Clearwater Real Estate – It’s a Seller’s Market Now

Two Seller Client Experiences

The first client is in a short sale situation and we got their house under contract within 2 weeks of it being listed but the buyer’s offer was $15,000 below the list price.  The loan that is being short-saled is a VA backed loan and the way a short sale works on this type of loan is that the VA has an appraisal done and then they will require that they net 88.13% of the appraised value – and there is no negotiating this.  When the appraised value came back the buyer had to come up $20,000 on the purchase price and they agreed to this.  However, after the inspections found that the air conditioner was 19 years old he canceled the deal.

I relisted the house and within 3 days we had it under contract with a new buyer at the higher price and with the buyer knowing upfront about not only the air conditioner but also any other issues that came up in the first buyer’s inspection.  We’re now waiting for the bank’s approval of this new contract and should have it any day.

The reason I’m writing about this one is to give you some insight into how government backed loans often have less negotiating room than standard bank loans when it comes to short sales and that even with these issues it did not take long to get another qualified buyer.

The second client had his house under contract twice since last fall and both times the deal fell apart.  He had been trying to save money on the Realtor commission so he had been working with Realtors that did cut-rate commission deals.  After the 2 failures he asked me to help him and we will be listing the house in about 2 weeks.  I already went over 1 mistake related to how the house was priced previously which made perfect sense to him and which we will be correcting this time around.

I’ll let you know how this turns out in next month’s newsletter but I’m predicting that we will have the house under contract within no more than 10 days.

Even in a market like our current one you need to have a good Realtor involved who knows if a contract from a buyer is one to take or not and also when to try to salvage a deal and when it is in your best interest to end a deal and get another buyer that is more likely to close.  To be successful in selling your home or condo you have to price it correctly for your area, have it prepared to show before listing it and select a buyer that will be likely to close.

NEXT: Tips for Buyers and Sellers