Arizona Real Estate Notebook

It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion. In one year, the 24-year-old website-designer-turned-real estate-flipper bought eight homes in four states — and in every case but one, he put no money down. At his peak, in April, Serin had $93,000 he’d taken out of the homes as he bought them. By July, he [...]

Okay, enough about economics, let’s talk about selling your home. I usually pay for an Arizona home stager to talk to my clients about how to make their homes look fanstastic. Often the homes already look great and the Arizona home stager builds on that. The basic concept in home staging is, “How you live [...]

Bob Bruss has a lot of good blurbs today. – Fed up with listing agent? – “Seller’s remorse” is no excuse not to sell more… For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

Dian Hymer on selling your home in today’s buyer’s market. You may be kicking yourself for not selling your home last year when the market was hot and gave sellers an advantage. Now, in most parts of the country, you’ll be selling in a balanced market, at best. In a balanced or normal housing market, [...]

BOB BRUSS: Problems may arise when homeowner dies without a will For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

BOB BRUSS: Homeowner horror story: sell home, build anew, lose it all How long does home sale capital gains exemption last? Probate is required to transfer title to deceased’s home For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

The curse of negative equity: Is there an escape? What can a borrower with negative equity do? Not much. You hunker down, pay your mortgage on time, pray that nothing happens that will force you to move, and wait for the good fairy of appreciation to reappear. And if she doesn’t? Then you may be [...]

Pitfalls of contingent home-sale offers For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

DOWN SIDE OF OVER-PRICING YOUR HOME to “test” the market. A property that’s not priced properly can languish on the market and get shopworn, says Dan Elsea, president of brokerage services at Real Estate One in the Detroit area. A four-bedroom house in Troy, Mich., has been sitting on the market for 10 months, even [...]

Apologies to Bob Bruss but here’s another example of why I prefer round number pricing for real estate. Michael Gallagher, a financial-services executive, initially listed his four-bedroom house in Shawnee, Kan., at $274,500. When the listing expired, Gallagher’s new broker suggested that he boost the price to $275,000. Within weeks, the home sold for $271,000, [...]

Bob Bruss: Five steps for selling home in a buyer’s market I’m curious what other Realtors think about; 1) Doing a home inspection before putting the home in the MLS. It’s not uncommon but it’s not very common in Arizona either. An inspection by the seller is a great way to find and take care [...]

What happens to homeowner’s name on deed after death? Bob Bruss says in the above article “Change of title is not automatic” but in Arizona it would be automatic if you had a Beneficiary Deed. Take advantage of them to avoid the problems in Bruss’s column. Also see Chris Combs’ article above. Profit opportunities during [...]

Ex-wife’s credit jeopardized by divorce. Why can woman’s name be removed from title but not mortgage? For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

Today’s Top Real Estate News

In the last five weeks I’ve closed five transactions for clients! That’s a record for me. While putting my office back in order I ran across a note from a phone conversation I had a few months ago with a landlord who had several homes. He said he had great luck in finding tenants with [...]

How to find fixer-upper homes with profit potential For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

How to avoid overpaying in a buyer’s market. For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

Renting out your vacation home for extra income is much easier with the internet. Check out “Vacation Rentals by owner” http://www.vrbo.com. I used the site to find a rental in Paris for my big vacation last summer. But it also has a huge selection of vacation rentals in Arizona. For example, in McCormick Ranch where [...]

Be aware that refinance appraisals don’t necessarily reflect market value. That is so true. Appraisals done when refinancing a home are often low. You should not use a refinance appraisal to price your home when selling. For more articles, click “Today’s Top Real Estate News” under my photo.

When the real estate purchase appraisal is low people worry. The buyer may worry that he will have to pay more than the home is worth. But if the buyer used the standard Arizona Association of Realtors purchase contract, there would have been an appraisal contingency on page 2. The contingency would give the buyer [...]