Due Diligence In Our Contract – An Important Perspective
Our new Offer To Purchase that was put in affect in January of 2011 has brought on some much needed fairness to the seller. The seller is paid a due diligence fee by the buyer to allow the buyer to investigate the property.
Really the most important aspect of buying a house is now in the preparation. It never should have been up to the seller to determine the buyer’s credit worthiness. Now that we have a due diligence period, the contract should only be about the property. After all it is an offer to purchase a property.
The buyer should investigate his/her credit worthiness and be comfortable with it before EVER writing a contract. You see the due diligence will only really work as intended if the buyer is pretty sure they can be approved for a loan.
So, what are the steps for loan approval?
Pre-Qualification
This occurs when the buyer provides information about income, assets and liabilities to a lender and allows a credit report to be run.
Pre-Approval
This step requires confirmation of income and assets through thorough documentation like bank statements, paystubs, W2’s and tax returns.
Final Approval
This occurs when all information is validated and an appraisal is completed that is acceptable to his/her lender.
So where should the buyer be before writing an offer? They should have completed the Pre-Approval process. This would only leave selecting the property and having the appraisal done along with other ‘property’ inspections. You see the due diligence should only include issues with the home and not issue with the buyers credit worthiness.
If the buyer is PREPARED, the due diligence period can be done in 10-15 days and the due diligence amount can be a small sum of money or ZERO!
How To Remove Pet Stains From Carpets
Carolina Living Real Estate
More tips to help you with managing and preparing your home for sale. Information is provided by Carolina Living’s preferred Home Warranty Company; American Home Shield and Merry Maids.
First, blot up any liquid by putting towels or absorbent rags over the spot and stepping on them. Start with gentle pressure and increase it up to putting your full weight down. Change to fresh rags or towels until no more liquid comes up.
For fresh stains, apply a bacteria/enzyme digester from a pet store, following the directions—it’s the only way to deal effectively with both the stain and the odor. Bacteria/enzyme digesters work slowly, so leave the solution on as long as the directions say. Urine has probably penetrated into the carpet and pad, so use enough solution to reach as far down as the stain.
Apply the solution, put plastic over it, and step on the spot several times until the area is well saturated. Then, leave the plastic on the whole time the digester is working to make sure the spot doesn’t dry out.
Old or dry stains are hard—sometimes even impossible—to remove, but try the bacteria/enzyme digester. If it’s a popular accident site, the bacteria may produce enough ammonia in the course of breaking down the stains to create a super-alkaline situation that interferes with its own action. In this case, you may need to neutralize the spot after the digester has been working for about four hours. Mix a solution of one cup of vinegar to a gallon of warm water. Rinse the area with this solution and apply a fresh batch of bacteria/enzyme solution.
If the stain or odor remains, call a professional deodorizing specialist. A complete cure will probably involve cleaning the entire carpet by extraction and replacing the pad underneath, if not replacing the carpet.
Squatter Nation – Years Without A Mortgage Payment
According to a recent article at CNN-Money, Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics.
Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the “robo-signing” issue is particularly combative, it’s 807.
In this article specific examples were given where borrowers have stayed in their homes as long as 5 years without making a mortgage payment.
An example of what has happened across the nation:
A borrower purchased a two-bedroom on Tampa Bay in 1998 for $135,000.
As the waterfront property’s value skyrocketed, eventually reaching $750,000, they refinanced twice (once to expand a business), and took out a second mortgage. They now owe more than $600,000 on the home, which is worth only $235,000.
Until we get out of this mess, the housing market will continue to drag! However if you are looking to buy a foreclosure in the Charlotte and Lake Norman areas, the time may be right.
Check out our FREE list of foreclosures
Carolina Living Real Estate and Lake Norman
Carolina Living serves the Charlotte area with agents positioned around the entire area. One of the areas where we are truly experts is Lake Norman.
We have created a series of websites that encompasses everything you will need to know about Lake Norman Real Estate.
Starting with our blog which has all kinds of miscellaneous information about Lake Norman, from boat slips, to understand waterfront purchases.
Our company website Carolina Living Real Estate, has information about our company and information about the Charlotte area, from the arts to sports.
Lake Norman Communities has home listings for most of the communities surrounding Lake Norman. Search by community and Lake Norman Waterfront and see all the active listings in the area.
Lake Norman Foreclosures has foreclosure listings all around the lake. You can see home listings of Lake Norman foreclosures by price and by waterfront listings.
Birkdale at Lake Norman has home listings and miscellaneous information all about then Birkdale Golf Community and Birkdale Village which are two of the premier communities around Lake Norman.
Finally, Lake Norman Property Management is one of the premier property management companies in the area. Our website displays many many rental listings as well as defines our services.
8 Tips For Adding Curb Appeal To Your Home
Houselogic created by The National Association of Realtors recently published an article about adding curb appeal your home. Carolina Living Real Estate has had recent success selling our listings by insuring that we are “winning the war online” and by providing our clients tips to enhance their home against the competion.
Homes with high curb appeal command higher prices and take less time to sell. We’re not talking about replacing vinyl siding with redwood siding; we’re talking about maintenance and beautifying tasks you’d like to live with anyway.
The way your house looks from the street—attractively landscaped and well-maintained—can add thousands to its value and cut the time it takes to sell. But which projects pump up curb appeal most? Some spit and polish goes a long way, and so does a dose of color.
- Wash your house’s face
- Freshen the paint job
- Regard the roof
- Neaten the Yard
- Add a color splash
- Glam your mailbox
- Fence Yourself In
- Maintenance is a must
Read more: 8 Tips for Adding Curb Appeal To Your Home
According to RealtyTrac -1 in 4 Sales Was A Forclosure
This information is courtesy of Inman News.
Foreclosure sales accounted for 26 percent of U.S. home sales in 2010, with those properties selling for more than 28 percent less, on average, than homes not in the foreclosure process, data aggregator RealtyTrac said in its latest report.
A total of 831,574 U.S. residential properties either owned by banks or in some stage of foreclosure sold to third parties in 2010, a decrease of 31 percent from 2009 and a decrease of nearly 14 percent from 2008, RealtyTrac said.
Homes in foreclosure accounted for a larger percentage of sales in 2009 — 29 percent — but their share of total sales was up from 23 percent in 2008.
While controversy over loan servicers’ handling of foreclosure paperwork put a dent in fourth quarter foreclosure sales, the impact of the so-called robo-signing controversy seemed to be waning in the final month of the year.
RealtyTrac recorded a total of 149,303 foreclosure sales in the fourth quarter, down 22 percent from the previous quarter and down 45 percent from the same period a year ago. That decline was in spite of a 21 percent monthly uptick in foreclosure sales volume in December.
“The catch-22 for 2011 is that while accelerating foreclosure sales will help clear the oversupply of distressed properties and return balance to the market in the long run, in the short term a high percentage of foreclosure sales will continue to weigh down home prices,” said RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio in a statement.
A total of 512,886 bank-owned (REO) properties sold to third parties in 2010 at an average discount of 36 percent, up from an average discount of 33 percent in 2009.
Another 318,688 pre-foreclosure properties — homes in default or scheduled for auction — sold to third parties in 2010 at an average discount of 15 percent, down from an average discount of nearly 17 percent in 2009.
In North Carolina :
Foreclosure Sales = 10,315
Percent of All Sales = 11.69
Average price = 146,261
Average Discount Percent 25.8
Looking for a Charlotte Forecloure
Looking for a Lake Norman Foreclosure
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Executive custom home in Warrior golf course community, just minutes from Mooresville, NC. 1600sqft shop heated/ac with epoxy floors. In-law apt above with hardwood floors. Theatre room, Gunite heated salt water, maintenance-free pool with hot tub. Outdoor living area on 1.3 acres of fenced in estate with high tech security system. They say location is everything, well this has everything. Privacy and free of traffic but centrally located to get anywhere you need to be quickly! Many listings say ‘too many amenities to list’ well when we say it here, it is TRUE. You have got to see this one to believe it! Just reduced to under 600,000!
Click on Picture to enlarge
Carolina Living Referral Company For Agents
We have recognized that the market it very tough on agents. Many agents have worked very hard on obtaining a license but are finding it difficult to stay on the business. We feel it is important that these agents keep their license active (they worked very hard for them).
We wanted to give these agents a home to hang their license at a very minimal cost ( $25.00 a year ). They can also give Carolina Living Real Estate agents referrals and legally receive a 25% referral fee.
If you are an agent and find yourself in this situation, contact us and we can easily and quickly align you with our referral company, set up specifically for you!
To Stage Or Not To Stage
Actually a seller should never be asking this question. It is the wrong type of thinking if the seller is serious about selling his/her home.
The better question is ‘How should I stage?” We Realtors, at Carolina Living Real Estate, are quick to tell our sellers that there are things we have no control over and other things that we have total control over. It is the things we can control that we try to address when we work with our sellers.
The process of preparing a home to put it on the market – from simple clean-up and clean-out to extensive repairs and improvements-always directly impacts how quickly a home will sell and for what price!
In fact a review that was published in USA Today stated that of 2800 properties in 8 cities found that “staged homes on average, sold in half the time as non-staged homes did. They also sold for over 6% more than non-staged homes on average.
The hardest part for a seller is getting past their own personal tastes. We Realtors understand that sellers have spent lots of money and time personalizing the home the way they like it. However, the moment the home goes on the market, a seller’s personal taste must go out the window. It is now time to have it as a buyer pleases!
The house must appeal to the largest possible segment of likely buyers. In today’s market, with fewer buyers, it become imperative.
Some sellers are justifiably concerned about costs of staging especially for homes that are vacant. If you can’t afford to actually stage the home with furniture,worry no more. The above picture from Ark-La-Tex Virtual Tours can take your vacant house and convert it to a gorgeous home online using virtual staging!