August 26th, 2007 by George

Wonderful new construction townhome community, priced from the 140’s…

 (to be continued)

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August 23rd, 2007 by George

From the Wall Street Journal…

With the housing market looking increasingly frail, home builders and real-estate agents are going to new extremes to attract buyers, dangling lavish incentives and slashing prices.

Here are some tips for getting concessions from home builders:

• Buy a finished home: Builders want these off their books.

• Get a preapproval letter: This shows a builder you have financing already in place.

• Close quickly: Wrap up a purchase within 30 days; builders want to sell before the next bank payment is due.

• Avoid contingencies: Don’t make your purchase contingent on selling a home or finding financing.

RealEstateJournal.com offers advice for getting discounts on brand-new homes.

In Boca Raton, Fla., Gordon Homes is offering to pay two years of property taxes and insurance — worth as much as $150,000 on houses priced as high as $2.5 million — for buyers of completed homes at its upscale Azura development. In Richmond, Va., Orleans Homebuilders Inc. is offering “Sizzling Summer Sale Savings” that include as much as $100,000 off the cost of upgrades ranging from granite countertops to a conservatory. And in Medford, Ore., Diane Adams, a real-estate agent, is offering to pay four months of mortgage payments on the $975,000 house she and her home-builder husband constructed on 20 acres near Crater Lake.

“I’d also negotiate a lower price, too,” says Ms. Adams, an agent with Re/Max International Inc. “I just want this house off our books.”

Across the country, the theme is the same: Home builders and home sellers are juicing their efforts to unload single-family homes. Among other things, they are offering buyers cash discounts of as much as 20%, throwing in a pool and agreeing to finish basements, garages and other spaces at a cost of several thousand dollars — incentives much richer than builders were offering as recently as six months ago, when the downturn didn’t look as bleak.

Since then, home builders have been hit hard as rising mortgage delinquency rates have made lenders much more reluctant to issue new loans, causing home prices to fall and inventories of unsold homes to rise. In June, new-home sales had fallen more than 40% from their peak two years ago, and more than half a million new houses — nearly eight months of supply — sit in inventory, according to the most recent report from the National Association of Home Builders. Contract cancellations, meanwhile, have hit nearly 30% for some builders.

Things may not get better for a while. The National Association of Realtors said yesterday that new home sales this year were likely to fall 19% from last year, worse than its previous forecast of a 17.7% drop.

Many builders never expected the housing market to fall this far. Now they’re struggling with empty land, too few buyers and an inventory of finished homes that have been sitting empty for months — and some are growing desperate to free the cash locked up in their real estate by enticing the dwindling number of buyers. The latest survey taken by the National Association of Home Builders indicates that 56% of builders are now offering incentives, up from about 45% a year ago.

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August 5th, 2007 by George

In 2006, Money Magazine put together their annual list of the Best Places in the country to live.

Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina came in at number 70 out of the top 100.

View how Mt. Pleasant and Charleston stack up compared to the top 10 here

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August 3rd, 2007 by George

Data from Charleston Trident Association of Realtors.

Median home price is up 5% over 2006 so far in 2007.

Data is year to date as of July 25, 2007.

 

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August 3rd, 2007 by George

Closing the Deal

Here is where you exercise your negotiating muscles

Once you find the house you want, you need to move quickly to make your bid. If you’re working with a buyer’s broker, then get advice from him or her on an initial offer. If you’re working with a seller’s agent, devise the strategy yourself.

Try to line up data on at least three houses that have sold recently in the neighborhood. Calculate the difference between the original list price and the final price of the homes sold.

If the average difference is, say, 5 percent below the asking price, then you know you can make an offer 8 percent to 10 percent below, leaving yourself a little room to negotiate. If you really want the house, don’t lowball. The seller may give up in disgust.

Another factor to consider in determining your bid is whether the trend in recent home sales is up or down over the past year. For instance, if houses a year ago were selling at list, and recent ones are going at 3 percent below, then you might want to sharpen your pencil for your opening bid to just 5 to 8 percent below list.

There’s no foolproof system for negotiating a fair price. Occasionally it’s best to deal directly with the seller yourself. More often it’s better to work exclusively through intermediaries. In general, don’t let the other side begin to believe you are negotiating in bad faith or being deceptive — any deal you eventually reach has to involve trust on both sides.

Be creative about finding ways to satisfy the seller’s needs. For instance, ask if the seller would throw in kitchen and laundry appliances if you meet his price — or take them away in exchange for a lower price. Remember, too, that your leverage depends on the pace of the market. In a slow market, you’ve got muscle; in a hot market, you may have none at all.

Once you reach a mutually acceptable price, the seller’s agent will draw up an offer to purchase that includes an estimated closing date (usually 45 to 60 days from acceptance of the offer).

Have your lawyer or buyers agent review this document to make sure the deal is contingent upon:

1. your obtaining a mortgage;

2. a home inspection that shows no significant defects (make sure you’re clear on the definition of “significant”);

3. a guarantee that you may conduct a walk-through inspection 24 hours before closing. This last clause allows you to check the home after the sellers have moved out so that you have time to negotiate payment for repairs, just in case the movers cause any damage, or that big living room sofa was hiding a hole in the floor.

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