A Lender, Lawyer and Leader answer a frequently asked question.
Are we seeing glimpses of a recovering local real estate market? Is it a seasonal difference?
Gooden + Faircloth asked three Mt Pleasant real estate industry authorities the same question our team is asked virtually everyday, “How’s the local real estate market?”
Rebecca and I are happy to offer a new high-tech Mt Pleasant and Greater Charleston home search tool to our website.
@HomeSearch allows you to search for homes in the Mt Pleasant and Greater Charleston area through a truly user-friendly interface. Read the rest of this entry
The mortgage market is an industry with rules, regulations and requirements changing on a minute-by-minute basis.
Three important changes of interest have just occurred.
How did home sales in one of the area’s popular neighborhoods fare over the past year?
Gooden + Faircloth has just released an updated version of a key neighborhood real estate report.
Ivy Hall is in one of the fastest growing areas of South Carolina, the Highway 17 North corridor in Mt Pleasant, just outside Charleston.
Find out more about real estate in this popular neighborhood by clicking the image to the left.
Take a tour of Ivy Hall. Click the play button to begin.
Our current clients are buying by borrowing. At least, they’re attempting to borrow.
Theirs is a standard mortgage through FHA with reasonably standard issues, all handled professionally by the lender but very clumsily managed by the government underwriter.
We’re confident the lady at FHA is competent enough, but why when our president declares lending must be kick started to get our economy rejuvenated is there a critical someone in the government who has inefficiently created delay after delay, frustration after frustration to the point our buyers tell us the pleasure of the experience has been compromised?
Dear President Obama,
We’re behind you and agree that getting the lenders lending again is a critical step toward recovery. In our current case, the lender is lending. It is the government which is generating the problem. Careful review by the FHA is absolutely understandable. A clumsy review is not.
Please ensure your folks in DC are not needlessly birthing bureaucratic quagmires for those of us bringing the business back to America through your employees. As part of our Change, can we also take a look at pruning out government employees who don’t deserve the position they’ve inherited?
Respectfully,
Edward Faircloth
Gooden + Faircloth
PS: We finally gathered for the overly delayed closing today. Our clients had taken the day off. Several of us structured our day around the closing. Alas, it didn’t happen. The FHA underwriter took the afternoon off, with the poorly managed file sitting on her desk. Dear President Obama, we’re confident this is the type situation you’re going to correct.
Hobcaw Creek Plantation is the ideal neighborhood for those seeking the ‘ ideal ‘ neighborhood: family oriented, safe, manicured and lush mature vegetation.
The majority of homes in this very desirable neighborhood are large and upscale. Most of the homes in Hobcaw Creek were built during the 1990s.
At the back of Hobcaw Creek, you’ll find the largest homes, many with private docks. Hobcaw Creek Plantation is adjacent to some of Mt Pleasant’s premier shopping and dining options. At any moment, there are only a few homes for sale in Hobcaw. It’s that desired.
Homes in the neighborhood average between 3,000 and 4,500 square feet with prices generally starting in the $450,000 range. The neighborhood’s clubhouse features tennis courts, a children’s playground and a swimming pool. Residents also have access to a community dock and boat landing.
I admit it, Hidden Lakes is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Mt Pleasant / Greater Charleston. Virtually every home in the entire neighborhood peacefully rests on a canal or lake. The homes are generally traditional, very well built, diverse and well – maintained.
Click on the image above and enjoy our new Hidden Lakes video tour. You’ll see what we mean…..
I’m feeling pretty positive having concluded the sale of one of my personal properties in Florida, not an easy task in that way overly saturated market. The condo canyon walls get further up and down the intracoastal and higher by the quarter.
I’ll miss the Miami / Ft Lauderdale area but since purchasing this particular home, the number of shiny new 40 story high-rises which have gone up in the neighborhood is staggering, and problematically gluttonous.
I tell you this because we used some impressive new techniques and services to successfully sell this unit. The same techniques are being utilized for our clients at Gooden+Faircloth.
To sell the Florida condo, I credit techno-marketing techniques and services. We attracted a goodly number of buyers to visit and sure enough one of them ( only takes one ) made an reasonable offer. The condo sold after about 90 days on the market. We did the right things from staging to pricing to the ‘ techno-marketing ‘.
At Gooden + Faircloth, we’ve chosen to focus on high tech approaches to marketing homes. It makes dollars, cents and sense since 80% of buyers sensibly begin their search by adding a few search words in the Google box upper right.
I need those searching souls to discover our listings ASAP. I want other realtors, especially those with buyer clients, to also land enthusiastically on my listings whether they do so via Google, youtube, Point2, Trulia, Zillow, Realtor . com or an email from me sitting in their Inbox.
A home is not a home….
My listing clients are placing in our team the responsibility to manage the marketing of a million dollar piece of real estate. As a result, I strongly believe in branding. Our listings are given a complete once over. From that review comes a well-conceived, dynamite package of images, videos, descriptions clarity of direction, all consolidated into a package with a powerful punch.
So, can you improve your chances of a successful home sale?
In today’s difficult market with a bloated ( and foreclosed ) MLS inventory, we have to look for any edge to help sell a home. So what gives you an edge?
Anyone can live in it, but can they sell it?
There are several factors to consider when you make that decision to sell your home. In all likelihood, your home will not be the only one of its type on the market, maybe not even on your street. Therefore, the marketing for your home has to be hitting on all cylinders, or else.
There are several ways to improve your properly priced home’s appeal and sell-ability.
Location is an important factor when it comes time to sell, but you can’t control that, so concentrate on the other factors – sales price, condition of your home, light remodeling, marketing, and incentives/sales terms.
Marketing is incredibly important when you are selling your home. The more people who know about your home, the better chance there is that the perfect buyer will come along.
If you actively address all key factors, your home should be in a good position to positively appeal to buyers. Though the current real estate market is a rough sea, those who get the right people rowing at the right time will land on solid ground.
2008-2009 Seaside Farms Real Estate Sales Report
Seaside Farms is one of coastal South Carolina’s most popular neighborhoods. Nestled up to the intracoastal and marsh expanse separating mainland Mount Pleasant,SC and Isle Of Palms on the barrier islands, Seaside Farms is actually several beautiful neighborhoods. Enjoy a closer look at Seaside Farms in the video tour below.
Gooden+Faircloth has compiled 2008 real estate sales data into the new Seaside Farms Real Estate Report 2008/2009.
The highest priced home sold over the past 12 months was in the Cathedral Oaks neighborhood. 1712 Canyon sold for $ 1,175,000 or $ 285 per square foot.
Over the past 12 months, homes averaged remaining on the market from a low of 127 days in Magnolia Woods to a high of 207 days in Windward / Marais.
The following aired yesterday on NPR’s Marketplace. R. Glenn Hubbard is dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.The government can increase housing demand, house prices and consumer spending with one policy change — by lowering mortgage rates. And it can do so with little cost to taxpayers. Here’s how:
Remember that the government controls the mortgage market through its conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So the Treasury could issue bonds and fund the housing agencies. Their lower costs of funds would enable lower mortgage rates. How much lower? Say, 4 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. A lower rate would still allow an ample spread to compensate for default risk, prepayment risk, and underwriting costs.
Current futures markets suggest that house prices will fall by at least 12 percent in the next 18 months. But lower mortgage rates would put a floor under falling house prices by increasing housing demand and raising house values.
Since Americans spend about 5 percent of home equity on consumer goods and services each year, increasing housing values by as little as 10 percent could raise consumer spending by about $100 billion per year.
And, if refinancings at the new lower rate were permitted, millions of middle-income Americans would receive a tax cut averaging $400 per month. Unlike a one-time rebate, this reduction in mortgage payments would be permanent, and a much greater spur to consumption.
This raises a bigger question: Given the chaos of the recent past, wouldn’t a return to simple, long-term fixed-rate mortgages with a low rate be right for the long-term future? Such simplicity could limit the chance of a future mortgage crisis.
Certainly for now, the best foundation for stimulus and recovery is a house — or at least a new mortgage.
