1. read and keep a copy of any signed contract 2. inspect your property, and better yet hire a professional home inspector 3. inspect the neighborhood 4. inspect for wood destroying organisms 5. investigate, test and verify everything about the property and it's improvements 6. get a survey and verify zoning if you have development plans 7. buy an owner's title insurance policy 8. consider obtaining a home warranty 9. establish a fiduciary relationship with a Realtor 9.5 never buy a house in a hole Got that? … [Read more...]
The Harbour Bar and Fish House in Decatur has a 15% Realtor discount!
February 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
That’s right – the owner is married to a Realtor, and they are showing love with a 15% discount if you are a licensed agent, when you present your business card. I’ve been twice and it’s definitely worth a visit. It’s becoming a busy restaurant and I expect to see it become a real sunny weather destination restaurant for happy hours and gatherings. From their site: “The Harbour Bar & Fish House is a casual seafood restaurant designed to give our customers a local place where they can come together to enjoy themselves with family, friends, and co-workers. Harbour Bar & Fish House feels like a Coastal Restaurant that you may have experienced while on vacation in Hilton Head, Charleston, Cape Cod or Newport RI. We want you to feel as if you are on a vacation in your own backyard. The interior decor is comfortable and relaxing, accented with natural woods and nautical tones of gray and blue. The exterior has outdoor deck/patio seating, two bocce courts and an … [Read more...]
Hot’Lanta is rekindling
January 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Curbed.com’s regional real estate reporting is superb. Their site is interesting and they are really on point with the style of their site. Recently, they reported on a grim forecast that surfaced for Atlanta’s metro economy, bringing up the bad and the ugly that “planners” statewide need to consider. The article cites ““Atlanta's persistent unemployment, traffic congestion, a 29% loss in average per-square-foot housing prices between 2000-2010, and the fact that the city is increasingly offering a lifestyle opposite of that desired by the most desirable workers and companies. The opportunities he sees are also legion, though, and many of them simply involve re-embracing our transit roots: i.e. investments in commuter rail, continuing to capitalize on the power of our airport, making The BeltLine everything it can be and getting T-SPLOST passed.” The AJC reported on the same Brookings Institution report that brought up these findings, stating the following about … [Read more...]
A not so rosy forecast from the Mortgage Bankers Association
January 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) expects to see mortgage originations fall from an estimated $1.2 trillion in 2011 to $900 billion in 2012. I went to google images to find something “rosy.” I found this - a photo of a “Rosy lipped batfish.” The Rosy lipped batfish is a rather apt spokesfish for this 2012 forecast… Here are some choice excerpts from their always thorough review of the year ahead. ‘The drop will be driven by a significant decline in refinance originations, while purchase originations will increase only slightly. The economy will see another year of anemic growth in 2012, and then will grow somewhat faster in 2013. Refinance originations are expected to fall despite low mortgage rates as economic uncertainty lingers and fewer eligible borrowers remain” “However, the uncertainty is not one-sided. We also see a path for the economy that could lead to above-trend growth in 2012. Housing inventory and shadow inventory is declining … [Read more...]
Tech trends in real estate agency
January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I regularly read the Trulia Pro blog for real estate professionals. Emily from Trulia is a terrific marketer, and she makes the Trulia Pro world a better place. On January 17, she published a quick read on technology trends in the business, and featured some cool photos and stories on 4 Tech trends to watch in 2012 that she gleaned from the CES earlier this month. I decided to repackage her findings a little and add some local color. 1. intuitive combination devices – I am going to kill my Dell laptop after I turn it in for it’s second keyboard in 15 months, and just go Ipad or with a super thin ultrabook or something. I already rely so much on my Iphone, and with apps like GAMLS, Kurio and Trulia’s mobile apps, plus a killer app like Dropbox, field level functionality for agents has never been better Add KW’s eEdge paperless real estate and client service platform, and a guy like me is highly dangerous. The .25 calibre ACP that I carry sometimes really isn’t … [Read more...]
This week’s Georgia mortgage news you can use
January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
My friend Jeff at Fairfield Mortgage provides his weekly update… Mortgage Minute and the monthly video review HARP is an acronym for the government sponsored Home Affordable Refinance Program. In this month's Mortgage Minute, Shelter Mortgage President Jill Belconis talks about the latest changes to HARP and how "upside-down" homeowners nation wide will have a better chance of refinancing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans starting this spring. Who is Fannie Mae anyway? We also asked people on the street if they knew who Fannie Mae was and their answers might surprise you. Click here to watch this month's short video: http://www.shelter-mortgage.com/Mortgage_Videos.aspx FHA Contemplating Reduced Seller Paid Concessions On Friday, FHA released a letter proposing that the maximum allowable seller concessions be reduced from the current 6% limit to something less. FHA is contemplating this change to "better manage risk" as they feel the current level … [Read more...]
HENSE the name, hence the acclaim
January 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I was at an Atlanta Falcons tailgate party about three years ago, down in “The Gulch.” “The Gulch” is going to be the subject of another blog post soon, but in the meantime – if you don’t know about “The Gulch” and want to know exactly what it is – click here. I looked up, and saw that on the very top of an old, decrepit building that sits at the edge of the US federal government buildings was a massive graffiti name tag - actually two tags – quite an accomplishment, and because of the limited and probably dangerous access, quite an effort just to get the names up there. Those nicknames, HENSE and BORN have been tags that I have seen for years around town. I have immense respect for the staying power of GREAT graffiti artists. I have immense disrespect for those who vandalize, and I tried to run off untalented taggers when I was living in Inman Park – so to me, the HENSE and BORN tags on top of the dilapidated building are artistic, cool and worthy of … [Read more...]
What exactly is “culture” in a real estate office?
January 24, 2012 By 2 Comments
Concentricity. Ever heard that word? It means “to have a common center.” I just learned that in the world of fiber optics, the definition of concentricity is about being “well-centered.” At any given real estate brokerage office with more than a few agents on staff, even the most free-wheeling and independent agents are part of the culture – the good, the bad, and the ugly. At my “market center” in Decatur, Georgia – we live up to the title of market center. We sit in the center of our core submarkets and we dominate the numbers in FMLS Area 52 – the “Greater Decatur” submarket. We also have significant market share in the nearby areas both inside and outside the perimeter. How do we do it? Well, pretty much just like other successful, mature Keller Williams market centers do it. 1. provide the The Best Technology tools to our agents As technology continues to transform the ways in which buyers search for homes and real estate professionals … [Read more...]
Has Atlanta’s housing market hit the bottom?
January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This recent article from Forbes states that “national home price data indicates that the worst of the catastrophic home price implosion is behind us.” The folks at Local Market Monitor, a Cary, N.C.-based real estate research firm, helped Forbes compile a list of the top ten markets poised for a rebound. “They sorted through a plethora of housing and economic data for the 100 most populous cities and their surrounding suburbs, defined as Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and Metropolitan Divisions (MSADs) by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. LMM assessed home prices over the past 12 months, unemployment rates, 12-month job growth projections, population increases from 2006 through 2009 (the most recent data available from the U.S.Census) and new-home construction rates for the third quarter of 2011 as compared to the same quarter in 2010. Home price changes over the past three years were also taken into account, as markets that lost less value in the downturn … [Read more...]
Georgia mortgage news you can use this week
January 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Jeff Buchweitz at Fairfield Mortgage is the preferred lender for my Keller Williams realty market center, and I intend to copy and paste his informative “Mortgage News You Can Use” newsletter, regularly. The Fairfield site is loaded with information – here’s the links page if you want to do some further reading. First, the biggest news of the week – The Mortgage Insurance Tax Break is Gone. On Dec 31st, Congress let 58 tax code benefits expire, including credits for home energy improvements, credits for builders of energy-efficient new houses, and home buyer tax deductions for mortgage insurance. The mortgage insurance deduction has been a key mortgage financing benefit in place since 2007 which benefitted home buyers with income of $110k per year or less. Combined with the new fees they are imposing on Conventional loans this Spring, Congress continues to increase the costs of homeownership rather than reduce them! It should be noted that Congress … [Read more...]