Mark Organek - Tempe Gilbert Mesa Chandler REALTOR

When life give you lemons, make lemonade! We've got some upcoming lemons that will be thrown at us:

Loss of down payment assistance, rising interest rates, less choices in lending programs, a tightening economy as a whole...

More inventory may start piling up?

So what if more inventory and more tightening means MORE LEMONS...

Enough lemons to make lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon soda, lemon pudding, lemon jello, lemon lifesavers, lemon chicken at HOUSE OF CHINA? Yes, enough lemon chicken to eradicate hunger...

The lemonade glass is now half full! Here's my perspective for the end of the year:

The slower I get, the more time I have.

The more time I have, the more I can preview.

The more I preview, the more gems I find.

The more gems I find, the more excited I get about opportunities.

The more excited I get, the more I show enthusiasm about what I do.

The more enthusiastic I get, the more enthusiastic my audience gets.

The more enthusiastic my audience gets, the more excited they get about opportunities in the housing market.

The more excited I get people about great "deals" in housing, the more prospects I have.

The more prospects I have, the more showings I go on.

The more showings I go on, the more contracts I write.

The more contracts I write, the more escrows I open.

The more escrows I open, the more deals I close.

The more deals I close, the more house-warming parties I sponsor and attend.

The more house-warming parties I sponsor and attend, the more potential new clients I meet.

What food will I bring to the parties I sponsor? From now on, lemon chicken, lemon pie, lemon jello! Anything else "lemon" anyone can think of will be appreciated!!!

When life gives you lemons...close transactions!

I hereby declare that from the 21st of August, 2008, I will move on from down payment assistance. Now, I'll focus not on bad-mouthing, I will focus on the solutions below...

Our politicians did what they did and come October 1st, things will be different.

Just like I would move on from a bad relationship - There's just no point in beating a dead horse.

Will things get bad? - If I let them. But, no more complaining from me!!! I'll let others complain while I help families buy and sell homes.

With home prices in more affordable ranges, solutions are attainable!

• Find people with savings accounts with a meager 10% of their annual earnings saved. Believe it or not, there are people that do have savings. They're just waiting for the right professional to educate them so they make the best use of their hard earned money.

• Find people that put money into 401(k) accounts or IRA's. Although you can get a loan on most 401(k)'s, even if you trigger a taxable event on the IRA, it may still be worth it. After all, we're talking about a 3.5% down payment.

• Find people that are currently renting. These renters usually have security deposits that they will be getting back. I'll just figure out what down payment is needed and subtract the deposit. Now, the number they need is smaller and it may be within reach of taking down.

• Educate parents on helping their children buy. We always talk about working with people we like, right? Let's find people that are helpful like us. Surely, they would want to help their child buy their first home; especially in a GREAT BUYER'S MARKET!

• Organize church savings pools. A congregation can do fundraising events and take special collections to have members of their church purchase homes.

• Wedding/graduation gift accounts. These accounts allow family members and friends to contribute money to a designated bank account. These monies are considered "sourced and seasoned" and can be used for down payment.

• Employer contribution. There have been times in the past where employers have paid the down payment for their employee. This could be the result of the company wanting to retain a specific employee, it could be a bonus, it could be an annual raise bonus.

• Teaching a budgeting class to those desiring to be home buyers. So many families just need to trim away some of the fat and waste in order to buy a home. The money has been there all along, they just didn't budget properly.

Some of these solutions to replace the down payment assistance programs will not yield immediate results but crying about the demise of DPA's will surely yield zero.

Let's continue to provide solutions to those that want to buy. Our code of ethics states it is our responsibility to do so.

I found a home with my clients last Wednesday. They loved it. Problem was, there were two other offers for much more than my clients could afford. In Phoenix, AZ and Tempe, AZ properties have a tendency to go quick if they are bank owned and clean.

This one was definitely clean!

We went to battle against the two other offers. Both offers were giving the bank about $10,000 more than my clients were willing to pay (they are paying cash.)

What to do? Make the terms hard for the bank to resist. Sure we were $10,000 less but let's just close it quick. We offered a close of escrow for one week later with a five day inspection period. The bank countered at two days. DEAL!

Yeah, we had to rush things but it was definitely worth it! Since it was bank owned property with new carpet, we had to suspect the worse and get a mold report and make sure the home inspection included everything. Thank goodness my client wanted to arrange these inspections herself!

Here we are, 6 days later and funds are at title, documents are signed and we just have to get the disclaimer deed in and we're ready to go.

This is one time that I appreciate CASH being KING!

I'll keep this one short and sweet:

What will cause more damage to home values: Termites or Congress?

How many of today's short sales and foreclosures are FHA? Not many! - During the boom years, you couldn't do an FHA loan because the loan limits were lower than what homes were selling for. On top of that prices were rising so why would a seller give up a 3% donation, especially when others didn't need it due to the readily available 100% financing programs?

Now that we can agree that our market woes were not caused by FHA loans going into default...

It leads us to...The million dollar question: Which will cause more foreclosures:

First time homebuyers using down payment assistance so they can buy a home that will deliver a payment at or lower than currently available monthly rent payments?

- OR -

A lack of buyers to absorb the growing number of short sales and distressed property owners?

What was congress thinking?

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