At this time of year, New Year’s Resolutions are on the front burner in many minds, and for those who are planning to buy and sell a home in 2013, real estate Resolutions rank right up there with the obligatory ‘lose 10 pounds,’ ‘take a trip to Paris’ and ‘call Mom once a week.’ But here’s the rub: the obvious overall Resolutions to ‘buy a home’ or ‘sell this house’ don’t give us the details we need to be able to target our marketing to magnetically attract these Resolution setters. Rather, to market to 2013 buyers and sellers, we have to dive deep into their micro-Resolutions, if you will: the baby step goals they are putting on their lists of wildly important goals (WIGs) for this coming year. Let’s explore 5 of the micro-WIGS that 2013 buyers and sellers are setting for themselves this very moment, and how you can use them to position yourself as their go-to local agent. Buyers and Sellers Remember, the vast majority of sellers are moving on up, which means they’re planning to buy, too!

1. Save/find down payment money.
Both buyers and sellers are more concerned than ever about making sure they have enough down payment money to seal the deal.  In fact, many are still operating under the mistaken impression that their only options are what they were at the bottom of the market: a high-closing cost FHA loan that will allow the low down payment of 3.5 percent or a 20% down conventional loan.

You can market to these folks by helping educate them that there are many other loan programs available now, including 5% and 10% down Conventional loans, and 80/10 programs which allow those with 10% down to get a mortgage without paying PMI.  Also, consider co-marketing with a reputable mortgage broker or financial planner, or offering local first-time buyers access (via social media or seminars) to content like this post, which surfaces unconventional ways they might be able to gather up the cash they need to make a down payment.

2. Pay down/off credit card debt. Financial goals like reducing or eliminating credit card debt generally fall into the top 10 resolutions set by Americans at large – and I’d take an educated guess that this goal is even more prevalent among buyers- and sellers-to-be.

If you send out a monthly client newsletter or your own resolution list includes starting a Trulia Voices blog, you can be sure to get the attention of 2013 buyers and sellers-in-the-making by posting content that supports their debt-reduction goals. Want a writing-light way to do this? How about curating and publishing your own list of credit-card debt-reducing blogs, websites, books or local resources, like non-profit credit counselors or support groups?  Position yourself as the expert by adding your own strategic insights to make sure they don’t go overboard and make moves that can make it harder to qualify for a home loan, like closing out all their credit accounts or leaving everything with a zero balance.

3. Boost credit score. Remember, many of the buyers and sellers who will be looking to make a real estate move this year are coming out of the near-universal financial crises of the recession era. They might have had a past bankruptcy or foreclosure, or a job loss which interrrupted their income temporarily, causing them to make a few late payments which brought down their credit score. And generally speaking, they are highly likely to

What can you do to market directly to those who are setting the baby step resolution to boost their credit score?

Buyers Only 4. Foreclosure recovery.   There is a burgeoning buyer sector made up of people who owned homes and lost them to foreclosure, and have been renting for the last few years until they were ready and able to buy again. This group can be a very desirable niche to work with, as many are cash flush from paying lower rents and they tend to be extremely motivated to get the privacy, lifestyle and tax advantages of home ownership back in their lives.

You can market to and reach these buyers by publishing ads, newsletters, blog posts and local newspaper articles about common lender foreclosure seasoning requirements, as well as common roadblocks and workarounds for buying a home after a foreclosure.

Sellers Only 5. Paint/carpet/landscape/remodel.   Most sellers will wait to work on the nitpicky staging projects until after they reach out to list their homes for sale.  But many who have a 6-12 month time frame for sale are very well aware of some major projects they are assuming they’ll need to do to the property, and will move forward with them in advance of contacting agents for listing presentations.

If you farm a particular neighborhood, why not offer a Pre-Listing Property Preparation Consult in your monthly newsletter, email or postcards?  Include a data point about how your listings (or well-prepped/staged homes in general) sell faster and for more than average. Then offer to come in as much as a year in advance and give sellers resources and a personal consult for getting their home ready to sell, including advice about what investments they should not make and your own personal list of recommended, cost-effective vendors.

Chances are good that the agent that meets with sellers and gives sound strategic advice months in advance will have a major leg-up when it’s time to sign a listing agreement.

As real estate pros, it’s essential that we spend our spare time exploring what’s inside the mind of our prospective clients. How better to serve and satisfy their needs, as well as marketing to and for them?  If you want to become a buyer or seller’s agent for life, understand their goals and Resolutions – at all times of year – and provide resources that assist them in realizing their aspirations. You’ll become a trusted advisor in multiple areas of their lives, as well as their undisputed go-to resource for all things real estate.

SEE THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE: http://pro.truliablog.com/establish-connections/5-new-years-resolutions-your-clients-are-making-now/?ecampaign=anews&eurl=pro.truliablog.com%2Festablish-connections%2F5-new-years-resolutions-your-clients-are-making-now

We are experiencing low inventory here in Las Vegas. The decrease is a direct result from AB284 that has caused banks to stop foreclosing. Since it was passed in Oct. of 2011, REO inventory has decreased dramatically. The bill is up for reconsideration (possibly adding some amendments to allow some types of foreclosures to resume) when the Legislature meets again in Feb. 2013. It will be interesting to see the new affects on the market once additional inventory is reintroduced. I for one think the market will soften slightly but not free fall like it was before. Right now, with inventory being as low as it is, buyers are in bidding wars often times competing with more than a dozen offers. With that being said people are paying above appraisal value and homes are appreciating again at a temporary rate that is way higher than it should be. A new wave of inventory would return the Vegas market back to healthy growth with perhaps 2 or 3 offers on each property, not a dozen.

"The Adams Team at Rothwell Gornt Companies" LVrealestateHELP.com

We currently have a short sale deal where we are representing the buyer. Unfortunately, the buyer is having health issues and is unable to close the deal. We already have lender approval that is good for another few weeks. This means the bank has already approved the short payoff at $325,000 and allows us to close quickly. This house is immaculate with marble floors, granite counters tops, etc. This home has too many upgrades to list. If you are interested in us representing you as the buyer we can try to work with the seller's agent and the bank to get your offer in with the same terms as the original deal and keep the lender approval in place. If this is something you are interested in please contact us ASAP at 702-349-9175 or email [email protected]

(This deal will be canceled within the next few days, back on the market and the short sale process will start all over, which could change the price and who knows how long they will take to get us another approval letter.)

Temporary waiver of 90-day 'anti-flipping' rule extended through 2014 By Ken Harney, Monday, December 3, 2012. Inman News®

Good news for single-family home investors, rehabbers and buyers seeking to use low down payment FHA financing: The temporary waiver of FHA's 90-day "anti-flipping" rule was extended last week through 2014.

The waiver, which facilitates purchases of homes from sellers who have held title to their properties for less than 90 days, continues a policy first adopted by the Obama administration in 2010.

Starting in 2003, FHA had imposed the 90-day standard as part of an effort to rein in rampant quick-flips of houses where investors made minimal or no improvements to rundown, foreclosed or abandoned houses, then sold them days or weeks later at high price markups with the help of inflated appraisals to purchasers using FHA loans.

Those flips frequently involved collusion and fraud by teams of mortgage loan officers, realty agents and appraisers -- even straw buyers who defaulted and disappeared without making a single payment -- and racked up significant losses to FHA's insurance fund. Neighborhoods suffered because the properties remained empty and in bad physical condition, depressing values of houses in the immediate vicinity.


Since 2011, FHA has made annual extensions of its waiver. This year, an FHA official told me Friday, the agency opted for a two-year term in order "to provide greater levels of certainty" for lenders and buyers, removing questions about whether, and for how long, the waiver would be continued. Since the first waiver in 2010, according to the official, FHA has successfully insured $11 billion worth of mortgages on 65,250 homes where the seller had held title for less than 90 days.

In a Federal Register notice Nov. 29 announcing the extension, Acting FHA Commissioner Carol J. Galante said the objective is to increase "the availability of affordable homes for first-time and other purchasers, helping stabilize real estate prices as well as neighborhoods and communities where foreclosure activity has been high."

Among the key requirements that will continue during the latest waiver:

• All transactions must be arm's-length, with no identity of interest between the buyer and seller or other participants. Lenders are required to ensure that the seller actually holds title to the property. (In earlier flipping schemes, buy-sell transactions sometimes moved so fast that the seller never acquired legal title.) There should be no "pattern" of previous flips of the property during the 12 months preceding the transaction.
• In cases where the sales price of the resold property is more than 20 percent more than what the seller paid for it, there must be documentation showing the renovations and repairs that justify the markedly higher resale price. A second appraisal may be used to substantiate the increase in value, but the second appraiser must be selected from FHA's roster. When no significant renovations occur and the price is 20 percent higher than acquisition, the appraiser must provide "appropriate explanation" for the sudden increase.
• Inspections are required of all the key components of the building structure and systems when price jumps exceed 20 percent. The inspection report must be provided to the purchaser before closing. If the inspection reveals structural or "health and safety" defects, repairs must be completed before the closing and a final inspection performed to ensure that the repairs have been made.

Real estate professionals and others involved in single-family investment activities welcomed the latest extension and its two-year time span. Kevin Kim, an agent with Windermere Preferred Living in Brea, Calif., said "this definitely benefits my investors, but it's also good for communities" where high rates of foreclosure have left properties sitting around in deteriorating conditions.

Kim said most of his investor clients do not exceed the 20 percent price-increase threshold -- "typically it's more like 10 to 12 percent" -- but they virtually all try to acquire, renovate and resell in less than 90 days.

Cathy Bureau, broker-owner of Green Home Realty in San Antonio, Texas, who specializes in the central areas of the city, says FHA's two-year extension assures investors that there will be takeout financing for buyers, thereby cutting costs on the "hard money" line of credit financing they use to acquire their houses. At interest rates of 14 to 16 percent, "every day costs money," she said, so for investors the ability to sell quickly after completing repairs is crucial.