Written by Spears Real Estate Offers Professional Looking video production for their listings. Here are two active listings and one sold in the last year.
SOLD
Sale Pending Portland Duplex
Spears Real Estate moving forward into
2012 with pending sales and happy buyers
finding their perfect new home.
Moving Forward to 2012 with several Pending Listings
This Week’s Featured Property Hillsboro
Great Condition 4 Bedroom
$269,900
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| This home is in great condition inside and out with lots of hardwood floors on the main level. Roomy kitchen is open to the family room & large breakfast nook. Located on a beautiful tree lined street and the yard is private with many trees behind the lot. Back yard is being re-seeded. Side parking next to garage suitable for small rv or boat |
New Listing Tualatin
New Listing
Tualatin, Oregon 129,900
3 bdrm, 2.1 ba, 1 car garage
Bank Owned Opportunity, Buyers Wanted!
Bank Owned Homes, Not in RMLS
All banks, that I know of, place their inventory of homes on the market the regular way when they’re ready to sell the homes they’ve foreclosed on. Normally, after the foreclosure occurs, the bank determines the value of the property, and puts the home on the market for the amount they consider to be market value. However, sometimes the bank is wrong and the home is priced too high and it sits on the market. Other times, they price their properties too low, and there are multiple offers above list price. In other words, they have the same challenges that any other seller has!
Because of these occasional super good deals, many home buyers or real estate investors follow bank owned homes as part of their property finding strategy. A quick search of the rmls data base will yield a number of bank owned homes in just about any area. Normally, these are pretty picked over and not too enticing.
However, there is a secret opportunity that I have been using with some of my clients. Oftentimes the bank takes awhile after the foreclosure to calculate how they would like to price the property, and the home is not on rmls during this time. Fortunately, I have found a way to develop a list of properties that have been foreclosed upon but are not yet on rmls.
Earlier this year I helped a client buy a bank owned lot that was located in a premium gated neighborhood. We got a great deal. After we completed the purchase a number of agents called him up and asked how he was able to purchase this lot, they had been waiting for the lot to come up on rmls, but it never did. We were able to purchase the lot before it ever showed up on rmls.
Now, even though it is a little extra work to develop this list, I’m opening up this opportunity to all my clients. If you’re considering looking for a home, investment property, or other real estate to buy, give me a call and we can discuss some ways to move forward that other agents may not be aware of!
Let The Healing Begin
- Danger by Michal Marcol
Let the Healing Begin
Over the past few years as I’ve worked with home sellers who find themselves in the position of needing to short sell their homes, there is one common mistake that is the most troubling, and unnecessary. This mistake is that many people drain all their savings before deciding to sell a home they can’t afford.
The scenario often goes something like this. One or both spouses get a cut in pay at work, or one of them loses their job. Maybe there is commission based employment, and it has just been harder to make money. All along, they hope that things will turn around, and the house that was maybe a stretch to get into a few years back, is now completely unrealistic to hold on to for the long term. They don’t want to admit it, and as a result, their savings gets depleted and eventually disappears. Finally, when their bank account is down to zero, they stop making their house payment, not out of choice but because there was nothing left for a payment.
Maybe a way to look at it would be like a mountain climber, who pre-determines a turnaround time before things get too sketchy up on the mountain. After a certain time in the day, conditions will be expected to deteriorate just too much to safely continue. Once the clock gets to that turnaround time, the climber heads back, even though the summit may not have been reached. In the same way, a homeowner who is experiencing a financial shortfall might pre-determine that when their savings drop to a certain level, it’s time to sell the house and move on. This way, they’ll have time to investigate their options, other ways to make money, or perhaps a loan modification.
Don’t be too emotional when facing a financial shortfall. Take some quiet moments and consider your options. Make investigating your options like your second job. Many people have successfully been able to obtain good loan modifications with their lender, that can definitely be worth a try. You can still short sell your house while you have money in the bank; you don’t need to be down to zero to do a short sale. I’ve never met anyone who is glad they spent all their money on house payments before finally deciding to take action. Start early, when you start sooner you’ll be done sooner and you’ll be glad you took action.
New Site Under Construction
Spears Real Estate is transforming the look and content of our website. We appreciate your patience as we make our site and your listings more web appealing. This process is ongoing during Oct 21-31
Thank You
This Week’s Little Noticed, But Important News!
Written by This week’s little noticed but important news
It was a busy week for news in the financial world, but there is one little piece of news that could have a positive impact for a lot of people. This bit of news is a rule change by FHA that if people have completed a short sale of their home in which they made all their payments, they can immediately get a loan for another home.
Up until now, someone in this situation who wanted to sell and buy another house would have needed to wait two years from the time they sold their house in order to buy another house. Pretty much their only option during that two-year period would have been to rent a home. This is a likely explanation why new listings are down almost 25% from a year ago as many people are just holding off, because they owe too much on their homes. At the same time, pending sales are up almost 30% August 2010 to August 2011, the market is definitely changing!
One of my goals is to reach homeowners who are in this 25% who may owe more than their homes are worth, yet would like to sell their home and move for reasons that are other than financial. The reasons for wanting to move are often just regular life changes such as a growing family or if the kids are grown and it’s time to scale down. These are victims of the housing downturn that did everything right and have maintained good employment.
A critical factor in doing this successfully is to work with an agent and negotiator who are experts in negotiating short sales. Many agents mistakenly believe that “negotiating” short sales doesn’t really involve negotiating at all, that it is really just a paperwork function of waiting for an answer from the bank. In fact, it definitely involves negotiating. We constantly push for ways to get to a “yes”, and in difficult situations reconsider strategies to work towards the best possible outcome for the client.
Two videos on our “short sale videos” website tab are this one where we discuss the role actual negotiating plays in short sales.
The second one we point out how it’s not necessary to be in a dire financial situation in order to complete a short sale. Unfortunately, depending on the lender it is necessary to be in a bad financial situation, but that can quickly be determined up front before you go to the trouble of putting your home on the market.
If you are considering a move, call or email anytime and we can find the best solution for you.–Ward Spears
503-522-8269
wspears@equitygroup.com
503-522-8269
wspears@equitygroup.com
Swagat
Amazing Indian Food and amazing all you can eat lunch buffet. This is a major go to place for our whole family.
Located 3 different locations Portland, Beaverton & Hillsboro. Leave a little room for waiting your turn but it is worth the wait.
http://www.swagat.com/beaverton/index.htm
Cafe Allegro
Cafe Allegro
This is one of my favorite Italian places to eat in Tigard. Favorite go to dish is the Spicy Shrimp Tri linguine! Often we’ll use our Passport Unlimited Card which offers buy one get one offer on meals.
http://www.cafeallegrotigard.com/
