Hope and Prayer for Selling Houses?

Some sellers are resorting to burying saints in their yard to get their house sold:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119370066239175607.html

Not sure if this hurts, but certainly having faith is better than giving up! 

Others are using my SOLD SYSTEM to get it sold.

—>>> http://www.thesoldsystemseminar.com

More Borrowers Using Credit Cards to Make Mortgage Payments

More and more borrowers are using their credit cards to make their mortgage payments, according to a new report:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071028/us_nm/usa_creditcards_debt_dc

In a way, this is a good thing because it brings down mortgage defaults.  But, it’s borrowing at a higher rate (credit cards) to pay a lower rate (mortgage).  Borrowers would be better off calling up and negotiating a forbearance with their lenders, which most are either afraid or don’t know how to do.

Burned by Real Estate, Some Just Walk Away

During the height of Las Vegas’s real-estate boom two years ago, property investor Rob Rozzen bought 16 homes, hoping that skyrocketing prices would pump up his retirement nest egg.

Now, Mr. Rozzen says he is considering filing for bankruptcy protection. As the housing market slowed, the 40-year-old was unable to sell the homes…

—>>> Read more

Selling Houses in a Slow Market

People often ask me, “How do you sell houses quick in a slow market”.  There’s a whole lot of ways, but the single most important is price.  Not necessarily dropping price, but pricing RIGHT for the market.  Many people look to an appraisal and think, “I’ll ask for the appraisal price, then drop it until it sells”.  This approach is wrong.  Think about it for a minute – what’s the most relevant information to your selling price in a slow market.  Is it properties (comps) that have sold six months ago or is it the other houses priced for sale in your neighborhood? 

 The latter, of course.  If there are several similar houses for sale in your target neighborhood for less, then you have to either have a nicer house or a better story to sell it for more.  If that’s not the case, you need to price your house competitively from the onset to get it moved quickly.  If you price it right, you will get an offer relatively quickly, and it will be your best offer – so take it!

Learn more from the SOLD SYSTEM.

Short Sale Q&A

Check out this replay of a recent teleseminar on Foreclosure Short Sales:

–>>> http://www.legalwiz.com/shortsaleqa

It’s about 20 mins or so, packed with great answers to common questions on short sales.

Forbes “best places to invest”

Forbes magazine has a list of the 10 best places for real estate bargains.  It’s not gospel, but it’s a pretty good analysis of market prices and saturation.

http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/best_places_for_real_estate_deals.html

The Right Attitude Counts

In a flat or down real estate market, a negative attitude is contagious, particularly if you are sitting on a vacant house that you paid too much for.  The news media will remind you every day how bad things are and will back it up with statistics, facts, and figures.  When the average time on market for a house is 90 days, it’s hard to believe you can sell your property in 30 days or less.  Don’t worry about averages – you only get average results if you do the average thing and think the average thoughts.  However bad the news, you have to start with a belief that you are different, your property is different, and your results will be different. 

The “Do or Die” Mentality 

Search your own experiences and you may recall a time in your life when all reasonable things were done, yet a particular goal was not reached.  You became unreasonable and did what nobody expected you to do and achieved what you set out to do, against all odds.  Recall the “do or die” mindset you had when you decided to be unreasonable and achieve this goal.  Apply this mindset to your most important goals on a regular basis and you will achieve big results in your life. 

Create a Plan 

Most sellers fail to plan, which is why they plan to fail.  If you goal is to sell a house within 30 days, then you need a well-defined, written plan for that 30 days.  Like going on a diet and exercise plan, the better plan you have and the more you stick to the plan, the more results you will have.  If you snack between meals and exercise at half-pace, you don’t get the same results. 

Short Sales = Best Opportunity in this Market

You will likely come across dozens of properties in foreclosure with little or no equity, that is, the seller owes at close to or more than the property is worth. In these situations, lenders are sometimes willing to accept less than the full amount due, commonly referred to a “short pay” or “short sale.”

Negotiating a short sale with the lender is a difficult process, generally because it is a daunting task finding a bank officer who has the authority to accept a discount. You will have to call around to locate the lender’s “Loss Mitigation Department”. More than likely, each lender you deal with will have a separate name for this department, so be patient when calling. Much like getting your phone bill corrected, you can expect the process to involve a lot of waiting on hold and being bounced around an intricate maze of automated voice mail systems. Once you get in touch with the right person, then the negotiating begins.

From the lender’s perspective, a short sale saves many of the costs associated with the foreclosure process – attorney fee’s, the eviction process, delays from borrower bankruptcy, damage to the property, costs associated with resale, etc. In a short sale scenario, the lender gets the property back faster, so it is able to cut its losses. Your job as the investor is to convince the lender that it will fare better by accepting less money now.

>> More info

Dow Hits 14,000 – Will the Stock Market Compete With Real Estate?

Not so fast.  The jump in the market was due to some good news about the credit market, and on speculation of further interest rate cuts from the Fed.  Both of these are good news for the real estate market, nationally.  Loosening credit is the #1 thing holding back real estate sales, particularly for subprime borrowers.  Yet, real estate is still local… within your own market there are pockets that will do better than others.  Within every bad market is a bull market somewhere.

In the long run, population growth and limited supply in urban areas will keep prices inflated for real estate.  Now, if I could just sell that darn condo…