Alyse Sands

Some 300,000 households who otherwise couldn't have entered the market will buy a home this year because of the $8000 tax credit. First time buyers (or those who haven't owned in the past 3 years) cannot afford to miss out on this opportunity. In order to benefit from this, the home purchase must be closed before December 1, 2009.

Buyers must act quickly to:

A. Get a mortgage pre-approval. You must be prepared when you find your dream home. Sellers will negotiate more when they know you CAN buy their home and banks require an approval letter before they will even look at your offer. You will know how much you can afford, the approximate rate and payments. Apply for free here: http://is.gd/2qj3d-

B. Have your agent, Alyse Sands, search for your dream home from thousands of bank foreclosures, resales and new homes, look at the homes that meet your search criteria, fall in love with one and get it under contract.

C. Time to close: Lenders are backed up and it may take up to 60 days to close a loan these days, especially because thousands of first time buyers will be closing right before the deadline of Dec. 1.

ACT NOW! Call me, Alyse Sands. I specialize in educating buyers. I will explain the process before we begin so there are no surprises. I'm a full-time Broker-Agent and Loan Professional for the past 10+ years.

This is a tool for the public to use to justify or check on home values for those who are using it for curiosity's sake. It's fine but it is not viable information to use for market value for selling or buying and this is why:

When I, as a licensed Real Estate Professional, prepare a market analysis, I utilize information on recently sold properties that are similar in size, construction, age and area, starting with the same subdivision...APPLES TO APPLES. I use the MLS information before using the tax records because many times the tax records are not recorded properly and much of the time the square footage is inaccurately listed. MLS listings usually post square footage that was given by a previous appraisal or measured by the agent and is more accurate. Agents and appraisers use price per square foot to come up with market value for a property compared with properties that are most like it in every way. We also search first for homes that have sold within the past few months and, if we cannot find any recent sales, we'll go back six months.

Zillow does not take into consideration the age and construction of the home and it pulls the square footage from the tax records. This is done without human intervention. Nobody is checking to see if these comparable properties are truly comparable to the subject property. Using the square footage from the tax records, it uses all properties close to the size within a radius of the subject property, regardless of age or construction.

You must have accurate information when buying or selling property. This is one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is also just one more reason to use a professional when purchasing a home whether you are the buyer or the seller.

Developers in Nashville, TN are suing 3 buyers who did not close on condos they contracted on spec a few years ago. I noticed a post by a buyers' agent asking why we even have earnest money and that the forfeiture of earnest money should satisfy a breach of contract by the buyer. This was my response:

I'm not sure why you need earnest money explained to you since you are a licensed agent but I will comment. I see that you represent only buyers so I understand that you see it from the buyers' perspective. I work with both buyers and sellers so I'm not taking sides; I'm commenting on your predilection.

We know that earnest money is held in escrow to protect the seller in case the buyer breaches the contract. Since nothing is black and white and many scenarios can occur that can result in a breach, either party has the right to sue for actual damages (depending on the contract's verbiage) caused by the breach. The amount of the damages can differ, depending on the amount of loss. Nobody knows what that will be until the breach occurs so it may end up to be more than the amount of the earnest $. Since the same laws apply for new condos, resales, etc., here is just one example of why we have both earnest money and contracts:

Say that a seller had received a $10,000 higher offer from buyer B right after signing a contract with buyer A yet had to honor the existing CONTRACT. What if the transaction wasn't closing for 3 months so the property is off the market for 3 months but buyer A backed out a week before closing. The seller is entitled to keep the earnest money, depending on the verbiage in the contract, but now the house has been off the market for three months plus however long it takes to resell. The seller now couldn't buy a home that s/he was trying to buy and lost a job because he/she couldn't move because the buyer didn't close. The buyer's decision has caused a domino effect. If the contract states it, in this case it is the seller who has the right to sue for specific performance. A Real Estate expert/guru like you should know this.

Even though the developers didn't lose a job or a home, the same laws apply to this seller. In the case of the condos, nobody could have predicted that the market would change for the worse. Perhaps a buyer decided this price was no longer in their best interests. That shouldn't matter. A contract is a legal and binding agreement and the seller may be able to keep the earnest money but the buyer still breached a contract. However, to win a case, the seller has to prove damages. The bottom line, though, would be what is decided by the courts.

I just closed a transaction for a buyer. While we were under contract, the seller received two other offers, both for full price while my buyer was under contract for a good amount less. Their fingers were crossed that my buyer's loan would fall through...but it didn't.

Last week, in my office sales meeting, we were discussing our businesses and three agents said that they were involved in multiple offer situations in the past week or two, either on the seller or the buyer's side. That's good news for the Tennessee market and it also means that other areas are experiencing this upswing. Hopefully it means that the rest of the country will follow suit.

Open House on 811 Lawrence St was rained out today. We'll be doing it next Sunday.

By the way, this house is awesome; it's listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, along with some other homes in the "Village" and other Nashville Real Estate. Here's some very interesting information about Old Hickory Village:

OHV was built in 1918 during the Great War to house DuPont employees. By 1920, the war was over and the homes were no longer needed so the town was deserted. The entire neighborhood was bought out by Nashville Real Estate investors and then sold to the DuPont company. Click here for more detailed information on this historic community.