo’s in the morning, evening or on an overcast day; Always center the focal point of your picture in your view finder; Looking in the viewfinder, remove any objects in the frame that distract from picture;
If tree’s or other objects are a problem, try to find a camera angle that offers an unobstructed view; When indoors, do not point the camera towards bright windows; Try kneeling or stepping on a step stool to get a better angle. Turn on the lighting and use a flash. Stage the frame of the picture and remove all obstructions.
If you haven’t uploaded pictures of your home yet, you are selling yourself short. If you don’t have a digital camera, use your film camera or a disposable one. When processing your film, request a photo CD, then upload your favorite 20 pictures. To read more about using photo’s, log into your desktop and scroll down to “Manage Photo’s”.
InfoTube.net also offers Free Home Video Tours, that we share on YouTube, automatically. Shooting and uploading a video of your property is a very smart way to be seen and it is easy. Don’t forget to include footage of your neighborhood and surrounding area’s that would appeal to buyers. Ie: park, school, shopping, transit, etc.
Thank you for visiting Why 6 Percent.com. We can supersize your marketing efforts with an MLS listing or placement on Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia and More. Visit our site for details.
To MLS or Not to MLS? Separating Fact from Hype
Topics:
What is the MLS?
What are the Benefits of advertising on the MLS
What is all the “Hype” of the MLS
What Should You Consider?
What is the MLS?
The Multiple Listing Service is a database of homes and property that are for sale. The MLS is operated by the local Board of Realtors®. The MLS is the resource agents use to find homes for their buyers or advertise their home listings to other agents. MLS listings include detailed information about the property. In addition to selling price and address, an MLS listing generally includes number of rooms, size of rooms, interior and exterior features, lot size, local school district, property taxes, association dues, directions to the property and comments. Most also include photo’s of the home and a lockbox. At the sellers discretion, most MLS listings can also be upgraded for a fee to include additional photos or virtual video tours.
To MLS or Not To MLS; Separating Fact from Hype
The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a powerful tool for real estate agents and home sellers. It allows seller’s and agent’s to cross-sell all properties in a given market, which greatly expands the sales force of all the properties for sale. The Internet has expanded the power of the MLS by providing information in real time to not only agents, but to home buyers and home sellers alike through its www.Realtor.com website. The MLS and Realtor,com it is looked at by thousands of real estate agents who may have a buyer for your property and individual home buyers searching the Internet.
Note: In addition to Realtor.com, properties listed on the MLS also appear on other major real estate search engines like Zillow, Homes.com, Military.com, Trulia.com, Yahoo, Google and a host of others.
Benefits of MLS Advertising:
There is only one very significant benefit to having your home listed on the MLS…EXPOSURE! The fact that your home is for sale will now be known by anyone searching the Internet. Additionally, hundreds, if not thousands of real estate agents in your market will also know about your property. To fully benefit from this exposure, you need to be willing to “co-op” with a real estate agent, if they bring a buyer whose contract terms are acceptable to you. “Co-op” means that you agree to compensate the buyer’s real estate agent at the closing of your property. Typically, a buyer’s agent will earn between 2%-3% of the sales price of the home. If you are willing to “co-op” with a buyer’s agent, you should indicate this clearly in your Internet and classified advertising, and on your brochures.
To list your home on the MLS, you will need to contract with a real estate listing agent that is a member of your local real estate board. If your interest is purely to have your home listed on the MLS; you can contract with a new type of Broker who charges a one-time fee to cover the cost of them listing your home in the MLS and allows you to act as your own listing agent.
The flat-fee MLS listing concept is fairly new and not all agents will be anxious to provide this service, as they are in the full service real estate listing business. To learn more about using a flat-fee MLS service, visit websites like http://www.why6percent.com
In many areas of the United States, when a home appears on the local MLS, it will also appear on aggregator websites like MSN Home Advisor, Yahoo Real Estate, Realtor.com, Zillow.com and local state and broker websites. Many of the MLS Boards send their inventory directly to these websites to enable even more exposure for the homeowner.
In today’s transient society, thousands of people use the internet to search for homes far in advance of their relocation. Many people supply the list of properties that interest them to their agent, so the agent can set up showing appointments. When a buyer is relocating to a new area, time is limited and critical. This means the buyer’s agent becomes a critical part of relocation effort. Therefore, the MLS can be key to exposing your home to people relocating to your area.
What is the Hype of an MLS listing?
1) Your house will never sell if it is NOT listed on the MLS…False.
Your house may sell more quickly or for more money because of the tremendous exposure we discussed above, but your home can sell with or without the MLS.
2) Buyers will never find your home if it is NOT listed on the MLS…False.
According to the National Assn. of Realtors data, 60% of all home sales occur because of the sign in the yard. Newsletters, directional signs, open houses, classified advertising and InfoTubes or InfoBoxes, filled with attractive home information flyers, will also help you find a buyer for your home.
3) Real estate agents will not bring a buyer to you if you are NOT on theMLS… False.
If an agent has an interested buyer and you indicate you are willing to pay them a commission, they have no reason to boycott your property. If they do, they risk that the buyer contacts you directly and they don’t make a dime.
Considerations:
The MLS has proven value and is certainly a wonderful way to expand your advertising reach. If your goal is to make local agents aware that your home is for sale and reach the millions of buyers searching for homes on major real estate websites. Keep in mind that you will need to pay a commission to a buyer agent at closing, if they bring you an offer that you accept.
If you decide to place your home on the MLS, consider it as a part of your overall marketing strategy and not a replacement for your advertising program. Properly understood, the MLS can be another excellent part of your home selling process.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. Our national network of flat fee MLS brokers are standing by to assist you in marketing your home. Please visit our website or phone 1-800-381-9496 to get started!
College Students Swap Dorm Life for Suburban Mansions
When the real estate bubble burst in 2007, I predicted that we would likely see large, single family, suburban mansions carved up and repurposed into multi-family housing. Well, time and a prolonged recession have proven the idea viable.
The USA went through the same type of evolution, in reverse, with intercity housing. Vacant, large urban, single family mansions where carved up into apartments, efficiencies and co-ops, after the mass exodus to the suburbs in the 1950’s. Now, its the McMansions, gated communities and long commutes that are out of vogue.
Families are returning back to life in the inner city. They are buying multi-family homes and converting them back into single family residences. The concept of highest and best use…has come full circle.
Check out this short video to see the latest change in student housing in decades. A bad housing market has created some luxury digs for college co-eds out in the ‘burbs”.
College students renting suburban McMansions
Thank you for visiting Why 6 Percent. We offer flat fee MLS and Realtor.com packages to builders, homeowners and anyone who needs to keep more money from their property sell. We have helped thousands of homeowners sell their homes. We can help you, too.
Banks Bulldoze Houses To Cut Taxes and Fee’s
Getting rid of repossesed homes is the biggest headache for US lenders. 1,679,125 homes ( 1 in every 77) are in some stage of foreclosure as of June. Lenders feel that no one will buy many of these homes and they”re trying to cut their losses. Bulldozing the problem away means the banks won’t owe property taxes to our floundering cities and it won’t have to pay for repairs, maintenance and upkeep on the property. In addition, there are some perks for giving away a house. The banks get a bunch of tax write-offs and best case… they may even get a pat on the back and some nice PR, too.
The idea of Bulldozing houses is nothing new. Although the banks are not blowing up homes for alturistic reasons…I think we can all agree that removing home inventory is good for all of us. In 2010, Warren Buffet advised that ”blow up a lot of houses” was a viable option and similar to ‘cash for clunkers’ auto program. I always thought bulldozing abandoned homes and returning the land to a raw state was a smarter solution than handing out money in the form of a homebuyer tax credit. The tax credit cost billions of dollars, put money into the hands of a few people blessed with good timing and did little to reduce inventory.
Bankers, why not take the “TNT” strategy one step further. Donate unwanted houses to local non-profits vs blowing them up? Make a call to Habitat for Humanity, for example? I can’t understand why Habitat is still building new homes, when we can’t get rid of the ones that are causing problems in our neighborhoods. Habitat needs to change their business model with the times and so do our lenders. Families, who are in dire need now, wait up to 6+ months for a new home to be built and the cost of building from scratch far exceeds the costs of rehabbing properties, in most cases.
Just my two cents….
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. We offer a low, flat fee MLS program for owners, builders and for people who need to hold onto as much of their money as possible. If you aren’t familiar with advertising your home on the MLS or Realtor.com, please visit our website and review the FAQ. Our marketing packages reach millions of home buyers each day.
InfoTube.net is FREE home selling website. Visit our site for free legal forms, home searches, home listings, marketing tools, advise and support! We are a 100% Made in the USA company.
What the Real Estate Market looks like in 2012
Would you like to see what the housing market has in store for 2012? If so, take a moment to watch this video.
Remember that in spite of the doom and gloom…10,000 sets of keys are handed to new homeowners every single day!!
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com…we offer FREE marketing website for owners, builders and agents. In addition, our MLS and Realtor.com packages can give you all the exposure of a full service listing…without the cost.
Remember that… Who you buy From is as important as What you Buy! Look for Made in the USA products and support US workers!!
ABC News Contest for Favorite American Made Products
For those of you who are following our struggle and have ask how you can help next…
I think that continuing to send requests to ABC news (the direct link is below) would really be helpful for moving our negotiations forward and for highlighting this David and Goliath story.
My recent experiences have proven that the tide of consumer awareness is shifting in our country. The grass roots support for American business, workers and products is gaining momentum quickly and we all need to stay involved to turn our economy and future around.
I would encourage everyone to submit your favorite American made products to ABC News.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/MadeInAmerica/mailform?id=13599846
I hope to see a lot of love for InfoTube and InfoBox, of course, but I know that a lot of American businesses are fighting against the outsourcing tsunami, as well. Each one of them would appreciate your support and there is no limit on the number of products you can submit.
Thank you again for all your help!!!! Without you, we wouldn’t be here today. Please mention us to ABC News…I would love to tell our story to Diane Sawyer
Tommi Crow
President, Crow Erickson, Inc
US Workers May Keep Jobs Due to Public Outcry
After months of silence , Crow Erickson, Inc. received a telephone call today from senior management at The Hillman Group, distributor of InfoTube and InfoBox for Lowes and Home Depot stores.
We feel the sole reason for this communication is due to the pouring of support and the hundreds of emails and inquiries sent on our behalf.
Although, a decision has not been made about the outsourcing of our products to China, we do feel that we have some positive news to share with you for the first time.
On behalf of everyone at Crow Erickson, Caplugs and our associates, we want to extend our deepest Thanks for all your continued effort and support. We hope that a resolution can be reached, now that the lines of communication have been opened.
We will be sure to keep you posted on the outcome of our ongoing negotiations. Made in America matters to us all.
Tommi Crow
President, Crow Erickson, Inc.
7 Tips to Sell Your Home this Weekend
In today’s’ super-competitive housing market, it is essential that homebuyers picture themselves living inside the home you are trying to sell.
7 Home Selling Tips from the Lips of Top Selling Agents
- For starters, take down the Wallpaper – Trust me when I say, “Buyers just do not like wallpaper.” If you doubt how personal wallpaper is…just walk into any wallpaper store and stare at the thousands of available patterns. Chances of your tastes matching are at least a thousand to one. Don’t risk it! Pull that paper down!
- The Clutter HAS to Go! Living in a house is alot different than Selling a house. It is easy to get blind to your own clutter. Ask a friend, neighbor or neutral party to be honest with you. Then, pack away every single thing you don’t use. And, clear the kitchen counters completely.
- Smelly Homes Will NOT Sell. Agents have an old saying, “If I can smell it, I can’t sell it.” Pet smells, musty odor’s, etc will kill a sale everytime.
- White is not a Color. But, paint is your friend. Every room should have a fresh coat of paint in a warm, neutral color.
- A Spot of Color. Everyone loves flowers. Place pots with colorful annual flowers by the front door or plant seasonal color in the beds to make your home inviting and memorable.
- Househunting Begins on the Internet. If your property is not exposed on the internet, your chances of a buyer finding you are very small. Tip the odds in your favor by advertising your home on the MLS and all the major search engines for real estate. InfoTube also offers FREE property listings on its website. Also, make sure your listing includes at least 10 good photo’s of the interior and exterior of your home. If possible, also include a video tour of the house and neighborhood.
- Forget About Comp’s and Sold Properties. Study your competition, which means homes currently For Sale. If your home is priced too high when compared to your competition, it is going to sit for a long, long time.
Homeowners should please keep in mind that Buyers have a lot of choices. The homeowner who can make their house stand out among the vast inventory of “For Sale” signs will the one who wins the selling game.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com,, your do-it-yourself home selling source. We can bring buyer’s to your door. Check out our website to see how we’ve helped thousands of home sellers.
No First Time Buyers Hurt Housing Market
The lack of first-time buyers is hurting the housing market and their absense is hampering the recovery.
In normal markets, first time buyers make up 40%-45% of all home purchasers. Since January of 2011, purchases made by first time buyers averages only 32%
Why is this important for existing home sales?
First time buyers are crucial to the market because they buy starter homes so those owners can step up to a more expensive property. Despite low mortgage rates and deeply discounted prices, they are remaining on the sidelines…at least for now.
What may be keeping first time buyers out of the housing market?
Some experts point to a hangover from the Expired Tax Credit of 2009 and 201o, which may have lured buyers into a home sooner than later. Some point to tighter lending standards and increased down payment requirements. The best loan terms now kick in with a down payment of 20% or more, which may be very difficult for a first time homeowner.
The Silver Lining — The National Association of Realtors reported that a record 33% of all existing home sales in Febuary were to Cash Buyers. In some parts of the country, cash buyers accounted for more than half of all the existing homes sold.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. We have helped thousands of home sellers and builders market their homes and save money. We can help you, too! Visit our website for facts and details.
Home Sellers should check out InfoTube.NET a FREE homes for sale and rent website. Visit the site to place a free ad on your property, view listings or to purchase a Made in America InfoTube or InfoBoxe to help you market your home on the street.
We can also arrange for your property to be shown on your local MLS and/or Realtor.com and all major real estate websites. CLICK HERE for details.