Kristina Zack

Well, well well...the newspapers come crawling back. They want our business badly, and what I mean by that are Realtors/Brokerage business. We would post, and post, and post our ads in newspapers til our hearts were content. Now a days, the Internet is growing at a rapid rate, and there are all sorts of places for our real estate ads & listings, and most of them are FREE. I will not single out newspapers, because I do understand that some home sellers like to see there home in the Sunday paper, but a lot of home sellers more & more prefer the Internet, because they are savvy themselves.

Any who, the point I am making is that you see all this bad media & hype printed in the newspapers that we happen to advertise our listings in or run our ads to promote ourselves. These same papers reported that the sky was falling and reported by publicity about the Real Estate Market. In our State, we did not feel the pinch like I see in other areas, such as Las Vegas, Florida. Yes, the market has soften up, but not to the point where it has negatively effected our area. The papers made such a huge impact, that of course, folks believed it, since media is convincing, and that resulted in less advertisement. Its like a chain...The perception of the market crashing was blown out of proportion to sell newspapers, than it effected Realtors since less money might of been coming in, and buyers sat still reading those exact articles. Then..Realtors/Brokerages had to re think there budgets, which caused them to limit advertising in newspapers, and now since advertising is down, newspapers are starting to go belly up. ( Its not all real estate, but I am sure its more expensive make a papers these days, hire folks to deliver them, employ people etc etc and other folks out there are using the Internet to get there message across)

Why do I mention this? Because lately our office alone has started pulling out newspaper ads because of budget restraints and new opportunities online. I do not overall agree with it, but to keep the office going, you have to do what you have to do. I picked up the Sunday Hartford Courant this past weekend, the real estate section that is and it felt so light...the lightest I have ever felt it. I saw less Real Estate Brokerages advertising in there. I received an e-mail at least once a week from various newspaper publications, that offer deals for advertising ads in the newspaper, even on the weekends! I laugh, because they tried to beat us up so badly, but we continue to do our business as normal, because the damage is not bad as they had made it out to be in there feature story, and in the end, we have found alternative ways of advertising. Ahh..and now they want bailouts in this area, and they are crawling, begging and pleading for the business.

That is my rant, but my point is...Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

This is brought to you by Barry Rosa
Vice President of New Homes & Land/Specialty Markets
Prudential Connecticut Realty.

I thought I would pass this along, since this is a very interesting article to me and I thought I would share on how things are going on in the State of Connecticut

This includes furniture, appliances, electronic equipment, jewelry, vacations, expensive weddings....and automobiles!

When a lender reviews your loan package for approval, one of the things they are concerned about is the source of funds for your down payment and closing costs. Most likely, you will be asked to provide statements for the last two or three months on any of your liquid assets. This includes checking accounts, savings accounts, money market funds, certificates of deposit, stock statements, mutual funds, and even your company 401K and retirement accounts.

If you have been moving money between accounts during that time, there may be large deposits and withdrawals in some of them.

The mortgage underwriter (the person who actually approves your loan) will probably require a complete paper trail of all the withdrawals and deposits. You may be required to produce cancelled checks, deposit receipts, and other seemingly inconsequential data, which could get quite tedious.

Perhaps you become exasperated at your lender, but they are only doing their job correctly. To ensure quality control and eliminate potential fraud, it is a requirement on most loans to completely document the source of all funds. Moving your money around, even if you are consolidating your funds to make it "easier," could make it more difficult for the lender to properly document.

So leave your money where it is until you talk to a loan officer.

Oh...don't change banks, either. :)

A question I got on the internet I thought I would share..

Our home has been on the market since July 7, 2008, we have had 5 buyers come through, it is now Jan. 09, do we quit trying or what else can we do, we are building a home that will be ready in about two months, we really want to sell, and according to stats, it is not priced too high, is this just the market now?

It doesn't matter what the statistics say. It doesn't matter what you think your place is worth. It doesn't matter what the most skillful appraiser concludes your market value is. It doesn't matter what price your agent recommends. It doesn't really matter what kind of market it is right now either.
In the end, only one thing matters...... The value of your house is determined by the buying public, and they've had six months to vote that the place isn't worth what you're asking.
Pay attention to what buyers are saying. What feedback they present..after all, maybe its not the price, but something wrong inside your house. No matter what your market is like, some houses are selling.
Take a good look at what else is on the market that your buyers are also looking at. This can be an gauge for what to do. Most likely, its time to reduce the price....before the house is vacant & your carrying two mortgages!

When preparing your home for sale, you are going to do lots of things to make it more appealing to potential buyers. You are going to clean up the yard, apply a fresh coat of paint where needed, get rid of all clutter in and around the house, have the kitchen and all bathrooms at their sparkling best, get the rugs cleaned, clean all windows, etc.

Why not spend the relatively few dollars and also have a home inspection? Find out the hidden problems with your home and correct them in advance. If you don't, you can be assured that the buyer's inspector will find them. When the buyer's inspector finds a problem, it can throw a monkey wrench into the works. And cost you extra dollars!

The buyer will ask you to fix the problems found by their inspector - or no deal. If you do not want to fix the problems, they will ask for a reduction in price or a cash credit at closing - or no deal. In some cases, they buyer may even cancel the purchase entirely, not giving you a chance to make any corrections.

If the buyer cancels the purchase, where does that leave you? It leaves you with a house that you will have to put back on the market - a house that has been stigmatized. Future potential buyers and their Realtors will always wonder, "What happened with that first deal?" You get my drift...