Plantation Lakes Blog!

If you will be selling your house this fall, an early decision will be whether to team with a Myrtle Beach Realtor® or go the “For Sale by Owner” route. One thing to consider is messaging.

“Messaging” is one of those words that Myrtle Beach homeowners began to hear a lot after Madison Avenue decided to verbize the noun ‘message.’ I know verbize isn’t a real word, but to me, messaging convolutes English in pretty much the same way.

Messaging rose in popularity about the same time that Hollywood actors and politicians started referring to their own names as their ‘brands’—apparently on the assumption that it makes them sound more valuable. To some of us, it makes them sound more like cattle ranchers.

Nonetheless, since it’s now mainstream to be messaging this and messaging that, whether you’re leaning toward planting a For Sale by Owner sign in the front yard or recruiting a Myrtle Beach Realtor, you should be considering the messaging. Once you know that, you can message like crazy, confident that you’re not sending any wrong signals.

Most of the messaging will certainly be about how terrific it would be to live in the house. The subtexts might be that it’s a fantastic place that’s well worth the price asked; that any owner would be proud to invite friends and relatives over; that it’s clearly a leading contender among other Myrtle Beach homes in its price range.

With messaging in place, your Realtor can create a complete professional listing, then set the ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard. For those who would rather go it alone, they can figure out how to pay for the listing they create themselves, then plant a ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign out front.

But that could be where the messaging goes a little haywire.

Yes, a For Sale by Owner sign on a Myrtle Beach home announce to the world that the house is For Sale—and that is excellent, unambiguous messaging. But the by Owner part will, for some, carry some additional messaging that’s not quite as positive. Think for a moment about the impression you get whenever you see a house with that sign out front (a nicely printed one…the ones scrawled by hand on poster board don’t even count). Chances are, you are like everyone else: you assume you know something extra about the seller.

The messaging is, at best, This house is for sale by someone who is up front about not wanting to pay for a professional to sell it.

The other messaging takeaways can be less helpful:

Professionals haven’t been able to sell this house for the price you’ll be finding out about soon enough is one possibility.

There is also:

Here is a bargain, sort of like a yard sale—want to pick over what’s here? Or:
This house is going to be cheaper than a real house. Or:
Nobody who is professional will be involved in any way. Or:
If you’d like to get into a personal bargaining situation with someone who considers himself a shrewd negotiator, here’s your chance!

That kind of For Sale by Owner messaging differs greatly from:

This house is professionally represented—the unambiguous messaging all my “FOR SALE” signs send. You’ve probably seen them around Myrtle Beach (often with a ‘SOLD’ placard attached). They’ve got my phone number on them, but you don’t have to drive around to find it, since it’s right here on the website. You can call me right now!

We all remember Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the twin quasi-public organizations who backstopped the home loan industry for the whole country. Freddie and Fannie were thought by some to be on the verge of extinction during the home loan crisis, but they revived when Washington stepped in. Freddie’s latest quarterly financials show assets that have a small ‘t’ in front of the number (that’s short for ‘trillions’), so it looks like they aren’t about to go out of business. In fact, whenever one of today’s Myrtle Beach home loans is originated, Freddie or Fannie are probably in the wings. They remain the big guns in the U.S. secondary home loan market, which is so huge its repercussions are felt globally.

Of course, it’s more complicated than that, but so that we don’t have to tread any further through the red tape, let’s just sum up by acknowledging that when Freddie or Fannie sneeze, the entire planet is apt to grab for a Kleenex. Since August saw a good share of planetary financial upset, optimism from Freddie and Fannie would be a relief—particularly for future Myrtle Beach home loan applicants, who might be a bit rattled by the recent swan dive on Wall Street. ‘What does it mean for the availability of mortgage loans?’ they might well be wondering…

Last week it was a good sign when the stock market emerged from the air-raid shelter where it had spent the previous weekend. By Friday, the S&P 500 had made back “modest gains” (T. Rowe Price) after enduring the highest volatility in four years. But the housing markets looked a good deal more stable, if we were to believe Freddie.

The hard facts can be elusive, so Freddie Mac puts together something called the “Multi-Indicator Market Index,” which measures the stability of the U.S. housing market. Mid-week, it released the latest reading, which prompted the National Mortgage News headline “Housing Markets Improve Nationwide: Freddie Mac.” The Index came in at 80.3, an improvement of 1.33% compared with a month earlier. In case that doesn’t sound like a gigantic change, Freddie’s Deputy Chief Economist, Len Kiefer, was there to clarify. “Housing markets are the strongest they’ve been in years,” he told the press.

Freddie reads various home loan industry reports, as well, and passes them on to its web site visitors. Headlines there were equally comforting—

“S&P Case-Shiller: Home prices continue to rise in June” (HousingWire, August 25)
“Housing market gains steam as July new home sales rebound” (Marketwatch, August 25)
“Why the economy is OK, even if stocks aren’t” (CNN Money, August 24)
So for the moment, it does look as if Myrtle Beach home buyers and sellers needn’t be distracted by the news from Wall Street—good or bad. Especially since U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage interest rates were down again for the week…many below 4%! If you’ve been thinking it might be a good time to investigate today’s Myrtle Beach real estate market, I couldn’t agree more: time to give me a call!

There are acronyms that have grown so familiar that they are more like words than the phrases they represent (think “SCUBA” for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus or “laser” for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Myrtle Beach REO properties aren’t in that category. For instance, REO homes aren’t located next to a river with a Spanish name. Most people have never heard of REOs, although they are familiar with what they stand for.

REO is the acronym for ‘Real Estate Owned,’ but even that doesn’t help (every bit of real estate is owned, for Pete’s sake!)

In case you are thinking that REO looks a lot like OREO, and that it could have something to do with the U.S.’s most popular cookie, you are closer to the truth than you might imagine. REO is shortened from a financial term used by banks: “Other Real Estate Owned”—OREO—meaning real estate that is owned by the bank but not directly connected to its banking business.

Which is very much on point for what Myrtle Beach REO opportunities represent. Although its ownership has reverted to the bank which issued a mortgage loan for it, a Myrtle Beach REO is in a kind of Cinderella situation. The REO may not have to clean the bank’s floors at night, but its new owner likes all its other investments better. The bank probably tried to sell the thing at auction, but got nowhere. The bank isn’t at all pleased with the situation. As the OREO designation indicates, it’s not directly connected with the bank’s bankiness. Like a cat trying to shake water off its paw, the bank wants to get rid of it…be done with it...lose it!

Enter the essence of a Myrtle Beach REO opportunity. It’s a home with an owner who wants to sell; is motivated to sell!

Then again…the essence of what the bank does best is to make money. It lent some to the former owners, and now it’s taking in zero from the monthly payments that aren’t happening. So although, like the cat with the wet paw, they’d like to shake the whole thing off, they’d also like to get back as much money as possible.

Enter the essence of the hitch in the REO opportunity.

If you are a potential home buyer who is a true bargain hunter, one of the local REO properties could be of interest. You have to find one. You can try contacting lenders and asking them for a list of their REO properties, but sometimes that is a time-waster. Working with a real estate agent is usually more reliable. Then you have to be prepared for today’s REO realities. Gone are the scads of REOs that flooded the market after the financial meltdown. Today, banks are likely to have established an asking price that is reasonable rather than spectacularly low. Your agent will help assemble comparable property prices to aid evaluation. Too, because buying an REO is an “as is” transaction, you will benefit from working with a team of experts (Realtor®, lawyer, perhaps a contractor) who can work to protect your interests (for instance, by building in an escape clause in your offer letter in case unforeseen property damage turns up later).

Myrtle Beach REO opportunities can be terrific finds—and so can others that involve less complication. There is one sure way to investigate the values that are out there: call me!

When you decide that the time is approaching to put your home on the market, you probably take special interest in exploring the conditions that are likely to motivate families to buy your Myrtle Beach house. Most of the research on the subject indicates that it has at least as much to do with how people live their lives as it does with external forces--like changes in the economy or jobs market. When you spend as much time as I do chatting with people who are in the hunt to buy a house, you’d probably agree.

When Myrtle Beach empty nesters come to the conclusion that supporting more house than they need is wasting their resources, finding the right smaller place can become increasingly appealing. The idea that they could buy a house that’s right-sized for them—and come away with extra cash to support more travel and leisure activities—can soon become Priority 1. The current status of the real estate market doesn’t come close as a determining factor.

In the same way, there’s nothing like the arrival of a new baby to prompt the decision to buy a house with an extra bedroom or two. Likewise, when a youngster is approaching school age—but your district isn’t quite up to par—a move across town might suddenly beckon.

When the time comes to buy a house, people tend to take more seriously these kinds of long-term issues. Since there is a whole universe of possible changes in income or family situation that life can send our way, it does make sense to delay some decisions for a while.

If a move is to be from renting to owning, the dollars and cents wisdom is usually clear enough. Across the U.S., rents are rising quickly enough to practically guarantee the practicality of making such a move—even if only because of the ‘forced savings’ advantage that ownership brings. If a move is contemplated to a larger or a smaller home, or from one Myrtle Beach neighborhood to another, developments in the economy or particulars like changes in the mortgage rate may influence the decision, but not lead it. Family matters motivate most moves.

Such outside factors may not be decisive, but the good news is that this fall is one of those times when many of them are in place to make buying or selling a Myrtle Beach house more attractive than usual…and for sure, a good time to give me a call!

Last week was a head-swiveling version of a follow-the-dots puzzle for those who keep tabs national news related to on Myrtle Beach real estate. Children like following the numbered dots to reveal a picture. You can’t be sure what it will turn out to look like until the end. The week was a lot like that:

Monday led off with the release of housing-builder sentiment: its best reading in 10 years! It was given credit for reversing an early-day 100+ point stock market drop. When the Dow closed up 68 points for the day, real estate performance got the kudos.

Monday’s dot connected to the next one, which appeared as USA Today’s early Tuesday dispatch pointing out that the previous day’s market rescue was hardly a flash in the pan. The Money section’s lead story, “Housing Provides Much-Needed Lift to Wall Street” drew a broader picture. In a ho-hum year for the broader stock market, housing-related stocks were uniformly “among the best-performing shares.” The S&P 500 may have been up less than 2% for the year, but homebuilders’ shares were up 13%; home-improvement retailers, 11.1%; home furnishings stocks, a blistering 26.1%! The reason was “the power of the resurgent real estate market to generate positive action in the stock market.”

Then, on Wednesday, CoreLogic provided the next dot with its release of the August MarketPulse roundup, pointing to a 6.5% increase in its national home price index. This was the logical next dot—one that was hardly unexpected. The predicted continuation of price increases was again explained by lean inventories, continuing low mortgage rates, and consumer confidence rated “the most optimistic in eight years.”

Thursday’s dots had been anticipated, too: the morning announcement of July existing-home sales marked the 41st consecutive month of year-over-year price gains. Volume was up, too, as sales topped an annual level of 5.5 million for the first time since early 2007. TheStreet took that as “just the latest confirmation that the housing nightmare is mostly over.”

By Friday, the last dots appeared in calm contrast to the frenetic news from Wall Street, which completed its worst week in five years. Even the real estate industry stocks which had rescued the day on Monday couldn’t buck the outrushing tide of equity losses. But the last dot for Myrtle Beach real estate watchers was found in the analysts’ post mortems after the market’s close, as speculation increased that the carnage on Wall Street might well be sufficient to nudge Federal Reserve decision makers away from raising interest rates in September. Real estate trackers were able to put their pencils down and relax for the weekend.

So, what was the picture the follow-the-dots puzzle revealed? The real estate industry dots seemed to trace a simple circle…with a curved line near the bottom that looked a lot like a smile.

Whether or not this fall’s Myrtle Beach real estate offerings continue to benefit from historically low mortgage interest rates (they dropped again last week!), there are definitely great opportunities for buyers and sellers. Give me a call whenever you feel the time is right to take advantage of today’s market!

When you buy a property as a Myrtle Beach rental investment, you join the world of investors who recognize the value of an investment that’s as solid as the ground we walk on—one with the additional advantage of providing a steady cash dividend. With those dual advantages, you’d wonder how other investments can offer much competition, were it not for one major consideration: your time.

That’s the part that not everyone fancies. A Myrtle Beach rental investment is one that simply requires more active management attention than many others. You don’t have to check on your bond portfolio regularly, but when you have a house or condo rental, it’s a good idea to do so. You don’t have to monitor your stock investments to be sure you’re in compliance with the latest local, state, and local fair housing rulings, but for a Myrtle Beach rental investment, it’s prudent. Your IRA holdings don’t require your attendance at seminars on risk management, but hands-on landlords sometimes show up at them.

No wonder everyone isn’t automatically drawn to rental real estate investments.

The truth is, Myrtle Beach investors with sufficient free investment capital are also likely to be people whose time is at a premium. They’d like their investment to make life easier, not more complicated. Who can blame them?

As a strong proponent of the advantages of Myrtle Beach rental investments, I’m happy to point out that there are two major solutions to those built-in drawbacks.

The easy solution is what folks who are close to retirement age sometimes discover about themselves: they like being landlords! If their time is actually not in critically short supply, retirees (or in today’s more common circumstance, semi-retirees) who have mastered a career or two of management challenges often find the hands-on administration of their rental investments to be a relatively low-intensity assignment. No sweat, since they have enough free time to do their due diligence where needed. Piece of cake!

The other solution is what busy people in leadership roles have learned to use in other spheres: delegation. And the lucky fact is, there is a whole industry staffed and ready to accept the assignment. They are our Myrtle Beach professional property managers—eminently qualified and experienced in handling the management burdens their clients send them. Their fee can cover any part or all of the landlord’s duties, from composing tenant advertisements to collecting the rents…from monitoring Fair Housing compliance and supervising maintenance emergencies to preparing rigorous financial documentation.

This month’s market features some terrific Myrtle Beach rental investment property offerings at prices that make them worth exploring. Give me a call for more details!

A skilled Myrtle Beach appraiser provides a service that should help make the buying and selling of a residence a smooth transaction.

‘Should’ is the operative word.

Going back to ancient times, homes have always been ‘real’ when it comes to establishing the amount of money that they are worth. The home’s role as the center of family and community groupings guarantees that it will change hands carefully. When something is so important, its ownership does not come about haphazardly—doubly so because of its typically hefty price tag, arrived at after deliberation and scrutiny from buyer and seller alike.

Every home that is sold in Myrtle Beach today should be a shining example of the efficiency (and fairness) of our free market. As a mechanism for determining the value of a good, the system is without equal, since buyer and seller have to agree on a price.

That’s where having a skilled Myrtle Beach appraiser comes in. An appraiser (not to be confused with a home inspector, who reports on the soundness of a property) performs an important function in the transition from a Myrtle Beach house for sale into a house that’s sold. The appraiser’s report provides an outsider’s unbiased opinion of a home’s current market value. Having a professional who knows how to analyze the property as it stacks up against comparables in the area—then determining its value in the lively Myrtle Beach market of August 2015—is intended to provide peace of mind to all parties in the transaction.

That it doesn’t always work that way is because in addition to the buyer and seller, another party may be involved—the mortgage lender. The National Association of Realtors® puts it this way: as “the increasingly common scenario [that]…even when both sides agree on a price, the deal could fall apart thanks to an under-appraisal.”

The situation where buyer and seller agree on a fair price—but the bank’s appraiser determines a value that falls short—usually means that a sufficient loan won’t be offered. Bankers are required to protect the bank, and if they aren’t reassured that the equity in the loan’s underlying collateral supports the mortgage amount, okaying it would expose the bank to a loss.

Bankers would rather not.

But Myrtle Beach homeowners on the verge of a sale can head off the problem. The solution is to address deferred maintenance and significant repairs or, per the NAR, “any condition that affects safety, soundness or structural integrity.” It’s a cinch that the best comparable sale figures reflect homes where those issues were addressed.

There are also some less-obvious actions Myrtle Beach homeowners can take. For instance, some experts advise removing sensitive or religious pictures before an appraiser’s visit. The reason isn’t because of any prejudice from the appraiser. Rather, since rules prevent an appraiser from violating a homeowner’s privacy, some photographs of rooms might not be allowable—resulting in a report that lacks sufficient photographic documentation!

An accomplished Myrtle Beach Realtor will advise you on how to best prepare for an appraiser’s visit, as well as make sure the appraiser has all the details needed to prepare the kind of comprehensive report that lets bankers sleep at night. This is part of my service—and another good reason to give me a call!

Myrtle Beach homeowners take note:

Neglecting your filters!

That was only one of many “bad home habits” blogger Annie Stevens admitted to in last week’s confessional outpouring on the Aussie web site Domain. “Bad home habits” may not be a phrase Myrtle Beach homeowners are accustomed to thinking about, but it’s an idea worth mulling—especially if selling your Myrtle Beach home is something that could be in your immediate (or even middling) future.

In its mildest form, a Stevens bad home habit would be one that needs to be straightened out before John and Jane Q. Public come to look your house over after it’s listed. In the extreme, a bad home habit can lead to escalating maintenance issues. Neglecting your filters is one of those.

Filters you neglect can be the thin, washable, plastic-and-foam panels you slide in and out of your window air conditioner. If you have one, you are among the many Myrtle Beach homeowners who was grateful to have it last week. Filters you neglect can also be one of the larger, paper-foil-and-mesh replaceable thingies that you are supposed to replace in the workings of your central air unit. They can also be the cottony stuff you wad into your tropical fish aquarium, but that’s not the kind that’s a big homeowner concern. That one is strictly between you and the fish.

In all but that last example, neglecting your filters can lead to an air circulation problem, or even to a burnt-out blower motor. This bad home habit can be blamed on the location of the filters. Being out of sight, it’s hard to remember they are even in there, much less that they require your tender ministration.

Another of blogger Stevens’ bad home habits is “buying exercise equipment you will never use.” It’s easy to see why this is a bad budgeting habit, but not really a bad home habit. After all, if you turn the garage into a home gym, it could be a selling point when you’re ready to sell. And if you don’t ever use the exercise equipment, it will be appealingly shiny and new (even if you are more out of shape than you want to be). Potential home buyers won’t care about that.

Stevens actually described eight bad home habits, but some of them don’t really apply to Myrtle Beach homeowners (she writes from Australia). For instance, leaving half-drunk cups of tea around the place is not a common Myrtle Beach homeowner failing. And sleeping with your phone is more of a bad lifestyle habit, since constantly checking an iPhone in the middle of the night disrupts a normal sleep cycle.

Much more applicable is Bad Home Habit #6: letting dirt build up on the things you forget to clean. It’s easy to forget to clean areas and things that are in dim, out-of-the-way corners, but when it comes to getting your home into shape for open houses and showings, it’s amazing how prospective buyers somehow seem to make a beeline for them. Fortunately, a few serious deep cleaning sessions will cure any vestige of bad home habit #6.

It’s a Murphy’s Law kind of rule that any neglected maintenance feature will tend to go completely kaput just when you least want it to. As you get your home ready to put on the Myrtle Beach market, that’s why catching it in advance is definitely to your advantage. Also to your advantage: giving me a timely call!

They may be getting rarer, but you still see some Myrtle Beach “For Sale by Owner” signs from time to time. Sometimes they signify an owner who, truth be told, simply doesn’t mind letting it be known that he or she isn’t in much of a hurry to sell the place. This can be true if it’s an extraordinary example of its architectural style, or beautifully landscaped and maintained, or in other ways, from curb to chimney-top, obviously a prime piece of local property. This is a For Sale by Owner anomaly though; you don’t see many of them.

A far greater number of them (‘FSBOs,’ for short) are average, run-of-the-mill homes—or even clearly neglected ones (in the latter case, the For Sale by Owner designation invites passersby to assume the sign really means “Fire Sale!!!”).

But for the everyday-looking Myrtle Beach For Sale by Owner properties, that sign out front has to make you wonder. Currently, 88% of homes are sold through a real estate agent or broker—a percentage that’s been steadily rising for more than a decade. What would impel the owner to take a route that the vast majority of sellers avoid?

There’s often a history behind the sign: a major experience that prompted the go-it-alone venture. That story usually falls into one of two general categories—and they’re polar opposites!

HAPPY STORY!

This camp had a pleasure cruise the last time they sold their home. Their agent put together a listing, and BANG! That was it! Showings by the end of the week, and SOLD in days! For the full asking price! A dream closing with no unexpected details, gifts to and from the excited buyers, and nice notes still exchanged at the holidays…

The Happy Story takeaway: selling a house is so simple, why in the world would you gift a commission to a third party? It’s so easy, why not save thousands of dollars? Up goes the ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign…

UNHAPPY STORY!

These folks found themselves all but victimized by a previous home sale. Everything went haywire from the get-go. They may have started on the wrong foot, assuming that every licensed agent is equally qualified and offers the same level of service. From there, it was all downhill. Bad communication, missed appointments, showings to loud-mouthed prospects who made it clear they were not about to pay anything like that asking price. Maybe a change of agents, but the eventual sale, after those lengthy missteps (and perhaps a technical hitch or two at closing) resulted in a disappointing sale price.

The Unhappy Story takeaway: I bet I can do this better, myself! Up goes the Myrtle Beach For Sale by Owner sign…

The current national statistics seem to indicate that the FSBO sign itself is a lot more likely to engender an Unhappy Story result. A typical For Sale by Owner home, if it sold at all, yielded just 80% of what agent-assisted sales brought. Not to mention the hassle of foregoing all the technical and marketing help a good agent brings. The first key to your own Happy Story is to find the right agent—one with a history of Happy Story endings.

This takeaway: call me!

Myrtle Beach's real estate picture usually differs little from that of the nation as a whole. The latest rumblings from the mass media and web continue to bolster the picture of rising values and quickening activity—a sweet story with nary a sour note. In fact the unanimity of voices from almost every corner of the country is a story in itself. There was just one exception.
Some samplings Myrtle Beach readers would have found in the past week’s real estate news and opinion—

• From the Associated Press, we learned that “prices are soaring” in some cities, and that they rose in all 20 cities polled. The pace of existing home sales rose to the “fastest pace since February 2007.”—roughly what might be expected in a healthy housing market. The AP attributed at least some of the reason for the real estate price rises to widespread predictions that the Federal Reserve may start raising short-term interests rates sooner rather than later.
• From Dan Green’s Mortgage Reports, the home value increase was illustrated in a multi-colored chart, which showed sample cities’ rises at anywhere from 1%-11%—with most clumped between the 4%-6% lines. Freddie Mac was quoted as pegging the average 30-year mortgage rate at below 4%, with VA and FHA mortgage rates even lower. Their opinion was straightforward: “It’s an inexpensive time to finance a home.” Since historically “mortgage rates average nearer to 8:25%,” that opinion is hardly a stretch!
• Headlines from CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index Report were “Home Prices Rose by 6.5% Year Over in June 2015” and “HPI Forecast Projects 4.5%” rise for the coming 12 months. CoreLogic’s nationwide real estate numbers are among the most reliable—whereas some of the government numbers sometimes have to admit regular later revisions, it’s not usually the case for them.
• Surprisingly, town observers would have had to go to the National Association of Realtors® site to find what at first sounded like the only sour note to be heard—yet it, too, had a sweet finish. “Pending Home Sales Dip in June” headed the last week’s news release. You had to read the fine print to learn that the pending sales were 8.2% higher than a year before, and that although they dipped slightly from May’s number, they were still the third highest reading in 2015…and marked the tenth consecutive monthly year-over-year increase!

Strengthening real estate prices have continued to bolster a solid summer selling season. If you are interested in exploring the Myrtle Beach market as a prospective buyer (or as a seller), the climate continues to be inviting. Good reason to give me a call!