Monday, December 24, 2007

How is For Sale By Owner working for sellers?

Why is it that everyday more and more people are selling their properties by themselves? New sellers ask themselves this question everyday. Can I really sell my property by doing most of the work myself even though I know so little about this business? The answer is YES. With so many new technologies available for people out there you don’t have to go looking for buyers for your property. They come to you! Why? Because over 80% of the buyers use the hundreds of websites such as www.homekeys.net that are available for sellers to advertise their properties online.

The concept For Sale By Owner is not new but is it is certainly getting more popular everyday. Sellers are getting tired of having to may as much as 6% in order to sell their property knowing that they could do most of the work saving thousands in commissions. And this is even becoming more important in a down market as we all are trying to preserve our equity.

Visit our For Sale By Owner site or contact us at 1.888.333.9004.

Sell Direct with FSBO and Protect your Equity

It is difficult if not impossible to accurately predict where the market is heading. We, homeowners, cannot control the market but we certainly can do a better job in understanding what is going on so we can make "more intelligent and less emotional" decisions.
Here are a few lessons we learned from succesful for sale by owners :

  1. Be realistic--- whatever happened 8 months ago does not longer reflect what is happening now. Those happy days for sellers are gone for at least for now; and nobody knows when these days are coming back.

  2. Be aggressive and price to sell--- the supply is the highest in decades; thus you have a lot of competition. You need to understand not only what was sold "yesterday" but what is for sale today that is comparable to your property. Buyers have options and they will compare what you have to offer with other comparable alternatives. Be competitive and price your home at 5% below comparable listings. www.homekeys.net gives you free and unlimited access to all the information you need to price it right in several Florida counties including Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange and Hillsborough.

  3. Sell direct and save commissions--- in addition to pricing ( the obvious!), you need to reach as many potential buyers as possible. Recent surveys show that over 85% of the buyers find their properties in the Internet. Yes, over 85% of the people and the number is growing! How to maximize the EXPOSURE is critical. Visit our For Sale By Owner site or contact us at 1.888.333.9004.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Demand for reverse mortgages on the rise

As recently as December 2007 the Senate committee on Aging spent time discussing the aggressive marketing and sales techniques being used by mortgage institutions to attract senior homeowners into purchasing reverse mortgages. As larger populations of seniors are turning 63 every year, the demand for reverse mortgage loans are on the rise. There was a 56% increase in these types of loan in 2006 from the prior year. The Federal government in December 2007 removed the restrictions to the number of outstanding reverse mortgage loans they would underwrite at any given time. Prior to the new legislation, the original limit was 275,000.

Many of the largest banking institutions are now getting involved including Bank of America who just recently acquired Reverse Mortgage of America, a division of Seattle Mortgage Co. This is one of many acquisitions occurring in the mortgage industry to capture a stronghold on the reverse mortgage loan market. It is this activity that has gained the attention of the Federal and State governments. Congress is exepcted in 2008 to put more laws into place that provide stronger protections and minimize the commissions and flat fees mortgage companies can charge per loan.