Six Reasons You Home Hasn't Sold

Has your lawn grown up around that "For Sale" sign? 


Have the wasps moved into the lock box on your front door? 

Did you just receive an invitation to your real estate agent's retirement party?

If so, chances are your home sale fizzled.

Here are the six most-common reasons why homes don't sell:

1. Your home is overpriced.

2. Your home doesn't "show" well.

3. You're in a bad location.

4. You have a lousy listing agent.

5. You are battling competition or market conditions. 

6. You have ineffective marketing.

We will discuss in more detail these six-common reasons why homes don't sell in up coming posts, so make sure to come back and visit, click on join this site to follow or subscribe to not miss future articles.

MARS Disclosures No Longer Required

Legal Hotline attorney Curtis Bullock explains that the Federal Trade Commission is no longer requiring MARS disclosures from real estate professionals who provide short sale services.Click below to see Podcast
Mars Disclosure No Longer Required - View Podcast

SELLER FINANCING UNDER ATTACK FROM FEDERAL RESERVE...

Proposed Rules for Seller Financing from the Federal Reserve Could Effectively End This Financing Option for Real Estate Sellers and Deny Buyers This Path to Home Ownership.
Throughout history, the right of a property owner to sell their property on their own terms to a person of their own choosing has been unquestioned. Unbelievably, this fundamental right will be significantly curtailed if not effectively eliminated by proposed new rules from the Federal Reserve implementing the Dodd Frank act. As real estate professionals, if you believe that seller financing is important to this real estate market, we need you to follow the links in this article to learn more about this issue and to make your opinion known. The deadline to officially comment on the rules is this Friday, July 22nd, 2011.

Seller financing has long been recognized as a viable alternative in real estate transactions. With the challenging market today it may become the best solution for turning this market around. One of the biggest trends today is the number of homes that are being sold with seller financing alternatives like lease options, seller carrybacks and “subject to” financing. Sellers are facing increased competition to find a traditionally qualified buyer from an ever shrinking pool.

Short of drastically reducing their selling price, they have to consider alternatives like seller financing to expand the number of potential buyers for their homes. On the other side of the transaction, potential buyers are being kept out of the market because of tightening credit standards and larger down payment requirements. There are large numbers of credit impaired, but otherwise qualified buyers (those with only a short sale or foreclosure on their credit but who still have a good income) who want to buy a home but can’t qualify for traditional financing.

Now, acting in what it calls the best interests of consumers, the federal government has decided that it needs to completely control seller financing in this country. The Dodd Frank Act at first looked like good news for seller financing because it permitted property owners to sell up to three seller financed properties per year without needing to be licensed as a loan originator. Now the proposed rules to implement the seller financing exception under Dodd Frank have been published and they are so onerous as to almost be incomprehensible.

These rules were created for the banks and institutional lenders to follow, but the government has decided in its good judgment the rules should encompass seller financed transactions as well. If these rules are passed without an exemption for seller financing, an individual who wants to sell their own home will be required to understand and comply with rules that span 169 pages and carry significant penalties that could bankrupt a Seller for noncompliance.
Deadline is this coming Friday, so several links are listed below for you to learn more about the topic, how you can comment on the rules and also provide you with ideas and suggestions for your comments.

To learn more about the rules and how they will impact seller financing please go to: http://papersourceonline.com/2786/red-alert-seller-mortgages-may-be-outlawed-you-must-act-now/ 

To submit your comment on the proposed rule, go to the following link and scroll down to the bottom of the page and next to “Comments” click “Submit”.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20110419a.htm

This post was written by Lance Churchill Attorney and Founder of Frontline  Education Group

Homeowners, especially those who bought their houses after the real-estate bubble burst, are still having trouble accepting just how much the values of their properties may have fallen, says a new report from the real-estate site Zillow.

Current sellers who bought their homes in 2007 or later, an analysis of the site's home listings shows, are overpricing their properties by an average of 14 percent.

Sellers who bought their houses before the bubble, and those who bought during the big run-up in home values, also are overpricing their homes, but not by as much. Those who bought before 2002 are pricing their homes roughly 12 percent over market value, while those who bought from 2002-06 price them about 9 percent over market value.

In the analysis, Zillow compared the asking price of one million homes for sale to the homes' previous purchase price, then factored in the change in the Zillow Home Value Index for the respective ZIP code, to determine an estimate of that home's current market value.

Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist, says those who bought post-bubble, in 2008, 2009 or later, seem to think they escaped the worse of the housing market debacle and tend to price their homes too high as a result. But 2006 was just the start of the housing recession, which continues today; home values are now down nearly 30 percent from the market's peak. And, values have fallen about 12 percent from January 2009 through May of this year, he says.

That means, he says, that even people who bought after the bubble burst need to take a hard look at what has happened in their local market since they bought their home. Traditionally, people tend to overprice their homes a bit anyway, to allow room for negotiation. But unrealistic overpricing in the current environment, he says, means properties stagnate.

Sellers, he said, need primarily to consider comparable sales and asking prices in their market when setting an asking price for their home. Factoring in what they paid for their home, or how much they owe on their mortgage, "leads to conclusions that are divorced from the outside market," he said, and the market determines whether a buyer is interested in your house: "The buyer doesn't care what you paid or what your mortgage is."

Of course, some sellers who owe more than their house is worth are limited in how low they can price their home because selling for less than their mortgage means they'll have to negotiate a short-sale with their bank. "They're hoping against hope that they can sell at a higher price," Mr. Humphries said.

But others are simply faced with a reluctance -- understandable, to be sure -- to sell the house for less than they paid. "They could price more aggressively, but there's a psychological hurdle," he says. "They don't want to realize a loss."

Humphries foresees home values continuing to fall through the middle of next year for a variety of reasons, including persistent unemployment, a significant pipeline of homes in foreclosure, as well as high rates of homes with negative equity, which means many more will likely end up in foreclosure. A return to a "normal" market is likely at least three  away, he says.

ANN CARRNS, On Tuesday July 19, 2011, 2:00 pm EDT

New York Times

Flowers Are Girls, So Watch Their Diet

"If a plant has fruits, flowers or vegetables, it's a girl and it's diet must contain a great deal of phosphorus and potash, and only a minimal amount of nitrogen," according to Master Gardner Jerry Baker. He says that using a water soluble plant food mixed at half the recommended rate with 1/2 oz. of luiquid dish soap per gallon of water once every 2 weeks does the trick. 

In May and mid-July, sprinkle Epsom salts onto the flower beds at a rate of 1/4 cup per 2' circle. Always feed before noon.

The worst thing you can do to a flower is to let her spend herself and wilt on the stem. Flowers are born to bloom and bring beauty. Cut them earl in the morning and place them in a vase that has 1 tbsp. of clear corn syrup and a pinch of chlorox bleach added to it. This will keep them center stage for days and sometimes even a week or two or longer.

New Credit Score Disclosure Rules issued by Federal Reserve Board

There's an irony about the new credit score disclosure rules issued by the Federal Reserve Board on July 6, and this is it: Would-be borrowers who are most likely to get their credit scores for free are still the people who may find it advantageous to buy their scores.

The borrowers who won't get their scores may find they don't need to buy them, either.

That's because the rules require lenders to supply potential borrowers with their scores if they are denied credit or offered less favorable terms because of those scores. Starting on July 21, scorned applicants for credit cards, student loans and auto loans will see their scores.

But learning after you apply for a loan that there was a problem with your credit score isn't that much help, is it? People who know that their credit reputation may be marginal will have to figure out a way to get their scores early enough that they have time to nudge them up before putting in those loan applications.

Here's what you'll need to consider as the new rules become effective:

Read More... 

1 Million Foreclosures Delayed Until 2012

An estimated 1 million foreclosure-related notices for defaults, auctions, and home repossessions that should be filed by lenders this year will be pushed back until next year, according to the latest report by RealtyTrac.

While the delays could give home owners more time to catch up on their payments and try to avoid foreclosure, housing experts warn this means the looming shadow inventory of distressed properties likely will continue to plague the real estate market even longer.

"The best-case scenario is we don't get back to normal levels of foreclosure activity until 2015, which means the housing market recovery gets delayed by at least a year," says Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

Foreclosure Notices Drop, Threat Still Looms
Overall, the number of homes repossessed by lenders in the first half of this year dropped 30 percent compared to the same period in 2010. But foreclosure processing delays — with lenders taking longer to take action against delinquent borrowers — is stalling the housing recovery, experts note.

About 1.2 million homes received a foreclosure-related notice in the first six months of this year — in other words, one in every 111 U.S. households, RealtyTrac reports.

Nevada continues to face the most foreclosures; one in every 21 households in that state received a foreclosure notice in the first half of the year.

The foreclosure process continues to lengthen too. From April and June, homes took 318 days on average to go from the first stage of foreclosure to ultimately where it was repossessed by the lender — that’s up from 298 days in the first three months of the year. (In New York, the foreclosure process took the longest at an average of 966 days or 2.6 years; Texas boasted the shortest at 92 days.)

Source: “Delays in Bank Processing Push Likely U.S. Foreclosures Until 2012, Stalling Recovery,” Associated Press (July 14, 2011)