Does ‘For Sale by Owner’ Work?
September 6, 2011 by
Jesse
Filed under
FAQs, Fun Information, Selling
Maybe. But in this economy, it’s tough. Just ask the owner of a ‘For Sale by Owner’ company that hired a Realtor to sell his poperty.
Founder of “for sale by owner” site calls in broker to get the job done
Mr. Sambrotto apparently spent six months trying to sell his fancy digs himself before turning to a broker. Jesse Buckler, the broker that Sambrotto hired, increased the price and managed to attract multiple offers before selling the apartment for $2.15 million, $150,000 more than the asking price.
“$150,000 more than the asking price.” I think that answers that question.
The McCoy Case Analyzed – MERS Smackdown! | Q-Law Blog
There is a very interesting thing going on behind the foreclosure mess – MERS. MERS stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration System and was a system concocted to make it easy to transfer a mortgage from one company to another, without having to record it at the county. Problem is, the law in most states requires that it be recorded to be valid. Oops.
“…the powers accorded to MERS by the Lender [whose name appears in the Trust Deed] – with the Borrower’s consent – cannot exceed the powers of the beneficiary. The beneficiary’s right to require a non-judicial sale is limited by ORS 86.735. A non-judicial sale may take place only if any assignment by [the Lender whose name appears in the Trust Deed] has been recorded.”
[Frank R. Alley III, Chief Bankruptcy Judge, published opinion, Donald McCoy III v. BNC Mortgage, et al., Adversary No. 10-6224 -fra, Case No. 10-63814-fra-13, February 7, 2011]
Slapdown! In a relatively uncomplicated adversary proceeding in Oregon’s bankruptcy court, Judge Alley hit the nail squarely on the head: If lenders in Oregon want to foreclose people out of their homes, they must follow ORS 86.735(1). Or in the words of one Oregon title counsel, Judge Alley’s decision means that “…all assignments behind a MERS trust deed must be recorded for a non-judicial foreclosure. In McCoy, it appeared there were unrecorded assignments by the original lender identified in the promissory note. A “beneficiary” in Oregon is defined as the entity or person identified in the trust deed as the one for whose benefit the trust deed is given (or their successor in interest) – that was not MERS, but rather the original lender making the actual loan to the borrower.
For some reason, this relatively simple requirement has been routinely and flagrantly ignored in virtually every non-judicial foreclosure I have reviewed last year and this year. I suspect if I went back to 2008 and 2009, I would see the same thing. And this holding isn’t confined to situations in which MERS is the (nominal) beneficiary.
Read the rest of the story at The McCoy Case Analyzed – MERS Smackdown! | Q-Law Blog.
Does price per square foot matter?
A great little article from Spencer Barron’s blog in Denver. If you need to buy or sell in Denver, Spencer is your go to guy!
Only to the lender. I should qualify that a bit. In a true apples to apples neighborhood in the suberbs, the price per square foot (PSF) of the comparable sold homes matter. Especially to the lender who will be lending on it. They need metrics like this in order to explain to shareholders why they lent the money.
Builders use price per square foot for an area to help project their potential profits compared to their cost to build.
Investors can screen neighborhoods for homes that are significantly below the average price per square foot for the neighborhood.
For you and I. We need to be more specific. One way is a comparative market analysis or CMA.
There is one certainy though, to determine the value of a property, you can’t simply take the square footage and multiply it by the area’s PSF or even the comparable home’s PSF. It’s just not going to get you where you want to go.
As an example, I once met a man that built a massive addition on the back of his house. He added over 2000 square feet (SF) to his home. He then did the calculation; my home is 3400SF X $200 PSF = $680,000. Unfortunately, he simply added massive rooms without any appeal to them. He added only one jack and jill style bathroom for the 2000 SF he added. That was supposed to be a shared master bath. Needless to say, buyers didn’t see it and had a 100 other options for under $680,000 that were superior.
He ended up selling for $385,000 or $113 per SF. For him, using price per square foot to determine his value sent him down the wrong path by more than 40%.
via Does price per square foot matter?.
Value of a Sink
Do home improvements increase the value of your home? Well, it depends. Teresa Boardman of Saint Paul Home Realty wrote a great post about it:
Sometimes I get asked questions I can not answer and I suspect no one else can either.
Making improvements to a home can increase it’s value but . . there is always a but. . not all improvements have a measurable return on investment and there are variables. For example spending 100K on a new kitchen in a $120,000 home does not make that home worth $220,000. Home values have limiting factors like location and size. It is possible that no matter how many improvements are made to the $120,000 home it can only be brought on value by another $30,000.
For small improvements like the sink just pick out the one that you like best. A sink is not going to impact the value of a home. Unless of course there is no sink in that case buyers will want about 500% the cost of a sink taken off the price of the house.
In an upper bracket home with a high end kitchen the sink may matter but it has been my experience that the people who buy those homes usually don’t have a problem with buying that perfect sink.
The same rules apply to kitchen appliances and washers and dryers.
via will the sink affect my resale value.
What is a Short Sale?
I still get this question all the time, even though short sales are a common thing in the Portland Metro Area. So I thought I would answer it in my blog so that all of you searching for home (and possibly selling a home) will have the correct information.
Short Sale: A Definition
Simply put, a short sale is when a homeowner is trying to sell a home when he owes more on the mortgage than the home is worth. The homeowner (seller) is going to ask the bank to take loss, in an attempt to forgo the foreclosure process.
Let’s look at an imaginary scenario to explain it further. Let’s say that homeowner Smith bought his home in 2005 for $300k. He took out one of those 100% loans that were the rage back then. Well, things were going fine until he got laid off 6 months ago. And he hasn’t been able to find a job since. Mr. Smith’s savings are dwindling fast so he has decided to sell his home. To make matters worse, the value of the homes in his neighborhood (and most of the city) have gone down 20%. His Realtor told him he could only get $240k for his home right now.
Mr. Smith owes a little under $300k and can only sell his home for $240k. Mr. Smith will put his home for sale as a short sale and try to get the bank to take payment in full for $240k.
Will the bank take the short payoff? The short answer is: it depends. See my next post to get the long answer and why I never recommend short sales to my buyers.
