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Window of Opportunity
As
anyone who's ever tried to sell
a house will tell you, bad
weather can definitely affect
your ability to sell a home. If
the weather is terrible, nobody
comes out to shop, nobody makes
offers, and sales numbers
fizzle.
Well, we've just witnessed
the "bad weather" impact on a
national scale. After three
straight months of steadily
rising home sales nationwide,
the stretch of stormy and frigid
weather that hit many parts of
the country in the early Spring
took a chunk out of home sales
numbers for the month -- they
were down by 8.4 percent.
The chief economist for
the National Association of
Realtors, Dr. David Lereah, said
the sharp decline was not a
total surprise. "For months," he
said, "we've been expecting a
weather 'hit' on home sales" --
and it finally arrived with a
Our Home Buyers
"PERFORMANCE"
Guarantee
Home
Buyers
Receive
1% of
the Sale
Price
Cash-Back
at
Closing.
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Metro Atlanta's Real
Estate Update for March 2007
Sales Down, Prices Up; But
Beware
There were 6,070 closings for
all single family in March. This
is a decline of 16.7% from March
2006, but only a decline of 5%
from March 2005. March 2006 was
a strong closing month and after
lags are reported we should
still be ahead of March 2005.
CONTINUED >>> |
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Mixed Messages For
Real Estate Buyers
It's
a great time to buy, says the National
Association of Realtors (NAR).
Alternatively, says NAR, existing home
prices in February 2007 were down 1.3
percent when compared with a year
earlier.
So can this really be a great time
to buy if home values are falling? The
answer is yes.
Increased real estate ownership is
a national goal which has produced
helpful and useful national policies.
For instance, we encourage homeownership
by tilting the tax system to favor
owners. As a property owner you can
write off property taxes, you can deduct
mortgage interest in most cases and when
you sell you can shelter profits of up
to $500,000 if married and $250,000 if
single from federal taxes. We do
these things because we believe that
ownership gives people a greater stake
in local communities and because owning
a home affords individuals a certain
ego, status and financial standing. We
also encourage ownership for a very
simple reason: Money. In addition to all
the good
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Counteroffer is Rejection
Of The Earlier Offer
A
counteroffer is a rejection of the offer
(or a previous counteroffer) to which it
is a response. This is an important
point for sellers to remember in this
"normal" market in which we now find
ourselves. Of course, it is an important
point for buyers to remember as well.
Imagine the following scenario:
The Smiths have had their home on
the market for about five months now.
When the property first came on the
market, both they and their agent agreed
that the property stood a chance of
fetching $625,000. It turned out that
they were wrong. After the first couple
of months of no buyer interest at all,
they dropped the price to $610,000. Now
it is it at $585,000, and they have yet
to have what seemed even a serious
offer. That is why they were pretty
excited about the offer on the table
Monday. The buyer had a good deposit;
there was no for-sale contingency; the
escrow period was agreeable; and the
buyer already pre-approved for a loan.
The only hitch was the price of
$565,000. The offer gave them seven days
to respond.
Actually, Mr. Smith confided with
his agent, the $565,000 was a price they
could live with -- they never had
counted on being in the $600,000s.
Still, though, they wanted as much as
they could possibly get -- who wouldn't?
-- so they made a written counter offer
of $575,000.
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Our Home
Sellers "PERFORMANCE"
Guarantee
Your
Home "SOLD AND CLOSED" in
120-Days or I Will Buy It.
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Consumers Want Digitally Tricked-Out Kitchens
A
new study reveals home owners want their
kitchen, not the home office or the game room,
to be the digital nerve center of the home, as
well as a social hub.
The finding was discovered after the
Internet Home Alliance commissioned research and
consulting firm Zanthus to determine how home
owners wanted to customize their kitchens.
The pollster put a host of questions to
602 home owners responsible for making household
purchasing decisions about kitchen appliances
and consumer electronics and the answers
surprised the alliance.
"While we expected to learn that the
kitchen continues to serve as the hub of the
home, we were surprised to find that
Daily News and Advice
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