With the Banks' tightening of the money, there has been a resurgence of Lease to Own Agreements lately. Although these deals are popular with both Buyers and Sellers, they are not to be taken lightly. Here's why these instruments are potentially dangerous:Danger for the Seller: If the Buyers stop making payments under a Lease to Own Agreement, the Seller can not evict them. Instead, the Seller has to institute foreclosure action, which can take many months. In essence, the Owner could potentially have tenants who don't pay rent for a very long time (foreclosure action may take over a year), without the recourse of evicting them.Danger for the Buyer: If the Seller is foreclosed on, the Tenant has very little recourse. Once the Foreclosure is implemented against the Seller, the Tenant is evicted by the Bank. The only recourse the Tenant has is to sue the Seller for the money in civil court. Good luck in recouping it! With Sellers getting 5%-10% of the sales price up front and better than market rent on these types of agreements, the amount lost by the Tenant Buyer is sizable.Land Sales Agreements (Contracts of Sale) present the same dangers. The SCAR (South Carolina Association of Realtors) does not endorse Lease To Own Agreements. What is your experience with Lease To Own Agreements? Please share!Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Connection Proud Optimist
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 28, 2009 at 7:48pm
I remember the good ol' days when the discrepancy between the Buyer's offer and the Seller's asking price was measured by mere thousands of dollars, signifying 1%-2% of the property's value. That disparity was like a little puddle of water we used to quickly and easily jump over and put the deals together.Today I presented an offer to the bank for $165,000 less than the original asking price, a 34% reduction in value. Ouch! My advice: "Take the offer!" With 20 other properties competing for the same buyers and only one sale effected within the neighborhood within the last 6 months, we are lucky to get this offer.Have I succeeded in convincing the bank to take the offer? No, not yet! I've sent them my reports for the neighborhood. I've made a very compelling argument. Tomorrow I am going to take pictures and shoot video showing my seller (the bank) other similar homes in the neighborhood that are offering just as much for less money (other REO's).I hear the same thing from my bank clients that I hear from my other sellers: "But I need to make this much..." Dear Seller, your needs will not be met in this market! Your wants, needs and must haves, are completely irrelevant to the Buyers!Dear Seller, I DO care about you and your property! I FEEL your pain! My commission is significantly reduced when the price is slashed. But if we don't get the job done now, we might not get a similar offer again. EVER!!! We might join the legions of other vacant homes just lingering on the market and deteriorating from the elements. The longer a property remains in that state, the harder it is to sell it, and the less money it will garner.Aah, the good old days of the puddle... Now we have oceans to brave, stormy waters between Buyers and Sellers...Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Connection
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 28, 2009 at 7:44pm
As a follow up to my earlier blog: "The Ocean Between Buyer and Seller", here is my letter to the bank decision makers, arguing for the acceptance of a price which is $165,000 (34%) lower than the original asking price. This, along with the comps of this neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhoods, pictures and video of other, better priced listings will accompany this presentation tomorrow. Please give me any tips that may help me offer a more compelling argument!Bank A, Neighborhood Z6 Month Analysis:Homes Available for sale: 20Expired Listings: 26Withdrawn Listings: 29On Hold (don't show): 1Pending Sale: 1Sold: 1We have a unique situation in Neighborhood Z. The community is incomplete; only about a third of the lots have been built on with two thirds of them still vacant (raw land). Twenty properties are currently available for sale. Four of these available properties are Bank owned and two of them are short sales. In the past 6 months this community has seen a total of 26 listings expire and 29 listings withdrawn.We could only find one property sold within the last six months. The listing agent of that property claims that he only inserted the transaction in the MLS as a favor for an out of state builder who sold the property to one of his out of state investors. The property shows a sold price which is about twice the amount indicated by any of the current listings. We've tried to reach that builder repeatedly, but as of yet we have not had any success.The only property that has a contract on it and is waiting to close is fairly similar to ours in terms of price and size, although it's somewhat smaller. The current pricing on it is similar to ours and the original price was similar to our original price. We will not know what it sold for until it actually closes, if and when it does.There is another available property, also bank owned, which is 200 sq. ft. larger than ours, but priced for $50,000 less than ours. Most likely that property will sell first, unless we lower our price first. If we used the same price per square foot as that home, our price would be $333,333. The $325,000 offer we received today, although significantly lower than our asking price, is right in line with the market price.When the property was appraised last month for $390,000 (was the appraiser local and familiar with our market, or an out of the area appraiser?), this lower priced competing listing was not yet on the market.This neighborhood is in close proximity to Neighborhood T, U, X and Y, which are all finished neighborhoods of a higher caliber offering homes at similar prices and still garnering a very low level of transactions. Because "Neighborhood Z" is only one third complete and has so many competing properties for sale and virtually no sales activity, my fervent recommendation is to accept, or come close to the Buyer's offer price.Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Connection
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 23, 2009 at 11:01am
Agents Using Cheap Lockboxes: A Legal Liability Waiting to Happen?Our MLS lockboxes are very expensive - they cost just above $100. They are computerized lockboxes that take a reading of every agent showing the property. The listing agent can get on the Supra Website (the Lockbox Vendor) and ascertain exactly when the property was shown and the agent who showed it.The agent's name, telephone number and e-mail address is included, so the listing agent can quickly follow up on the showing and see how it went. Staying on top of the showings has been very beneficial to me as a listing agent. Possible problems are ascertained early on and corrected. Objections are addressed promptly and offers are encouraged more efficiently.Our MLS lockboxes are extremely safe: they are programmed to allow access into the property only between 9am and 9pm. Unless the person trying to gain access to the lockbox is a registered, active board member in good standing, he will not be allowed to penetrate the lockbox, which is indeed impossible to break into. Each agent is assigned a special Supra Key that has several layers of pass codes and protections, so that a lost key is virtually useless to anyone else other than the agent the key was issued to.In spite of all the advantages a computerized lockbox confers, many agents in our area do not use them due to their high cost, opting instead for the very unsafe lockboxes priced under $20 and easily available at most hardware stores. These cheap lockboxes have a code you can program for access, a series of three or four letters or numbers. If you give someone the code, they can come back again and again and gain access to the property at any time. If the numbers are not rolled back after the showing, any intruder can also gain access to the property.In my opinion these lockboxes are extremely unsafe, and I will not use them on any of my listings. They are a legal liability waiting to happen and I am perturbed by their frequent usage in our market area. I am amazed that some very expensive homes with high end furnishings have these flimsy lockboxes on. I wonder why the Sellers are not asking their Agents some hard questions...What are your thoughts on this subject?Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Connection Join the Optimist Group!
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 4, 2009 at 2:15pm
Asking price: $167,432 on a Bank Owned property in an oceanfront building where similar listings are still priced at over $200K. My investor client asked me to put in a bid for $125,000. The bank approved it. SOLD!Asking price on a short sale: $190,000 in an Oceanfront building where similar condos are still listed for up to $300,000. My investor bid $154,000 for it. The bank finally accepted $168,000. We closed last week.I just received a request to bid on a short sale home currently priced at $549,900, the least expensive home ever sold in that neighborhood. The lead came from Active Rain. The investor wants to bid $260,000. Will I write it up? You bet! Why? Because the bank might actually take it!Here are some deals you could bid on: Luxury condo on Waterway. Asking price $299,900.Waterway community custom home, 4BR/3BA. Originally priced at $799K. The bank now owns it and listed it with me for $489K.Just check out our website for current REO deals at: http://www.myrtlebeachhomes.us/Homes or www.BankOwnedInMyrtleBeach.comGo ahead: insult the Seller! I will be glad to do it for you!Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach REO Source
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 4, 2009 at 2:07pm
Here are some current "Deals"... Oceanfront condos practically given away for a fraction of the price they used to sell for. All of these are "distressed property transactions", either Short Sales (Pre-Foreclosure), or Bank Owned (After Foreclosure).Ocean Villas: 2BR/1.5BA now priced at $139,900.2005 sold comp: $232,000!!!The Palace: 2BR/2BA now priced at $139,900.Same units sold in 2005 for $279,900!!!Beach Colony: 2BR/2BA now priced at $179,900.Same units sold in 2005 for $430,000!!!Prince Resort: 2BR/2BA now priced at $210,000.Same units sold in 2007 for $570,000!!!Paradise Resort: 2BR/2BA now priced at $210,029.Same units sold in 2006 for $379,900!!!Myrtle Beach Oceanfront Slaughter Fest. Get yours today! Are all these great deals? Some are, some are not! We'll uncover the mystery of the Myrtle Beach Oceanfront Deal later on this week. Stay tuned!Myrtle Beach Oceanfront by Mirela Monte Join Me on the Optimist Group!
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Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 4, 2009 at 2:04pm
In 2005 I told all my Investors to stop buying Oceanfront. I've always been able to see patterns in numbers. I didn't like what I saw, so I blew the whistle. I moved my investors on to other products like single family homes in the path of growth. We did well. The Clients who listened and sold, fared quite nicely. The ones who didn't, now wish they had...I am now blowing another whistle: the BUY whistle. With prices at an all time low and inventory still ample, now is the time to start delving in. There are lots of things to consider and a careful analysis is mandatory. If you perform your due diligence and work with a top notch Oceanfront Buyer's Agent, you should do extremely well.God does not create any more Beach... Today we just had another 260 foreclosure properties being auctioned off at the Courthouse. Those properties will soon be available as Bank Owned super deals... The interest rates are still at an all time low... The gloom and doom is depressing most consumers and clipping the wings off the novice Investors... To make money you always move against the grain...I just pulled numbers on Oceanfront Condos in North Myrtle Beach. What I found made my hair stand up: 24% of the North Myrtle Beach Oceanfront condos are now "Pending Sale". 24%!!! Twenty-Four Percent!!! Compare that with the typical 2.5% activity per month and you start seeing what I'm seeing: 10 times the activity almost overnight! That's BIG! That's REALLY BIG!!!You heard it here first!(Why are you still here? Get on the phone with your Mortgage Broker!)Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Oceanfront Guru Proud Optimist!
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