Beach Sweep

The Fripp Island Beach has been swept!!!!!!!!!! No not with a broom......... This morning approximately 20 volunteers armed with rubber gloves and trash bags combed the beach looking for trash and all manner of debris. Personally my group and I (Patty Patek, Theresa Cooper & Steve Chesler) worked from the Beach Club to the south end of Tarpon. Although I didn't find anything spectacular, (a kids flip flop, an old sand bucket and some large pieces of styrofoam were about as exotic as I got), I did help return our beach in the Lowcountry to it's naturally beautiful state.

There were however a few items worth mentioning; a half bra, some birth control devices and best of all, Theresa Cooper found a bottle with a message in it. The message was from a six year old and a four year old who were vacationing on Fripp about 2 weeks ago. The simply sent a message out in hopes that whoever finds it will let them know. So Theresa of course is sending them a note telling them where she found it.

Would it be more fun for the kids if the bottle had turned up in some far off exotic locale? Probably..... However, it's fun for me to know that two kids were outside playing, breathing fresh air and learning about the earth. All three of those activities beat video games in my book every day of the week and twice on Sunday's.

What are you thinking SC?

To: The Leadership of South Carolina:

Hello South Carolina government, what are you thinking?

An amendment was introduced by Representative Ted Vick, of District 53 - Chesterfield County, which would have established a new statewide property tax for homes valued at over $250,000. The amendment was debated at length and failed very early Thursday morning. Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter introduced and ultimately withdrew an amendment that would have repealed the 2006 changes to the property tax structure known as Act 388.

My question is, how much more can the real estate market take? In our area, we are starting to see glimmers of recovery and a new tax on homes at $250k + would definitely hinder sales so thank heaven that was defeated. Why is it that the state & it’s officials, particularly in areas away from the coast, view real estate and the potential tax as such a cash cow?

In any event, I bought my home on Fripp Island in 2004 for a vacation getaway and moved here full time in January 2007. Please note that this was after a 3 year search of 2^nd home communities and I looked at numerous coastal communities between Virginia Beach, VA and Jacksonville, FL. There were many criteria in my home search but please note that the state governments and their treatment of property owners was an important factor in my decision.

Please, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the second home & retirement home market is an integral part of our state’s economy and the people that are our potential buyers have lots of alternatives to SC. The greed or tax lust that I keep reading about will ultimately harm us all I am afraid. Please urge our legislature to continue to do everything possible to straighten out the ludicrous “point of sale” tax. Oh and thank you for squashing the tax on homes over $250k.

Another Lender Story

Here I go again. In yet another transaction that our company is involved in the Lender is dragging his feet. Our company brought an offer on a bank owned property that is listed with another company. There were competing offers and our offer eventually won the sale. Unfortunately the lender that owns the property did not sign off on the offer, thereby converting it to a bona fide sale. So what happens next? Another agent with another buyer comes along and submits an offer. Once again we have to compete, once again we win. Once again the lender is not signing off. They are telling their agent, "Oh, it's okay, everything is fine". Their agent is telling us that he is telling all subsequent offerees that the property is in contract, which technically it is not. Meanwhile no one can sign off on this agreement. Meanwhile this bank owned property is still on the market. Meanwhile our buyer is still not in firm contract or any contract for that matter. Is this the sort of behavior that got them in trouble in the first place? YIKES!!!!!!!

Do the Lenders Really Want to Get the Short Sales & Foreclosures Off Their Books

Yes, there are glimmers on the horizon of an improving economy and housing market. Yes, I have written countless times regarding what a good time it is to buy. Yes, I have even reprinted other people's missives on the subject, so you know I believe it is a good time to buy. And finally yes, prices are still attractive, interest rates are still good and the inventory of homes to buy is still larger than normal.

So what's my beef?

Short sales and foreclosures, that's my beef. Specifically how uncooperative the lenders in these positions are. As I write, our company has a listing that is in short sale status (the lender is willing to take less than is owed on the property) with multiple offers on it. As the Broker in Charge, I had to step in and take over the negotiations because the listing agent also brought one of the offers. So my first course of action is to submit all three offers to the lender. Done. Knowing full well that these things take longer than normal I waited a few days to contact the lender. When I contacted them to check the status and see how they were going to proceed --

a. choose one offer and reject the others,
b. negotiate all the offers or
c. reject all the offers

I was told that I should have selected the best one and rejected the others. To which I explained that this wasn't possible, that I had to present all offers and although technically they aren't the seller (yet) the transaction is subject to third party approval. The person on the other end sighed heavily and told me that my offers although they had been submitted five days earlier were waiting for document review from the underwriter, not document review of offers but of the home owner's file. In other words they wouldn't even look at any of them until they amassed reams of paper from the seller.

Five days after that, I have checked back twice and the only thing I can tell you is that the seller's file is complete and the offers have gone to the underwriter. They can't / won't tell me which offer has been chosen, they don't know who the underwriter will choose. They can't / won't let me talk to the underwriter. They tell me that a decision should be made in about 30 days. I tell them that the home is due to be foreclosed on prior to that. They say call a week before to get them to avert the foreclosure.

Next, I ask them to please take pity on me and my buyers. I try to explain that without even knowing if their offers have been selected or not that they will grow nervous and weary and that we stand the chance of losing any or all of the buyers and clearly that isn't good for either of us. I told them that most buyers won't wait 30 days to know if they are even going to be negotiated with, that they will start looking around at other stuff. The response, "well, if one or all of them walk just notify us".

I ask them to take pity on my seller. I explain the state of anxiety a seller must be in when they are on the brink of something as serious as short sale and if that doesn't work, foreclosure. I tell them I will do whatever I can to help expeditite the process. I am essentially told, "sorry about your luck, we will be done, when we are done".

I am STUNNED....... Every day for months and months the whole country has been reading about the economic and housing crisis. We have read about how no one is doing anything, that consumer confidence is at a historic low, that lenders are awash in foreclosures and short sales, that families are losing their homes, people are losing their jobs etc. The news has been dismal at best and here in our situation, we have ready willing and able buyers and we can't even get a response.

This I know for sure, it is paramount that we get the inventory reduced. Prices have no hope of returning to normal until there are fewer homes. That is a simple law of supply and demand. We have no hope of a serious reduction in inventory with such a lack of cooperation from the lenders. This particular lender's representatives were down right disdainful in speaking with me. If I am frustrated, I can't imagine how the buyers must feel.

Is there an answer? Yes, get the lenders to cooperate with ready, willing and able buyers. How do we do that? I'm not sure, it will take someone much smarter than me to figure that one out.

We're on YouTube

We're on YouTube. In today's world everyone wants to see things immediately and I get that, I'm that way too. With that said, our listings are appearing on YouTube. To take a look at what we've got, just click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F957FE6ACC0F2000

Posting videos is just one more thing that we do for our clients.

Quick Fact About '08

Once again, Island Realty was the clear leader east of Cowan Creek both in sales volume of $32,000,000 and number of units closed at 37. Our nearest competitor had volume of $19,000,000 closing 19 units. Given the challenging economic times I am very proud of these numbers and clearly we are keeping our market share.

Have we seen the bottom of the market? Who knows, certainly not me and no one will know until it has passed. This is just a guess, I suspect the real esate market graph will look somewhat like a V. In other words, if (and I hope it doesn't) it continues to slide downward, when it hits bottom, I believe that with all the pent up demand, it is going to blast back.

Think about it, the front end of the baby boom is starting to retire, they are beginning to inherit, their kids are off their payroll and they have their 401 k money etc. So many people have been sitting on the sidelines that when this thing turns, I suspect they will all be jumping in at once. The simple laws of supply and demand tell me that all that pent up demand will drive prices up. So what's the takeaway here? It's a buyers market, so buy. Buy now while you can buy low, before the prices start rising, before the inventory decreases, before interest rates begin to creep. Speaking of which, I just closed on a great piece of property, so my money is indeed where my mouth is.

Unusual Weather

Good Afternoon:

As I write, the temperature on Harbor Island is 64 F. This is a bit unusual for the lowcountry at this time of year. The good news the temperature is supposed to be 77 F by Wednesday. So if you're local, it seems like a good time to get in a few last rounds of golf. If you aren't here, well I wish you were so you could share this delightful time with us.

Cindy