Florida Treasure Coast Real Estate Resource

When it comes to selling a house you should consider performing minor repairs and maintenance to help get the best price for your home. Here are some helpful tips:

1. You will want to do some handy work like replacing cracked tiling, filling holes or repairing leaky faucets. Remove or replace anything that makes the house seem worn like dated drapes and old carpets. Pay attention to small things such as burned out light bulbs, broken fixtures and missing wall plates.
   
2. Think about things like doors and windows. Make sure that they close and lock properly and cracked or broken windows are fixed. Sliding or bi-fold closet doors should be secure and function properly within their tracks.
   
3. You may also need to do some painting (no one wants to purchase a home with crazy colored walls). Paint your walls a neutral color using light shades of brown and off white. 
   
4. Clean your home thoroughly from top to bottom. You need to make sure that every surface in the house sparkles. Take the vacuum out and suck up every inch of dirt by swiping the carpets and blinds; anything that you can clean with your vacuum you should. Wash your windows inside and out. Cleaning not only makes your home show better, but it will also make the house smell as good as it looks.
   
5. Make sure that that the outside is warm and inviting. Plant some flowers, mow the grass and wash the sidewalks. Shrubs should be neat and trimmed. Your house numbers should be clearly visible from the road so that you don't have people turning around out of frustration trying to find the house.

Do not wait to take care of needed repairs - you do not want to lose any potential buyers by letting them see the home without the finished product.  These easy fixes require little work and will ensure your home sells for the most money and in the least amount of time.

Eric Slifkin has pulled out all the stops when it comes to marketing his clients' homes on the Internet. Slifkin, who was an Information Technology professional before switching careers six years ago, spends much of his time selling real estate on the Internet.     

"I spend over 50 percent of my time on my computer," Slifkin, 54, says.  This includes doing research, updating on-line listings and following up on leads generated from his Web sites.  "With the influx of out of town buyers on the Treasure Coast, Web based marketing is an extremely cost effective way of capturing those buyers' attention early on" Slifkin continued.  "But you have to respond quickly to inquiries and maintain contact in order to develop online relationships that lead to sales.  It's not just about having a killer Web site - you need to leverage the technologies available to manage the entire process".

Slifkin's twenty year career in Information Technology has prepared him to rise to that challenge. In addition to the usual featured listings, he has built several sites that include virtual tours, photo galleries and relocation tools.  "It is important to keep the needs of the buyer in mind - I always provide lots of pictures and information so a visitor gets an immediate "feel" for the home and area." Slifkin said.  His main site, www.TreasureCoastHomeSales.com provides home buyers with all the necessary tools to search for homes, calculate mortgage and tax payments, get school information and even connect their utilities.     

Having closed several hundred transactions over the past five years, I thought I had experienced just about every obstacle Murphy's law could throw in the path of a successful closing.  From intransigent sellers to inflexible buyers, we have worked our way through negotiations and dealt with whatever was thrown in the path towards settlement. 

The latest wrinkle of course is the emergence of short sale and foreclosure (also known as "REO" or bank owned) properties, which add to the mix of potential bottlenecks in a transaction.  That said, here are some of my own experiences with Murphy's law as it pertains to selling distressed homes:

Time Lines
Whatever deadlines you put on your offer will not be met.  Even if a "short" seller accepts in a timely fashion, his lender may take weeks to respond.  We include a separate addendum to cover this with an automatic 30 day extension but that is often wishful thinking.  Foreclosures are quicker but the acceptance deadline will typically come and go before you get an answer.

Inspections
So your offer is accepted for that bargain foreclosure in the upscale gated community.  The inspection report contains few surprises since you know it needs all kinds of work and are lining up your contractors and making plans.  But the FHA loan you took has their own inspector show up and they demand you fix the roof, replace the water heater and repair the A/C unit before they will give you a loan commitment.  The REO bank says fix it on your dollar, which you do, not knowing if we will even make it to closing.

The Title Work
We are ready to close but the seller's title company says no, you are closing on the 15th per the contract.  We remind them it says "on or before the 15th" and spend several days arguing about it until they relent.  But the closing gets pushed back anyway because the lender keeps Emailing the loan package to the wrong address and the title company refuses to talk to them.  It seems they do not like each other.  This leads to a series of missteps and arguments with the title company.  In my experience the title company has almost always been the one that helps keep the deal together and everything flowing.  But in the wild west environment of foreclosures, the bank chosen title company answers to no one - they are there to serve the bank.

Closing Day
Finally we are closed but the buyer can't move in because the loan is not yet funded, so they wait the required 24 hours only to discover the cash to close wire transfer never showed up.  Several days pass before we discover the buyer's bank never sent it.  The funds are sent and the buyer has his house!

Parting Shot
All is right with the world and our commission check shows up.  But wait - there's more!  It is $2,500 short because the title company claims we never wired them the buyer's earnest money.  We actually wired it three weeks prior but they chastise me and demand proof it was sent (I guess the final HUD statement was not proof enough and they neglected to check their trust account for the funds).

These are just a few examples of what it takes to get to a successful closing.  Under the best circumstances there will be hurdles but if you are looking to buy a distressed property, you need to consider what can and will go wrong in the transaction.  If you need to be in a new home quickly, you may want to rethink your strategy.