Some of our Seller clients are having difficulty making mortgage payments. They are not alone.
Today’s paper ran an article saying that late mortgage payment our up to a 3.5 year high. New foreclosures have also surged to record levels.
Read the article here:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/16897022.htm
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Bradenton Real Estate
My partner and I have been talking about some “out of the box” ideas to help our listing clients attract a buyer. In talking with others we would like to suggest that sellers hold a garage sale to attract more “eye-balls” and thus more attention to their home for sale.
We have heard of several instances where a sale occurred as a direct result of the garage sale. Not that the garage sale attender bought the home, but seeing the home for sale they told someone else about it. The key is exposure. The more people who know about the home for sale, the greater the opportunity to find the right buyer.
Here’s a few suggestions:
1. Do advertise the yard sale to attract a large crowd.
2. You may want to use the words “moving sale” to create attention.
3. Consider asking neighbors to join in the sale, but be sure to hold it at your house. You could then call it a neighborhood sale.
4. Be sure to ask us to send you extra promotional flyers that attenders could have. Be a little agressive and hand a flyer to each attender. Ask for their help in finding you a buyer.
5. Put out plenty of directional signs on the morning of the sale.
6. If anyone shows and interest or says they know of someone who might like to buy in your neighborhood ask permission for us to contact them. Then call us right away with their name and phone number.
7. Consider putting out Open House signs too. We will be happy to provide the signs for you.
Good luck!
Dan Forbes & Marie Avery
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Bradenton Real Estate
PREMIER TEAM’s
Market Conditions Report Summary
February 2007
(from our study of the Gulf Coast Regional Multiple Listing Service)
Statistics for Single Family Homes
Statistics for Condos
Summary: Gadzooks! No Signs of Stabilization
We see absolutely no signs of stabilization in our Bradenton – Sarasota real estate market. The Inventory has not stabilized, it keeps going up. The Pending Sales have not stabilized, they are down. There has not been a stabilization in closings, they remain low. The absoption rate has moved ever so slightly from an 11.0 month supply of homes on the market to a 10.6 supply, no stabilization here.
Prices continue to fall with 1058 price reductions during the month of February. The last two months has seen over 2100 price reductions. For the year there has been 9,747 price reductions!
The mistake most Sellers are making is reducing their price by too little, too late. In a declining market you must get ahead of the downward curve to sell successfully. If you are serious about selling, your home must be the obvious best value in the area. You must price your home significantly below the competition.
As painful as that may be, it is even more painful to have to drop it even more later.
Attention buyers: this is a great time to buy. Don’t make the mistake of looking back a few years from now and regretting that you failed to take action!
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Bradenton Real Estate
The weekend open house is a time-honored tradition in real estate sales, but has it outlived its effectiveness? Quite possibly, according to a new survey conducted by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. The survey results hint at the notion that public open houses may be more beneficial for the agents themselves than for the home sellers.Almost all the agents who responded to the survey (97 percent) had held public open houses, but only 41 percent believe those events help sell the home that’s being showcased. Thirty-two percent believe public open houses attract many potential buyers, but nearly three-fourths also believe those buyers are more likely to buy a home other than the one being held open. And 62 percent say most people attending open houses aren’t serious buyers at all.
Public open houses also present a security issue for home sellers and agents. “Whether or not to hold an open house is a concern among agents,” says Jack Harris, a research economist with the Texas A&M center. “Agents must be on-site for the duration of open houses. Safety is a growing concern because there is no way to know whether a visitor is a serious buyer, just curious or has more sinister motives.”
Despite the potential for meeting prospects, many agents find open houses troublesome, dangerous and generally a waste of time. The first lesson for home sellers is: Unless your home is unusual (i.e., difficult to sell), you might want to spend your weekends enjoying your own backyard, rather than turning your home over to your real estate agent. If your agent is gung-ho on public open houses, find out what supplemental marketing efforts (e.g., advertising the open house in a local newspaper) he or she will use to attract serious buyers for your home to the event.
The falling favor of public open houses may be partially attributable to new marketing techniques, including real estate Web sites, cable television infomercials and yard signs that transmit radio messages about the home.
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Bradenton Real Estate
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