The #1 way that seller’s can entice buyer’s and get their attention is  an aggressive price reduction.   As many as 24 percent of home sellers have slashed prices in the last month–that is a 9 percent increase from June levels.   And, seller’s should forget about small, nickle and dime price drops.   Instead, they should dramatically drop their price  to reach a search level that will open them up to new buyers that are not aware of their listing.  For example, if your list price is $220,000, a drop to $199,000 will attract a new audience that is searching up to the $200,000 price point.  

Bottom Line:  If you are sick of waiting and want to move now, price the house to attract multiple bidders and you might even get more than you’re asking for.  And remember…if you are selling your home to buy a new one, you will likely break even because the person you are buying from is in the same gut wrenching position you are.

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  Our flat fee MLS packages, List Until Sold Packages and marketing tools can help you sell your property and save thousands of dollars in fee’s and commissions.  Visit our site today for details and assistance.

Acrophobics Beware…If you fancy a dip in this pool, you’ll need a head for heights – it’s 55 stories up. But swimming to the edge won’t be quite as risky as it looks. While the water in the infinity pool seems to end in a sheer drop, it actually spills into a catchment area where it is pumped back into the main pool.

For More Amazing Pictures…CLICK HERE

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.   Our marketing program boosts real estate sales to new heights.  Check out the website for details.

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  We have helped thousands of people market their homes with our flat fee MLS program or our List Until Sold option.  We can help you, too!!

Today, we take a look at the events that have already affected thousands of gulf coast property owners.  We will conclude our series with expert predictions about what will likely follow in years to come…

CLICK HERE TO READ TODAYS SHORT ARTICLE WHICH ADDRESSES DAMAGES THAT MAY HAVE NEVER OCCURRED TO YOU!!!

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  We have helped thousands of property owners successfully market their properties…while saving thousands in commissions and fee’s.   There are alternatives and we can help you, too!!

The act defines seven different classes that are protected against discrimination, these include: 

Race

Color

National origin

Sex

Religion

Handicap

Familial status 

(You may notice that Age is not a protected class, in and of itself.  Sellers of property that are zoned 55+, adult only, etc. can discriminate on the basis of age, if it violates deed restrictions, zoning or restrictive convenants.

Attention Home Sellers:   You put yourself at serious risk of violating this act, if you refuse to sell or show your home to an interested buyer.  Remember that ignorance of the law is not a viable excuse or defense.  You will be held legally liable, even if you accidentally violate these laws without realizing it.

Review the following list of words that cannot be included in advertisements of your home, because they are in violation of the Fair Housing Laws.  

Bachelor apartment

Children welcome

Couples

Gentlemans Farm

Golden Agers

Handicapped

Integrated

Married

Mature

Mother-in-Law quarters

Professional

Section 8

Seniors

Singles only

Sports-minded 

Why6Percent.com encourages all home sellers to avoid any form of discrimination, at all costs.   The financial penalities and fines for violating the Fair Housing Act are Severe!   If you have any questions, send us an email and we will try to help you. 

Please note that some of the figures used in our examples will vary depending on the state or county a house is sold in, as well as the settlement company used and any other unique provisions that may be contained in a contract of sale. Additionally, the real estate broker commission is typically 6 percent of the sales price, but it is not a set amount.  It is a sales expense negotiated between individual sellers and brokers.   For the purposes of our example, a $250,000 sales price was used.

 Transfer taxes

As you might expect, most state and local governments make sure they profit when someone sells a house.  In most states, one-time transfer taxes will be due when a sale takes place.  It is customary for transfer taxes to be split 50/50 between the buyer and the seller, but there is no set requirement that they be divided in that manner.

Some states, like Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, have no transfer taxes at all. In other states, Colorado for instance, the transfer tax is nominal – the state charges only one tenth of 1 percent ($40 on a $400,000 house) in transfer taxes. The so called “Free State” of Maryland falls on the other end of the spectrum with some of the highest transfer taxes in the nation.

Commissions

As we stated earlier, real estate commissions are not a set amount. They are a point of negotiation between the seller and the broker. For illustration purposes here, we are using 6 percent, or $15,000 on a $250,000 sale.

Another seller expense you may run across in some area’s is a listing broker administrative brokerage commission.  It’s usually adds another $250-$500 expense on top of the 6 percent commission fee.  The seller will see it as a separate expense on their closing statement.  So, what is this fee for? By law, brokers must keep records of all their real estate transactions for a period of years. And they must produce those records if asked for them.  Although it’s a ridiculous added on fee, the listing broker administrative brokerage commission is an expense passed along by some brokers to help defray the cost of this requirement.

Settlement fees

The buyer is responsible for hiring the settlement or title company to perform closing, so the buyer will usually pay most of the fees associated with settlement. But, the seller does have some settlement expense.  If the seller has an outstanding loan on the property, the settlement company will take care of paying that loan off out of the sales proceeds. They’ll charge something for the service, plus the cost of overnight fees to quickly get the loan payoff to the mortgage holder. In our example here, we’ll use $250.   And, since interest in collected in arrears, the seller will be responsible for any interest charges that accrue after the last payment thru the day of closing.

The Bottom Line

If you sell your house for $250,000, you can probably expect to walk away with around $230,000 after taxes, commissions and fees.  If no real estate commissions need to be paid out, the seller could expect to walk away with approximately $245,000.  The real number will depend on exactly what it says in the sales contract and where the property is located.

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.   We help do-it-yourself home sellers market their home to millions of home shoppers every day.  We can help you get the word out about your home, too!!

The Rule of 15:   Here is how the Rule of 15 works for real estate investors:

1. Determine the rental rates for the area you are interested in.   Rental rates can be found at Zillow, Trulia or a new fun website Rentometer.
2. Calculate how much you would pay in rent for one year.  (Example:  $1000/month x 12 = $12,000/yr)
3. Multiple the annual rent by 15.  (In our example, $12,000/year x 15 = $180,000.
4. Look up and compare the asking prices of comparable properties in the same area.
5. If the sales prices in the area are higher than the annual rent times 15, the location is still over priced for the market and prices will continue to fall.  In other words, keep renting and banking cash.
6. If the sales prices of homes in the area are lower than your annual rent times 15, the market has probably gone through most of the bust cycle and if may be safe to step in and buy.

Rentometer.com is a very handy tool for anyone looking for a new place to rent or investors searching for the best place to buy a piece of rental property.

The website is simple and easy to use.  Simply, type in a  zipcode, add the number of bedrooms you are interested in, and, with one click, Rentometer comes to life with a map display and property links for all the rental options and rates in your selected area.

This site is a great example of why map mashups are so popular.   It is one of the most useful rental sites on the web I’ve seen and it is a lot of fun to use. 

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  We are here to assist you in getting your property exposed to the largest number of qualified buyers.  Visit the site or call 1-800-381-9496 to see what’s available in your area.

Hamptons Listings Said to Be Under Investigation

If Wall Street denizens thought they could escape the specter of Justice Department inquiries by decamping to the Hamptons, it appears they’re wrong.

Real estate listings in the Hamptons are the subject of a Justice Department inquiry, The New York Times and Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, keying off an earlier article in The New York Post.

Several Hamptons real estate executives told The Times on Tuesday that they had been contacted by Justice Department officials seeking information about a listing service that has been criticized as an effort to keep smaller agencies from having access to the area’s best properties.

The service, known as Realnet, allows members to share their listings with other members. Last year, George Simpson, who runs his own real estate listing company, sued more than two dozen local brokerages and Realnet. Mr. Simpson said that because only larger brokerages could afford the annual fee, which he said ranged from $15,000 to $50,000, those brokerages ultimately controlled “80 percent to 90 percent of the exclusive real estate listings.”

The stakes for brokerages are big, and apparently getting bigger, according to Bloomberg:

Hamptons home sales more than doubled in the first quarter, the biggest annual increase in seven years of record keeping, according an April 22 report by New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. A shift toward larger, more expensive homes pushed the median price up 35 percent to $908,500.

Three brokerages named in the lawsuit — the Corcoran Group, Brown Harris Stevens and Prudential Douglas Elliman — declined to comment or did not return calls, The Times said. Realnet did not return a call and an e-mail message seeking comment.

“The question I think the Justice Department is asking is: Are they putting their own profits ahead of what they should be doing for the clients?” Jonathan Lerner, a managing director at the Engel & Volker brokerage, told Bloomberg.

Gina Talamona, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment about the inquiry to The Times and Bloomberg.

By August, Mr. Simpson had withdrawn his lawsuit and said that he planned to refile his case under “different circumstances” and continue “moving forward with the crusade.”

But the original case apparently caught the attention of Justice Department officials. Mr. Simpson told The Times that in the past month, he spoke for 90 minutes by telephone with several department employees about the structure of the real estate industry in the Hamptons and which firms dominated the market.

Members of a multiple listing service post their sales listings for other members to see; nonmembers could be at a disadvantage because sellers generally prefer to have their homes placed on listing services and exposed to as many potential buyers as possible.

John Nickles, a broker based in Southold and the chairman of the multiple listing service for the Hamptons and North Fork Realtors Association, told The Times that he was interviewed on May 5 by two Justice Department lawyers, an economist and a paralegal. Mr. Nickles said that his brokerage could not afford the more expensive system; he pays $160 a month for access to the local multiple listing service that he leads.

Joe Kazickas, owner of an East Hampton real estate company that runs a Web site called Hamptonsrentals.com, said he was scheduled to speak to Justice Department officials on May 24. He said that smaller brokerages that could not pay for the costlier listing database would find it “very difficult to compete.”

Source New York Times, Edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.  Our job is keeping you informed and helping you market your home.  If you do not have a listing on your local MLS or Realtor.com, you are missing millions of home shoppers each month.  Visit our site or call 1-800-381-9496 for details!

In a move that critics may cite as his own inconvenient truth, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a house in secluded Montecito to their real estate holdings.

The couple spent $8,875,000 on a gated ocean-view villa on 1 1/2 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, according to real estate sources familiar with the deal. The Italian-style house has high ceilings with beams in the public rooms, a family room, a wine cellar, terraces, six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms in more than 6,500 square feet of living space.

Montecito has long been a haven for Southern California’s rich and famous, a spot where celebrity faces can blend into the crowd. Among the community’s notable residents have been talk show giant Oprah Winfrey, actors Michael Douglas and Christopher Lloyd, and golfer Fred Couples. The 93108 ZIP Code, which includes the coastal hamlet, was ranked as America’s seventh most expensive area last year by Forbes.

Word of the purchase was reported in late April in the Montecito Journal. Gore, 62, did not respond to The Times’ requests for comment.

Why6Percent.com home sellers have reported a huge upward trend in buyer traffic, contract pendings and closings over the past 6 weeks.  We have helped hundreds of sellers market their homes and save thousands of dollars in commissions and fee’s.   We can help You, too.

• The National Multi-Housing Council, which measures changes in rental and occupancy rates, reports that the rental market has tightened significantly in the last few months.   Their “Market Tightness” index increased 38 percent from October 2009- April 2010.
• RealFacts reports that they national average apartment rent, for all sizes of apartments, was $943 per month in the first quarter of 2010, up from $932 in the 4th quarter of 2009.
• Hitwise, which tracks online searches, revealed that online searches for rentals surged 171 percent over 2009.

CLICK HERE to see the Hottest Search Terms for Rental Property and Discover Why the Market for Investment Property is Hot Hot Hot!!

Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com.   If you are interested in placing a listing on your local MLS, Realtor.com and all other major search portals for real estate, call 1-800-381-9496 for details!