Is the Tax Stimulus Working?

People are always asking me: How is the real estate market is? Once they know you are a REALTOR whenever they see you this question comes out. I’m not sure if they are interested in a detailed answer or a five second answer or if they are interested because they own property or a home.

Either way, I usually make it short and in most cases, put a positive spin on it because that’s just the way I am. If you know me, you know I’m a very positive upbeat person that looks on the bright side of things. I’ve always been this way!

Now, let’s get back to “How is the real estate market?” It would be good to hear from you how the tax stimulus is working in your part of the country. For Rochester, New York, it is working very well. The homes that are in the lower price range are flying off the market, getting multiple offers! It is really crazy!

From here it looks like the $8,000 tax credit is doing the trick for getting the homebuyers off the fence and into the market as first-time homebuyers. But…..we need a tax credit for the other homebuyers who are not first-time homebuyers to get the rest of the real estate market going. I believe this is what is needed to get the whole economy going with all the services that drive off the real estate industry.

So then, “How is the real estate market?” not bad, but it could be a whole lot better! Tell me how your real estate market is doing.

We need the small local investor!

I wrote up an offer this past week for a small investor to buy a foreclosed single family home in a suburb of Rochester. As I was working with it, I realized how much the neighborhood needs this “small investor!”

I had sold a home in this neighborhood a few years earlier and I was familiar with the values of the homes. At $70,000, this home was selling for $50,000 under what the average values are for this neighborhood. This small investor was going to clean, paint, carpet and repair this home, then put it back on the market for a price that would match the values of the neighborhood. In other words, flip it, a word that refers to process of buying a home, fixing it up quickly and selling it for a profit.

Nobody out there is giving these guys any assistance! Nobody is making it easy for them. They are using their cash and hard work! They are taking all the risks! The end results are a house is restored to its neighborhood value. Hopefully they will end up with a profit to make it all worthwhile too!

Think about it, who else is doing something like this with no government involvement? Next time you see one of these guys, give them a thumbs up! We need the small local investor now more than ever! Our neighborhoods need them. The economy needs them!

Is News Print passé?

Last week, I decided to hold two of my listings open on the weekend, usually on Sunday. I made a mental note to write up the Open House ads for them on Thursday. Well, Thursday came and I was crazy busy from the beginning of the day on and at 5pm when I was showing customers through my new listing, I suddenly realized I had not done the Open House ads and I had just missed the deadline!

At first, I was bummed because I had things in place for holding the two houses open and now I did not have an ad coming out in the Saturday Open House section of the newspaper. This has been the vehicle that the public and real estate agents have relied on for promoting and finding Open Houses in Rochester, New York.

But I decided to hold them open anyways, with just the internet postings and Open House signs. Wow! To my amazement, we had 7-8 groups through each house and possibility buyers for both of them.

Can we finally eliminate our need to pay for costly newspaper advertising and rely on the internet for exposing our listings to the public? Maybe the time has come! This REALTOR, who you may be following as @RochesterREguy, is leaning in this direction.

Let me know where you find the Open Houses to see or if you are an agent, are you moving in this direction too!

Federal Bailout—Helping Banks? or Homeowners?

We have all been reading and hearing about the bail out programs for the banking industry. The numbers are staggering of the billions of dollars appropriated by the government for this relief!

Those of us in real estate know how this developed and how the banking industry created their own problem by lowering the standards for getting a loan, especially for the investors.

Today thousands of homeowners are upside-down with their mortgages. This means they owe more on the loan than the property is worth. When this happened, the investors walked away from the properties, leaving them vacant. I remember hearing from a Realtor in Las Vegas after the crash that there were over 10,000 homes vacant that had never been lived in. Wow! Can you picture that?

However, a homeowner who is living in their home with their family, has no choice but to stay and stick it out. So along comes the government, spending yours and my tax dollars to bail out the banking industry. Many of us were naïve in thinking that the plan would include the individual homeowners who at no fault of their own was put in a bad situation.

This all hit home to me yesterday when I met with a homeowner who had lost her income because of the economy and had been struggling for the past 10 months to keep her head above water.

She had not made a mortgage payment since August, but had tried to contact the bank to talk to someone who could offer some advice or help. No luck! Months had gone by and suddenly she gets a letter saying they are going to help her! Wow, really??

Tell me if this is helping her, they sent her a document to sign within 5 days which was a new mortgage document. Here are the terms, they were adding $12,000 in late charges and attorney’s fees to her mortgage balance, then charging her 7% when the going rate is 5% and then amortizing the remaining loan over 40 years!

Doesn’t it make you mad? It does me! What is this money, yours and my tax money, being used for if not for people who have been affected by the downfall of the economy? I would like you to join me in contacting your representatives and senators and ask then why aren’t the American people being helped! Thanks, if we each do what we can, it will make a difference!