Clearwater Home – SOLD – Dililigence and Persistence wins

Future Home Realty and the Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate Team of Marie Becklund and Theresa Townsend announce the Sale of 2924 Eagle Estates Circle, a beautiful home in the Eagle Estates development of Pinellas County, Clearwater Florida. This Stunning Home is close to Chi Chi Rodriquez & Countryside Golf & Country Clubs.

We would like to say Congratulations and Thank You to the Proud New Owners of 2924 Eagle Estates Circle. Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate wants to Wish you many Happy and Memorable Years to come in your New Home.

ENJOY

This has been a long haul. We finally sold a home that we have worked so very hard to market for the former owner.

In any market there is always that one house that no matter what you do, short of dropping the price to a ridiculous level it does not sell. In this case the home is in a beautiful location and the home is no ugly duckling either. What is interesting is that when the former owner purchased the home in the early 90?s it had been on the market for over a year.

We gave up on counting exactly how many open house events, broker events and listing tours we provided on this home. We had received several offers over the course of the listing, but they were not serious and considered low ball offers when compared to the other homes selling in and around the neighborhood.

The new owners are ecstatic, and the seller is very happy to have sold the house. So persistence can make the sale when both parties come to together and realize they can make a deal that works for both.

I can tell you that it is interesting, that we have had listings where the owner did not head our advice and subsequently re-listed the home with another agent only to find that their home is still unsold many months later. So jumping ship is not always the best thing to do, you really have to look at what your agent is doing for you. If they are doing everything humanly possible and the home is still not selling, then the price may have to be lowered to compete in the current market. I can tell you that the owner still made a good profit over what they had originally purchased the home for.

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How do you gage peoples reactions to major issues ?

While I was pondering a good topic for our post today?.which I will now save for Sunday, I received an interesting email from a PHD candidate at the Stony Brooke University in New York.

How they came across my name and email is topic for another post on blogging and marketing fundamentals, but the gentleman asked for my assistance in posting a link to what I think is a pretty interesting survey.

Since I don?t usually post unsolicited Surveys, I took the survey myself. It took me about 12 minutes, but on average I am told it can take 15 to 20 minutes. I also went one further and wrote a comment in the survey asking if the survey was politically motivated or in support of one candidate vs another ?

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an almost immediate reply from Mr. Chris Weber who wrote:

“Hi Tom,

Thanks for taking the survey. I really appreciate it. I saw your note in the message section. As for your questions, no, the survey is not politically motivated. We are simply interested in gathering people’s emotional reactions to two political candidates. We don’t have a bias in favor of one candidate over another; and as I’m sure you noticed, the questions asked about Hillary Clinton are the exact same questions that are asked in reference to John McCain.

We originally wanted to use the two front-running candidates, but given the closeness on the Democratic side, we chose Hillary since we figured people would be more familiar with her. The purpose of the survey is mainly methodological. There’s a lot of controversy in political science about how to measure people’s emotions about political figures. The survey randomly assigns people to one of three conditions, which only differ in how emotion questions are asked. Our interest isn’t so much in specific emotions pertaining to these two candidates, but rather, how to best measure emotional reactions to any political candidate, Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Let me know if you have any other questions.”

MLS Data compliance and NAR vs. DOJ

Marc Davison of 1000 WATT Consulting wrote an article for Inman Real Estate News recently that was in part an answer to a discussion that had been started over at the 3 Oceans Real Estate Blog site, regarding the entry of a New Search firm in the real estate arena called DOT HOMES.

Both posts elaborated on the issue of compliance of IDX data within the search realm. I think this is a good topic to continue because in my humble opinion I think that Marc and Kevin both missed on discussing an important aspect in their respective discussions. While I commend both for bringing up the topic they do not fully detail the problem or the issue at hand here.

Yeah.. Marc does a good job of describing the facts ?that home sellers are not interested in this issue other than they want to sell their house and want the listing data displayed anywhere an every where that will give them a possibility of attracting a buyers attention.?

The problem I have with the context of the issue is that both guys refer to the data as the Brokers Data and that it is a broker issue. That is only partly correct. The larger issue over control of the data that both failed to mention, is the control of the listing data by the local MLS boards. (Multiple Listing Services)

Let me explain for the layman here; Brokers have to pay fees for the IDX (Internet Data Exchange) or RETS (Real Estate Transaction Standard)feeds and many of the MLS Boards have draconian limitations on how and where the data can be displayed. Part of the issue also runs into fairness, competitiveness and the rules of fair play, when they (MLS Boards) appear to have different rules for different brokers and vendors based on who is in this month with a particular MLS board.

Take for example the Utah MLS board. They won?t provide an IDX feed unless you pay thousands of dollars a month. Yep you go it right, THOUSANDs. Another one I have personally dealt with in the past was Lake Tahoe-Incline Village MLS who are so overly protective of their data streams, and these are only a few off the top of my head that I can readily recall of the many MLS’s across the U.S. Who are they protecting though? In the current housing market they are killing the careers of the very people they claim to protect.

MLS Compliance is a rule who?s time has come and gone and should be done away with to better the industry as a whole. In it?s current incarnation it is behind the times, out in left field. In fact you could even say that the current policy?s of the MLS boards are effectively holding your homes listing data for ransom, adding to the quagmire of all ready declining home sales.

I think the the MLS boards are going to have to adopt some type of open source protocol on a national platform, so the likes of DOT HOMES can readily disseminate the data to those consumers who are looking to buy.

I really am not one to advocate the Federal Governments intervention in business, but as the U.S. Justice Department continues it?s probe into NAR?s (National Association of Realtors) business practices it might behoove all of us if they take an even closer look at how the individual MLS? are run and controlled and whether or not NAR?s influence has anything to do with the issue.

NAR has been working to formulate the new rules into what is called the Internet Listing Display (ILD) which is suppose to replace the current IDX and RET?s policy?s. Most of this is as a direct result of the FED?s probe. To date the standard has not been completed and the FED?s initial probe completed in November 2007. A court date of July 7, 2008 has been set.

This is what NAR has posted on their site: NAR strongly disagrees with the government’s contentions and is vigorously defending both the MLS as a vehicle for broker-to-broker cooperation as well as the ability of a listing broker to control the use of that brokers listings on the Internet by competitors.

The problem as I see it is; that the MLS? boards have way too much control and are stifling competition by not allowing those with valid business reasons access to the data, with out putting often times unjust qualifications or access fees for the usage of the data.

Either way there needs to be change in the way business has been done in the past to accommodate future technology and the changing way in which consumers conduct research to purchase homes. My research on DOT HOMES also shows that they provide a direct link to the listing agent without having to drill through tons of minutiae. And that is a good thing !

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Take a quick look at this video segment:

A new report from Zillow.com shows home values dropped nationwide by 3%. Chief Financial Officer Spencer Rascoff discusses which cities saw the largest declines.
Time for little cold water on the face for those that have obviously been asleep for oh..the last year. Hey times are tough, I don?t need to rehash all the media hype of the last several months however, todays news has continued with fact that Mortgage Applications volumes decreased this last week in large part because the interest rates started creeping back up again. The Wall Street Journal reported on Zillows market data from Monday, that outlines the Bubble Areas of California and Florida. Basically, they reported that prices are still falling and may continue to fall more.

So where does this leave the home owner that really wants to sell their home ? Well first off you have to be really motivated to sell. Yes it is difficult the house you are selling was to bank role your retirement plan and so you have a certain number that you feel you have to sell at. Sound familiar ? If this is you then you had better get your head out of the sand. Either take your home of the market and forgo that retirement plan for a year or two or reduce your house to what your realtor says it should sell at. And even then you need to be prepared to lower the price even more again.

That is if you want to really sell your home ? Now maybe you don?t have retirement in mind, but you wanted to profit from your sale. Who doesn?t ? However, if you have had your home for some time, you have a lot of room to work with. It is unfortunate that homes are over valued. And yes that means the very one you are trying to sell now.

You can read more of this article by the WSJ concerning your R.O.I. here:

As I am writing this, I am also reminded of an article I read in January?s issue of Realtor Magazine discussing this issue of Realtors trying to get Sellers to Get Real. They did cover both ends of the spectrum and covered unrealistic buyers expectations too. The larger issue that we face here in Florida is the fact that our homes are over valued. It is not personal, believe me, we bought into a new home at near the top of the market. If we had to sell today we would loose a lot, but that?s just what the market bares right now and being realistic is the only way to keep moving forward.

If you are a Realtor and have ?clients who won?t budge from unreasonable thinking,? then you may have to try an alternative approach to the one you are currently using. One of those items that I find no one has mentioned is the use of BLOGS. Yep, give them the web site address here or email them the link to this article. They can get mad as hell at me, but I have included the links to the statistics within this article.

I can?t say it any better than this ?When you have clients or prospects that are being unreasonable, it?s your job to help them revise their expectations based on the market reality.? I have to give credit where it?s due. This quote is from Kelle Sparta?s article that I mentioned above. (Kelly is the author of The Consultative Real Estate Agent).

In closing, it appears that the signs of denial for Sellers are still all over the map here in Florida and California. . Inman news covers it fairly well in their article entitled Denial: Didn?t we do this stage already ?

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Florida’s indifferent real estate market in Tampa…huh ?

ep, it?s that time again. The NAR Real Estate forecast report was released on Thursday February 7^th. As is usual with NAR?s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, he mixes it up to the point you just have to say ?huh ?

The title of the report itself really sets it up. ?Existing-Home Sales to Hold in Narrow Range, then Begin Upward Trend??huh ?

This is the summary of the report by NAR: Soft market conditions are forecast to continue for existing-home sales in the months ahead, with improvement expected by the second half of this year if loan limits are increased?.. huh ?

Current housing conditions vary widely? huh ?

You can review the report your self from the link above but from all accounts they are saying the market is so, so?.which according to the dictionary I checked means it?s an indifferent market?huh ?

Well now that I have dispensed with the things that make you go huh ?

The real meat and potatoes came out about (2) days earlier from a local source that I find a bit more reliable or credible, however you like to portray the data, NAR does not really have a great track record of getting to the issue at heart without um..making you say huh ? OK I promise no more. Anyhow, the source of the data is an economic and financial consulting firm based here in Florida called FISHKIND and associates. At least as it pertains to Florida?s economic forecast they have the data to back up what they talk about. Dr. Hank Fishkind is often referred to in the Florida media as ?Florida’s best known economist ?. Dr. Fishkind presented his report to the Bay Area Real Estate Council on February 5^th, 2008

Since our business is all about Florida?s Tampa Bay Area, hence Greater Tampa Bay Area Real Estate, we were really pleased to see that the reporting data shows that a good portion of the Tampa markets may have hit bottom and are ready for the turnaround to begin.

A few of the highlights of Hank Fishkinds February 5 meeting are:

1. HOME SALES: Pasco and Hernando counties’ housing markets have hit bottom and are most likely to start the the turn around ?.this will be seen later in the year. Hillsborough County is close to the bottom, but Pinellas County has a few more months in this downturn before home sales and prices will stabilize.

2. FORECLOSURES: While bad in certain neighborhoods, Dr. Fishkind thinks foreclosures have received way more press than they deserve. Measured against the total housing market here, they’re a “thimble in the ocean.”

3. AMENDMENT 1 PROPERTY TAX CUTS: Don’t expect any noticeable stimulus from tax cuts this year. We won’t get a tax break until next year. Plus people are still having difficulty selling their houses, making the portability issue a moot point.

4. CONDO CRISIS: Dr. Fishkind was not too high on condos in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. He said oversupply, combined with limited sales, “makes me nervous.” He sees no bottom yet here.

5. MORTGAGE RATES: Good news here. Dr. Fishkind expects home loan rates for credit worthy borrowers to continue to drop to below 5 percent this year. If you have equity left in your home , it will be a good time to refinance.

You can down-load a copy of Dr. Hank Fishkinds Power Point report in PDF format entitled **Economic Outlook U.S. and Tampa Bay/Bay Area Real Estate Council.

** Be sure to check out pages 28 to 63 of the PDF for Tampa Counties (158 to 197 as listed on the lower right corner of the presentation).

Dr. Fishkind also spoke on local Orlando Radio station with regards to the Amendment 1 Property Tax cuts. You can access the audio by clicking in this link >> Click here to listen to story.. (You don?t need an ipod to listen. If you have a PC with Windows Media Player installed ?..no problem.)

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