Atlanta Real Estate Blog - Jarvis

If you asked me on any day before October 21st about Twitter, I would tell you what my opinion was:

"Twitter is a news feed.  It's great for news, PR and corporate entities.  It's not worth a Real Estate Agent's time to be on there unless they are researching opinions, ect. Interactions are weak, it's like having coffee pot conversations on the net.  Pretty useless interactions, good to have your blog automate postings to it."

I stand corrected today.  As of October 21st, Google & Bing have decided to INDEX twitter posts!

That doesn't mean you should go and sign up for Twitter without a plan just yet.  I wanted to give you a game plan.  Twitter just became relevant (to me) but it's still a place where time can be wasted in the bunches!

1. When you tweet use key words - Atlanta Real Estate for example- there's a new SEO component to tweeting.  I expect less relevant content and more keyword loading.
   
2. Be mindful of who you follow and who follows you - there's a blogroll of sorts - which essentially means that there are links that link to you and who you follow.  So if MadCrazyMan is following you, you may get a link on his page, but if you are following him... then guess what you might have a link back to him.  Think about a client viewing your twitter account and seeing a link to MadCrazyMan...
   
3. Start using #group functions - so you can be in all the relevant conversations.
4. Make sure your TWEETS are content based to maximize them - the now age old adage of bringing value. 
5. Twitter "Titles" have a huge impact now... what are Twitter Titles?  That's another post, but basically it's the first few characters of the tweet.  Ex: Twitter /Joshua Javis: This is the title that will get indexed...
6. For you twitter pros out there, you might want to take #5 into context and SCRUB your Retweets to be front loaded with the content you want indexed.
7. If you are lost, but want to get into tweeting, just bring content and be real, just like any other social media.
   
8. Tools like SocialOomph can help you schedule tweets so that it doesn't feel like spamming the network.
   

On Monday, my real estate office had an event called Callapalooza.  We had free food and sponsors put up prizes including a 42" TV.  The event was a great success in my mind and there was a buzz in the air.  We took some market share by doing this.  Let's not get too hung up on the fact that one commission check usually can buy two 42" TVs. 

AHA's!

An AHA! is where you are doing something or seeing something and you think "AHA! I've got it."  The "AHA" that the agenst got is that the PHONE WORKS (as long as you operate it properly). Several agents found out on Monday after being nearly forced to make phone calls that when you dial the numbers on the phone sometims someone will answer.  You can then talk to them about Real Estate and sometimes get business!!!

Out of 20 people we had 98 appointments! Many of those appointsments (mine included) were same day so folks could have been calling all day for more appointments!

What I love is that it shows what Keller Williams is SUPPOSED to be about!  20 competitor helping each other achieve their goals!

Hamilton Mill in Dacula, GA is still on of the most sought after neighborhoods in Gwinnett County.  With 97 Hamilton Mill Homes For Sale, there's a lot to choose from.

There's quite a bit of activity but if you know me, let's just get to the facts....

• 97 Homes for sale
  • 15 OF THOSE ARE SHORT SALES!
    
  • High $1.1 Million
  • Low $209K  - WHAT A DEAL!!
• Average Pending / Under Contract Home for Sale is $317K
• Since June, 28 homes have sold.
  • List Price of Homes that sold: $310K On Average
  • Sale Price: $295K
  • Only 91 Days on Market.
  • ONLY 2 SHORT SALES SOLD DURING THIS TIME! 

A few other things is that most of the short sales are listed by agents who haven't closed 1 short sale... ever.  In fact, there are numerous listings that are short sales but have incorrect wording putting the agent and home owner at risk!

The deals are outstanding and inventory is moving.  This is a great time to move up or move in!

Trilogy Park homes for sale located in Hoschton, GA are on the rise, but the news is good and bad.

Here's the numbers:

• 17 Homes For Sale - Average Sales Price $318K
• 6 Homes Are Pending/ Under Contract - Average List Price - $273K
• ALL UNDER CONTRACT/ PENDING HOMES ARE RESALES! (GOOD NEWS!)
  
• 5 Homes have sold since June 1st, only one of them was a new home. (GOOD NEWS!)
  
• Average SOLD home in Trilogy $273K (Not a coincidence!)
  
• Highest SOLD price in the neighborhood since 6/1 was listed at $329K and sold for $320K

AND THE FINAL STAT THAT IS THE MOST EYE OPENING TO ME!

• Average Price of homes that have failed to sale in Trilogy Park... $338K

That means, if you want to sell your home in Trilogy Park, you'd better be paying attention.

Join The Trilogy Park Facebook Fan Page & Group!

Foreclosures in Barrow & Jackson Counties rose in September. Barrow County topped 205 for the month of September making it the third highest month ever.  Year to date in Barrow County, there's been 1,595 foreclosure actions.  Cities like Winder are noticing the inventory increase. 

In Jackson County, the new monthly record is now set at 150 for September.  Total foreclosures for the year in Jackson is up to 1,053, already more than all of last year. 

I've been working internet leads for over 7 Years.  I can remember starting with HomeGain when sitting in front of computer was about all it took to talk to a live body. Who can forget Advance Access?  Their templates are still the same!  Whatever works for you, I guess. 

A few months back there was a particular agent that came out and said that the "back to basics" message was dead.  The "List to Last" mantra was tired.  The Millionaire Real Estate Agent Model, Leads, Listings and Leverage... old hat.   I wonder what that agent is doing now?  Probably doing well ... as a speaker or trainer but I doubt they are selling much real estate.

Let me get back to the topic.  Doing internet leads for 7 years gives me a certain degree of comfort on the subject.  See you get to talk to eager clients and help them find a home.  This is really an awesome concept.  Most of the internet buyers I have helped (well over 100) I've had great experiences walking them through the process.

Unfortunately, there's this little thing called conversion ration.  See, I had to call and TALK TO about 25 folks for that to pan out into a closing.  My numbers may be bad, I'm really a better rambler than I am a salesperson.  In any case, out of 100 leads, I might talk to 25 with one closing.  Those are loose numbers.   What about the closings, on average the internet buyer is 8 months out.  

I love these, because my nature is to nurture, but in the industry, these type of leads, while pure gold is called C or D leads (8 to 12 months, will by sometime leads).

I know, I hooked you with the goofy title, but here's the punchline.  Internet leads are GRAVY!  You can generate a ton of interenet leads for free you just need one thing!  LISTINGS!   Funny how that works.  What are buyers looking for on the internet.... one guess ... LISTINGS.  Do you think they care about how many followers you have on Twitter? So are you better off working C and D leads or are you better working the leads that call or email off of specific listings?  My stats say the latter.

Oh, and the Biscuit is the Listing!  If you price it right, you get one sale.  In this market I can generate 5 qualified buyers. If I want internet leads, I just need to market the listings... Funny how that works.

I now have over 30 short sale listings and more buyers than I can handle vs the previous 7 years with 1 to 5 listings and having to call 100 people a day.

I've been doing this so long, in my opinion the wrong way.  I can't believe all this time I've been working the gravy when THERE WAS A BISCUIT UNDER THERE THE WHOLE TIME!

If you're in Real Estate at all, then you know that the Residential market has nearly bottomed.  Don't get me wrong, it'll be there for a few years.  Short Sales and foreclosures are here to stay.  If you are in Gwinnett County then you know there's been a fun ride of highs and lows in every neighborhood.

Commercial Real Estate is expected to see the same roller coaster, but even more intense in the next few quarters.

Despite a pick up in sales, commercial real estate prices posted a record drop in the second quarter, according to an index developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate.

With an 18.1 percent drop, the index, which tracks commercial property sold by major institutional investors, is now down 22 percent year-to-date, 32 percent from a year ago and down 39 percent from its mid-2007 peak, according to the report released on Monday.

"The big news this quarter is not just the magnitude of the drop, but the fact that transaction volume actually increased in the presence of this decline, the first volume increase since last summer," David Geltner, director of research at MIT/CRE, said in a statement.

"Perhaps most important, the supply-side index of the prices property owners are willing to sell at plunged a record 18.5 percent, suggesting a degree of 'capitulation' that may help to finally bring market prices to a bottom. The decline in nominal terms is far greater than the 27 percent drop the in the previous major commercial property downturn in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Adjusting for inflation, both periods are now tied at a 41 percent decline. The downturn in commercial real estate, as marked by the index, also is greater than the collapse in U.S. housing prices, which are off 30 percent, the report said. The 18.1 percent decline was the steepest in the index's 25 year history, far greater than the former record -- a 10.6 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Gwinnett Daily Post wrote a small article today about the Squillance family and how more and more people are deciding to make the move to a "active" adult community.  While these are popular in Florida there are very few communities like this in the Metro Atlanta area.  The most popular community, Village At Deaton Creek, is not only the most popular Active Adult Community, but it's the most popular, best selling community in Georgia, period.

"It was very, very easy for me (to leave)," Squillace said. "It was more difficult for my wife."

So he and his wife Elayne sold their home in the Connemara subdivision in Snellville and moved to Hoschton. There, they settled in The Village At Deaton Creek, a subdivision for senior lifestyles, leaving behind the home in which they resided for more than 20 years and put three kids through Brookwood High School.

Their friends at Connemara threw them a going away party and joked about how far away they were moving. But it's a trek more and more people their age are making. As the population ages - the Atlanta Regional Commission's Lifelong Communities Study says that by 2030, 20 to 23 percent of the metro area's population will be over age 60 - those people are also becoming more active. And moving to places where others are active as well.

Squillace is 66 and says, "I've never been as busy as I am since I retired. It's actually not a joke. People have asked me to do things and I haven't had time."

This is not your father's retirement. Squillace stays busy with projects, trips, children and grandchildren. But he also stays active with bocce, senior tennis, bowling and trivia. Then there's softball. A self-professed softball fanatic, Squillace is not just a player in his league (a pitcher, of course) - he's the commissioner. And the league isn't just some pick-up deal. The teams are sponsored - just like you'd see in little league. "It's great," Squillace said of the softball. "It's people the same age getting out and still having fun. It's done socially as much as competitively. But it is competitive."

Repost with extras from GaHomesDigest.com

So you are home in Gwinnett County (the leading county for foreclosures in Georgia) from work relaxing watching re-runs of Friends and suddenly your front door is kicked open and a big burly man with a gun comes in, points the gun at you and claims that he's the sheriff. Sound like something out of the show COPS or maybe a move starring Johnny Depp, but no, it's actually becoming a common occurence in homes all over Georgia.

 Now S. 896 "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009" has come out and has some provisions to protect tenants from eviction as a consequence of a foreclosure.

So what's in it for the tenants?

• 90 Days Notice will now have to be given before proceeding,
• Tenants with WRITTEN AGREEMENTS will be given the option to stay in the property as long as the lease is not significantly different than current market rent.

Tenants still have to move out in the case of the new owner wanting to use the home as a personal residence or if there is no written lease agreement. Tenants still can be evicted in the event they violate their written lease agreement.

So fast forward to the first Tuesday of next month.

This new act has the following potential impact on investors:

• Auction buyers now have to account for renters as part of their investment process, eviction, legal fees or keeping them.
  
• Auction buyer have to determine fair market value of the rent.

The difficulty will be getting written lease agreements before the auction date from the people getting foreclosed. ...

I could go on and on, but...

Recently a court case ruling about Administrative Fees (Busby v. JRHBW Realty, Inc, d/b/a RealtySouth) made me think, "Good for them!"  I've never been a proponent of Admin Fees.  They are junk fees after all.  However, as a short sale specialist, I had to think about this a bit more.

In this case, the plaintiff won a class action law suit against RealtySouth for charging Admin Fees that were legally proven not to have done anything to help in the transaction.   Short Sales can feel like the wild west and now some of the extra ways of collecting a full commission are in jeopardy.

Let's look at Section 8 of Respa (since it was used in this court case)

"No person shall give & no person shall accept any portion, split or percentage of any charge made or received fro the rendering of a real estate settlement service in connection with a transaction involving a federally related mortgage loan other than for services actually performed."

While RESPA allows for fees to be paid with cooperative brokers, the plaintiffs in the above case argued that the admin fee charged was not for services actually performed.  This got me to thinking about Short Sales.   I've got some key areas where there is potential grey area, especially if the seller of a short sale has to take a note back (liability!).

• Negotiations - You might be doing this or outsourcing it, are you collecting the fee for it? Might be best to outsource or at least have it go to someone other than your Broker or personal business.
  
• Extra Fees - Did you pad the HUD to allow for you to cover HOA, taxes, etc.  Now that the deal is approved you want to pocket the extra money.  After all you earned it, Short Sales are tough! Now with this case, any fee could be questioned at a later date. (Not suggesting that padding the HUD is right or wrong, just a practice that I have seen)
  

Ultimately, it's better to try to charge a higher (but not exhorbinant) commission % than it is to add fees onto the HUD needlessly.

Luckily, most sellers and buyers are extremely happy when the short sale process is complete, but it does bare paying attention to!

Article over your head?  If so, feel free to contact me with referrals! (I LOVE SHORT SALE REFERRALS!) or questions!

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