Livonia, MI

I saw an interesting segment on Fox and Friends this morning. I know, this isn't the hardest hitting news show on T.V. but once in a while they come up with something good.

John Geanakopolos, Economics professor at Yale University talked about how reducing interest rates for existing mortgages had little or no effect on the mousing crisis. His idea is that banks should lower the principle to incentivise homeowners to stay. In a nutshell, a home worth 160,000.00 is now worth 100,00.00. The home goes into foreclosure, takes 18 months or so to be sold again, is torn up and is a bight on the neighborhood. To top it off, the bank may sell the home for 40,000.00, if that.

His idea is to reduce the principle amount to 80,000.00. That gives the homeowner some equity and greater incentive to stay in the home or at least makes it sellable. The bank makes 40,000.00 more than they would have.

this is very simplistic and I've included a link to the full article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/opinion/05geanokoplos.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1258733274-DqeLXVXtah1yVkV0WBNcLg

While in principle I agree that it would have been a better move, I do have some reservations. I wouldn't want the government telling banks they have to do this. I'm fully for a free market and while it would be in the banks, as well as everyone elses, best interest to do this, it can't be forced.

Please give me your feedback.

We are noticing a huge demand for Livonia Michigan Homes and Houses for sale. Over the past few months much of our local Michigan inventory is down compared to what many have become used to. I can remember doing a post on the subject of how many Livonia houses and condo's were for sale about a year or so ago and the number was between 800--900 as compared to now (11/19/09) it is somewhere in the area of 450-500. Wow that's a big drop considering we haven't even seen the jobs come back to our area yet.

If you are interested in more information on Livonia Michigan homes for sale please feel free to visit www.BobandTeena.com or www.RealEstateBusyBees.com anytime. We would love to hear from you so feel free to email us anytime at info@BobandTeena.com

Have you ever heard agents complain that they can't get deals done this time of year? "No one is looking, no one is selling," seem to be the mantra's of this season.

I thought I would share one of my best deals. It came at Halloween. i was going to post this a few weeks back but life got in the way. so anyway, here goes.

It was the day of Halloween. Our office was practically empty. Most agents had gone home or didn't come in at all. I had a buyer that was looking in a particular area of Northville Mi. They wanted a house in a sub known as Northville Commons. This is an area built in the '70's where some of the houses are located around, you guessed it, a common area.

There was nothing on the multi-list that met their needs and I wasn't sure what to do. They didn't want to sell until they found their new home. This was during the hot market and we knew we'd have no problem selling. Their home was located in an area of Livonia call Old Rosedale, a sub built , basically, by Henry Ford back in the 30"s and 40"s so he could house his middle management. They would sell quickly.

With all that going on I decided to take one of the silliest courses of action you could think of...I cold called Northville Commons.

The few agents that were left in the office snickered and laughed. "Who's going to pick up the phone? It's Halloween." Still, I called.

After about 15 calls I spoke to a lady that said, "Yes, they wanted to sell but were building and didn't want to move until their house was done in about 3 months." I asked them if they had the home sold and could rent until they move, would that work for them. They agreed to meet with me.

I'll cut the chase here. My buyers loved the house, bought it and rented to the owners for the time they needed to get their house built. They then put their home on the market. I got a call from a buyer who always wanted to live in Old Rosedale. They had a house to sell in Redford so we made the offer and listed their house. A young couple who lived in an apartment bought that house through a co-op agent (I didn't get every piece of the sale).

To top it off, a buyer I had met from a sign call on the Old Rosedale house who put their home in Redford on the market with me. They decided to buy in another area so I didn't get their sale but did sell the listing. We can't get them all.

Long story short, because I decided to cold call on Halloween, I got paid on 6 transaction sides as well as adding sign calls to my sphere that led to later sales.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't sell through the Holidays. I'll write about a Thanksgiving sale in a later post. In the mean time, it's a great time to be on the phone.

We have a great selection of Livonia Michigan Houses for sale to choose from on our website. Most available houses for sale are on our home search, visit www.BobandTeena.com or www.LivoniaBusyBees.com for more information.

We have full time dedicated real estate agents ready to help you find your dream home. If you or anyone you know is looking to buy a Livonia Michigan house please feel free to email us anytime at info@BobandTeena.com

Thank You for your time and happy house hunting!!!!

I saw a beautiful Livonia short sale home about 3 months ago with one of my clients. At the time the listing was being touted on the MLS as "short sale approved". My clients were two weeks late on putting in an offer and their offer was going to be a back up offer. The listing agent marked the Livonia short sale home pending and my clients bought a different Livonia ranch home.

My clients were about two weeks before they closed when the other listing agent with the other short sale called. His deal had fallen apart. He wanted to know if my clients were interested. I said no, but I told another Remerica agent in my office about the Livonia short sale.

The other Remerica real estate agent talked to the listing agent. The listing agent said the short sale was just two weeks away from closing. So the buyers agent put in an offer, go it accepted, and rushed the mortgage person to get it ready to close. They had it ready to close. Unfortunately the listing agent wasn't ready at that time.

Then 60 days later the listing agent scheduled the closing. Everybody was at the closing table only to find out that the 2nd mortgage company never signed off on the sale. So it didn't close. It was never close to "SHORT SALE APPROVED''

The listing agent didn't know what he was doing.

He didn't have a clue.

His title company should have never scheduled a closing without the approval from the second mortgage company.

Unfortunately this happens a lot when buying and selling Metro Detroit real estate. Some metro Detroit real estate agents just don't know what to do when working with short sales. So every time I do a short sale I ask the listing agent questions. I can ferret out some of the issues and problems that might arise and whether the deal has a chance of closing. Unfortunately we can't always tell when the listing agent doesn't know what they are doing or when they are "fibbing" about the short sale.

So the bottom line is: whether it is a Livonia short sale home or any Metro Detroit short sale there is a chance that is may not close. There are things that you can't control, things the listing agent can't control, things the seller can do to make it close. So let your agent ask the questions and listen to your agent's gut instincts.