FREE Foreclosure, Short Sale & Bank-Owned Class & Tour on Thurs., May 7th at 6 pm in San Jose
By Michelle C. Carr-Crowe, ABR, ALHS, ASP, CDPE, PME, RECS, SRES
Are you curious about foreclosures, pre-foreclosures, short sales and bank-owned home buying opportunities?
Every day Buyers and Sellers ask me what's happening in the market. Of course, the real question is what's happening in YOUR part of the market - the area you're considering selling in or buying in.
Right now, lots of people are curious about opportunities with foreclosures, short sales, and bank-owned properties. Although rare in the higher-end markets such as those in the Cupertino, Saratoga & Palo Alto school districts, there are some foreclosures, short sales, and bank-owned properties.
As most of you know, I've represented the sellers in short sales on Kimberly and White Road, along helping buyers purchase distressed and bank-owned homes.
New Short Sale/Bank-Owned Class & Tour: As a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE®), I bring unique skills, knowledge, experience and a network of specialists to help clients interested in exploring distressed home opportunities.
This coming week we begin offering the first of our soon-to-be regular classes and tours of these types of Luxury Homes located in high-end school districts that are either in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure, short-sales or bank-owned.
You'll gain knowledge about the pros and cons of each of these types of opportunities, as well as personally tour several homes that night!
The first class and tour will be this Thursday, May 7th at 6 pm at our Altas Realty Office located in the Bascom Commerce Center at 1190 S. Bascom Ave., Suite #118, in San Jose, 95128. Class size & tour space is limited. RSVP to 408.252.8900 or send an email to FSSBO@michellejudycarr.com.
When you call, we may be on another line, in a consultation, or preparing for an appointment. If you get the voicemail, please speak clearly and leave the following info:
Name
Day & Evening phone numbers
Email address
Name & date of class you wish to attend.
If the upcoming week's class is full, we will automatically place you first on the list for the next soonest class opening, usually for the following week's class and tour.
Remember ... For RE$ult$ ... Just Call ... (408) 252-8900!
Michelle C. Carr-Crowe leads the Get RE$ult$ Team, and is the Experienced Lynbrook and Cupertino Schools Expert, assisted by her excellent team. A licensee for over 20 years, she is a Multi-Million Dollar Producer. In addition to marketing and business development, she's an internationally-published freelance writer with over 1,000 articles published in publications such as the San Jose Mercury News, the San Jose Business Journal, San Jose Magazine, Cupertino Courier, the San Mateo Weekly Times and Inman Real Estate News Service. Her designations include: Accredited Buyers Representative (ABR), Accredited Luxury Home Specialist (ALHS), Accredited Staging Professional (ASP), Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE), Property Marketing Expert (PME), Real Estate CyberSpace Specialist (RECS), Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES), and one of less than 150 agents worldwide to achieve the Accredited Luxury Home Specialist (ALHS) designation. She has just completed specific coursework and testing as a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE)*, to help clients dealing with foreclosures and pre-foreclosures, short sales, bank-owned homes and loan modifications. Visit her online at www.michellejudycarr.com or www.lynbrookhighhomes.com. For RE$ult$ ... Just Call ... (408) 252-8900 !!
Michelle's First FaceBook Quiz - Is This YOUR Year to Buy a Home?
I just finished creating my first FaceBook quiz, and I'm really curious to know what people think.
Is This YOUR YEAR to Buy a Home ?? ...
Michelle created a new quiz on FaceBook - Is This YOUR Year to Buy a Home?
A series of Fun, Yet Thought-Provoking Questions to help you discover whether this is a good year for YOU to buy a home
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Connecting People-Beyond Sorority and University
by Michelle C. Carr-Crowe
If I'm honest with myself, when I first considered matriculating at San Jose State University, it was only because it was convenient, affordable-and had a kick-butt dance team. I didn't think of it as a college filled with an illustrious history or famous figures. With the exception of the Tower, most buildings were 1950's semiconductor chic-about as appealing as the ones I'd just left behind at Willow Glen High School.
When I pledged Delta Zeta Sorority, it was due to my fellow dancers on the SJSU Spartan Spectrums Dance Team-those who were already members, along with my new buddies. I chose Delta Zeta because the ladies were different - enthusiastic, go-getters who'd networked together and sacrificed time, energy and sleep to build a new chapter from the ground up in one semester. (I seem to recall they had to get phenomenal numbers to even qualify - 50 founding chapter members and there were about 30 of us in the Alpha pledge class.)
I just thought they were the most interesting, cool and fun group of people I'd ever met. Again, I didn't choose them because of their social status, (we were actually "low man" on the Greek totem pole being the new sorority on campus), connections, or future career help.
Yet in the past week, almost every day, I've been made aware that through my relationships at SJSU, I'm connected to some fabulous, and even famous, world-changing people.
Take Earth Day, for example. Earth Day's founder, Gaylord Nelson (what a name, you can't ever forget it) graduated from San Jose State. (Thanks to the SJSU group on LinkedIn for alerting me.)
As I began doing some spring cleaning, I finally stopped to read my sorority's magazine, The Lamp of Delta Zeta. In it I learned DZ's 2008 Woman of the Year was Hala Gaines Moddelmog, who's president and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. As my mother passed away of breast cancer in 2005, my heart warmed to know that one of my sorority sisters (although she graduated at Southern Georgia University) is leading the way to increase breast cancer research as well as connect various cancer organizations. Especially as one of my DZ sisters is persevering through the cancer journey right now - Go Carol Kreig Walter!
Tracy Langley, another Delta Zeta sister from a different college, and a teacher here in San Jose, has written the first in a new series of children's learning and adventure books entitled Dimitri Discovers England. Maggie Rose Bartz Crane published Amazing Grays-A Woman's Guide to Making the Next 50 the BEST 50 (Regardless of your hair color!).
The Soloist, a new movie out this week, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx,
also has an SJSU alumni connection. Journalist Steve Lopez cut his teeth at the Spartan Daily News while a student there, later working at the San Jose Mercury News before moving on to the Los Angeles Times. The story of the L.A. Times columnist and street musician Nathaniel Ayers is a powerful one-again, echoing with the same theme of connection.
I truly believe nothing happens by chance. With some luck, prayers and good choices at San Jose State University and Delta Zeta Sorority, this week I'm privileged to re-discover I'm connected to some amazing people-energetic, go-getters putting their education and efforts into make the world a better, more connected place for all of us.
Michelle C. Carr-Crowe leads the Get RE$ult$ Team of real estate consultants at Altas Realy. A licensee for over 20 years, she is a Multi-Million Dollar Producer, as well as an internationally-published freelance writer with over 1,100 articles to date in publications such as the San Jose Mercury News, the San Jose Business Journal, San Jose Magazine, Cupertino Courier, the San Mateo Weekly Times and Inman Real Estate News Service. She has just completed testing as a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE)*, to help clients dealing with foreclosures and pre-foreclosures, short sales, bank-owned homes and loan modifications. Visit her online at www.michellejudycarr.com. She attended San Jose State University and belongs to the Gamma Lambda chapter of Delta Zeta Sorority.
Is the Lynbrook High Homes, Cupertino High Homes & Monta Vista High Homes Market Heating Up?
By Michelle C. Carr-Crowe, ABR, ALHS, ASP, CDPE*, PME, RECS, SRES
Everyone, or at least most potential buyers, want to know when the market will "hit bottom" so they can snap up a bargain before prices go back up. In examining pending sales activity in the Cupertino Schools of Lynbrook High, Cupertino High and Monta Vista High throughout Saratoga 95070, San Jose 95129, Cupertino 95014 and Santa Clara 95051, we've recently seen an accelerated rate of pending sales since 4/15/09 (the last six days) as compared to the previous 15 days of 4/1/09-4/15/09.
Specifically, 29 new pending sales in the past 6 days as compared to 32 pending sales in the prior 15 days. Most tellingly, the overwhelming majority of sales are of homes that have been continuously on the market for considerably longer than 30 days-in fact, several have been on the market over 100 days .
The clearing out of older inventory - especially thru pending sales rather than withdrawns or expired--That's an important signal for buyers to pay attention to when deciding whether to wait or act now.
Especially when you realize the 100+ days on market is commanding an increasingly larger market share now. For example, 31 percent (9 properties of 29) that were 100+ DOM went pending in the past six days as compared to 6 of 32, or 19 percent, were 100+ DOM in the prior 15 day period.
In the newest pending sales, average continuous days on market (DOM) is 73 days, vs. 83 days for the prior time period. That indicates more of the older DOM properties are starting to move. Also, although the part of the market moving fastest is the lower-priced homes (under $1 million and especially under $900K), 6 of the 61 recent sales (~10 percent) are homes OVER $1.5M, 5 (~8 percent) between $1.250 & $1.499M, and 10 between $1M and $1.249M (~16 percent).
I am personally seeing more "churning in the water" in the market - buyers who are asking more questions, reading and reviewing disclosure packages, requesting packages sent to them and/or downloading from the Internet, as well as agents asking for packages and both asking about specific items - which means buyers are investing time to learn more about properties so they can make a good choice.
I'm curious - what's your opinion? What are YOU seeing happening right now in the market? Just Call ... (408) 252-8900 or send me an email at info@michellejudycarr.com. And thanks for reading.
P.S. To receive the data charts in excel, just send me an email request to hot@michellejudycarr.com.
Experienced Expert Get RE$ult$ Team Leader Michelle C. Carr-Crowe Prepares to Help Financially Stressed Homeowners
San Jose, Calif.-Local real estate consultant and top producing residential real estate agent Michelle C. Carr-Crowe of San Jose-based Altas Realty has just completed coursework and testing to obtain the new and distinguished Certified Distressed Property Expert© (CDPE©) designation.
The Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE©) designation is offered through the Distressed Property Institute, based in Boca Raton, Fl. and launched in January 2008. It offers comprehensive training on how to handle short sales. The institute was founded by dynamic real estate veteran Alex Charfen.
Charfen and Carr-Crowe are colleagues connected through their membership in, and commitment to, the principles of the client-centered By Referral Only© program, developed by noted real estate coach Joe Stumpf, based in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif. The two met at the organization's annual strategic leadership conference.
"As the majority of my clients in the Lynbrook High, San Jose, Saratoga and Cupertino areas are financially conservative, I initially expected CDPE© education and training to be useful solely in helping my investor clients buying short sale and bank-owned properties at bargain prices," says Michelle C. Carr-Crowe. "However, as I processed my first short sale, I remembered my mother Judy Carr's perseverance and persuasive techniques in negotiating with buyers, sellers, thrifts, the FHA and HUD on what we called short-pays, (now referred to as short sales) during the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980's."
"As I realized people I already knew and cared about needed a trusted professional to help them navigate through this new and dangerous financial terrain, I recalled asking her why she worked so hard on these paperwork-intensive, bureaucratically frustrating and emotionally draining transactions."
"My mother looked at me and said, ‘If someone ethical like me doesn't help them get out of trouble, they'll be stuck working with the same crooks who got them into this mess in the first place,'" and when I asked her how that could happen, she explained.
One, clients are usually loyal and go back to whoever they worked with the first time;
Two, clients are embarrassed and feel it will be easier to talk with someone who's already familiar with their private financial information rather than explain it all to a new, and perhaps judgmental, person; and
Three, those people already have their phone number, address and personal information, and many are actively soliciting people in trouble with automated phone calls, letters and late-night television ads, usually with too-good-to-be-true promises, such as walk away and owe nothing, together with advanced fee contracts.
Today, people in financial distress are also being bombarded over the Internet with unsolicited e-mail messages, often leading to Web sites with official-sounding names that are unaffiliated with the government programs actually designed to help homeowners.
"What I and my team first do is consult with a potential client to see if we can help them, whether it's exploring a loan modification, introducing them to a seasoned loan consultant for a refinance or hard money second loan, or possibly selling the property, even if it's in foreclosure, or negotiating a short sale," says Carr-Crowe. "First, we find out what's important to the client, and like a physician, ask the client to tell us the honest truth about everything going on so we can show them all of their options available so they can make the best choice for their family in that unique situation."
Carr-Crowe has effectively counseled many homeowners who purchased homes since 2005 who are terrified about their current or near-future financial situations but are unsure of who to turn to.
"Realtors® are in a position to help people avoid foreclosure," says DPI founder Alex Charfan. "Like Michelle, they can be great catalysts for the recovery of this housing crisis."
Nationally, only 12 percent of short sales are approved. Among CDPE© designated Realtors®, more than 80 percent of short sales are approved. According to the National Association of Realtors®, more than 45 percent of existing home sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 were foreclosures and short sales. In a short sale transaction, homeowners sell their property for less than the mortgage amount, but avoid the foreclosure process.
The CDPE© designation has been endorsed by many major U.S. brokerages, and industry icons including Howard Brinton, founder of STAR POWER System; Bob Corcoran, founder of Corcoran Coaching and Consulting, and Brian Buffini of Buffini and Company.
The Distressed Property Institute is based in Boca Raton, Fl.
By Referral Only© is an organization of real estate and mortgage consultants committed to ethical principles and effective business models. It was founded by real estate coach Joe Stumpf, and is based in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif.
Altas Realty, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., is the largest independent brokerage in Northern California.
Michelle C. Carr-Crowe is a San Jose-based real estate consultant at Altas Realty, and the leader of the Get RE$ult$ Team of experienced experts specializing in San Jose, Cupertino, Saratoga, Palo Alto and Santa Clara properties. More information can be found at www.michellejudycarr.com. She can be reached at 408.252.8900 or info@michellejudycarr.com.
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