Sunday, September 29, 2013

Health Care Reform: A Guide to Your Coverage Options

Know what to look for and know your needs when purchasing a home at the beach. ShoreFun4U - Susan Antigone. Real Estate in Ocean City MD.

Know your needs when purchasing a home at the beach. Ocean City MD has townhomes, single-family and condominiums for sale. Do you want to pay condo fees. Do you not want to do yard work? Is this a retirement home or a vacation home. Are you buying for investment for income. Call ShoreFun4U-Susan Antigone. Long & Foster for specialist insights.

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Saturday, September 28, 2013

10 Years of Empowering REALTORS® to Stay Safe

Know your customers. Do you want to drive in one car or take separate cars. Ocean City MD real estate - townhomes, single-family, condominiums for sale. Waterfront beach specialists know the score. ShoreFun4U

10 Years of Empowering REALTORS® to Stay Safe

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Buyers in a Hurry to Lock in Rates. Ocean City MD condominiums, town and single-family homes for sale. Specialists in beach properties. Rent4Income.

Buyers in a Hurry to Lock in Rates

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sunset Cove - Ocean City MD - waterfront property - real estate specialist ocean city maryland. townhomes, condominiums

Listing your home for sale Ocean City MD. Specialist in beach property-ShoreFun4U-Susan Antigone. Buyers Love & Sellers Fail to Mention

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make smart decisions w/Tara's real estate + mortgage need-to-knows

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson | Broker in San Francisco, CA

7 Things Buyers Love + Sellers Fail to Mention

Posted under: Home Buying, Home Selling | August 13, 2013 11:57 AM | 116,434 views | 47 comments

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In real estate, we often use the term “under market” to describe a home that is priced or purchased for less than it’s fair market value. But I sometimes see an unrelated real estate phenomenon I think Webster would rank as a second definition for “undermarketing”: to list a home and fail to mention features the homes have, which buyers would have been attracted to, had they seen them in the home’s listing description, flyer or online marketing.

For example, my first home was a very modest rancher, lots of fixing needed, located in a quiet part of town that I’d never heard of. At my agent’s insistence, I finally went to see it. Only then did I realize that the property just so happened to be situated with panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay. Bizarrely enough, this massive selling point had not received even a passing mention in the listing!

If your home has commercial-grade European appliances, sits on acres of land, or is in the most prestigious neighborhood in town, it’s pretty easy to know what to lead with in your marketing. But if you have a normal house in a normal neighborhood, there could very well be things you take for granted which a first-time or relocating buyer might be magnetically drawn to – if you mention it in the listing.

1. Storage.  When aiming to avoid undermarketing, keep this in mind: showcasing your home in its best light is not just about what you love about it. You might already have outgrown the place, and started to see its flaws more than its finer points: that’s why you’re moving. But the goal of good marketing is to highlight the things that will allow your home to shine in the eyes of your target buyers and against the competition.

So, it’s important to know what buyers care about and how your home offers a more comfortable lifestyle than the competition. First-time buyers, for example, are not simply comparing your home to other homes, they are also comparing it to the lifestyle of being a renter and to every bad rental property that inspired them to move forward with becoming a homeowner. One very common beef of renters is that rental homes lack storage, which leads to belonging overflow and a cluttered life. The vision of having a place for storing everything is a big motivator for many first-time home buyers. So, if your home has been tricked out with extra closets, pantries or other built-in storage amenities that you plan to leave, make sure your agent boasts about that in your home’s marketing materials.

2. Organizing systems.  In the same vein, if you have made the investment in upgrading your home with customized or built-in closet, kitchen or garage organizer systems, desks or bookshelves make sure buyers see and know this from your home’s online listing. From the first-timer craving to have a clutter-free existence to buyers who are moving up into a family home and want each family member’s space to have at least the possibility of order, built-in organizers can represent value and appeal to a wide range of prospective buyers.

3. Proximity. You might be thinking the right buyers for your home will be finding it online precisely because of where it’s located, so it’s silly to call out the property’s proximity to amenities and attractions. Not so fast. First, some buyers simply might not know to search for your zip code, or might not be aware that your hidden gem of a neighborhood also happens to be tucked within a half mile of a subway station, entrances to 3 freeways and 2 regional parks. Second, buyers’ proximity wishes might be different than the location requirements of their online search. They might be looking at all homes in town in their price range, but the fact that yours is walking distance to a major employer or university could push yours to the top of the list.

Finally, relocating buyers might not have the core knowledge of the area that would allow them to connect the dots about the property based on location basics you are assuming everyone in the market for a home like yours will know. Don’t assume: if your home is particularly well-located vis-a-vis major employers, universities, recreational amenities or walkable shopping and dining districts, talk with your agent about showcasing this in your home’s marketing.

4. Senior-friendly features.  Boomers are not necessarily looking for homes with built-in disability features, but they are often looking for homes they could live in for the rest of their lives, “aging in-place,” without necessarily being located in senior-only communities. That means homes with level-in entrances (no stairs to the front door), single story layouts and low-maintenance landscaping have a massive new audience attracted to these features which would otherwise not warrant a mention in a home’s marketing, especially if homes near yours tend to have loads of stairs or other features that are difficult for people to navigate as they age.

Similarly, the movement toward aging-in-place has caused many more families to move aging relatives in with them, versus moving them out to retirement homes. These extended families often are looking for homes with a very well-appointed “mother-in-law” or “outlaw” units or a second master suite located on the home’s ground floor. If your home has multiple bedrooms with bathrooms en suite or completely independent living quarters, marketing these features to extended families is a must.

5. Energy efficiencies. If your home runs entirely off-the-grid or on graywater, chances are good you’ll be mentioning that. But even buyers who don’t identify as hunting for a “green” home can be attracted to the budget-friendliness of energy-efficient features of the less extreme sort. So, if your home is a pretty no-frills property but has a tankless water heater, dual-paned windows and new insulation, mention it! If you’ve managed to get your energy bills down way below what’s normal in your area, this could be a selling point you don’t want to overlook–your agent can help you navigate how to broadcast this message to buyers.

6. “Light” green lifestyle features. That said, if you have configured your home to allow inhabitants to live a greener life, beyond just the energy bills, these might warrant a mention in your marketing. You might think things like your little organic kitchen garden, backyard compost bin or that $50 recycling center you installed are so low in cash value they don’t rate a line in your listing materials. But there are loads of buyers out there who are attracted to these sorts of features already being in place in a home, so calling them out (especially if you’re in a market with tons of competition) can call your home to their attention.

7. Natural, chemical-free and hypoallergenic home maintenance. In a similar vein, if you have a hypoallergenic HVAC system or have only used non-chemical cleaning products for the last few years, you might want to call these sorts of things out, as well. Marketers say today’s consumers are careful about not just what they put into their bodies, but also what they put on and around their bodies. Your home and the cleaning and maintenance products you’ve used may implicate both “on” and “around,” so if you’ve taken care to create a home that works well for people with physical or philosophical sensitivities to common household chemicals, make sure light-green buyers know it!

ALL: What secret treasures have you found in listings lately?

P.S. - You should follow Trulia and Tara on Facebook!

Mortgage Rates - Financing a Home - Ocean City, MD - ShoreFun4U. What this means for the home buyer.

Mortgage Rates after the Bernanke Announcement

by The KCM Crew on September 23, 2013 ·

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Last week, Bernard Bernanke startled many by announcing that the Fed will not wind down their bond buying program right now. The program is part of an overall stimulus package geared at bringing back the national economy. The Fed’s purchase of these bonds over the last few years has driven mortgage rates to historic lows. The assumption that there would be a reduction in bond purchases has caused 30 year mortgage rates to spike upward over the last few months.
Surprisingly, Bernanke revealed the Fed will continue bond purchasers at the current pace. What happened and what does it mean to mortgage interest rates?

What would have happened if they reduced bond purchases?

According to Bankrate.com:

“The Fed could have caused rates to shoot up this week if it had announced the tapering of its bond-purchasing program.”

Why did the Fed decide not to start winding down bond purchases?

Moody’s Analytics reported that there were three reasons:

Subpar economic data
Tighter financial conditions
Uncertainty surrounding fiscal policy

What does this mean to a buyer applying for a mortgage?

Those at Bankrate.com explain:

“For now, borrowers have dodged another spike in rates. The Fed’s announcement might even cause rates to drop in coming days, says Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight.
‘Mortgage rates should fall back — not massively, but to some extent,’ he says.
That doesn’t mean homebuyers and homeowners should wait for lower rates, mortgage professionals say.
Eventually, once the Fed lets the mortgage market and the economy start walking on their own, rates will probably head back to the 5 percent or 6 percent range, says Scott Schang, manager for Broadview Mortgage Katella in Orange, Calif.”

When will the Fed begin winding down bond purchases?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal:

“Federal Reserve policy makers decided this week that the economy isn’t in the right place for them to start winding down their bond-buying program. By the time they meet in December, it might be.
The decision to not start winding down the bond-buying program now was close… The economy only needs to get a little bit better over the next few months for the central bank to get its nerve back. That should be an easy bar for the economy to clear.”

Bernanke himself has not ruled out that the Fed could still scale back the stimulus this year. He stated: