Do you have any Broker oversight?What is a kick-out clause? (More on this in a future post; if they don’t know, show them the door)Do you have another job?What hours are you available? (Currently I am working with an agent who is apparently only available until around 5 or so)Are you involved in the Charlottesville area Realtor association?
Browsing Category Buyers
Sold comps now matter less
Now when pricing a home, we have to consider the sold comparable homes as a measure of the asking price, but we have to consider the active competition even more…. More and more when pricing home, we have to look at how many homes (because there are now more than one or two in each neighborhood) are actively on the market, for how long (because they tend to stay on longer than five or six days). After analyzing those aspects and running the house through several different price analyses, then we decide whether and by how much, we need to undercut the competition…. We will have a better feel for how much it has changed in March/April.Take heed – no longer can a home’s asking price be realistically set by the metric of “I have to clear X dollars.”
Homes are selling in Charlottesville!
It may not feel like it due to the significant amount of inventory currently on the market.Between 1 September 2006 and yesterday, 27 January 2007, 1188 properties were listed in the MLS (*975 of the properties listed in 06/07 were not condos and 958 listed in 05/06 were not condos).In that same time period in 2005-2006, 1260 properties were put on the market. Quite simply, homes are taking longer to sell; well-priced homes (priced well from Day 1) are selling. 340 properties were listed from 1/1/5-1/28/2005 and 193 went under contract.532 properties were listed from 1/1/6-1/28/2006 and 207 went under contract.441 properties were listed from 1/1/7-1/28/2007 and 116 went under contractMy fascination with numbers and data confounds me, as I was an English major and have always had an aversion to math…. translated to “How many properties come on the market in Charlottesville/Albemarle?**Doubly inspired to combat the perception that our market is dead in the water.
Disclosures versus Disclaimers – caveat emptor to a lesser degree
sell the property without representations and warranties as to its conditions …In six years, I have seen only one transaction with a Disclosure, and that was a corporate-owned relocation. The reasons for Sellers not electing to use Disclosures are varied – *The market has been so hot that, with Buyers waiving home inspections from time to time, there was no incentive to use Disclosures.*Using a Disclosure would confuse many (most?)… This is a pertinent article from the HooK in 2003, wherein Robert Ramsey, a prominent and well-respected Realtor was quoted:However, “Just because a seller chooses disclaimer doesn’t mean he can go around committing fraud,” warns Ramsey. “It doesn’t protect a seller who knows he has a terribly wet basement, waits until a drought year to sell, and paints the basement and puts in new carpet to hide the damage.”And while fraud is hard to prove, a disclaimer doesn’t mean the seller is immune from prosecution, nor does it prevent the buyer from suing.
Withholding offers?
a story just came across my desk from another agent who said that, on a listing of his, two separate buyer’s agents are withholding two separate offers because the seller is offering 2.5%, rather than 3%.In one case, an agent said his/her broker would not allow him to accept less than 3%; the other case, she demanded the seller increase the offering to the buyer-broker.And you wonder why the Realtors’ profession gets a bad reputation?… What the Seller is offering should be irrelevant.As a buyer, when considering whom you are going to hire as your Buyer Broker – if the Realtor is hesitant to negotiate their fees with you up front, what type of negotiator will they be for you? Depending on what the Seller is offering through the MLS is a sign of a Realtor who is 1) stuck in the past and 2) not confident in their own abilities. From the Virginia Association of Realtors’ (VAR) Buyer-Broker:Broker shall promote the interests of Buyer by (a) seeking property at a price and on terms acceptable to Buyer, (b) presenting in a timely manner all written offers or counteroffers to and from Buyer, (c) disclosing to Buyer all material facts related to the property or concerning the transaction of which Broker has actual knowledge, (d) accounting in a timely manner for all money and property received in which Buyer has or may have an interest.
Where do you search for homes in Charlottesville?
Excellent post today from Kris Berg about the varied places one can search for homes. Frequently even my savvy home buyers are surprised that not all homes are listed in the MLS.Locally, I am directing my buyer clients to search not only search the local MLS – http://www.c-villebyowner.com/http://www.assist2sellcville.comGoogleCraigslistDaily ProgressThere are more sites, but these are the most popular.My value is in the representation I offer to my clients, not in searching websites.Two posts that I wrote stating the need for an over-reaching aggregator for the various search sites:An aggregator for the aggregator?What if the MLS went away?
Tracking the market too closely?
We won’t know how the market is doing today until we look back from a six- to nine-month removed perspective…. but to get an accurate understanding, we have to look in the rear-view mirror.Most of the analysis is cogent, articulate and informative, but…. Many contracts were written three, four, six months ago. In reality, when analyzing the housing market, one is analyzing the past and attempting to project the future…. Let’s take a breath, step back a bit, read the apocalyptical and rosy projections and determine that reality is probably somewhere in between.Related reading: The Big PictureSeeking AlphaCalculated RiskGranted, most of the analysis is cogent, articulate and informative, but.