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Cash Not Always King

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wood door

In the real estate world, cash not always being king is an understatement. Why? well…in case of a dispute, if checks or money orders were used then you can simply follow the paper trail to help resolve the problem.

Now. You may be asking about the pic. Yes…that is me with a tenant from a unit in Vista Lago in Kendall Florida I rented to (I represented the landlord). The tenant is a woman that simply likes to deal in cash. For rentals, I do tend to make exceptions about not just taking checks or money orders but also cash. I do not advice it, but I do it sometimes if other factors fall in place such as:

tenant has good or better verifiable credit (600+ fico). tenant can verify employment and income commensurate of the monthly rental payment. tenant has no criminal background. tenant can provide verifiable previous landlord reference where I can verify that the previous landlord is the actual owner of the place.

And so on. Notice I often say “verifiable”. This is key as a lot of time, I get information from tenants that blow my mind.

One time, a tenant gave me a name and number of the previous landlord where he lived. So I called that landlord and asked for his complete name. So I pulled up title records and the name given did not match what was on title. Needless to say, the person on phone abruptly hung up.

Need to verify a name on a property’s title?

So…if you do decide to work with a tenant via cash, take a picture just like the one you see on this post. Actually you may wan to add a time-stamp on the pic (which I did not do). And right away, email that pic to all parties involved in the transaction with a note explaining the picture (example: 1st months rent April 1, 20013 by John Doe).

About the time stamp…there is software that detects wether the time stamp was photo-shopped or is legitimate. One less thing to worry about.

7 Tips For Moving

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Below are a few helpful links to aid the process of “where to look” to get things done when you are ready to move to a new home.

  1. Change of address
  2. FPL (connect / disconnect electricity)
  3. Water (connect / disconnect water)
  4. Schedule a Bulk Waste Pick Up
  5. Yelp.com: go to this site and type “moving services” to check out companies and reviews of them.
  6. Amazon.com: type “moving boxes” on the search box and get great deals (free alternative: you can go to your local supermarket during product unloading time to get their boxes. This is usually done around 6 or 7 am).
  7. Evernote (for you techies that your life revolves around your phone, keep track of all items / schedules via this amazing app).

You can always Google about “moving checklist” and you will get 5.5 million results on the topic. So I figured why fight a beast when the work has already been done.

Submitting Offers Without Success?

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Despite the media hype about the overflow of real estate homes, buying a foreclosure in today’s market can be complicated. Without the right advice and guidance, buyers often become de-motivated, fed up and tired of submitting offers to countless foreclosures. Here is my simple tip for increasing your chances of scoring a good foreclosed home…submit an offer above asking price….higher….higher!

Why? REO sellers price their properties below market value. This is a tactic utilized to lure in as many buyers as possible offers, house, successfull, bid, bidding, closedinto a deal at the same. The lower the price, the more people find out about the property.

The more people find out about the property, emotions run wilder. And the more wild emotions get…the higher offer amounts people submit relative to the asking price. Off course…there is no need to submit offers above fair market value, but definitely above asking price. It is very usual to see 4, 5, 8, or even 10 offers on a particular property.

In addition, knowing what terms (non- price related) should accompany an offer is key to a successful bid. Say you are financing a deal, yet we know we are competing against cash offers. Well, cash offers mainly have two contingencies that protect them (which is why sellers prefer cash as opposed to financing where you may have at least 5 or 6 contingencies that protect the buyer)…the inspection period and clean title.

For a buyer that is financing a deal, your inspection, appraisal, title, letter of commitment and so on…must be super aggressive in order to entice the seller to choose your offer over the cash deal. It’s tough, but doable.

Thick Skin For Buyer Feedback

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kendall sunlight

Apart from price, marketing advertising, etc…listening to buyer feedback is key to selling a property. Married people should be pros at this. Often, sellers want to fix this and update that and upgrade the other. Non sense. The chances of finding a buyer with your taste, or somewhere similar, are slim to non.

Want to increase your bottom line? Don’t spend it…yet.

If the flaw with your home is not detrimental (there is a waterfall coming thru the roof), don’t fix it. Put the home in the market and see what people’s opinion are all about if any. If buyers complaint about the same thing, then, you do something. You either adjust the price to reflect the problem or fix it. This will save you time and money and believe it or not, you will make the buyer happy for not picking granite counter top colors of your taste.

Once the problem is fixed, call those buyers back and negotiate. Last piece of advice; ask for buyer feed back while showing the property or as they are stepping out the door. See…most buyers are not just looking at your house. They are seeing several. So unless they like yours in particular, they will not remember your home’s features if you wait to ask a day or two later.

Last…last…piece of advice. Grow some skin. Some feedback may not be pleasant, some may be great. The whole point of this is to help you spend less money fixing things, save you time, and sell the property quickly. This is not a popularity contest.

Short Sales Suck? Not So.

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Short selling a property in today’s market is a whole different ball game than what it used to be a year go or so. For the better. A combination of a dried-up-inventory-market and quicker negotiation turn-around is making short sales (aka: underwater homes) that much more attractive.

Back in the day it was normal to work with a buyer’s offer without collecting earnest money upon execution of contract. The bad part about this old way to handling a short sale was that 6 months down the road, once a short sale was approved, most buyers would go MIA (missing in action). This created a mess in terms of having to re-approve the short sale with a new buyer’s name often delaying the process another two or three months.

Now that inventory is dried up and short sale departments are on the ball about getting short sales approved, they are a commodity. Considering all the bidding wars and multiple offer situations that exist in well priced properties, it can be somewhat emotionally complicated to buy an REO making short sales a good option to go after assuming a buyer does not need a home within the next 6 months to a year. Because of this, demanding (as part of the negotiation process) buyer-earnest money upon execution of a contract is a must…and buyers will wait.

If a buyer does not want to put money up front, move on to the next. And the next. And the next. Until a buyer is found that will stick with you until the short sale is approved. It’s a seller’s market out there, even if your upside down.

Home Pricing 101

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custom made mailboxBuyers determine value by what’s called comparison shopping. In essence, buyers look at two prime elements when shopping  for a property:

  1. Value…or particulars a home offers a buyer such as a having or not having a pool, tiled roof, hurricane shutters, etc…and
  2. Price

Then, a buyers compares these two elements against other similar properties in the immediate neighborhood to make a decision what gives them the most value for the price.  Hiring the right agent to assess the value of  a property is pivotal, perhaps even more than advertising and client service.  Not having the right price on a home can mean the difference between a property selling in 30 to 60 days as opposed to not selling at all.

Keep in mind that pricing a home is an art. There is no formula. So…during a listing presentation, ask your agent…”how do you calculate the price”. If it makes sense, hire them. if it does not, move on. If the logic makes sense, great. If it does not…ask questions. An agent that knows what they are doing will answer all your questions with confidence and ease regardless of how much you may or may not like what you are listening too.

Yes…look out for confidence and ease. Why? The price of your home is created by market forces, not an agent. If we had that kind of power, we would be sipping margaritas in Tahiti on our private island. Since we have no control over price, we are merely the messengers of this data.

And because of this notion, there is no reason why a real estate should not be confident and at ease when delivering the price.  Any lack of the latter means two things: the agent is not telling the truth in order to get the listing OR they are not sure how they derived your home price.