A Tale of Three Conversations

Conversation 1
Mr. Seller: I keep reading that it’s a seller’s market- and I have to agree! I decided to sell my home myself without hiring an agent.
Friend: Are you sure that was the wisest thing to do?
Mr. Seller: Heck yes- I put the sign in the yard and it sold in 2 days! I saved that seller’s commission and got full price! Well- that deal fell through because the buyer wasn’t qualified for the loan, but we got another offer right away- we just had to pay buyers closing costs and do about $3000. in repairs, but we did that all by ourselves- without an agent!
Friend: Really? Congratulations??

 

Conversation 2
Agent 1- I’ve noticed that the housing inventory is pretty low now, making it pretty hard to get listings, but also making the transactions a little more complicated, don’t you think?
Agent 2- I represented a buyer in a sale from a FSBO (for sale by owner). It went pretty smooth on my end.- I had a good qualified buyer thanks to some preliminary work we did to get all credit issues cleaned up and financing prequalified. Unfortunately for the seller, when we got to the closing, the seller found out that his property appraised for several thousand more than he sold it for. I guess he might have benefitted from some expert advice.
Conversation 3
REALTOR®- Now Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I want you to understand that getting offers will be easy with your home. We have it staged to sell, all repairs and maintenance addressed and home warranty offered. But you need to be aware that I will be checking to make sure that all offers will be pre-qualified (We don’t want to tie your property up with offers that can’t close); and the marketing gets out to everyone right away so that we can get the best offers early on in the listing and that we’ll have a good strategy on handling offers/multiple offers.
Mrs. Smith- Multiple offers? You mean we don’t have to accept the first offer we get?
REALTOR®- Not necessarily. Each situation is different and your options in dealing with each will vary based on lots of details. When you get into this kind of fast moving market- details matter, so we’ll carefully examine each thing as it happens- to come up with the best final contract we can for you!
Mr. Smith- I must admit- I didn’t agree with Mrs. Smith about hiring a REALTOR® since I was pretty sure I could handle selling this house myself, but after hearing about pricing it right, marketing it immediately and in the right ways, double-checking the buyers, handling objections and requests and analyzing and managing multiple offer situations- I realize that hiring you could end up costing me a lot less than doing it myself! Mrs. Smith is usually right….
The point of these conversations is this- you may not know how much you don’t know about what could go wrong in a real estate transaction until you find yourself in a pickle and don’t know how to undo what has been done by an amateur-you! You don’t want to spend money that you shouldn’t, you don’t want to leave money on the table, and you don’t want to miss out on opportunities that a pro might see that you don’t! Hire a professional- hire a REALTOR® You don’t want to save a dime- just to lose a quarter!
Peggy R. Smith is the Association Executive for the Old KY Home Board of REALTORS®. The Old Kentucky Home Board of REALTORS® owns and operates the MLS for the Nelson, Washington, Marion, Larue and Hart Counties in Kentucky and has over 50 years serving our local area.
Member of Kentucky Association of REALTORS® and National Association of REALTORS®.

When Politics and Real Estate Overlap

If you are alive in 2017- you know that politics invades everything today! Everything! Well- I have often stated that if you are in real estate, then you are in politics. It weaves its way through ordinances, planning and zoning, taxation, environmental regulations, land ownership rights, banking and lending rules, insurance and liability issues- and the list goes on and on…
Right now- one of the big issues that NAR and the REALTOR® community as a whole are paying attention to is the NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) expires on September 30, 2017. The US House of Representatives has a package of seven bills that address various aspects of the NFIP. One of the main things that need to be addressed is access to private market insurance.
To give a little background- the NFIP was created to provide incentives for communities to rebuild to higher standards and steer developments away from flood zones. In exchange, communities gain access to flood maps, mitigation assistance and subsidized insurance to prepay for future damage and recover more quickly from flooding. However, the program was not designed to absorb the catastrophic losses of the last decade such as Katrina and Sandy and now Harvey and Irma. As a result of the flooding catastrophes (pre-Harvey) the NFIP has borrowed more than 25 Billion dollars from the Treasury and is making interest only payments of $400 million per year.
RPAC is working hard talking to and meeting with legislators and their staff to give feedback on the different bills and getting their ideas on the measures. Every time the NFIP lapses, this country lose 40,000 property sales PER MONTH!! The country cannot afford to allow this program to lapse.
Some of the things NFIP deals with are: updating and checking the accuracy of flood maps, reducing some of the burdens from property owners of amending these maps and distributing updated maps. Reducing the risk of flooding is also a vital part of any flood insurance program.
Private insurance has been found to be a big factor in reducing the cost of flood insurance, and in many cases, property owners have been able to lower the costs of insurance by being able to shop private insurance.
This month- with Hurricane Harvey and Irma and the vast, destructive and deadly flooding that ensued after the hurricanes came through- it is critical that careful examination of this program is a priority. This affects not only property that borders lakes, streams and oceans, but also low-lying areas prone to flooding after weather events. Currently, property owners can’t access mitigation grant money until after the property floods despite it being more cost-effective to elevate or relocate beforehand.
The bottom line is- we all have to call for Congress to address seriously the issues with NFIP and to pass the package of bills to continue this program. Realtors® understand the importance of this and other issues that come up from time to time that affect Americans’ home ownership rights. We vote, we act, we invest!
Peggy R. Smith is the Association Executive for the Old KY Home Board of REALTORS®, she holds a Broker’s License in the State of KY, GRI and E-Pro designations. The Old Kentucky Home Board of REALTORS® owns and operates the MLS for the Nelson, Washington, Marion, Larue and Hart Counties in Kentucky and is a member of Kentucky Association of REALTORS® and National Association of REALTORS® since 1965