Loving your Listing

How difficult is it to sell your listing in today’s market? Be it a million dollar mansion or ‘just’ a one in a million condo…you want to sell it, and sell it fast if you may. However, to make things happen…there are many hurdles to clear–and you just have to love that listing!

I dare you to click that LISTING tab, and you’ll see one of the cleanest and most well-kept condo in the heart of Santa Ana, California. It’s close to SA Civic Center and is centrally located with access to nearby freeways: 5, 22, 57, 55, or 405 (which means it’s just a short distance from South Coast Plaza). It’s Location, Location, and More! Everyone is welcome, but First-time Homebuyers, this is your chance to have a spacious 3-bedroom/2-bath 1,234 sq. ft. recently remodelled home. It’s ready for you to move-in FAST! STANDARD SALE! Don’t forget to check the pictures under LISTING (tab above).

I’ll let the pictures showcase our precious listing: (ON HOLD FOR APPROXIMATELY 3 WEEKS–as of 9/27/10) and it will be waiting for a special person or family to call it HOME. Home where the heart is–and the family gathers!

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UPDATE: 3/19/2011

This listing finally sold on March 12, 2011. We had gone through a long process…and price changes that I thought we’ll never be able to sell it. Then the last price point for cash buyer worked out, and in 2 weeks we closed escrow. This was an exhausting mental trek that started–of all the date to start our first listing–September 11, 2010! Then barely a week had gone by, and we had to put it on HOLD as the family was coming to stay with the seller.

The projected date to put it back on the market dragged on…December 3, she was ready to restart the MLS! Dead month…luckily, Christmas was there to keep us merry and bright. January came, and we had 2 offers…very interested FHA first-time home buyers. In short, not without problems…appraisal is a killer when you have no room to lower your price without being hit by the contribution to the  buyer’s closing cost. From $225K to $200K–then with offers of $213K and $215K–the seller settled for a price change of $200K for cash buyers. We were a little bit short from the mark, but we made it through!

Originally posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

 

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Window of Opportunity

No doubt this unpredictable market is different for everyone. It makes sense to be cautious when everything in your life is uncertain; it makes sense to be a little bolder in risking all you’ve got if there’s nothing to lose. And there’s  more in between! This window of opportunity is like having the planets align once in a lifetime. What Window of Opportunity? Let’s see…when was the last time Low Interest Rate aligned with Favorable Housing Market, Helpful Program Assistance (FHA, etc), and a few other things to consider.

1. It’s a market for First-time Home Buyers. With FHA’s qualifying standard–3 1/2 % DOWN PAYMENT and 620 FICO score (or lower with varying circumstances), wouldn’t you equate this with subprime loan? From my email, I just got the info from Gary, BFC Home Mortgage Consultant based in our Anaheim office, that “FHA  is lowering the MI Up Front Premium and increasing the annual (monthly) mortgage insurance premium…effective with case numbers assigned on or after October 4, 2010”–in short, if you’re renting $750/mo and you can OWN a  condo…wouldn’t it make sense  to BUY if there’s some certainty in your life? Granting you’ll pay HOA…but you’ll have the tax break, etc. etc. For more of the home-buying process, visit Gary at www.homeloans.com/loans/gary-deloach  …he surely could explain it better than me!

2. It’s a market for Equity Sellers, too. Do you have equity in your home? Maybe your mortgage payment is so low it would make sense to rent it out and be in a place you really want to be–your dream home just got more affordable. Wait a minute…ask yourself–am I ready to become a landlord/landlady? The possibilities are endless…and they all come with RISKS. Don’t Investors take risks? At this market? ALSO: with the lower market value, the taxes in your dream home will also be lower.

3. The Distressed Market–Short Sale, Deed-in-Lieu, Foreclosure, Bankruptcy! Things happen in our life, and we have to deal with them as best we could. There are more options now than in 2008 and 2009 when there were more Foreclosures than Short Sales. I don’t need to look at the statistics to see that there are more Short Sales than Foreclosures in 2010. It may seem to be the path of least resistance to just walk away without really thinking of the tax consequences, or the Second Mortgages…only to find out that they don’t really disappear. Purchase money may be easy to forgive, but 2nd or 3rd mortgages may have been sold to collection agencies that could follow anyone relentlessly. I will not go into details, but Short Sale has a lot more advantages, especially with the HAFA-Help Is On The Way. Should I then say…it’s a market for Short Sales? Wouldn’t Short Sale be a better option when you can possibly buy another house in 2 years? Would that be too far from affordability?

Generally, today’s lower rates translate into comparatively lower purchase costs. Ultimately…discuss tax and legal aspects with your accountant or lawyer because your situation is unique to you. Arm yourself with information as you don’t want to miss that window of opportunity…if and when it opens up to you.

 

Originally posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

$1000 American Express Contest–3rd Quarter

First Team is very supportive of its agents, and the marketing department  provides us with numerous downloadable marketing pieces among others. Here’s the original Q3 AmEx Contest O-Flyers which I modified to cut down on cost when my husband and I distribute them to our Farm area. Cutting down on graphics is always my first target when we print our own flyers such as this one — Q3 AmEx Contest F-Flyers.

Below is the enlarged CONTEST RULES from the original contest flyers for ease of reading and information purposes only, and not meant as any interpretation or deliberate changes in layout or other perceived discrepancies. Note: If it gets too dificult for the color to read, highlight the text with your cursur. I still can’t find a more suitable theme or format.

$1000 American Express Contest Rules:

 1) GENERAL: NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY. Promotion begins at 12:01 a.m. (PST) on 7/01/2010 and ends at 5:00 p.m. (PST) on 9/30/2010. 

2) TO ENTER: Print your name, address, city, state, zip code, phone number, and email address on the official Sweepstakes entry form. Mail to the address printed on the entry form. Mail-in entries must be received by 9/30/2010. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for lost, late, misdirected, postage due entries or mail or for any computer, online, telephone, or human error or any technical malfunctions that may occur. All entries become the property of the Sponsor and will not be returned. 

3) PRIZE: (1) Grand Prize: American Express gift card with retail value of $1,000. Odds of winning will depend upon the number of eligible entries received.

 

4) WINNER SELECTION: Winner will be selected in a random drawing on or about 10/04/10 from among all eligible entries received. Decisions of judges are final. Odds of winning will depend upon the number of eligible entries received. 

5)  ELIGIBILITY: This sweepstakes is open only to legal residents of the United States. 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Void in Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law. Employees of First Team Real Estate and their respective affiliates, parent companies, subsidiaries, promotion, advertising and promotional agencies and immediate family members of each are not eligible to enter.

 6) GENERAL CONDITION: Sweepstakes entrants agree to be bound by the terms of these official rules. The laws of the United States govern this Sweepstakes. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. By entering, participants release and hold harmless sponsor and their respective subsidiaries, affiliates, directors, officers, prize suppliers, employees and/or agents from any and all liability or any injuries, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Sweepstakes or acceptance or use of any prize won.

 7) WINNER’S NAME: To receive name of the winner by mail, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: First Team Real Estate, 3150 Bristol St., Suite 500, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Requests received after 9/30/2010 will not be fulfilled.

 

Originally posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Printing Supplies OnLine

Marketing your business or your service can be challenging, especially if you’re on a budget. Even as basic as flyers, they can still be expensive. Forget going to the copy centers where you would go to grab a copy or 2 for your emergency use. So, for our first try…I defaulted to my inkjet printer. What a lesson to learn! It’s not meant even for just 600 copies back-to-back, no matter how I downgraded to black/white for the back calendar…or make the picture smaller. I didn’t want to count the number of times I went to the store. That first week we finally got our first flyers out to that chosen area we call Our Farm. There’s no way our printer would print right again as it grabs a handful of pages.

Trek to the stores to find a cheaper laser printer. We thought we found one as advertised…only to get to the store and find it out of stock and discontinued. We ended up getting the wireless version, just because Samsung CLX-3175FW still has the cheapest ink toners and the easiest to install. There’s also a price guarantee for a month…not that we rely on it but we hope we’ll get something back. And we did! A week later with the Memorial holiday…they lowered the price, and we got back $149 out of the $399. Luck for once worked! So far, we’re surviving with it…but still expensive.

Trying to find more deals, I searched on line and found a few cheaper once but not enough to convince me when I factor in possible delivery time and shipping. However, a week ago we found a $10 jump in the ink prices at the store, and $40 for all colors is a chunk of money I’m not willing to let go. I went back searching on line for almost half day, and I narrowed down to my top 4 with Amazon and buy.com somewhere up there. When I noticed that Amazon ships from buy.com, I decided to go straight to buy.com–both have free shipping. Of course…being my first time to use a shopping cart on line, I encountered more technical difficulties (or doubts!). Final decision: ship overnight, 2 days, or 5days+? Instant gratification would cost me more, so I opted to wait. Lo and behold! 24 hours later, FedEx unexpectedly came knocking. My husband informed me I must have checked the Express delivery. Did I? Nope! It said $00 for shipping…and it said my order qualifies for next day delivery. Wow, now I’m hooked. Same thing happened today when I ordered the black value pack yesterday…it came at 2pm. Thank goodness I was too cheap to pay for the next day delivery; my ink was delivered next day anyway…or I never would have known!

For now, I’m a happy camper! Cheap happiness…all I can afford for now. Maybe Samsung or buy.com will send me complimentary supply for this, and I’ll be happier.

Originally posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Annual Credit Report

It was intriguing to listen to this old gentleman–I am old but he’s older–talking about something that did not interest me before, but now I have to learn by trade. From credit history to credit checks…FICO SCore was born. How important it is to each one of us may differ, but we can’t ignore it at all from the ‘plastic’ world of our everyday existence to the ‘concrete walls’ of our dreams–we are measured according to our FICO Scores. Where art thou Fair Isaac? I need the favor of your COmpany… Or my life is Gloomed and Doomed! I’ll just get you started from my own kaleidoscopic view–and tread with extreme caution.

 Start your credit education from these valuable Information Resources:

            www.myfico.com  FICO, the Score that Matters™.

            https://www.annualcreditreport.com  AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site to help  consumers  to obtain their free credit report.  

Be careful…if you happen to somehow remember and type myannualreport or just annualreport instead of annualcreditreport , it will be a completely different world of FREE…but not really…How many have read something similar to the following example?

               IMPORTANT INFORMATION

                   When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple Advantage^®  Credit Monitoring. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period, you will be billed $19.95 for each month that you continue your membership.

              ConsumerInfo.com, Inc. and FreeCreditReport.com are not affiliated with the annual free credit report  program. Under a new Federal law, you have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies. To request your free annual report under that law, you must go to www.annualcreditreport.com.

Or something like this:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: 
               When you order your $1 Credit Report & Score, you will begin your 7-day trial membership in Triple  Advantage®. If you don’t cancel your membership** within the 7-day trial period, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership. You may cancel your trial membership anytime within the  trial period without charge.

 Ask yourself many many questions…are they offering me credit report or credit score? Which one do I need? Why do I need one???? Are they really free? Have you heard of FAKU score? (Fake what?) Google will even ask you…Do you mean FAKKU? (Why?) It’s a confusing world of credit-what-and-what-nots!

 

Originally Posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Straight From My Email

I have all kinds of reminders in my email and I think these are good things to share. I couldn’t say these in a better way!  The tax incentive has expired, and this news couldn’t have come at a better time to hopefully continue the buying momentum that’s somewhat slowing down. What else could a buyer ask with the interest so low? Why the HOA, too? FHA has a revised guideline that includes allowing buyers to pay sellers’ accumulated HOA monthly dues during the selling process, which could be a deterent in buying condos–just my 2cents logic. Everyone wants this economy to get better….There are just too many holes to seal. Keeping up with the changes is certainly an exercise of Patience.

 

 “The Opening Doors program is available to any qualified buyer who purchases a property located in PWR’s jurisdiction, which represents 26 cities in Central/Northern Orange County and the Southeast Los Angeles County.

 

Including:

Anaheim/Anaheim Hills, Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, Garden Grove, La Habra/La Habra Heights, La Mirada, La Palma, Lakewood, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Norwalk, Orange, Pico Rivera, Placentia, Rossmoor, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Signal Hill, Stanton, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, Whittier, and Yorba Linda.

PWR Opening Doors…

Did you know qualified first-time homebuyers working with a PWR REALTOR®, can receive up to $7,500 to assist with the down payment on the purchase of their first home.  Applications are now being accepted!! 

Did you know qualified first-time homebuyers working with a PWR REALTOR®, can receive up to $250 a month for a total of $3,000 in assistance towards the monthly home owners association dues for the first 12 after they purchase a home.  Applications are now being accepted!!  …”

I wanted to give the direct link but I’m not sure about the membership privileges…so for more info,  just google PWR.

 

Originally posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

What’s going on? Yesterday I was starting to get pleased with the theme I have for my blog. I finally got to find out how to change my title, and it seemed I had the picture I wanted to stay on the home page. I didn’t realize the second post I did was still in draft when I came back here today. So…let it be published! Lo and behold…my picture is gone! This is not the problem I want to deal with right now!

Closing Escrow in a Week

Closing escrow in a week?!  As new Realtors…my husband and I could only dream this…especially if I keep sitting on my A$$ blogging instead of walking…KNOCKING doors in our farming territory. I’m just postponing the inevitable–as our managers said…we need that face time if we want returns on investment.

Four months of training (there’s so much to learn), distributing flyers (we need face recognition…we’re not burglars), building websites (now blogging –we need exposures), and what nots! We need some reality check in breaking the bank…no, no, no…I did not say ‘breaking into a bank’ though it feels that way sometimes.  😦 ):

To delay that door-to-door contact, my husband had been very good in searching for possible Open Houses even as far as an hour drive to San Bernardino. No LEADS so far, just MISleads and MISSleads! I’m starting to lose my sense of humor. We keep telling ourselves we don’t mind going far…it’s a first-hand look at the market out there. Who are we kidding? So when we found one First Team listing agent close to our farming area, we were delighted to contact him. When he said, he will ask the owner…we were hopeful!

A week or so–just now as I was blogging–my husband contacted the listing agent again, and I heard “That’s great!”…I had the not-great-for-us feeling. True enough…that house on Trevor Street sold in a week! A cash buyer walked in, and escrow closed in a week! What a dream if we could have one that way. Indeed…a lost dream of having an Open House close to our farm where we can invite the neighbors. Now, we should practice our KNOCKtiquette!

 

Originally Posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Historic Low on Interest Rate

How low can we still go? You tell me! Why isn’t everyone jumping for joy? Do we see a barrage of people rushing to buy houses either? The pendulum swung to the furthest end that even first-time home buyers are still scared to take the first plunge in a shallow pool…even when they can see the bottom. There are still  multiple programs coming up faster than we could find them, even DP and HOA assistance–as there are ever-changing guidelines. This market has somehow leveled the playing field as all Realtors have to learn new terms from HAMP to HAFA…and more. Even SHORT Sales have the LONGest time to wait.

If we look back, we will find that buying a house is always a struggle…like reaching for a dream no matter what unless we’re one of the privileged few. My 83 year-old neighbor, who is now sitting pretty (from my neighborly perspective) on a fully paid house as I struggle with the bursting bubble of my dream, had told me how difficult it was for them to come up with the down payment. Then, every month they would ‘skimp and scrimp’ to make ends meet. They had seen The Great Depression, too…and they survived it! I am not sure what was Great about that Depression when we dread to see it in our time. In her stories, I only envisioned the greatness in her! I still believe in the resilience of the human race.

In the 1930s when they bought their house in Anaheim, it was only an amazing $24K. It had reached more than half a million during the recent market bubble. As a Realtor now, inspired by the collapse of the real estate market, the under $10K  sign was floating before my very eyes for that house when it was first constructed in the 1950s. Where was I then? I must had been in First Grade half-way around the world.

It doesn’t matter anyway…the cycle of life will always be the same. We can’t see the future, and there will always be something that we will be afraid of doing. Rightly so…as we continue to struggle. Fear has a paralyzing effect, and it could let opportunity pass anyone by. It’s never a right time or a wrong time to buy a home, but it has to be right for you! The market could be different for everyone.

 

Originally Posted @ https://xzyllar.wordpress.com

Hello Real Estate World!

A house by the lake in the South Coast Metro Area

Welcome to my New World of Real Estate! I’m not sure yet how or where to take this blog…one thing for sure, I (and my husband) have to be out there. It’s a difficult time for real estate, and why do we have to be in the middle of this chaos?

By way of introducing, visit us at www.xzyllardrums.com/RealEstateHome and we’d appreciate hearing from you. We are based in Anaheim, California and working with First Team Real Estate ready to serve with your real estate needs. When in the Philippines, or just want to know about the Philippines–either planning to include it in your travel one day or actually considering moving there, let Fairview Apartments be your Home as it would be mine one day. My husband and I are excited to retire around my Filipino family…hopefully soon! Meanwhile, you might want to visit our home in the Philippines when you want us to cater to your Metro Manila needs. Ask us and we might be able to provide it. Check us out at http://zylla3.wordpress.com which I have neglected for a while.