Real Estate Information

Selling a house is stressful.   I don’t think that anyone will deny that, if they’ve been through it.  No matter how great your listing agent is, and how perfectly your house is staged, and how low you’re priced…if you won’t let buyers in to see it, they can’t and won’t buy it.

Charlotte North Carolina’s real estate market is healthier than most.  We currently have about 5.5 months’ inventory available, market-wide (statistics courtesy of Carolina Multiple Listing Services).  Any numbers geek will tell you that this inventory level indicates a balanced market.  But let’s break it down into a number that means something to you.  As of today, 5 May 2008, there are 21606 active listings in our MLS.  Which means that if you’re selling a home in Charlotte NC, you have competition.

It also means that when you get a call from Centralized Showing Service (can I tell you how delightful it is, to have an MLS-wide appointment desk?   Woo hoo!), you need to allow that showing.  If you say NO to the showing, there is no guarantee that the buyer will come back.  When they have a ton of other choices available, it’s just not likely.  Now I know that each house is unique (I will not get on my soapbox about Vinyl Villages in this post), and that each seller feels they have the ONLY perfect house on the market.  But the fact of the matter is that when you have competition who are also well marketed, staged, and priced aggressively, you will lose out if the buyer can’t get in the door.

As an agent who works both sellers and buyers in Charlotte NC and surrounding areas (not on the same house, though, see my post about how much I don’t like dual agency if you’re curious), I can tell you that one of the most annoying phone calls to get back from the appointment desk is the classic: 

       “The seller has rescheduled your appointment from ….. to ….”

Ahem.  You don’t know my schedule, you don’t know my buyers, you don’t know anything about our planned day.  So why in the world are you so insistent that we change our tour to fit your schedule?  If buyers were plentiful and listings were scarce, it would be a different discussion.  But when I’m out showing property to buyers who must make a decision that very day, we don’t have the luxury of changing our viewing times for each house-otherwise, we won’t be able to see everything.

Case in point-I was showing property last week in the luxury home community of Highgate, in Weddington NC just over the Union County line (this is about 30 minutes’ south of uptown/downtown Charlotte NC).  My buyers were in town at the last minute, because their home in another state had sold and they were in panic mode, needing to locate the next house to complete one move.  I gave a day’s notice on showings-which is a lot of notice in this area.  One of the listings wanted to ‘reschedule’ my showing for later in the day.  The trouble was that we would have been done in Highgate by that time, and moved on to another community in the area.  So we had to cancel and could not view that home.

Within a short time frame, the listing agent had called to apologize for the seller, and was begging for us to come view it in our original showing window.  The seller panicked when the realization hit that we might not be able to adjust for their schedule.  We were already a distance away from the community at this point, and my buyer clients had already located three strong options, so they decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation to go back (yes, my buyers chose not to go back when offered that option).

What I’m trying to explain is that if you, Mr/Ms Seller, are not 100% on board and cooperative with buyer agents and showing agents, it’s hard for your house to sell. I know it’s a pain to keep that house clean, to get up and go cruise the area at the drop of a hat, to keep the kids from tearing the house up.  But if you truly want to sell-you have to adjust to the market.  Realize that your competition is also stressed out about showings, but they’re accomodating them.   Buyers are looking for motivation right now, and when you don’t want to cooperate for showings, it tells them that you are not motivated and not serious about selling.

Truly, I WANT to sell your house.  But you have to work with me on it.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200, etc.

I mean, seriously. Enough is enough! We, as a collective citizenry (whoa-that goes against every grain of my Ayn Rand-loving nature), need to stand up and hold people accountable for their misbehavior.

Want to know why the easy mortgage money has dried up? Want to know why so many folks are whining and crying about ‘lost equity’ in their homes? Want to know why homeowners and investors alike are walking away from houses? It’s a lack of personal responsibility and we as a society have put up with it for too long.

This morning, I received a phone call from a buyer’s agent, on a transaction that is currently under contract here in Concord NC. He was calling to let me know that the contract is being terminated, due to the buyer’s inability to obtain loan approval. (In North Carolina real estate, we have standard language in our Offer to Purchase and Contract that states that the buyer must be able to obtain loan approval.)

Drat, darn…hate to make that call to the seller-we’re back to square one. But it’s part of the gig in real estate, some contracts close and many others fall by the wayside. Before I was going to make that call, I needed to ask a few more questions…since the contract was only a week old-and I had spoken with the buyer’s lender prior to the seller accepting the contract. Something didn’t quite feel right, that it was crashing so soon.

As it turns out, the buyer was unable to obtain loan approval because she LIED on the loan application. I mean, we’re not talking a little fluff-we’re talking whiteout on paystubs!! Seriously? This buyer thought that falsifying proof of income was acceptable? When the lender saw this mess, he immediately turned the loan away, refusing to get involved in what very clearly would turn out to be loan fraud. Kudos to them for their upright behavior.

So the contract is being terminated-and the buyer wants the earnest money back, since they were unable to obtain a loan. Which is true. BUT it didn’t go down in good faith-it went down because of deception and outright lying.

(In North Carolina, the earnest money deposit is held in a trust account, with one of the involved brokers or the closing attorney. And per the NC General Statutes, it can’t be released until all parties have agreed as to its disposition. If it’s still being disputed in 90 days, the money is escheated to the clerk of court and the buyer and seller can file on one another in small claims court.)

After speaking with the seller about the situation, the seller chose NOT to release the earnest money. He agrees with me that situations like THIS have been the primary cause for the sheer amount of loan fraud and crisis in the country-and that if this kind of behavior had not been acceptable (and even rewarded), we might not be in an environment where even good credit prospects may have trouble obtaining a loan. There need to be repercussions for lying. For knowingly running a buyer agent around town, lying to a lender, having a seller take a house off the market, etc. They should NOT get their earnest money back. As a matter of principle more than anything.

Seriously, you HAVE to stop watching the national news media and realize that if your ideal house hits the real estate market in or around Charlotte NC, it might just sell if you wait too long to go see it!

This great full brick ranch home in Charlotte NC in Autumnwood on almost a full acre came on the market a little over a week ago...and sold to the second buyer who came through the door. 

The third buyer and the fourth buyer....the ones who made appointments too late to see it before the contract got executed, were very sad.  They just didn't imagine that any house might sell quickly in today's marketplace-they were watching the news about the real estate market crashing and figured that they could just wait and see. 

Take a look yourself-this one is under contract but we have others!  For more information about this house or others, call Leigh Brown at 704.979.7034 or email me directly.  We're glad to help!

It's so easy to cast blame in this world of loan fraud and straw buyers and inflated appraisals...I've certainly been one to shake a finger at the ones who have caused so much trauma in the economy.

But when a dear friend's family life is completely shaken up because of mistakes that her spouse made, it changes your perception.  He made his errors and will pay the price-and I can't say that I feel sorry for him since we all make choices in life-some good, some bad. 

It's his kids that I feel for.  They're small, had nothing to do with his mischief-and no matter what, they love their daddy to pieces.  He's not a bad guy-he made mistakes and got involved in what looked like easy money.  He's a great dad, a loving husband, and devoted as heck.

My heart is broken for all of them, as they figure out what damage the past is going to cause to the future.  If you have faith, please say a prayer for this family.  And remember that no matter what the folks in the newspaper story did (or are accused of), there are other lives at stake (so perhaps curb that tongue).

Good grief-that's the spammiest-sounding headline I've ever written!  Oh well, I was overdue. 

It does make sense, though, since I work with quite a few real estate investors who are currently purchasing properties in Charlotte NC and our surrounding areas.  Most of the folks with whom I work purchase single family homes for long-term holds (which is great, since that seems to fit my personal investment profile).

Most of the investment gurus you talk to or hear at their seminars will preach about how positive cash flow is the be-all-end-all.  I would have to respectfully disagree. In my opinion, the be-all-end-all is the house that is in an area with a solid rate of appreciation, where it will rent to solid tenants, and pay for itself in the not-too-distant future.  (If you can plan for a slight negative in years 1 and 2, by year 3 with regular rental increases, you should be breaking even and by years 4 and beyond be positive).

Anyhoo.  I have found some wonderful opportunities for positive cash flow (assuming a 10% down mortgage, which is about the best you can expect in today's lending environment), which also have had their prices reduced to a place where you'll be seeing a nice push on equity.

Call or email Leigh Brown for more information, I'm always glad to help whether you're buying, selling, or investing in Charlotte NC area real estate.

That we, as Realtors, have to police ourselves?  That when we're in the middle of a transaction, and it's evident that the agent on the other side is purposefully getting in the way of the transaction...the only way for that agent to get in trouble is for one of us to turn him/her in. 

I'm currently working with some lovely sellers who have had a devil of a time getting rid of their former agent.  This agent has violated so many MLS rules and articles of the Code of Ethics, I'm losing count.  These folks just want to get their house sold.  They don't want anyone to 'get in trouble.'  But by the same token, they don't feel that they should have to put up with the kind of nonsense that's been going on.

They ask me what to do-and I told them to turn that agent in to the local Board of Realtors and to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.  I am doing the same thing. 

Unless these folks take the time out of their lives to complain, this Realtor will go right on doing what he's been doing-and possibly damaging other individuals in the process.  And unless I take the time to complain, he's going to continue making ALL Realtors look bad. 

It's not a good place to be in-I don't have the time to sit around and fill out complaint forms, go to mediation hearings, go before the grievance counsel.  But I also don't have the time-or patience-to allow this jackleg to tear down the reputation of my entire industry.  Bless their hearts, these sellers-and many other consumers, in my experience-don't know what rules we as Realtors are bound by.  I do, and this time, I'm not just going to put up with it.  (and you'll notice, I'm purposefully not talking about the particulars of the situation, since some folks could construe that as talking smack about that other agent)

Please, buyers and sellers, if you run into a shady real estate agent in North Carolina, TURN THEM IN.  For your own protection and for the protection of the innocent consumers who haven't yet run into them.