Staging Golf Course Homes
When selling a golf course home there is a real necessity to show off the scenery and beauty of the home and yard that you are offering. Needless to say when showing such a home the yard is going to play a humongous role in the sale. Few other home styles will have such a reliance on the home’s exterior but as part of a country club setting buyers will be expecting a certain level of luxury, cleanliness and showmanship in respect to the property. These are usually seen as the forefront of the luxury real estate market and buyers will be expecting a higher price range but they will also be expecting to be shown a home that is properly staged and has an immaculate yard. To sell a golf course property for the proper amount, you need to step up presentation a notch or two.
More so than with other standard homes, country club and golf course homes should really set the bar a bit higher. People who are seeking a country club lifestyle have already come to the conclusion that they are going to be looking at a higher price tag and are now looking for the justification of that price. Home staging is going to be an essential part of the game. Getting the home into show-home quality should be your primary objective. Moving out old items of furniture and clothing as well as anything that could adversely affect the sale should be undertaken at the outset of the staging so that you can concentrate on putting together the ideal setting for a sale.
The home’s exterior is also going to be extremely important. Country Club living suggests a standard for how homes should appear. There is really no room for cutting corners and taking shortcuts. The back yard in particular, as that is typically the area that is adjacent to the golf course must be in perfect condition. If the home is close to a fairway then you will want to ensure that whatever is utilized to keep errant balls from the yard is in good repair and does not take away from the outward appearance of the yard. You will need to be careful about how you present your home as expectations will be high. do yourself and you home a favor and present the best package that you can. The profit you realize from the sale should be well worth the time and effort.
Mike Weinberger is a real estate agent specializing in Arizona Golf Communities. For intelligent and experienced assistance with Arizona real estate give us a call anytime or check out our website at www.arizonafinegolfproperties.com
Stages of a Real Estate Market
The stages of a real estate market are most often recognized only after the fact. Even when all the historical data confirms that a downturn is in progress, most speculators won’t stop gambling. Real estate speculators call themselves investors because they believe they are taking calculated and controllable risks when purchasing homes.
In the mid to late 1990’s real estate investing was virgin territory because it was easy to use formulas of 60% to 70% of Fair Market Value minus repair costs to determine an offering price for a seller. The “chant” was “Get as many properties under contract because they can only go higher!” In the earlier years, buying properties cheaply enough allowed them to be rented and they supported themselves while the investor simply collected checks. In only three years, a groundswell of speculation led to frenzied buying. Families looking for a home to live in got caught up in the buying panic because of the scarcity of homes for sale. The market quickly and efficiently climbed with the help of lending institutions who were offering low interest rates, 100% financing, with no proof of the buyer’s income. Almost no other speculative opportunity in history caught on as fast because of real estate investors needing little or no money down and ease of loan qualification for “retail buyers”.
Even when many of the potential borrowers had credit issues and minimal down payments, the lenders created more lenient loan requirements. The number of single family homes that were owned by investors rose from 2.5% in 1995 to almost 29% by the end of 2006. Effectively, these investors took away at least 26.5% of available single family homes with the intent of selling them at higher prices to retail home buyers.
Here is a summary of the stages of a real estate cycle:
Stage #1 ” This is where supply closely equals demand and home prices fluctuate between +/- 3% per year and prices are basically stable over a five year period.
Stage #2 ” Here demand out-strips supply, or a “sellers’ market” develops because of fewer homes on the market. This can be created by investor speculation.
Stage #3 - Here demand far out-strips supply with resulting large annual price increases. Homes now offer new speculators more attractive yields than stocks and money market instruments. More so called “investors” begin buying multiple properties with expectations of selling for huge profits because of the low down payments required for mortgages or using creative financing. The market begins to feed on itself as homeowners begin to rush to take profits.
Stage #4 ” As home prices become unaffordable, interest rates increase making financing costs too expensive for homeowners to purchase, and investors have inventory that can’t be sold. Seemingly everyone tries to sell and the market readjusts to former market conditions by pulling back as much as 30% to 60% of peak values as the market begins to stabilize for 3 ” 8 years.
Summary - Based on the current market conditions and continuing available data, the real estate market is well into Stage #4. There is no way to determine how long this swing will last but historically they have lasted for 6 to 15 years. This stage offers huge opportunities for real estate investors and homeowners alike that want to purchase homes either for living in for 5 years+ for homeowners, or for “flipping” for investors. Both homeowners and investors looking to buy a property need to be very selective about how much they pay for a property, the amount of costs to rehab it, how they will be financing it, how long they intend to stay in it, the carrying costs, other properties currently listed on the MLS , and neighborhood conditions. Unfortunately, retail buyers who wait to get the lowest possible price often wind up paying higher mortgage rates which offsets the cost savings by waiting, especially when you include their cost to rent, and the interest tax-deduction that they lose by not owning. Investors will have to buy low and sell low, while the retail buyer has become “king of the mountain” in picking the best possible home for the lowest price.
Dave Dinkel has over 30 years experience in real estate investing which has given him a unique perspective into the workings of the real estate market. He has developed a CD entitled "How to Sell Your Home in as Little as 72 Hours", available at no cost for a limited time by going to <a href="http://www.fsbotlc.com">www.fsboTLC.com</a> and he shares even more techniques and secrets in his homeowner's home study course at <a href="http://www.fsboautopilot.com">www.FSBOautopilot.com</a>
Cancun Real Estate Investing
Are you trying to decide on a great Cancun Real Estate investment opportunity? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities out there? If so, take a minute to learn about the various basic possibilities for real estate investments in Cancun.
Solutions for the Subprime Lending Crisis
There are solutions for the subprime lending crisis that entail making changes to the way lenders are handling this crisis. There are distinct groups of individuals that are causing this foreclosure epidemic. First, there is the homeowner who got a “teaser interest rate” that was affordable at the time but became unaffordable when the interest rate adjusted. In addition to the teaser interest rates, lenders started a policy of “no documentation of income” or no-doc loans that did not require borrowers to show proof of their income and are now referred to as “liar’s loans”. The problem was that homeowners couldn’t afford the payment if there were any increases due to taxes, insurance, or an interest rate adjustment.
Next, there are individuals that purposely chose low-interest rate, interest only, and even negative amortization (neg-am) loans with the intent of flipping the property after one or two years and taking a huge capital gain. In the past few years, these “speculators” became trapped, either unable to sell or renting them with negative cash flows. The most viable option for these investors was to give the property back to the lender by foreclosure rather than bleeding monetarily every month.
Another typical foreclosure involved a homeowner cleverly refinancing his property but never making a payment and in effect selling his home to the lender, by taking out his equity on the refinance. There is a lingering question about whether these homeowners had “intent” to defraud the lenders, but that is better left to another discussion. And lastly, there are true personal hardships that resulted in foreclosure. Our estimates are that 95% of these homeowners want to keep their homes but are unable to reinstate the back payments.
Lending institutions can resolve many of these foreclosure issues by:
- Having counselors available to work with the homeowner for a
solution. Possible solutions include loan modification (putting the late payments and costs on the end of their loan, accepting partial payments of the amount due until paid, reducing the interest rate adjustment(s), freezing the interest rate for the term of the loan, getting a deed in lieu of foreclosure in exchange for giving the homeowner a credit for a rental truck when they vacate, accepting partial mortgage payments for a limited time, assistance with applying for and getting government assistance including grants that could reduce the loan, and doing financial planning and credit counseling.
- If the borrower is an investor who can no longer afford the loan, the
lender should get a deed in lieu of foreclosure, or a loan modification that is workable for both the lender and the investor which would be paid when the property was sold or refinanced.
- If a homeowner refinanced and never made a payment, the lender should request a deed in lieu of foreclosure and if the homeowner refuses, the lender should get a judgment after the foreclosure auction and collect this judgment. If fraud is suspected, the case should be pursued by local authorities for prosecution.
- True hardship cases should be handled on an individual basis with the interest of the borrower in mind. Loan modification and any other reasonable offers of help should be used to help resolve the problem. If a solution is impossible, a deed in lieu of foreclosure should be requested with a minimal compensation for moving expenses.
While certain banking regulations preclude some of these solutions Congress
and the Federal Reserve must quickly realize the nature of this crisis and its resemblance to the former Savings and Loan crisis. Immediate action should be taken before it becomes expensive for every taxpayer. To their credit, a number of insightful lenders have already taken steps to have counseling staffs on hand and work with homeowners. Now is the time to take more aggressive action before hundreds of thousands of homeowners find themselves no longer owning a home or even homeless.
Dave Dinkel has over 30 years experience in real estate investing which has given him a unique perspective into the workings of the real estate market. He has developed a CD entitled "How to Sell Your Home in as Little as 72 Hours", available at no cost for a limited time by going to <a href="http://www.fsbotlc.com">www.fsboTLC.com</a> and he shares even more techniques and secrets in his homeowner's home study course at <a href="http://www.fsboautopilot.com">www.FSBOautopilot.com</a>
