Welcome to the "Z" Team!

24/7 Wall St. asked real estate experts and real estate organizations to weigh in on how sellers can get their house sold at the best price and in the shortest amount of time.

Here’s what they had to say as  the best ways to get the “sold” sign out this spring:

1.Pay attention to “curb appeal”: First impressions are critical, and homes with inviting landscapes and exteriors tend to sell better, my first recommendation. Pay attention that the driveway is in good condition, lawn well-kept, and the house looks freshly painted.

2.Set the right price: Real estate professionals know how to set the price and prepare a home for sale. We use comparable sales of homes sold in the last 90 days to help set the most realistic price for the sales price of a home. By setting a realistic price from the beginning, sellers should be reminded that this will prevent having to drop the price of the home several times before getting it sold and having it linger on the market.

3.Talk about energy efficiency: Many buyers don’t fully understand “green” homes but they understand savings. Sellers agents should point out these features — such as energy-efficient windows or appliances — that could save buyers money with utility costs.

4.Give the home Web appeal: Good photographs make a home stand-out online and help lure more potential buyers. Realtor.com says that more than 6,300 photos are viewed per minute on listings posted at its site. We use 12+ photos per listing!

5.Make it move-in ready: Fix any needed repairs, such as water stains, creaky doors, and windows that don’t shut. Flaws in the home — even if relatively minor — can distract buyers, and should be fixed before the home is even listed. Agents should recommend that sellers get a home inspection prior to putting the home up for sale, this helps sellers identifying any potential problems that could potentially derail a sale later on. Once a problem is uncovered, sellers or their agents are obligated to disclose it!

Read more ideas at 24/7 Wall St or visit: www.sierraproperties.com

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Last year, some of us complained about receiving really low offers on listed homes. Offers usually submitted by the buyer for 25 percent or more below the list price, according to a recent  National Association of REALTORS® survey of its members. That number has dropped by about the same percentage in our local market area.

According to a survey this March of 4,500 agents and brokers, no REALTORS® complained about low-ball offers. The main problem nowadays: The sudden drop in inventory of for-sale homes has led to fewer homes available to sell.

For home buyers who still think they have a chance of hitting it lucky with a low-ball offer, they’re finding in many markets that their offers are more often being rejected or countered closer to the original asking price, the Los Angeles Times reports. Please comment, is your local market reflecting similar changes?

Source: “Low-ball Offers Decline in Some Housing Markets,” Los Angeles Times (4/22/12)

Start of a new trend? Banks are agreeing to more short sales, and for the first time, short sale transactions are exceeding foreclosure deals, according to the most recent housing data from Lender Processing Services (LPS) Inc. “It’s a fairly recent phenomenon that short sales have been increasing,” Jonathon Weiner, a vice president with LPS, told Bloomberg News.

So why are banks getting more agreeable to short sales? Banks are realizing that short sale transactions usually sell for higher prices than foreclosures. In fact, foreclosed homes tend to sell for 29 percent less, on average, than comparable non-distressed properties. Short sales tend to sell at a 23 percent discount, according to Lending Processing Services data from January.

Banks and government agencies in recent weeks have taken steps to speed up the short sale process, setting new timelines for how long mortgage servicers have to respond to short sales offers. Also, some banks, such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, are even offering some home owners cash incentives — up to $35,000 — if they agree to do a short sale instead of let the home fall into foreclosure.

Source: “Short Sales Surpass Foreclosures as Banks Agree to Deals,” Bloomberg News (April 17, 2012)

We see investors are buying up foreclosures, viewing the potential returns from REOs-to-rentals as better than most other investments. But, are they the “Best Buys?”

Investors some times take on more than they can handle, and do not devote enough attention — and budget — into the rehabilitation of many of the properties they buy.

Nearly 95 percent of distressed homes are in bad shape and unsuitable for renting out, Morgan Stanley analysts estimate. Correcting conditions could require permits, etc! 

“The importance of getting construction — or specifically, re-construction or rehabilitation — right cannot be overstated,” according to a recent report sent to Morgan Stanley clients. “The quality and cost of rehabilitation can continue to benefit or haunt the asset far past the initial completion of work. For example, shoddy plumbing or other infrastructure work can result in significantly higher maintenance costs over time, and can also affect eventual exit pricing.”

Morgan Stanley provided estimates to investors in the report, citing estimates of renovation work to cost about 25 percent of the purchase price. Your thoughts?

Source: “Rehabilitation Vital to REO-to-Rental Success,” HousingWire (4/13/12)

The nationwide inventory of residential homes for-sale dropped 21 percent in March compared to a year ago, according to newly released housing data from Realtor.com, tracking 146 metro markets. Nearly all 146 markets posted a drop in their inventory!

Other good news, the nationwide median list price in March also saw improvement, increasing more than 5 percent last month compared to last year at this time.

Our area housing picture is much different than last year at this time, when inventory was up around 25 percent and list prices were down about 5 percent.

“If the market continues to hold its own, 2012 could well mark the beginning of a broad-based housing recovery,” according to Realtor.com. Let’s hope this becomes reality.

The California regions posting the biggest drops in the top 12, last year were:

1. Oakland, Calif.: -51.91 percent year-over-year drop in total listings

2. Bakersfield, Calif.: -50.35 percent

4. Fresno, Calif.: -45.56 percent

12. Stockton-Lodi, Calif.: -36.18 percent

Source of data: Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine Daily News

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The El Dorado County, California region strikes Gold again? Investors are buying foreclosure bargains and then turning the properties into money-making rentals, which has some drawing comparisons to another “Gold Rush” of sorts. 

Diane Gozza, the executive vice president of Integrated Mortgage Solutions in Houston, recently wrote in an article for National Mortgage News that investors are eyeing the properties similar to how those risk-takers did back in the 1848 California “Gold Rush,” who also had dreams of striking it rich.

They have plenty to choose from: The government-sponsored enterprises, which includes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, own more than 200,000 single-family foreclosed homes, and banks own about 600,000 more. To help accelerate the “rush,” the Federal Housing Finance Administration recently launched a pilot foreclosure-to-rental program, offering up investors the chance to bid on 2,500 foreclosure properties owned by Fannie. But some housing experts have argued that such REO-rental programs aren’t needed because investors are already flooding the market to buy up foreclosures and a government intervention isn’t necessary. (Read “NAR: REO Rental Programs Largely Unnecessary” and “Calif. Lawmakers Oppose REO Rental Program“)

“Taking into account the enormous stockpile of REO properties currently held by the GSEs, the auction and bulk investment in REO to rental properties may indeed be the next gold rush,” Gozza writes. “Much in the spirit of the 1848 gold rush, there will be risks and tough lessons learned. But, this private-sector imitative has the potential to be the catalyst for housing market recovery.”

Source: “Tapping into the Next ‘Gold Rush,’”  National Mortgage News (4/10/12)

Are you increasingly hanging out in the social media world? Do you know Facebook is not the only one offering help for you? Plus, informative daily news on Blog or Web sites? 

Pinterest, in particular, is growing rapidly, seeing its Web traffic surge nearly 50 percent in February compared to January, according to recent data from Experian Hitwise. The site now ranks as the third-most-popular social media site, behind Facebook and Twitter. What’s more, the site has been growing as a source for referrals to other Web sites: Pinterest users referred traffic to more Web sites in January than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined, according to a separate study by the site Shareholic.

Ninety-one percent of adults online use social media sites regularly, according to the report. Therefore, we feature daily info. on: www.sierraproperties.com, Trulia, etc!

Experian Hitwise reports the following top six social media Web sites, based on total visitors from March: Facebook: 7 billion, Twitter: 182 million, Pinterest: 104 million, LinkedIn: 86 million, Tagged: 72 million and Google+: 61 million

Source: “ The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report,” Experian (2012) and “New Study Pegs Pinterest as the Number 3 Social Web site,” Forbes (April 9. 2012)

How the real estate market will fare in the spring home-selling season will prove a test for housing demand and show which markets will lead a housing recovery, economists say in a recent article at USA Today. Our spring selling season is March through June and the regional Placerville market is showing an increase for housing demand.

Existing home sales and pending sales are up about 9 percent compared to the same time year ago, according to recent data by the National Association of REALTORS®.

Paul Dales of Capital Economics told USA Today that he expects the spring selling season to “be the best in four or five years” for the real estate industry.

Our housing supply of for-sale homes has dropped the most and is more balanced which should be the potential of prices gaining this year. So, we’re optimistic!

Source: “Spring Home Sales Could be Omen,” USA Today (April 2, 2012)

According to Census Bureau data, 4.4 million households had three generations or more under one roof in 2010. That is a 15 percent increase compared to two years prior.

The “double-up” phenomena is particularly pronounced among adult children, who are increasingly moving back with their parents after college to curb costs. The number of 25-to-34 year olds living with their parents jumped by more than 25 percent between 2001 and 2007, according to Census data.

The larger household sizes are causing builders to take notice and redesign floorplans to accommodate multi-generational households. Pulte Homes says it’s swapping out one of the garages in its two garage plans to allow for extra space in a home for a guest room. And Toll Brothers reports that it’s creating new floorplans to accommodate multiple generations, such as a guest suite with a kitchen added where a family room may have once been. Please provide your comments on your market trends.  

Source: “The New American Household: 3 Generations, 1 Roof,” CNNMoney (4/3/12)

Economists have been warning that a flood of foreclosures will soon be hitting the real estate market, likely this summer. Increases in foreclosures traditionally pull down nearby home prices. So should home owners be worried? What is your guess?

As of now, housing reports continue to show month-over-month drops in foreclosures. CoreLogic released a report late last week that showed completed foreclosures fell from 71,000 in January to 65,000 in February.

But as more banks look to clear a backlog of defaulting home loans from their books, economists say the public should expect a turn with foreclosures and the numbers are expected to soar in the coming months. Mark Fleming, CoreLogic’s chief economist, expects the wave to hit this summer.

However, Fleming doesn’t view the increase as a bad thing for the overall housing market. “I would like to see the pace increase, because that means we’ll be able to work off the inventory faster,” Fleming told AOL Real Estate. He says that recent improvements in the real estate market and economy may mitigate any traditional downward pressure seen on overall home prices by foreclosures.

In fact, despite an increase, Fleming still expects home prices to rise in some markets.

“All of this will result in more foreclosure pain in the short term as some of the foreclosures that should have happened last year instead happen this year,” Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, said in February.

Source: “Home Prices May Withstand Foreclosure Wave,” ”AOL Real Estate (3/30/12)