Posts by : Alan Donald

USING CREATIVE NEGOTIATIONS

If a buyer has an 850 Credit Score, 45% downpayment and does not have to sell a home, his/her offer on your home is a strong one! However, many buyers are not in that situation. And while as a seller you would like to get your asking price and no conditions, an experienced agent will prepare you for the possibility of receiving offers that involve less than ideal conditions and may require some compromises.

Successful REALTORS® know how to structure creative offers and do whatever it takes to make a transaction work ("a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush"). If a buyer is low on cash, your counter-offer may shift some closing costs to you (the...

Remember the days when you as the Seller told the Buyer to accept all your conditions or else? Those were the days when hard-nosed and belligerant REALTORS and their ambitious clients could get away with anything, and the Buyers would have to swallow it whole!

Boy, has the market changed! Nowadays Buyers have the upper hand, an Sellers and their listing agents need to have a completely different approach to negotiations. The moment a seller appears inflexible or rude, Buyers just walk away from the negotiations (why wouldn't they, there are plenty of options out there for them!).

Today's successful negotiations need:

1. Patience - negotiations take a lot longer to come to fruition, it i...

New regulation recently passed this year allows Reverse Mortgages (HECMs) to be used for the purchase of a home. The requirements to obtain an HECM are that one of the homeowners needs to be over 62 years old, and the owners must have substantial equity in the home (the HECM only lends up to 50% of the appraised value of the home).

What is HECM for Purchase?
HECM for Purchase allows seniors, age 62 or older, to purchase a new principal residence using loan proceeds from the reverse mortgage.

What is the purpose of the program?
The program was designed to allow seniors to purchase a new principal residence and obtain a reverse mortgage within a single transaction by eliminating the need f...

I read this article published by Experian, one of the three national credit rating agencies, and thought it was interesting to share:

IN THE KNOW: The Top Three Credit Myths: Revealed

Myth #1: Checking my own credit report will lower my score
Personal inquiries, also known as "soft inquiries" or "below the line inquiries," are not visible to lenders and therefore are not part of your credit score calculation. So you can rest easy-checking your own credit report or score does NOT negatively impact your score.

Myth #2: Applying for new credit will actually lower my score
This depends on the type of credit you're applying for. If you apply for several credit cards within a short period of t...

Legal Jargon Overload

When you buy a home, the closing attorney (SC is an attorney state) will make you sign stacks of papers, affidavits and documents filled with legal jargon. Most of these documents relate to establishing your identity (for legal and tax purposes), transferring the deed, and formalizing any loans and mortgages.

Depending on their personality, some buyers are anxious to get out of there and get their keys (so they sign all the paperwork as fast as they can without even reading it) while others are extremely cautious and read every sentence before signing (and find it very frustrating to have to read these documents at the closing table, while causing everyone else to ...

With home values fluctuating the way they have in the last three years, appraisers are under increasing scrutiny from government agencies, lenders and mortgage insurance companies. Three years ago it was relatively easy to conduct an appraisal based of recent comparables and escalating property values. Today, the market is very inconsistent, partially because distressed (such as short sales, foreclosures and lender-owned) properties skew the "normal" market and makes value prediction more of an art than a precise science.

What are appraisers looking for in this market? Here are some of the things they are looking for (I have received many calls from appraisers to find out information abo...

It is another sunny day in Charleston! And, contrary to the doom and gloom that we read in the papers every day, our residential real estate market seems to be "moving along" towards a recovery.

INVENTORY - is still coming down slowly. We peaked at 2025 units in July 0f 2007, currently at 1623 units.We are already seeing some For-Sale-By-Owner signs around, so inventory will probably grow in the next two months as sellers try to catch the Spring/Summer buying wave, and decrease during the summer months when those sales close.

UNITS SOLD PER MONTH - we bottomed at 46 units in November last year, and we are back to 93 units for March 2009.

ABSORPTION - Although absorption went up in the ...