Roxanne & Shannon Moore-Realtors, North Port FL

Five Essentials for Selling Your Home Without a Realtor

Selling a home in the current housing market is a tough thing to do, even with a competent Realtor. Selling a home on your own? Even harder! However, there are a lot of people out there who think that it’s a necessity to try and sell it themselves before hiring a Realtor, which is something I can understand. It’s simple economics for a homeowner to want to keep the 3% commission and try their hand at it first. If you’re in a real rush to sell, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you’ve got time to kill and want to try a FSBO (For Sale By Owner), there are some essential tips that you need to know. The Moore Team is here to help!

1. Clean, Straighten and Organize! Nobody wants to buy a dirty home, so try to look at your home as if you were a buyer. Compare your home to those in popular housekeeping and décor magazines and try to imitate the appeal. Sometimes things that aren’t costly can make a world of difference in the appearance of your home. Apply a fresh coat of neutral paint, especially in rooms that are seen when you first come into the home. Pressure wash the outside of your house for a fresher look. Use bleach and a scrub brush to remove mold and mildew stains from the driveway and porch for a nice curb appeal. Always be sure that your lawn is maintained so potential buyers know that the home has been well maintained since you’ve owned it. Inside the home, organization is key. You don’t want a cluttered look – this can make the home seem smaller than it actually is. Try straightening things and opening window shades so that when potential buyers see it, they are given an impression of open space and natural light. If you smoke or have pets, do all that you can to rid the home of odors, but DON’T use flowery room spray to cover the odor. Steam cleaning or shampooing the carpet helps remove odors, and Febreeze is the best temporary odor-remover on the market.

2. A GOOD Price. This can be hard to figure out without a Realtor by your side, but pricing your home comparable to other homes on the market is paramount to selling. If you overprice, potential buyers will think that you will not accept offers much lower and therefore will not even bother going to see it. We know that it can be hard, especially in this market, to price your home where it needs to be. Your home is a very personal thing, and often it is worth more to you than it is to someone else. Try to look at your home objectively: How old is it? How old is the roof? How old are the appliances? Does the home need repairs? How large is the yard? Is it in a good location? Does it have a pool? Is it waterfront? Is it in a gated or deed restricted community? These are all things that affect the price of a home quite a bit and should be taken into consideration when deciding on an asking price. Try to find out what other homes in the area have sold for in the past 3 months and compare your home to them. Don’t trust Zillow…in this consistently declining real estate market, Zillow has been consistently wrong at guessing the value of a home. Good try though, Zillow!

3. A GOOD Sign. Signs rarely attract buyers unless your home is located somewhere on a main road, but it is still important to have one. Make sure it’s a sturdy sign with a clearly written phone number on it. The sign should not be easily affected by rain, i.e. no cardboard boxes! You never know when one of your neighbors is trying to convince their cousin from New Jersey to move down – “…and a great house just went up for sale right down the street from me!”

4. Realbird.com. In this age of computer technology, the quickest and most obvious way to reach potential buyers is the internet. Realbird is a great tool for doing just that! A completely free site, Realbird allows you to create a website for your home that is complete with all the home’s details, plenty of photos and your contact information. What you do with the website is up to you – Realbird automatically distributes it to 12 or 15 syndicated home-search websites, but in addition you could post links to your website all over the internet. Facebook status: “Jane is selling her home. See it here: www.....” Myspace bulletin post: “I need to sell my house! Check it out here: www…..” The list goes on and on. Realbird makes it easy for you to distribute your own “home for sale” ad across the internet in as many different ways as possible, including…

5. Craigslist.com. A unique (and free!) tool that even the Realtors use, Craigslist is an international classified ads site that narrows the ads down by city. For no charge at all, you can use Craigslist to advertise pretty much anything under the sun (and we mean anything…check out their “free stuff” section!). The best way that I have found is to let Realbird do all the work for you – there is an option there to let it create a Craigslist ad for you, complete with all your home’s details, photos and your contact information. Then all you have to do is copy and paste the HTML code into a Craigslist ad and Voila! One thing to remember about Craigslist is this: when viewing classified ads, the most recent ads show up first. This means that you will want to repost your ad as often as possible. The catch is that Craigslist can detect if the ad you are trying to post is the same as another ad that hasn’t expired yet. There are many ways to “cheat” the Craigslist system, but…er…we’re certainly not recommending that! :)

One of the most important parts of trying to sell a home, whether you’re a Realtor or a FSBO, is being informed! It's important that you know that as far as getting your home sold, the MLS is the best tool there is. Realtors advertise everywhere possible but an astoundingly large percentage of home sales come from the MLS. Without the advantage of having your home on the MLS, you will have less activity and fewer buyers will see your home. Think about it from the buyer’s perspective: having a Realtor means having someone to do all the research and footwork for you and draw up all the contract paperwork properly and it doesn’t cost a dime. Why wouldn’t a buyer want a Realtor? Buyers working with Realtors aren’t shown FSBO’s…but they see hoards of homes listed in the MLS. So keep in mind that once you’ve run out of steam with your FSBO, call a Realtor that you trust and who knows the market like the back of their hand!

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Sarasota is a sunny city on the gulf coast of Florida. With its hip, trendy downtown lifestyle and renowned high-fashion boutiques, it is not known to have many cheap activities – let alone free ones! But I assure you that there are several things you can do in this Southwest Florida city that will put a smile on your face without emptying your wallet.

1. Go outside. Get out of the house and soak up some Vitamin C at Siesta Key, one of the state’s most beautiful beaches. Be careful not to soak up TOO much Vitamin C though; the sun’s rays can be harmful! Be prepared before you hit the sand…pack plenty of sunscreen and some water to keep you hydrated. If the beach isn’t your scene, try fishing from a pier, hiking through the woods on a trail or taking your favorite furry friend to one of the many dog parks!

2. Check out A. Parker’s Books in downtown Sarasota. A. Parker’s Books is a shop filled ceiling to floor with “scholarly, rare and antiquarian” books. You’ll spend more time here than you intended to; every corner you turn reveals another wall of old books for you to look through. The books are arranged by topic and then by author and there really is something for everyone in this quaint slice of heaven.

3. Visit the Ringling Museum of Art. You’re thinking, “Hey, wait a minute! I thought this was a list of FREE things to do!” Well, it is! Most people don’t know that per John Ringling himself, one day a week the Museum of Art is open to the public, free of charge! Regular admission prices apply if you want to see any of the other exhibits or buildings that the Ringling property has to offer, but visit on a Monday to see the priceless works of art in Mr. Ringling’s collection for free.

4. Taste some wine. A lot of people say that they don’t like wine – it’s either too bitter or too sweet. The fact of it is that they just haven't tasted the RIGHT wine! Why not head to St. Armand’s Circle at stop in at the St. Armand’s Gifts and Winery? They have so many wines to choose from that the flavors are dizzying. From watermelon to pina colada, you’re sure to find a wine that you adore. Now you can join the masses and enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

5. Check out the Selby Library. The Selby Library, located on 1^st Street in downtown Sarasota is renowned for its unique atmosphere and stunning architecture. Complete with a 3,200-gallon salt water aquarium and all the media you can handle, it’s easy to spend hours at the Selby Library.

There are a lot of homes for sale right now. Suffice it to say, if you are trying to sell yours, you need to keep in mind what you're competing with!

Case in point: 1150 Sheehand Blvd in Port Charlotte, Florida. In 2004, this home listed on the MLS for $325,000. In 2005, it sold for $299,000. Today, it is listed on the MLS for $139,900. That is almost a 50% drop in price from 2004. And if you are thinking that it's because the home located at 1150 Sheehand Blvd is shabby or run down, think again. The home has over 2500 square feet of living space, a 3-car garage, fireplace and even a pool!

Why is the price so low? Simply put, the owners stopped making payments on it and the bank took it over. The bank is willing to take a loss on it to free themselves from having to spend manpower and money on its upkeep. Foreclosure homes, like this one, have taken over the MLS like a cancer.

It's certainly something to keep in mind if you are trying to sell your home, or are thinking of doing so in the near future. There is no way to sell your home at a price that is at or above market value while there are still so many foreclosure homes on the market. What can you do about it? Well, if you absolutely must sell your home, you will have to take a loss on it. In order to get your home sold, it needs to be listed below market value. If you can wait until the market gets better, that would be ideal. It would benefit you as a homeowner to not take such a financial blow to sell your home.

Assuming you can afford it, the best senario is for you to take your home off the market and just wait to sell it, and also buy the home that you have been eyeing. The reason that this is the best thing you can do is two-fold:

1. You will be buying a home at an astronomically great value, and if you wait until the market comes back to sell your old home, you won't be losing money on it either. That means double the money in your pocket.

2. If your home is not on the market, that is at least one fewer homes saturating the market. As we all know, prices are based on supply and demand. Currently, the supply of homes for sale is greater than the demand so by taking your home off the market, you are doing your part to decrease the supply, thereby helping in a small way to improve market conditions. By buying the new home, you are decreasing the supply that much more and also helping a bank get rid of a foreclosure or helping a family sell their home.

If you must sell your home as soon as possible, you will need an agent to help you determine what the market value is for your home. To choose the best agent to help your price your home, you should ensure that they are VERY familiar with the area and its current market, familiar with real estate in general and on a local level and extensively experienced in foreclosures and real estate owned properties. The reason for this is that agents who specialize in dealing with foreclosure properties are the ones that advise the banks of what price to list these properties at, which is why they are selling so quickly.

If you are a buyer who is trying to acquire one of these foreclosure properties, it is very important to remember that the price the bank has put on it is fairly firm. The bank has taken an honest look at the property itself and what they are owed, as well as what they have put out and will need to put out for maintenance and upkeep. The figure that they have come up with is almost always a rock-bottom price that they know will attract attention and cause the home to sell very quickly. If you are serious about buying a foreclosure property, you should offer them NO LESS than the amount they are asking for. Very often, it turns into a bidding war and you should be prepared to make your highest and best offer almost immediately.

If you have questions about foreclosure or real estate owned (REO) properties, be sure to contact Roxanne and Shannon Moore at RE/MAX Anchor Realty. We're experts on the topic as we've worked with numerous banks and closed plenty of foreclosure properties in our careers and we would love to help you buy or sell a foreclosure home!

Call Roxanne & Shannon Moore at 941-626-3926 or 941-276-8142!

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With the rate of foreclosures and short sales being so high in our current market, I am continuously hearing about communities with HOA fees and the ways that they are working around all of the vacant homes in their neighborhood. For starters, a lot of the newer communities that haven't been fully completed are charging their homeowners for amenities that are "coming soon", but in this economy, and with so many empty homes in the community, it is a safe bet that homeowners could be waiting a long time for said amenities. I know specifically of two subdivisions in Sarasota that started development in 2006; one is supposed to have a community pool and the other is supposed to have community tennis courts. Both communities are charging HOA fees to their homeowners as if these things were already in place, but homeowners are paying for something they may never see.

Another thing to think about when buying a home in a community with HOA fees is whether or not there are enough residents to cover the costs of the community's upkeep. HOA fees are designed so that all the homeowners living in the community share the cost of extras such as street lights, street and sidewalk maintenance, a clubhouse and any entertainment amenities such as a community pool. When HOA fees are initially decided upon, the developer estimates how many homeowners there will be, thus creating a fee that homeowners can live with. What is happening now, since there are so many vacant homes, is that communities do not have the funding to continue their maintenance so they are either draining the saved money for highly important things like roof repairs or charging the remaining homeowners much higher HOA fees to cover for the loss.

When a community's roofing funds are low, there is no way for the community to provide new roofs, nor repair leaks as they occur. This is a severe problem. There are condo units in Sarasota with such bad roof problems that the subsequent leaks have causes the interior of the vacant condo units to become infested with mold and mildew...another awful thing that home buyers should be aware of.

When the only way to fix these problems is for more homes to be occupied, one must wonder how long things like this could take. The scariest part for many homeowners is the fact that, any day, their HOA fees could skyrocket by 10%, 25% or even higher to cover the cost of the homes that have been foreclosed on or that are undergoing a short sale.

Here are some things you can do to make sure that this doesn't happen to you:

1. Get exact figures on how much money is currently in the roof reserves.

2. Figure out what the ratio is of empty to occupied homes in the community. If it is mostly occupied, you are much better off. If there are several vacant homes springing up already, be on the lookout. If the community has more "for sale" signs than any other, beware!

3. Don't agree to pay HOA fees for invisible amenities, especially if the above precautions have alerted you to a community that is hurting for funding already. That community pool they promised you may be another 10 years in the making or, it may never get there at all!

For more information, feel free to contact Roxanne and Shannon Moore at RE/MAX Anchor Realty! 941-276-8142

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~Southwest Florida Green Thumb: A Guide to Gardening in Southwest Florida~

I do not know a ton about gardening or horticulture, so I’m no expert. However, I keep hearing people say that most green thumbs turn brown here in Southwest Florida. It seems to me that most of Southwest Florida is pretty green, and I see a lot of absolutely breathtaking lawns and landscaping, so I decided to dig a little deeper and consult a few professional’s websites on the subject. You’ll be glad to know that green thumbs can thrive in Southwest Florida! The truth is that you just have to educate yourself a little on the climate and types of soil we have here.

When you think of “soil”, sand probably doesn’t come to mind. But in Southwest Florida, sand is one of the prominent soil types and if you hope to have a thriving green thumb, learning how to turn sand into an ideal growing medium is necessary. In case you’re a non-expert, like me, sand is not great for plants because it has no nutritional value and water passes right through it. So how do you counteract this? Area experts say that the best thing to do with sand is mix an equal amount of organic matter in with it. What happens is that the organic matter sort of overtakes the sand, and makes it more of a suitable soil in which your plants should do well. Be sure to add organic matter to the sand annually to ensure a replenishing amount of nutrients.

Now that your sand has been effectively turned into soil, you will want to decide what to plant. There are certain types of plants that thrive in Southwest Florida more than others. Due to long periods of drought that Southwest Florida endures sometimes, most plants that thrive here are plants that can do well in full sunlight with minimal water. However, if you’ve got a personal flower garden or a potted plant that you plan on taking care of more specifically, feel free to choose just about anything tropical! Because of the heat, anything in direct sunlight will not stay moist for long so if you are choosing a plant that enjoys full sun and constantly moist roots, it would be advisable to get some kind of automatic watering machine.

If you’re looking for a hedge or shrub to plant in your yard, there are plenty of options other than palm varieties (although those are hardy and beautiful). Common hedges and shrubs in Southwest Florida are plants such as Seagrape, Buttonwood and Pittosporum. If you’re under the impression that it is hard to get flowering plants to bloom in Southwest Florida, you should check into plants like bromeliad and oleander, which will bloom beautifully and keep their blooms for most of the year. Most types of lilies will grow here as well, and most are perfectly happy in full sun. Aloe, begonias and impatients are also plants that will grow with a little work in Southwest Florida.

The important thing to remember about the climate is that the magic word is “tropical”! Anything that says it grows in a tropical climate should work just fine in Southwest Florida. The plant life in Southwest Florida is unique and colorful and allows any green thumb to create a beautiful array of plant life.