Cape Coral Real Estate

Une “short sale” s’applique lorsqu’un propriétaire désire vendre sa propriété dont la valeur marchande est inférieure au montant du crédit hypothécaire en place. En effet, ces derniers temps, il arrive souvent qu’un propriétaire d’une maison à Cape Coral ou même à Fort Myers en Floride, est obligé de mettre un prix en dessous de son prêt hypothécaire pour pouvoir trouver un acheteur.

Une fois cet acheteur trouvé, l’agent immobilier doit présenté l’offre d’achat à la banque et souvent négocier un prix de telle sorte que la banque devra forcément perdre de l’argent. Pour ce propriétaire, c’est un moyen d’éviter que leur bien immobilier ne soit saisi, spécialement lorsque ce propriétaire à Cape Coral n’a plus les moyens de payer son prêt.

De plus, il est malheureusement conseillé au prêteur d’arreter de payer les paiements mensuels et de prouver à la banque qu’il n’est plus en mesure d’affronter ses paiements, de tel manière que la banque favorise une vente à perte plutôt que de passer par la saisie (foreclosure) qui est souvent beaucoup plus couteuse pour la banque.

Souvent, un acheteur fera une bonne affaire en achetant une “short sale” mais dans des délais souvent très long. Il n’est pas rare de voir une banque prendre entre 3 et 12 mois pour donner une réponse à une offre, et elle peut etre négative! Tout dépend de quelle banque il s’agit. Souvent, le prix demandé pour une “short sale” est un prix très bas pour attirer une offre et pouvoir négocier un prix plus décent pour la banque. Cette dernière voudra perdre le moins possible évidement.

En générale, je ne conseille pas une “short sale” à mes clients. Mais si vous voulez vraiment acheter une “short sale”, voici quelques conseils a prendre en considération:

1) Que le représentant de la banque et l’agent immobilier aient une relation solide entre eux
2) Que la banque a déja approuvé le prix de vente.
3) Que l’agent immobilier a déja acquis une certaine experience avec les “short sales”.

Seulement 30% a 35% des “short sales” sont vendues avec succès. Le reste du temps, les acheteurs sont lassés d’attendre des mois et des mois pour une réponse de la banque qui n’arrive pas. De plus, certaines de ces propriétés nécésitent des travaux qui n’en font plus de bonnes affaires. Il s’agira de bien regarder le bien immobilier en question et voir si cela en vaut la chandelle.

Si vous désirez acheter une maison à Cape Coral, un appartement à Fort Myers, un terrain à Lehigh Acres ou meme un hotel sur Sanibel, n’hésitez pas à me contacter. Je suis un agent immobilier francophone sur Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, Fort Myers Beach et Sanibel en Floride.

Claude Thomas, Realtor
www.1capecoral.com
info@1capecoral.com
239-240-7346

Comments (0) Jan 02 2012

Bonjour à toutes et à tous,

Si vous n’êtes pas déja au courant, je suis un des (très) rare agent francophone sur la région de Cape Coral. Plus ou moins 50% de ma clientèle parle francais et la moitié d’entre eux proviennent de France.
Habituellement, mes clients Francais achètent des propriétés à Cape Coral en liquide. Ils font un simple transfer bancaire et l’achat se fait assez rapidement. En effet, lorsque l’achat se fait au comptant, la paperasse est rapide et facile.

Le but de cet article est que précisement, la semaine dernière, j’ai eu le plaisir de rencontrer un couple venant de France et désireux d’acheter une maison sur Cape Coral, ici en Floride. Bien qu’ils aient les liquidités pour l’achat, ils aimeraient emprunter la route du financement. Tres naturellement, j’ai offert mes services pour les aider à trouver le meilleur crédit hypothécaire disponible sur le marché. Ma surprise n’en fût que plus grande lorsque j’ai appris que des nouvelles règles de crédit voyait difficile pour un Francais d’emprunter de l’argent pour financer l’achat d’un immeuble à Cape Coral en particulier et aux Etat-Unis en général. Maintenant, seuls les Canadiens, les Britaniques et les Australiens ont moins de problèmes a obtenir un Crédit américains.

J’ai trouvé un courtier en prêt hypothécaire qui travaille sur des dossiers associés aux étrangers désirant acheter une seconde résidence en Floride, et notament les Francais. Voici le lien (cliquez ici) qui vous permettra de télécharger un document PDF avec les options nécessaires pour l’obtention d’un prêt hypothécaire en Floride.
Ce document vous aidera à comprendre les papiers que vous aurez besoin d’apporter de France pour pouvoir faire une offre d’achat. Bien sur, je suis la pour vous aider avec la traduction si nécessaire.

Une fois que vos papiers sont prêts, envoyez-moi un email avec votre date d’arrivée et je serais heureux de vous trouver la maison de vacances de vos rêves. Bien sur, vous pouvez toujours obtenir un prêt hypothécaire en France si vous avez plus facile.

Comments (0) Dec 26 2011

If 2012 is your year for home hunting and purchase, here is a list of 5 things you should consider to do NOW before anything else.

1. 1. Check your credit. And I’m serious about that. Make a copy of your credit report online and review anything that can show negative transaction. Call the credit bureau in charge and fix your problem. There is nothing worse than finding the perfect home at the perfect price, getting ready with the down payment and everything and learn that you have been denied because of your bad credit. So, if there is any problem there, fix it now.

1. 2. Do your homework. Do you research online about 1 month before buying. Check the neighborhood, the market value, compare the foreclosure with the regular market, learn about short sale and see if it’s for you. Shop around for the best terms mortgage out there, call 4 or 5 mortgage broker and compare what they need and they fees/expenses. Ask them what documents you need to be qualified. Ask to be approved for a loan before even getting out to see properties. It’s frustrating to fall in love with a home that is price at $10,000 more than you can afford. Everything else will be disappointing at that point!

1. 3. Fluff up your down payment. Make sure to have a full understanding of the money you have to bring at closing, all fees including. Again, it’s frustrating to be short of a couple of thousands dollars in front of the home of your dreams. Get your finance in place and ready to go.

1. 4. Grow your cash. You’re gonna to move. So double check all that stuff that you didn’t use for the last 12 months or more. You won’t probably never use it ever. So make a big yard sale of that stuff, sell them on ebay or on craigslist and keep the money for your down payment or for some work you’ll need to do in your new home, like painting or new moldings.

1. 5. Be prepared. If you want to purchase a great deal, like a foreclosure, be prepared. I wrote a guideline about being prepared to make an offer on a foreclosure: Cape Coral Foreclosure . I have come across a lot of excited people like kids in front of a toy getting frustrated with those above asking price multiple offers. So being psychologically prepared will help you to handle your purchase.

Once you have everything ready and you have prepared yourself for your 2012 home purchase, feel free to give me a call at 239-240-7346 and I’ll prepare some visits and will help you during your transaction to make it as smooth as possible.

Comments (0) Dec 17 2011

I came across an article about Real Estate photography. And this is something I definitely need to be honest. My photos are taken with a small camera that I can take anywhere with me because of the size of it. It’s not a bad camera since its resolution is 12 megapixels but the photographer – myself! – is not that good.

When I compared those article’s pictures and mine, there is a world of difference. So I’m learning and will train myself for better shots. Here are a list of advices from professional photographers that I need to take in consideration:

• Take the picture from the corner of the room. That’s usually what I do because I want to most space to be seen on the picture. But as they say, my little camera is a camera for objects and not really made for shooting the space of a room. So I need to use a wide angle lens to do so.

• Avoid having bright lights or windows near the center of the picture. I can’t help it with my little camera. I always have a bright window in the middle of my picture. Again, a wide angle lens should give me more walls to cover the picture.

• Set your camera to take the brightest and “cleanest” pictures. Honestly, I will have to test this. I remember I took the brightest pictures and the results was not so good. So testing and practice is key here I guess.

• If you can choose the resolution your camera shoots try to choose the highest resolution possible. The higher the resolution, the better the picture. OK, I got that but I see that the resolution make big size pictures. And for the web, I can’t upload those because it will take forever to download them and see them. I have to reduce the size, so why not to take them already at the right size? Again, I’ll need to figure that out.

• If there are any lights in the room turn all of them on. That’s what I do most of the time. No problem here.

• Shoot directly across the room, not up or down. That’s what I do as well, even if I read somewhere that I should be close to the floor to take a room picture. With a wide angle lens, I should have no problem.

• Use a tripod if available to prevent any motion blur. I recently got a brand new one. Solid and more stable than my old one which is more than 15 years old!!

• Wide angle shots usually look better to home buyers, however try to avoid the “fish bowl” look, as these will not work with virtual staging and can make the picture look awkward. I guess the fish bowl effect is when you use a really wide angle lens, like a half spherical lens. I know the difference and won’t go there.

The good thing is I can use those best Real Estate photographs in a empty property, as I deal a lot with foreclosures these days, and send them to the Real Estate virtual staging software people. They actually will get them back to me with furniture ! That gives a better feeling to the potential buyers as far as being able to see how the property can be furnished. Virtual Staging Solutions is the industry leader in Virtual Staging. They digitally and realistically place furniture into photos of vacant homes for sale. That helps to sell listings faster and for top dollar. All needed is to send them your photos. I will put some comparable photos myself here so you’ll be able to see the difference between my little camera and the Canon Rebel T2i I have.

Comments (0) Dec 11 2011

I went for a walk in the Orchid Boulevard neighborhood today. It a pretty big area with about 270+ homes. I wanted to see the neighborhood myself since I sold a home there few months back. Well,  let me tell you that people there are extremely friendly. I was passing by and I shake a few hands from people enjoying their front patio or doing their lawn. They seems to help each others for little yard work or the check on each other properties.

Homes are a lot different there, from older ranch style properties sit on dry lot to huge Tuscan style mansion overlooking the beautiful Caloosahatchee river that sell for around $750,000. Also, and quiet rare these days, a couple of new homes being built there.

I had the chance to come across a burrowing owl’s nest in a front yard where the owl was standing proudly. Look at the shot I could take. They are beautiful and I’m happy I could be so close. She’s a beauty but difficult to see at first because of the colors matching the ground’s color in order to be as discreet as possible and unfortunately because my little camera I have at all time with me is not the best quality. But still a nice photo.

Comments (0) Nov 08 2011

I did receive a phone call from a homeowner who wanted to do a short pay-off – or short pay – instead of a short sale. When I was asking what he thought about a short pay, he hang up saying he doesn’t want to waste my time, probably believing that I had no clue about short pay. Fair enough.

Let’s face it, there is a lot of confusion with short pay and I always want to know what homeowners have in mind about it. A short pay is when you own more to the bank than what your property worth, like in a short sale situation. The difference is the homeowner does not necessary want to sale. And a lot of people believe that they can get a short pay by paying off their balance by dozens of thousands of dollars below what on the mortgage. And it’s not true at all.

As an example, let’s say someone bought a home back in 2006 for $250,000 with 10% down and a mortgage of $225,000. Today, the house worth $100,000 and the balance today is $210,000. If the owner feel that he’s paying too much for today’s value but doesn’t want to sell his home, he can ask the bank for a short pay-off. And people think they can give $100,000 to the bank for the lien’s release. It’s not going to happen. At best, the bank will agree on a 90% pay off on the remaining balance. So you need to have a good $190,000 in this case.

On the other hand, the short sale is when you are on time with your payment but you want to sell your property and it worth only $100,000. It’s when you ask the bank to accept a lower pay off payment.

So there is a big difference between both and lots of people, frustrated by a difficult financial situation, want to believe that a short pay is as acceptable by the bank as a short sale.

Also, you might find difficult to find the help of a Real Estate agent since there is no sale in a short pay-off and therefore, no commission for the agent. And there is very few people, if any, willing to work for free, especially for a time consuming short pay-off.

Comments (0) Oct 30 2011

So, you have been looking to buy a home in Cape Coral for over 6 months now. There is something important for you to know.  Stop looking to buy a home right now.  You are wasting your time and energy. Cape Coral properties prices have been increasing for the last 6 months in a row. So, if you’re still looking, it’s not for finding the best deal of the century, it’s already too late. It has to be because you’re searching for the best floor plan or curb appeal possible, but then, the inventory is so wide, if you didn’t find it already, it’s because it doesn’t exist.

Not to mention all the time that is being wasted by professional lending and real estate brokers. They are not your taxi driver even if it’s my second job. They are not the ones to fix your poor credit scores.  They are not the ones to hold your hand every step of the way even if I do it on a daily basis.  They are there to help you not be taken advantage of by someone who is not committed to the home buying process.

Buying a home is a process and it doesn’t take over 6 months to complete.  A Realtor can help you with the home buying process, however, you the buyer must take action to make it become a reality.  Seeing every home that comes on the market for a year is insane!  It’s not that big of a deal to find the house you will come to know as home.  If you see a house you like and it’s within your means, then buy it.  Otherwise, go home and leave everyone alone.

You can read more at 1capecoral.com or in my blog. The time to buy a home was in the last 6 month, with a rock bottom price reached last December 2010/January 2011  or today…not in 6 months. Quit trying to out think the other guy or the sellers. Find what you like and buy it.  If there isn’t anything out there that you like then you probably are not going to find it.

Go home.  Stop wasting your time. Watch some football or NASCAR or a movie anything but get out of the home buying process as you are not a buyer.  You are a looker and you are frustrating people around you that can actually and willingly help you.

The time is ripe to buy a home today.  Interest rates are low.  Prices are still low. In most markets inventory is high.  Sellers want to negotiate on their homes. It’s easy and time for action. And if you think that a home priced below a car’s price is too high, you’ll never buy anything. So, do something else.

If you are angry right now…good.  Here is a way which may help.  Revisit why you wanted to buy a home in the first place and re-motivate or inspire yourself.  If that doesn’t work then forget about it.  You will never achieve your American Dream without concise methodical action on your part.  Now go out there and become a buyer and call me to seriously get started!

Comments (0) Oct 25 2011

Do you think you can write an offer on a Cape Coral foreclosure for sale without the help of an agent? The answer is a big YES!

If you think about it, my guess is you want to save the typical 6% commission that we make. If it’s the case, you are completely mistaken. First, our commissions are not set to be 6%. It’s negotiable. And in the foreclosure and REO world, it’s the bank that decides how much they really want to pay. Most agents doing foreclosure make about 1 to 2% of the closed price as the seller representative. So the buyer’s agent is really doing something like 2 to 4%. In that case, if you represent yourself for that foreclosure home purchase, you’re really saving about those 2 to 4% commission.

Now, prepare yourself to get an accepted offer on that Cape Coral foreclosure house for sale. You will need a few things checked with the listing agent, and I have been in contact with most of them, they use to be very difficult if they are not in front of another agent because they think they’ll have to do all the work believing that you won’t be able to do your part:

• What kind of paperwork do they want?  Typical is proof of funds, pre-approval letter from your bank, etc…
• How many offers are on the property? Maybe it is a multiple offers situation already.
• Is there a mandatory minimum MLS marketing time?
• How do they want to receive your offer?  Fax, website or email.

So, once you have all that done, you’ll be able to put a good offer but you will need to know something important: the price. Don’t google that. You will not be able to rely on sites like Zillow or Trulia for pricing. They are not accurate. Hire an appraiser instead, especially if you do not have access to your local MLS. The point here is that you don’t want to pay too much or too little. Too much and you may overpay for the property and too little,you may lose the home to higher bidder.

You can also read this buying a foreclosure in Cape Coral post for more tips.

Comments (0) Sep 26 2011

I read an article published by cnnmoney about the 10 best places to retire. Cape Coral was voted #2!. So that’s good news after all the effort put into making Cape Coral a better place to live.

The single most effective move in making your retirement stash go further is, well, a move. “There’s nothing more powerful than relocating from a high-cost-of-living area to a low-cost one,” says Baltimore financial planner Tim Maurer.

If “low cost of living” conjures up visions of some bleak backwater, think again. MONEY combed its Best Places to Live database to find affordable cities and towns that offer lots to do, both inside and out. Places that are safe, with violent-crime rates below the national average. Where there’s good medical care close at hand. And where at least 30% of the population is over the age of 50, so you’ll have no shortage of golf or bridge partners.

The ten places you’ll read about in the story that follows offer all that — plus they’re exceptionally kind to your wallet. Their cost-of-living indexes range from 87 to 97, meaning that as little as 87 cents buys residents what a dollar would buy the average American. Homes are affordable, with median prices below the $173,100 national median (some well below). And tax rates are reasonable, with either no state income tax or significant exemptions for retirees. Could Cape Coral be your new home?

You can read the full story by following this link

Comments (2) Sep 22 2011

I wrote an article about virtual staging for Real Estate few months back, using a virtual staging software. I was explaining the advantages of using a software to stage an empty home instead of renting furniture to stage it, which is more expensive.

Today, I did receive some updates from the company doing the software (Virtual Staging Solutions) and they have added a few more options that can greatly help to generate a very nice layout. The best use in my opinion is to vitually stage your empty listings, get the results on your website and let the buyer’s agents where to go to see how nice the property can be once furnished! It will bring a clear idea of the transition from a house to a home in your buyer’s eyes. It can be the difference between losing your time showing a property and an offer! Your vacant listings will sell faster.

The first new feature is the choice of furniture available. They said on their website that they were working for more than a year with designers in order to bring the brands of furniture available in stores! So you will be able to browse a furniture gallery.

Secondly, they have worked on a personalized way to have your documents out there. They have especially developed those pages for the mobile use. So, your virtual staging listings will be ready to be seen on all mobile devices out there, which is very convenient knowing that it’s easier to bring a cellphone or an iPad with you instead of a laptop.

And last but not least, your presentation of your virtual staging will be in video mode instead of just plain pictures. Today, the video is almost the next big thing.  People are leaving the world of blogging to enter the world of vlogging!

I had an email the other day, asking me questions about the virtual staging software. But honestly, since I’m not involved with this company, it’s probably better to ask directly to them. They website is www.virtualstagingsolutions.com . They have a help sections where your can find email address, phone number and a bunch of frequently asked questions. They offer several plans from $197, which is most likely much cheaper than renting furniture to furnished a living room, a family room and 2 or 3 bedrooms!

For more details, visit their website at www.virtualstagingsolutions.com and get your empty listings sold fast

Comments (0) Sep 17 2011