This is a classic article that’s just as true today as it was 2 years ago when I first wrote it.
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Tomorrow, I’m placing a home on the market, that is going to require a short sale. Seems like I’m getting an awful lot of these lately. This is one where I just don’t understand what some folks are thinking. Nice young family, who were first time homebuyers just about 2 years ago. They bought a great little house, new construction, and they only paid $135,000 for it in November of 2004. This was right before our big increase in prices that happened in Poinciana in early 2005. So when I made my appointment with them, earlier this week, I assumed they would be in a pretty good equity position. Even if they had purchased with 100% financing, which they did, they would still be able to receive a sizeable amount of money at closing. Based on my preliminary analysis, the property is worth between $225,000 and $235,000. That’s some real good appreciation for 25 months of ownership. After expenses they should be looking at around $70,000 to $75,000 in their pockets. That’s a lot of money for a young family.

Well, when I met with them, I was shocked to find out they currently owe $225,000 on this house! How the heck did that happen? From what they told me, when they moved into the house they wanted to fix it up and furnish it real nice, so about six months after moving in, they refinanced and pulled out the equity that had built up when prices started skyrocketing. They used this money to purchase the things they wanted. New furniture, TVs and all the other items that a young family think they need. What they didn’t count on was hitting a financial bump in the road about 9 months later. But they weren’t too concerned since they kept getting all these mailers from mortgage companies in the mail promising them more money.

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Hi folks. Here’s an update on the foreclosure situation in Florida. I read an article earlier today on our Florida Association of Realtors websitestating that Florida has 77,000 homeowners in foreclosure!!! This is second only to California.  

I also spoke to a loss mitigation negotiator at Countrywide yesterday who mentioned Countrywide, or I guess Bank of America now, has 76% of the Nation’s foreclosures and that they are expecting this number to increase in August when ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) are set to adjust again. 

Then there was a report recently on channel 9 in Lakeland that mentioned one in every seven homes (15%) in Poinciana FL. was in some stage of foreclosure.

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Hi folks. Richard Zaretsky wrote a great post yesterday titled “Back to Basics…a Review on Short Sales”. If you haven’t read it please take a few minutes to do so. It is a very good perspective on Short Sales from an Attorney.

Richard’s post brought up two very good points for me. Both were light bulb moments.

The first was the 1099 “thingie”. Whether you receive a 1099, or not, has no bearing on whether you have income to declare. Well…duh!!! Why would it. All a 1099 does is reports the income to the IRS for you. If it’s not done for you….it is still YOUR obligation to report it. A perfect example of this is the way Title Companies, at least in Florida, handle our commissions. They are not required to 1099 me for commissions paid….BUT…I still have to claim the income. So wouldn’t the Seller have the same obligation? They certainly may not have to pay any taxes BUT they would still have to claim the income.

The second light bulb moment was the promissory note. Some lenders will require the Seller to sign a promissory note for all of the “short” or part of it. So my thought was, why not sign it if the alternative is a foreclosure? What difference does it make? You would go from having a foreclosure on your credit to having a “no pay” promissory note.

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OK, youll like this one. Ive recently been communicating with a Seller that wants to list and sell a couple of vacant building lots in Poinciana. The lot market in Poinciana has pretty much dried up since most of the builders moved out of the area last year.

During the peak of the market, 2005, a building lot in Poinciana would fetch about $60,000 to $70,000. These were incredible prices since as recently as 2002 you could find lots in the $5,000 to $7,000 range. Sure wish I would have bought about 50 of those¦but nooooooooo¦¦.Im an idiot!!!!

This guys lots are now worth about $30,000 each, assuming we could even find a Buyer. Anyway, he sent me an email asking if I heard of a company¦..lets call them¦.Surf and Turf, Inc.

I picked this name because one of their marketing techniques is bringing Buyers and Sellers together through promotional Dinner Shows. Have a piece of fish, watch a show and buy a lot. Does this work? I dont know.

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Hi folks. I had a couple of listing appointments today and thought I would try a new approach. I decided to do the market analysis at the house in front of the potential Sellers. What I noticed was that the Sellers were much more receptive to what I was telling them about price. It’s difficult to dispute hard cold data.

What I did was…after we toured the property, and had our talk, I whipped out my laptop and logged into the MLS. Then I entered their property details and pulled up the Active listings. At my first appointment there were 569 listings that showed up!!! The Seller’s jaw dropped at the amount of competition he had for his property.

He could see how low the listing prices were. It was pretty dramatic.

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Taking it to the streets!!!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Dear Mr and Mrs Homeseller,

I hope this email finds you doing well. In this more difficult real estate market its important that we get as much exposure as we can for your property. Statistics show that most Buyers(about 80%) start their home search on the Internet these days. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and a sign in the yard wont cut it.

So, if the Buyers are on the Internet¦.then your property needs to be there as well. Anyway, here is a sampling of Internet sites where your property is currently being displayed.

• TRULIA 
• CLRSEARCH
• ZILLOW
• CRAIGSLIST
• REALESTATESHOWS
• BUYPOINCIANA
• HOMES
• CYBERHOMES
• POINCIANAPROPERTIES
• POSTLETS

Your property has also been syndicated through my web site http://buypoinciana.com to another 400+ web sites. Basically we are fishing for Buyers. However, we are not using a line and hook but instead are using a big ole net!!! 

As always, give me a call with any questions or suggestions.

Folks, if you have never read the posts in the “Stage It Forward” group, you need to. These folks are VERY passionate about what they do and I for one respect that immensely.  If you want to read what the Stagers had to say about this post please click here.

OK, with that said, I want to try and get my head around staging and how I can implement it into my business. From everything that I have read about Staging I agree that it will work. But my questions are.

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Hi folks. Did you know that in the last 24 months I have had 42 withdrawn or expired listings!!! “But Broker Bryant….you are a pricing expert. How could you possibly have that many listings you could not sell?”

Well that’s a good question. Let me see if I can answer it. First, let’s break it down and see what happened to those 42 listings.

• 8 listed with another REALTOR®.

• 9 of them went into a rental program at my suggestion.

• 7 of them unfortunately were foreclosed on.

• 17 are waiting for market conditions to change.

• 1 sold with another REALTOR®.

During this same 24 month period (Mar 06-Mar 08) I listed 92 properties. 19 are still on the market and 31 of them were sold. My list to closing percentage was 34% over this period!!!! That’s pitiful.

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This is an email I received from one of my Sellers today along with my response.

Hi Bryant, 

I heard back from xxxxx and this is what she said to me: 

“Hi, We are very interested in the property but we can only give a month rent and some type of a deposit. I know that rent to own requires a larger down payment but maybe we can work something out we are responsible and have two children having a home would be a very important step for us. We can take over mortgage payments with you as the loan holder and of course everything would be in writing and the house would be registered under us through the county. in order for me to move out of my apartment without having to pay 2 months worth of rent I would need to supply them with a HUD 1 form that they typically give at a closing either that or I would have to wait till June which is when my lease is up. I am new to all this. I’ve never owned a home but currently do not qualify for a loan and don’t have a lot of money. 

Let me know if this is something that you would be willing to work out." 

Hi My Seller, 

It sounds to me like she would be a better candidate for a straight rental than a lease purchase. And certainly she couldn’t put the property in her name or assume your mortgage. Your mortgage has a “due on sale” clause that would prohibit this. 

Let me see if I can explain these things to you with out writing a novel  

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