With romance in the air this February Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty takes a loving look at how we could fall head over heels with…a real estate agent.

Spring is round the corner and love is in the air. Yet spare a thought for poor real estate agents. These, often undervalued, creatures are amongst the least likely to receive a lot of affection from their clients on Valentine’s Day – or any other day for that matter.

But right at the moment, in this challenging economic climate, good brokers and agents are a bit like perfect sweethearts.  There are times in life when it is best to have someone by your side who really values you, who will fight for you, who won’t answer back – too much, who will only hang around your home when you want them to and has all your best interests at heart. Such a person may not make such a bad partner. 

Of course there are good partners and bad partners.  Selling real estate well rests heavily on the partnership built up between seller and agent.  A good agent will lovingly put your home on a pedestal and then negotiate fiercely to achieve the best deal for you.  On the other hand, a lesser agent may just put your property on the internet with all the others and then haggle to find the easiest deal all round.

There is a great difference between the two – often many thousands of dollars.  You could come to love the former but hate the latter.  The trick is finding the right one at the outset. It’s a bit like finding the best date.  They all may look roughly the same but in practice they each act very differently.

So if you are searching for the type of broker or agent you could come to love this spring invite a few around to give you some marketing advice and see how you get on. Then ask yourself which you would prefer, the flashy one who brags a lot and is cheap or the one who you feel most comfortable with to act in the most decent way: the one you can come to depend on.

Many of our readers ask us if appraisers use distressed properties (short sales and foreclosures) as comparables when doing an appraisal on non-distressed properties. We have posted on this issue on several occasions (examples: here and here). Last month, the Appraisal Institute issued a paper on the subject. In the paper, the Institute explained that:

“Foreclosures and short sales can provide important information for appraisers, who develop valuations based on market data and market forces.”

On whether an appraiser should use distressed properties as comparables, the Institute was very direct (all items in bold were shown as bold in the original paper):

“An appraiser should not ignore foreclosure sales and short sales if consideration of such sales is necessary to develop a credible value opinion.”
And they explained the possible differences between short sales and foreclosures:

“A short sale … might have involved atypical seller motivations and so might not be an ideal comp…

A sale of a bank-owned property might have involved typical motivations, so the fact that it was a foreclosed property would not render it ineligible as a comp.”

Bottom Line

Some will argue that distressed properties should not be used when appraising non-distressed properties. However, there is no longer any doubt that they will be.

http://www.kcmblog.com/2012/02/07/do-appraisers-use-distressed-properties-as-comparables/

Sun Publications
February 1 & 4, 2012 Download PDF Document

Boca Beacon
February 3, 2012 Download PDF Document

Sarasota County Observer
February 2, 2012 Download PDF Document

Longboat Observer
February 2, 2012 Download PDF Document

East County Observer
February 2, 2012 Download PDF Document

Please click on the text below to view the full PDF version.

• Over the last four months, the rental section on MichaelSaunders.com has had a total of 20,666 Visitors.

*  There were 17,436 Unique Visitors or approximately 155 unique visitors per day or 4670 unique visitors per month.

*  The unique visitor traffic in January has increased by 36% in comparison to November and December’s traffic. – Season is in high gear!

•  Visitors have consumed 98,790 pages of rental information for an average of 4.72 pages/visit and staying on the site an average of 3 min 13 sec.

*   In January, consumers consumed 27,283 pages of rental information and have outperformed November by 24% and December by 39%.

•  The top countries to visit the rental section are US, Canada, and UK (more details in the attached PDF file).

•  The top US States to visit the rental section are Florida, New York, and Ohio (more details in the attached PDF file).

How are visitors viewing the rental section of our web site?

• 77% of the visits to the rental section use Microsoft Windows on their computer, 14% use an Apple Mac, and 6.5% use an iPhone.
• 10% of the traffic to the rental section is from mobile devices, which includes smartphones, iPads’, and Android tablets. The iPhone and iPad represent 89% of the mobile devices or 635 visits during this period.

Where are the online consumers coming from?

• 57% of the traffic to the rental section during this period is coming from MichaelSaunders.com, while Google(CPC) is 26.91% and Google (Organic) is 7.77%.
• In January, Google (organic) has more than doubled in sending consumers to the rental section than in November and December.

**CEO Sounding Board feature

 

There is a growing belief among many experts that 2012 will be the year housing turns the corner and starts heading in a more positive direction. Whenever we write a post like this, we unleash the hordes of critics who say we are again wearing rose colored glasses or are puppets being controlled by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and other industry groups.

It is for that reason we will not be covering the projections of those groups. Instead, we want to share the beliefs of other organizations.

 

 

Washington Post:

“Housing Market and Economy Showing Encouraging Signs.”

The Wall Street Journal:

“From Bottom Up, Signs of Housing Recovery”

USA Today:

“Housing Outlook is More Upbeat”

CoreLogic:

“CoreLogic’s chief economist Mark Fleming says housing statistics and the duration of the downturn to date indicate 2012 may be the year the housing market begins to turn the corner.”

Freddie Mac:

“With the New Year comes a sense of cautious optimism. There are some positive signs in the job market and consumer confidence; housing is starting to raise hopes for continued gradual economic recovery.”

Fannie Mae:

“The housing sector will likely take incremental steps forward in 2012 …according to economists at Fannie Mae.”

http://www.kcmblog.com/2012/01/24/real-estate-2012-many-positive-outlooks/

Although mature real estate brokers and agents are apt to say that they have seen it all before, this time it is different.  No one has seen this market under this set of national and international financial conditions before.  But what is rather refreshing is that the uncertainty now cuts down the speculation aspect of a home purchase and strips the requirement to buy down to the real and age-old essentials.  This makes for easier choices. 

Le Corbusier, the pioneering architect, stated that, “The requirements for a house should be to provide a shelter against heat, cold, rain, thieves and the inquisitive”.  He didn’t add that a home should also provide its owner with an investment return of seven per cent year-on-year. 

For the first time since, perhaps, the 1960s property investment can take more of a back seat in the home buying mindset and, instead, fundamental life requirements can come back to the fore.  Of course with other financial instruments providing so little in the way of return, real estate is a natural arena in which to invest.  But with little or no indication about if or when the market will return in any zest we are left with simpler decisions and choices – does a home suit our requirements in size, location, style and price? 

It is although our needs have been simplified in the way they may have been fifty years ago.  With less frenzy and greater choice, for a while at least, this may be a very good time to choose a primary or secondary home for all the very best lifestyle reasons. 

We quickly learn to expect that there is an investment opportunity to be gained from property purchase in a rising market.  But we are rather slow to appreciate the reverse is likely in a poor market and/or in particularly adverse economic circumstances as we have now.

2011 was a hard year in property and this year may not be much better. We may have new US, Russian and French presidents, more ructions in Europe and the Middle East, and greater privations at home before we see greater improvement. But still there is a reassuring level of market activity that has more to do with need than discretion.  This is the market we have and this is the market we have to deal with – and deal with it we will.

But real estate buyers and sellers should not be deterred.  Indeed they should be encouraged as the more life there is in the real estate market the more life there is in the economy.  But those still insisting on the sort of financial profit they may have achieved several years ago should perhaps think again and get real. It will be the enlightened that get to the top of the property class in 2012, not those in denial.