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Foreclosure and it’s effect on renters

January 27th, 2008

We all know of the foreclosure crisis but many may not know how this foreclosure problem is effecting renters across the country. there is a resource for renters to find out if their rental is in foreclosure online, instantly and for free- RentalForeclosure.com is a free website for renters to find out now. this is important information for renters with so many landlords in foreclosure. anyone who is renting a home should check on their landlord today.

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This house ain’t for sale, How much you offering?

October 31st, 2007

I get about 2 of these a year, someone comes into the office and says “I want to buy the property over on 150N with the pond.” After a quick check I let them know that, well it’s not for sale!

Now comes the game plan. Starting with some history, how long has the current owner had the property? How much did they pay for it? Is it paid off? Are the taxes current? What do the comps look like? What would a reasonable offer be?

With all of the information gathering done I spend a little time discussing my commission with the buyer, in this instance it will most likely be the buyer pay my commission seeing how the property wasn’t for sale, no listing contract.

We complete the commission agreement and prepare a real estate contract, this is what we will be taking to the property owner. It is important that you have an offer or contract ready prior to approaching the owner. Too many times agents get out and “knock doors” looking for listings with the spiel “I have buyers for you house, just sign this 2 year listing agreement and I’ll bring them right over”, you don’t want to be that agent!

When approaching the homeowner, cut to the chase, let them know that you have a client that is interested in purchasing their property and they have a formal written offer for the property.

The first response is almost always: “This place ain’t for sale, I ain’t never selling this place!”The second response is usually: “How much are they offering?”

Generally speaking, if you can bring the buyer and (potential) seller together, these will be some of the smoothest transactions you will ever deal with.

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Adding someone to title using a quitclaim deed

October 25th, 2007

Many people come to a point in there life where they want to add someone to the title of their property using a quitclaim deed. This can be confusing and we have had many questions regarding how to do it. It’s really all about the wording, most people don’t understand the legalese of it all. Titles are not changed, they are replaced. When you want to add someone to the title, you are really replacing the title that has your name on it with a title that has both (or however many) names on it. So thats exactly how the deed should read, Joe Homeowner quitclaims his property to Joe and Sally Homeowner, a married couple. Pretty simple huh?

Posted in Legal, general real estate information, Deeds | No Comments »

Buying real estate? Get a home inspection.

September 7th, 2007

From EveryHomeOnTheMarket.com in Las Vegas:

Why get a home inspection when buying Real Estate?

This is sound advice no matter what part of the country you live in. I can’t stress enough the need to get a home inspection when purchasing real estate. We recently purchased a home without an inspection only to find shortly into the remodel that the frame was about 60% destroyed by termites. We would have known this prior to purchasing if we had payed to have a home inspection.

I think that the most thing about getting a home inspection is that it removes the emotion and bias from the home purchasing procedure. A home inspection gives the buyer an impartial physical evaluation of the overall condition of the home. The home inspector is a disinterested third party he generally doesn’t care if the seller sells the House or the buyer buys the house.

Buying a house is a big deal. Be an informed, educated buyer and be a happy homeowner.

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Foreclosure statutory redemption period

August 12th, 2007

Certain states allow default to borrowers a period in which to redeem the real estate after the foreclosure sale. During this time (which may be as long as one year), the borrower has a statutory right of redemption.

It is extremely important for a real estate investor looking to purchase foreclosures to know if the defaulting borrower has the statutory right of redemption. If the previous owner does have this right is often advantageous for the investor to purchase this right from the previous owner. Generally speaking a property owner that is being foreclosed upon is experiencing some financial difficulties and an offer of a few dollars in exchange for quitclaim of their rights to the property is often appealing.

Investing in foreclosures can be very rewarding as long as you cover all the angles and try to eliminate your risk.

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How do they prorate real estate taxes at closing?

August 8th, 2007

Seems like a pretty straightforward question but I doubt that most people every give it a second thought. Real estate taxes are generally paid in arrears. Therefore if you sell your house in January there would usually be an entire year of taxes due to be paid before a prorating takes effect. After the already due taxes are paid, the current year’s taxes would be prorated. For instance, once again selling your home in January, you the seller would be responsible for the previous year’s taxes in full and the current year’s taxes up to and including the day of closing. The buyer would then become responsible for the property taxes the day following the closing.

One thing to remember as home seller is that the buyers information is usually not reflected in the tax records until the first tax payment is made. I recently spoke to a home seller that sold her home late in the year, had the property taxes prorated and at closing the buyer was credited (issued a check for) the current year’s property tax that the seller was responsible for. When the taxes came due at the beginning of the next year the buyer neglected to pay the taxes. A few months later while reading the newspaper the seller noticed her name listed as a homeowner whose property was going to tax sale. This is a small community and needless to say she was little more than upset about seeing her name advertised as a delinquent taxpayer. She was even more upset to find out that she couldn’t purchase the property at the tax sale because the tax records were still in her name.

So in closing, at the closing, sellers try and make sure any tax liability you may have is paid directly to the taxing authority and buyers who receive a credit for current tax liabilities should be sure to pay those taxes on time when they come due or risk losing your home at the tax sale without ever having known it was up for auction.

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Rental agreements

August 2nd, 2007

One of the most challenging aspects of being a landlord that I’ve found over the years are the round-the-clock maintenance calls. However, I found a cure. My new rental agreements have a maintenance clause:

tenant shall be responsible for the first $50 of any maintenance call.

Oh what a difference 50 bucks makes, maintenance calls have dropped by 75% and I haven’t had to change a lightbulb at ten thirty at night in over a year!

As always you should check with your local laws and regulations and the information contained in this blog should not be used as a substitute for the legal advice of legal professional familiar with your specific situation.

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Assignee clause in real estate contracts

July 28th, 2007

This is from a post at Realestaterevolt.com about real estate contracts.

They talk about using an assignee clause when writing an offer to purchase real estate. Using this clause allows you to transfer that purchase agreement over to your assignee prior to closing. This would come in handy when you want to put an offer in on a property that you would like to have titled in a name other than your own such as a corporation or LLC that had not been created yet at the time of making the offer.

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Real estate in search engines.

July 28th, 2007

These days people “Google” everything, including the address of real estate they are interested in purchasing. An interesting side effect to correctly marketing online is that it could be included in search engine indexing and made available to perspective buyers searching places like Google.

Shawn Shepherd from Realado.com tells us that they have designed Realado so that the free listings have a good chance to be picked up by search engines. “We give the seller national exposure on our site and usually the search engines will pick that up and index that property’s listing. It’s very specific, someone would have to be searching for your street address to find your listing on Google but the funny thing is that buyers are doing just that. A buyer will see a house on the street and go home to “Google” it. It’s no surprise really, employers are “Googling” potential employees, border patrol has “Googled” people trying to enter the U.S., it was only a matter of time before people started looking at real estate this way.” Stated Shepherd.

So the key point to remember is when marketing real estate online, be sure that it is formatted to be picked up by the search engines.

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Real Estate Marketing

July 22nd, 2007

One of the biggest challenges facing for sale by owner sellers is marketing. FSBOS’s are automatically handicapped by not being included in the MLS. However studies have shown that FSBOs in areas that have popular for sale by owner websites have actually outsold MLS listings. With the growing popularity and affordability (see: free real estate advertising) of online advertising home sellers have many opportunities to expose their property to the masses.

Does online advertising spell the end of the MLS? Nah, probably not but it should at the very least indicate that change is needed. The MLS is not serving the needs of the home seller when they chose to restrict access to the sellers listing information.

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