Pam Graham- Jacksonville Florida Real Estate

The 4 steps you can take to make sure your Jacksonville Florida Home

will stand out from the competition

The Jacksonville Florida real estate market is showing signs of improvements, but with short sales and foreclosures flooding the market, what chance does a “normal” seller have? Below is a list of tips for sellers contemplating putting their house on the market.

1)Take a complete and HONEST assessment of your situation.

Do you want to move or do you have to move? Do you need the equity from your current home, to purchase the next home? What if you don’t have enough equity in your current home to use as a down payment, do you have the funds in savings? What if you don’t have enough equity to even break even? These are questions you need to ask yourself.

2)Study the market place.

If the funds for your new house are dependent on the equity from your current house, this could be the single step that puts your plans to a complete halt! To get a snapshot of the market, you’ll want to do a little research. Find out what has sold in your neighborhood in the past 3-6 months. What is currently under contract? What is your competition?

3)Price your home a hair below the competition.

A hair? What in the world do you mean by a hair you ask? 5% below the competition? 10%? 15.6%? Every market is different and every neighborhood is different, so it’s impossible to throw the pricing strategy in a nice, neat little box. Let’s take 2 different neighborhoods. Let’s say neighborhood # 1 is a highly sought out neighborhood and neighborhood #2 is farther out and gets overlooked because it’s perceived to be too far away. If your competition in neighborhood #1 is listed for 200k, then you could start a little lower let’s say 190k-195k. People are looking there already and a slightly lower price should get you activity. Now let’s go back to neighborhood #2 that is a little farther out. Let’s say the competition is listed for 175k, a 5% difference is probably not going to get you the activity you need, but pricing your house under 150k may bring in people who for the right price would be willing to travel a little farther. As you can see, each neighborhood has unique pricing strategies.

4)Make sure your house is in good repair.

This point would apply to any market, but with the large amount of short sales and foreclosures out there, most of those properties can’t pass your typical FHA or Va inspections, so making sure your house will pass those inspections is a huge benefit.

I’ll tell you, with the difficulties of getting short sales to close due to lien holders taking months to give an approval, buyers are getting tired of waiting! A just listed house in good condition, priced well and can close without requiring lender approval is a welcome change. Don’t make the mistake of continuing to think in terms of the 2005 real estate market, that market is long gone! Take advantage of buyers wanting/needing to close as soon as possible!

You may be wondering, where do I start? Let me help you with that! I offer a complete Home Selling Analysis completely free of charge. Here’s what it entails:

1. Market analysis showing what has sold, under contract and currently available.

2. Seller expense sheet showing you what you will net once it’s all said and done.

3. A Maximum Home Value Audit, showing you room by room, tips on how to have your house in top showing condition.

Now I know what you’re thinking, what’s the catch and if I let that real estate agent in, will she ever leave! Yes I’ll leave and without sucking the life out of you! If you’re thinking of selling, I offer this free service that will help you to determine if selling is the right thing for you. If it’s not, then it’s not! I hate pushy salespeople, so I refuse to be one myself. If you find that it is the right time to sell, all I ask is that I get an opportunity to interview for the job.

Want to move forward? Just pick up the phone and call me at 904-910-3516 or you can email me at pam@pamgraham.com.

Originally published on: Jacksonville Florida Real Estate

That's a feeling oh too common when you're fighting a foreclosure. You get tired of the never ending phone calls, the stress eats away at your sanity. You can't sleep, all you do is think about how your American dream has turned into a nightmare. Enough is enough you just want this to be done! You say: "Who cares if my credit will be ruined, I just want to feel peace again!"

Is that you? Is that how you feel? Hey, it's normal to feel that way.

No this isn't a session with Dr Phil! This is an attempt to help you to reach down inside and continue the fight! I know this isn't as serious as fighting a disease but the stress and worry will make you sick! You ask, why should I continue to fight? Nothing is going my way. My house is on the market, I'm getting showings, I've gotten 3 contracts and the first two have fell through and the third, well it looks just as shaky. Enough!

Is walking away with your hands thrown up in defeat what ya really want?

Do you want to rent for the next five years, because if you let your house go into foreclosure, that's the time the lenders have said they'll loan to you again. Do you want someone else telling you what you can or can not do in or to your home for 5 years? That you can't paint, you can't take in that cute little stray kitten your kids brought home. Ya gotta make sure the carpets stay perfect, the walls don't have marks and the list goes on! Or what's worse is you get settled and you find out a few months into your lease, that the landlord hasn't been making their payments and the house is going into foreclosure! You pay your rent on time but the owner doesn't have the same courtesy with their mortgage for you. Let's look at this.......

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are saying you can't get a loan for 5 years if your home goes into foreclosure. 2 years they say if you do a short sale. Yes you have to rent for 2 years with the same dangers and nuisances as 5 years but 2 is much better than 5. Take those two years and pay your debt off, save money and build your credit. Learn from your mistakes.

There are times in life that it was just plain hard and instead of giving up, you fought, you dug deeper!

You stayed with the fight and when it was over you felt like you accomplished something because you saw it through to the end! It felt good. And I bet there are times when you let go just a little too soon and later ya wished ya stayed with the fight because the results would have been better. But hey! You live and learn.

Now I'm not saying every house on the market as a short sale will sell, some don't and the end result is a foreclosure. At the end of the day though, you can say I tried everything I could and I didn't give up. No regret, again you just learn from your mistakes and move on.

You see, this is how I feel about my short sale listings. I don't believe in giving up. I will fight in getting your home sold until it's either sold, or until the unfortunate may happen and it's foreclosed on. I will do everything I can do to try to prevent the latter.

If you're in foreclosure and you don't know what your options are, call me (904-910-3516) or email me at pam@pamgraham.com. Also check out my avoid foreclosure pages. Maybe you've had your home on the market with an agent who has given up but you haven't yet, contact me and we'll see if we can come up with a plan. I'm not going to say that I'm the ultimate short sale expert, short sales have just become the norm in the past year or two. Every lien holder is different they have their different policies or for some lack of policies. I've learned from the experts who have done short sales when no one knew what a short sale was. I have a system, I don't give up and I treat all parties involved with respect. I leave my ego at the door and I work hard to get your house closed.

If you're ready to fight or ready to continue to fight, let me know, I'll fight with you!

Originally published at Jacksonville Florida Real Estate

Pam Graham

Vanguard Realty Inc

3168 HWY 17 S Orange Park, FL 32003

904-910-3516

Licensed Real Estate Agent in Florida

FOR RENT!

 Spacious home ready to move in. Enjoy the cozy fireplace in the winter and come sit under the shade on the private patio. The eat in kitchen is perfect for the chef in the family. Need an office with book shelves? This house has you covered. New carpet in all 3 bedrooms, Pergo floors in office, tile in kitchen, family/dining room and hallway. Pets ok with non refundable pet fee. Only $950 a month, deposit $950.

Pam Graham

904-910-3516

Vanguard Realty, GMAC Real Estate

3168 Highway 17,s Orange Park, FL 32003

Licensed Real Estate Agent in Florida

The adventure in short sales, Jacksonville Florida

Yep, you heard (read)me right-I do love to do short sales! Now, I wasn't always on the short sale band wagon-they did intimidate me, but I started taking classes and gobbled up as much information that my little brain could handle. I still take classes and I still pick the brains of the experts in my office who were doing short sales when short sales were a foreign language.

Some agents in the Jacksonville Florida area, say they won't show short sales, my question to them is how do NOT show them, they're EVERYWHERE! I realize in some parts of the country, short sales are not as common, but here they are in everyone's backyard. Let me show you an example: As I'm writing this I checked the Northeast Florida Multiple listing service, there are currently 2,748 active (available) homes for sale in Jacksonville in the 100k-200k price range. Out of these 2,748 homes for sale in Jacksonville, there are 712 homes that are short sales (list price is lower than what they owe). YIKES! That's about 26%.

Personally, I think it should be mandatory that we take a short sale class. Heck, we are required to take a 6 minute class on how to unlock a lockbox bot not on how to do short sales in Jacksonville. Where's the logic???

So what do you as the consumer do if you're already working with an agent and that agent tells you-I don't show short sales or I don't do short sales? Walk, no I mean RUN as fast as you can! If they're not willing to show them, they probably weren't willing to take any classes to educate themselves on the process.

Sellers: Same thing! If the agent you're talking to has no short sale experience or short sale education, is hesitating on taking your listing, find an agent who loves doing short sales. In fact, if you're a buyer looking to buy a short sale or a seller needing to sell their home as a short sale in Jacksonville, Orange Park, Fleming Island or surrounding areas in Northeast Florida, give me a call at 904-910-3516.

The short of it for me is knowing that at the end of the day I've worked hard to help ease the stress of a family going through a financial difficulty, that's the real reason I love to do short sales.

Origionally published at Jacksonville Florida Real Estate

Pam Graham

904-910-3516

Vanguard Realty, GMAC Real Estate

3168 Highway 17,s Orange Park, FL 32003

Licensed Real Estate Agent in Florida

I'm sure you've heard about one form or another of the tax credit for first time homebuyers. If you've heard about the tax credit of $7500 from last year, throw that out the door and listen up! The new one is better! Here's a brief gist of the tax credit:

• The new one is 10% of the price of the home, up to $8,000.
• YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY IT BACK! As long as you don't sell the house within 3 years of getting the credit.
• It's for properties (owner occupied)purchased between January 1, 2009 through December 1, 2009
• If you own a mobile home, even if you rent the lot, you DO NOT qualify for the tax credit. I called and heard it from the horse's mouth!
• There are income restrictions

Here's the best part, just in case you're not sure how this credit works, let's say you do your taxes next year for 2008, and if you get a refund of $1,000 (just throwing a number out) if you bought a house and you qualify, you would get a refund check of $ 9,000! Nice. Or let's say you owe a $1,000 *YUCK* you'll no longer owe and you'll get a refund for $7,000! You can visit the IRS and get more information.

This is exciting! More homes to choose from, low interest rates, affordable housing prices and an $8,000 tax credit to boot! Plus you're helping the economy. Are you ready to buy? Not sure what to do next? Let me help, first time homebuyer's are my speciality! You can call me at 904-910-3516 or contact me online.

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