Social Media Dos and Don'ts for Home Buying!

Everyone knows that there are dos and don'ts for home buying, but did you know that those dos and don'ts extend to social media??  Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can do so much for people trying to find answers or stay in touch, but it can also help you blow a real estate deal!

Here's a quick list of how to use social media to your advantage when buying a home!

•DO:

~Let everyone in your network know that you're interested in buying a home!  They may know a friend of a friend that is selling and it just might work out!
~Visit the social media pages of your Realtor and mortgage professional.  
~"Like" their pages!  You might come across some rockstar tips and tricks throughout the process!
~Share positive news throughout the process!

•DON'T:
~Post how much you hate a house you saw.  That could come back to you and it won't be pretty!
~Bother with the Realtor & mortgage professional if they are 'hard selling' you on their page- you should enjoy the experience!
~Engage others who are sharing confidential or private information with others or badmouthing clients or other professionals.  There are two sides to every story and you just don't need the drama!
~Share too much information about the homes you're considering- it could weaken your negotiating position with the seller, or allow another buyer to swoop in with a better offer!
~Take advantage of the first 'good deal' you see.  You could be the one getting taken advantage of!

Home buying has become a 24/7 business with homes being marketed around the clock on hundreds of websites and through social media portals.  It's still important to get out and talk to a real person and physically see homes.  After all, if you spend your whole life online, what does it matter where you live?  Social media can definitely assist in the home buying process, just be careful that's not the only part!

The good, bad and ugly of Zillow's "Zestimates!"

Every homeowner, person shopping for a home, or homeowner with a neighbor has probably scouted Zillow and has also seen a Zestimate of their home.  A Zestimate is just another opinion of value.  And you know what they say about opinions!

Zillow uses proprietary valuation models that identify relationships between home-related data and actual sale prices in geographic areas.  Data sources include physical attributes of homes, tax assessments, actual sale prices, foreclosures and tax sales, and user-submitted information.  Think about the word "data."  What comes to mind?  Perhaps some math problems, or numbers swirling together and bar graphs?  Zillow uses this kind of data, as well as user-submitted information and physical attributes of homes to determine a dollar amount determining a home's value.  

Surprisingly the national median error is only 8.7% and Zillow claims that nearly one third of estimates are within 5% of a home's sale price.  So, by the numbers:

There are 1,000 homes in a geographic market for sale, and the average sale price is $175,000, for example.

Zillow prices 333 of those within 5% of the home's sale price.  And within 5% of that average price those 333 homes could sell for $166,250 to $183,750. 

Almost a $20,000 difference in opinion of price.  That's quite a wide range.  

To competently determine a home's true market value, homeowners, as well as home buyers, need to consider days on market, sold prices and seller contributions, staging advice, and absorption rates.  Many REALTORS® understand how to report this data for their clients to give them a better idea of what their market is actually doing.  This is considered a comparable market analysis, or CMA.  The other determination of value one can receive is an appraisal.  

For a complete analysis of the Jacksonville, NC real estate market conditions, call or email Amanda!  Or check here for a market valuation of your home!  You can use this to compare with the Zestimate to monitor the difference!  Good, bad, or ugly!

308 Carlisle Court FOR SALE!

This four bedroom home is conveniently located minutes away from New River MCAS!  Featuring fresh new paint and carpet, vaulted ceilings and a fireplace, this home is move in ready!  Call Amanda today to start your home search in Jacksonville, North Carolina!  910.545.0450

Large two car garage situated on a cul-de-sac lot!

Vaulted Ceilings, new paint, new carpet, ceiling fan,  and fireplace in the living room!

Complete with fenced yard, all appliances, blinds and security lighting!  This home is affordably priced at $145,000 and the seller is offering buyer's closing cost assistance!  

Call today to take a look at this home and others!

Amanda Parmer, REALTOR®

Keller Williams Realty

910.545.0450

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Thinking about moving up??

Sometimes, making the decision to sell your house and buy a new home is relatively easy. Sometimes it is not.

What will you gain by moving? What will you lose?

Get out a piece of paper. Draw a line almost halfway down to the middle, then put a circle about the size of a quarter at the bottom of that line. After that, continue the line down to the bottom of the page.

On the left side you are going to write down everything you expect to gain by moving. Do the kids fight over bathroom time? Do you run out of hot water? Do you need a better backyard atmosphere for barbecues? Better schools? Better neighborhood? More rooms? More living space? Bigger garage? Better kitchen? Get your family to help.

Can you fix it by improving your present house? Do you want to?

Write four things down at the top of the right column. Current mortgage. Sale of home. Moving. New home. If you have a second mortgage or home equity line of credit on your present home, write that down, too.

Before you do anything else, you have to know what it would take to pay off your existing mortgage. This will include your balance, any pay-off fees, approximately 30 days of interest, and (heaven forbid!) any prepayment penalties.. Most people forget to include the interest.

You get this from your mortgage company’s loan service department. Often, you just have to punch buttons on your phone and they will fax it or mail it to you directly.

Write the total payoff figure on the right side of the page.

Repeat those steps for any second mortgage or home equity line.

Now you need to call your friendly neighborhood real estate agent so you can learn two things: how much your home is likely to sell for and how much you will net from the sale. Your agent cannot determine your net without knowing your mortgage payoff, which is why you got that information first. Your agent won’t make a big production out of it. You’re dong research. They understand.

Write down how much you will net on the right side of the page. If it isn’t a positive number, you probably shouldn’t move unless you have to. If the number is positive, continue with your research.

The next step is to call a mortgage loan officer. Not to apply for a loan (though you can get pre-qualified or pre-approved if you want), but because you need to know how much cash you need to buy a new home. You need to know the down payment, closing costs, prepaid items like homeowners insurance and property taxes, and 30 days prepaid interest (everyone forgets the interest).

Remember, you’re not shopping for a loan right now. You are deciding whether to move or not. You don’t want the “best case” deal…you want the “worst case” possibility. The most it might cost you under different down payment scenarios. You want your lender to include inspections and stuff that might not normally be in a Good Faith Estimate.

Then you need to know how much it costs to move.

If you're thinking of hiring a traditional moving company, there are moving calculators on the web that will estimate your moving expenses. There are other options, too, and you can get an estimate by making a simple phone call. Your real estate agent or loan officer will know local options and companies you can call.

Just in case you're thinking you don't know with real estate agent or loan officer to call to get this research going, look at the bottom of this page and see if (by golly!) there isn’t a phone number down there.  Or stop now, call Amanda (910.545.0450) and she will help you with the rest!

Okay, subtract the moving expenses from how much you will net from selling your home. You should still have a positive number. If so, move on to the next step.

Subtract how much the lender says it will take you to move into the new house, including down payment, closing costs, prepaid expenses, and all the other "stuff."

Hopefully, you still have a positive number. If not, don't panic. There is a lot of "fudge factor" involved here and purchases can be structured to limit the out-of-pocket cash necessary to close the deal. Or perhaps you knew you might be a little short and always intended to use savings, borrow from your 401K, or get help from family members.

Or...you might have a positive number that is fairly BIG.

If so, put that number on the left side of the page because that is "cash left over" (or it could be). It is also money that you could use to make a larger down payment or to buy new furniture or help stimulate the economy.

So the right side of the page is for calculations and reasons not to move, sort of like a right-brain vs. left-brain kind of thing. Or vice versa.

Oh. I forgot.

What about that circle you drew in the middle of the page?

(I didn’t really forget).

By the time you get through this process, you’ll know whether moving is a good idea or not. That circle is where you write your decision in big bold letters.

Call Amanda for all your real estate needs!  910.545.0450

Need to Sell Your Home? The Price Is Key!

Meeting With Realtors
So you’ve decided to sell your home and have a fairly good idea of what you think it is worth.  Being a sensible home seller, you schedule appointments with three local listing agents who’ve been hanging stuff on your front doorknob for years.  Each Realtor comes prepared with a "Competitive Market Analysis" on fancy paper and they each recommend a specific sales price.
Amazingly, a couple of the Realtors have come up with prices that are lower than you expected.  Although they back up their recommendations with recent sales data of similar homes, you remain convinced your house is worth more.
When you interview the third agent’s figures, they are much more in line with your own anticipated value, or maybe even higher.  Suddenly, you are a happy and excited home seller, already counting the money.

A Sales Practice Called "Buying a Listing"
If you’re like many people, you pick Realtor number three.  This is an agent who seems willing to listen to your input and work with you.  This is an agent that cares about putting the most money in your pocket.  This is an agent that is willing to start out at your price and if you need to drop the price later, you can do that easily, right?
After all, everyone else does it!
The truth is that you may have just met an agent engaging in a questionable sales practice called "buying a listing."  He "bought" the listing by suggesting you might be able to get a higher sales price than the other agents recommended.  Most likely, he is quite doubtful that your home will actually sell at that price.  The intention from the beginning is to eventually talk you into lowering the price.
Why do some agents "buy" listings this way?
There are basically two reasons.  A well-meaning and hard working agent can feel pressure from a homeowner who has an inflated perception of his home’s value.  On the other hand, there are some agents who engage in this sales practice routinely.
 

What Happens Behind the Scenes
If you start out with too high a price on your home, you may have just added to your stress level -- and selling a home is stressful enough.  There will be a lot of "behind the scenes" action taking place that you don’t know about.
Contrary to popular opinion, the listing agent does not usually attempt to sell your home directly to a homebuyer.  That would be inefficient.
Listing agents market and promote your home to the hordes of other local agents who do work with homebuyers, dramatically increasing your personal sales force.  During the first couple of weeks your home should be a flurry of activity with buyer’s agents coming to preview your home so they can sell it to their clients.
If the price is right.
If you and your agent have overpriced, fewer agents will preview your home.  After all, they are Realtors, and it is their job to know local market conditions and home values.  If your house is dramatically above market, why waste time?  Their time is better spent previewing homes that are priced realistically.  Additionally, Relators get paid when a house sells.  Everyone wants the house to sell for the most amount of money, (well except for the buyer,) but if it doesn't sell, the Realtor who overpriced the home has only wasted everyones time.
 

Dropping Your Price...Too Late

If you start out with a high sales price, then drop it later -- your house is "old news."  You will never be able to recapture that flurry of initial activity you would have had with a realistic price.  Your house could take longer to sell.
Even if you do successfully sell at an above market price to an uninformed buyer, your buyer will need a mortgage.  The mortgage lender requires an appraisal.  If comparable sales for the last six months and current market conditions do not support your sales price, the house won’t appraise.  Your deal falls apart.  Of course, you can always attempt to renegotiate the price, but only if the buyer is willing to listen.
Your house could go "back on the market."
Once your home has fallen out of escrow or sits on the market awhile, it is harder to get a good offer.  Potential buyers will think you might be getting desperate, so they will make lower offers.  By overpricing your home in the beginning, you could actually end up settling for a lower price than you would have normally received.

Interested in selling your home?  Or would you just like to know what's going on in your neighborhood?  Call Amanda for a complimentary "Competitive Market Analysis" and to discuss your options!  910.545.0450  www.AmandaParmerSellsHomes.com

What Really Makes A Real Estate Agent Valuable

Recently, an excited first-time homebuyer spent some time telling a real estate agent what she wanted in a home. They also discussed financing. Immediately afterwards, the agent took her new client out and showed her...

...two homes.

One was perfect.

Instead of making an offer right away, the buyer went home and called her friend. The friend had a real estate license. The buyer and her second agent presented an offer on the home, leaving the first agent totally in the dark.

After all, the first agent hadn't worked "too hard."

Which made me think about what really makes a real estate agent valuable, among other things.

Knowledge of inventory was near the top of the list.

It sounds boring and unexciting. Bookish, even.

You see, the reason the first agent knew which houses to show her potential client was because she had previewed those properties. That's one of those things agents do that you don't know about. They go out on their own, by themselves or with other agents, and look at property after property after property. They know what models are located where, how long they've been on the market, which ones have listing agents that are easy to work with, and more. They know all kinds of things that you don't know they know.

Not only that, the agent had been previewing properties for what "seems like forever" - so she immediately knew which houses to show the soon-to-be-excited buyer. She had been to those homes and/or model matches for those homes - for quite some time.

She knew her inventory.

The friend did not know the inventory. Otherwise, the buyer would have gone to her friend first, right?

It's like wandering around the aisles of a drug store not knowing which over-the-counter cough syrup is best for your particular ailment. Who would you rather ask? The clerk at the register or the pharmacist?

Either way, you're walking out of the store with a cardboard box filled with thick sloshy liquid.

So what you're really hiring in an agent is knowledge - and not just knowledge of inventory. Knowledge of lots of things that you don't even know you don't know. They make it seem easy, but that's because they want it to seem easy. If agents told you how hard it was, you would be even more nervous about shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After all, it is only the most expensive purchase you've ever made in your life.

But it's only a house, right?

And everyone knows that a Schedule 1 item on a termite report must be repaired prior to closing, which Schedule II items do not. And all those other little details.

By the way, the first agent and the listing agent talked to one another because she expected to present an offer shortly. No details, of course - just the name of her client and to expect the offer.

The buyer did present an offer, but with the wrong agent. This took the listing agent by surprise. Like many industries, real estate agents have a code of ethics they are supposed to obey. At the same time, agents don't always know what their clients are up to. Anyway, imagine how negotiations went, if they went anywhere at all. Plus, there were other problems that will be saved for another article.

Which isn't really the point. The point was that you hire an agent because of training, knowledge, experience, problem-solving ability, connections, their ability to communicate...and lots of other neat stuff.

The moral I promised?

You don't know what you don't know.

Which is why you hire people that will cover the blanks you know about, as well as the ones you don't. That is where you find the true value of a real estate agent.

Call Amanda for all your real estate needs!  910.545.0450  www.AmandaParmerSellsHomes.com

Using a VA Loan?

The majority of people buying a home in Jacksonville, North Carolina utilize their VA loan entitlement.  Why wouldn't you?  It's 100% financing, with little to no closing costs in this housing market.  It's a perfect opportunity to invest in your financial future!
But there are some things you might not know!

~You can use your VA loan more than once!  Many military members intend to use their VA loan for their "forever home".  But it's actually designed for first-time homebuyers!  Even if you use your VA loan on one home, you are still entitled to use it again and again and again!  And, you can use it more than once at a time!  Military members move around!  That's the lifestyle.  But just because you have a home in California that you bought with a VA loan, doesn't mean that you can't simultaneously have a home in Jacksonville, NC with a VA loan!
~You only need 90 days of active duty service during wartime to qualify to use your VA loan!  And, you don't need perfect credit (although it doesn't hurt!!)
~The VA isn't lending you the money- they're only backing it up for you, kind of like insurance.  So you can still shop different lenders for the best interest rate!
~They are for primary residences only.  However, military members move around- a lot!  So after a reasonable amount of time, it can be used for a rental home if necessary.

For more information on how to utilize your VA entitlement to buy a home, give me a call!  I can recommend lenders in the area who are familiar with VA loans and who have worked with my military clients in the past!  

Don't Shoot the Messenger!!

So part of my job as a professional REALTOR® is prospecting.  One of my methods of prospecting for future clients is telling people about my current inventory.  Not only does it give me the opportunity to speak with other people about real estate, but serves as a great service to my seller when I call other people to talk about their home for sale.  Point blank, it's cold calling.  It's not easy, it's not always very fun, but it does work.  So I do it.  Today, I was calling around my listing at 146 Locust Court, Jacksonville, NC, 

 and one of the gentlemen that I had the pleasure of speaking with asked me to never call his home again because, "Realtors® are nothing but scam artists and take advantage of these young Marines in this town."  He belabored the point to tell me about the new 3.8% real estate tax that everyone has to pay is in the Obamacare bill and how no one in Jacksonville will be able to sell their home and it's only going to add to the 200 foreclosures in our town.  (His words, not mine!!)
Little did he know, I am, in fact, a US Army Veteran and I am in a very committed relationship with a Marine, and actually come from a military family.  So truly, scamming young Marines is not on my list of things to do.  I know not everyone has the same goals, but I think I speak for most of my REALTOR® comrades by saying that it's just not true.
I tried to explain to him that his information isn't accurate.  The fact is, the real estate tax of 3.8% ONLY applies to individuals who make more than $200,000 (adjusted gross income) and $250,000 for couples.  I don't think that's going to harm the average consumer in the Jacksonville, North Carolina real estate market right now.  
And as far as there being 200 foreclosures on the market- the actual statistics, according to Jacksonville Board of Realtors® MLS today, there are 2,424 homes on the market for sale in Onslow County.  Of those homes, 165 are foreclosure homes.  That's less than 7%.  And nationally, speaking, foreclosure sales are at an all time low since 2007, according to Les Christie at CNN Money.
Another part of my job, and probably the most important job, is educating.  I think it's more important for people to know the facts, rather than what they heard in the media or what their neighbor told them about the housing market in Toledo.  I don't go to the salon to ask about a weird noise my car is making, I go to the mechanic.  REALTORS® are here to educate and guide, as well as sell houses.  All REALTORS® aren't the same, and some are better than others.  Call me for a more detailed statistical analysis about the Jacksonville real estate market!  I'd love to help!