Jeff Launiere

If you are thinking of selling your Tampa area home, it is important to have your home looking its best for showings. You only have one chance to make a great first impression with a home buyer, and of course the best way to make the best first impression is with great curb appeal. You have to be able to get the buyer into the front door, and of course the curb appeal achieves that.

Though there are many ways to improve the value of your home, the video below presents three very simple low cost methods to achieve great results.

I had buyers who came to town and they decided early on that they did not want any short sales or foreclosures.

They did not want to wait months to get an approval for a short sale, finding out some day in the future whether they would get the home or not. They also had friends who purchased a foreclosure home only to go through headaches with issues after they moved in and did not want to buy a home with no disclosures.

Over two days we went to see 17 homes all resales, not in foreclosure and not being sold as a short sale.

My buyers found their right home, I verified with the listing agent that this is not a short sale and will not become a short sale, and then an offer was written and presented through the listing agent. The sellers gave a verbal acceptance but said they would not be able to access their email to get the paperwork during the weekend but would sign it Monday evening when they get home.

On Monday I get a call from the listing agent saying we have a problem. The seller was happy with the offer and based on the net sheet showing the mortgage payoff and the other costs of selling the home they were fine, until the seller asked “how will we pay the home equity loan we took out to pay for a new roof and other repairs.”

Suddenly, we go from a regular resale, to the seller will accept the offer, but now it will have to go through as a short sale.

Obviously, the buyers are not thrilled and now need to go see more homes, find one they like and make another offer, hoping that the next one will turn out better.

One big problem though. I scheduled four days to work with these buyers, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Now I have out of town buyers already scheduled for the rest of the week. Maybe we might finish early one day, or maybe they will find the right home early and I could help my other buyers, but of course I can’t plan on that.

I can’t in good conscience make them wait and of course they do not want to wait. They want a home while they are here.

So now there are two options, find an agent that is available to show them homes each day, or provide the buyers the names and phone numbers of the listing agents so they can schedule showings direct. I personally believe buyers should never buy a home directly through the listing agent, but in this case it might be a necessity.

Working with these folks over the past few months, I have become very aware of just what they are looking for, their needs and wants. They have also become very comfortable working with me, knowing how I work. Things like this of course do happen and they are out of our control, however these are the things that can give us a bad name and of course nobody wins in these situations.

An article in the Wall Street Journal shows the massive issues foreclosures are having in the 23 states that require the foreclosure to go through the judicial process including Florida. There have been many other articles and stories on TV that have also discussed these issues.

Due to the Robo-Signing scandal the private banks and the Government-Owned Mortgage Giants including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fired the law firms that were handling a huge number of their foreclosures.

One firm, The Law Offices of David Stern handled about 20% of all foreclosures in Florida, and were fired by the lenders. The law office now tells judges they cannot do the paperwork required to withdraw from 100,000 cases. Attorney General Pam Bondi is investigating whether the law firm forged notarized documents.

The effect of all this unfortunately is that it is holding up foreclosures which can cause a worsening of the owners credit scores, and can also delay or nullify loan modifications and may result in some foreclosures which are already in the process to have to start over, costing the lenders, investors and the U.S. taxpayers many billions of dollars.

Anything that delays the foreclosures also delays the housing market recovery.

Search for foreclosures, short sales, new homes or resales in the Tampa area.

Although home sales in some parts of the country have been lethargic, the Tampa Real Estate Market has been taking off recently.

In fact in March, sales in Hillsborough County were up 13.5% year over year, in Pinellas County up 13.2%, and up 20.6% in Pasco County.

So is now the time to buy Tampa Real Estate?

Some recent articles say yes.

Fortune Magazine at the end of March had an article “Real Estate: It’s Time To Buy Again.”

The article describes several items pointing to better times ahead.

One is the inventory of new homes is extremely low. That is certainly true here in the Tampa Real Estate Market, with many builders having no inventory homes available, or not ready for a few months.

The second is the huge price declines. Could some prices have declined too much? Driven down by the large numbers of foreclosures and short sales we are now facing, we see brand new Tampa area townhouses that were selling for $150,000 in 2006 now being sold for $40,000 – $50,000. For a monthly mortgage payment less than what renters are paying for the same home, it could be prices have gone too low. And these declines are seen across price ranges and types of homes. Even luxury homes that sold for $1.2 million now are going for about $500,000.

Fortune, even picked the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area the fifth best city for home buyers, saying that renters will pay 31.6% more to rent than to own the same home.

Though there are many unknowns with our economy, there are lots of signs that now might be a great time to buy a primary or vacation home in Tampa, or along the beaches of St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

Andalucia, a guard gated subdivision located in Apollo Beach, FL 33572, and is located directly on Tampa Bay, surrounded by water on three sides. The community has a community pool, clubhouse, playground, a fishing pier and tennis courts overlooking Tampa Bay, with incredible panoramic views of the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg.

Andalucia has many styles and sizes of custom homes, many with docks in back of the home, while others have a boat slip in Andalucia's very own marina.

We know that some buyers like to look at the so called distressed properties which are made up of short sales and REO/Bank Owned Foreclosures, while others prefer to stay away from them and would prefer to look at regular non-distressed properties.

That is why we provide FREE lists based on the type of listing.

All lists are updated daily, and you can save the search, if you would like to be automatically emailed new listings along with price changes. You can also enter the price range you are interested in to show only the homes you are interested in.

We have Andalucia short sale lists for those looking for a nice discount and do not mind waiting an average 3 - 6 months to see if their offer is approved or not. Please note that sometimes there are short sales available, other times there are none. If you click on the link and there are no listings shown, it simply means there are no short sales at this time.

We also provide a list of Andalucia REO/Bank Owned Foreclosures for those interested in the discounts these homes provide. If you follow the link and no properties are shown, it merely means there are no REO/Bank Owned Foreclosures available at the time. Approvals on REO/Bank Owned Foreclosures often happen quickly, and the best ones will have multiple offers.

The third list is of all the non-distressed - regular sales with no short sales or foreclosures shown. This is the perfect list for those who are willing to pay extra for certainty and to avoid the issues involved with short sales and REO/Bank Owned Foreclosures. Many sellers know they must compete against the short sales and foreclosures and are therefore competitively priced.

And finally our fourth list is for those who want to see all homes, whether they are distressed properties (short sales & foreclosures), or regular sales (no short sales or foreclosures). Many buyers are interested in seeing all the homes that can be found in their price range. They may be willing to wait for the right short sale, but also realize the non-distressed properties can often be the best buy.

Is there another community you would like to get a FREE list for? Just email us atJeff@TampaHomeSpecialist.com with your request and we will be glad to send it to you.

And of course if you want us to do the work of finding your ideal home, give us a call. We are always happy to send you the listings that meet your criteria, and if you are from out of the area, we are always happy to preview the homes so your time is well spent while you are here by allowing you to see only the best homes.

We are here for all of your Tampa Real Estate needs.

Our Tampa office can be reached at 813-388-9253, while our Clearwater/St. Petersburg office can be reached at 727-238-5528.