If you can’t see the video above, click here

A little background on listing syndication

Syndicating a listing (ie, your home for sale) means getting it out to all of the online sites that display listings.  The big three that attract the most traffic are Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow.  They have spent bucketloads of money over the last few years to be sure that they rank on page one of Google for just about any possible home search terms, ensuring thousands upon thousands of eyeballs on their sites each and every day.

The long standing complaint from REALTORS® has been that if they want their pretty face to show up next to their own listings, they must pay the big 3 for the right to do so.  It’s not mandatory.  It’s not forced upon any of them.  It’s a business decision to make whether it benefits them and/or their clients to do so or not.  Some brokers dive in with both feet and buy spots on all of them, some choose to let the listings speak for themselves and some choose to moan and gripe about 3rd parties getting between consumers and agents.

Do home buyers and sellers even care?

All of the hoopla surrounding this announcement has pretty much been confined to the real estate industry.  More specifically, it’s been confined to the portion of the real estate industry that has an active online and social media presence (believe me, that’s not every one of the agents in every market).   The small amount of consumer feedback in the video comments matches my thoughts exactly:  A home seller doesn’t care if their agent is the one that is contacted about their home, they just want to get it sold.

Home sellers don’t care if their agent is the one that gets all of the “leads” on their listing.  Home sellers don’t care if an agent from another company is the one that brings a buyer for their home.  Home sellers couldn’t care less that an agent might have purchased a zip code to garner all of their neighborhood contacts on a particular site.  The bottom line is that a home seller just wants their home sold – for the highest possible price, in the shortest amount of time.  Industry politics and grandstanding don’t have a thing to do with accomplishing that goal.

Home buyers are even less caring.  They move from site to site, signing up to get new listings emailed to them, virtually stalking neighborhoods online in their search for the place that is going to be one of the largest purchases they will ever make.  If a home is not on one of these sites it could potentially be overlooked in their search.  I say potentially because, at the end of the day, the majority of home buyers are working with an agent.  Their agent has access to the MLS (multiple listing service), which has all of the most up to date information on every home for sale in that market.

Who benefits here?

In my opinion, the person who benefits from withholding listings from the major syndicators is the broker holding those listings, since they are increasing their odds of the listing agent information being displayed along with the home information.  What about the seller who hired them to market that home?  Sorry, but you won’t be in any of the places that a large percentage of the home buying population starts their home search.  How is that in the best interests of YOU?

I applaud the ARG group for standing up for what they believe in, but it sounds to me that they are more concerned with making sure that the seller’s agent is the one who gets the contacts and phone calls on their listings than getting their listings the widest exposure.  I welcome you to contact me about any of my listings, but you should know that if I am representing a home seller, I will not represent you as a buyer.  You’ll be referred to a buyer’s agent, because if there is one thing that we believe strongly in, it’s that each person deserves to have their own agent looking out for their best interests.

Ask your agent

If having your home on the big 3 real estate websites is important to you, ask your agent how their brokerage handles this.  Do they freely syndicate or do they attempt to hold their listings in-house?  In New Orleans, all listings are automatically provided to Realtor.com by the MLS.  That’s not so for Trulia or Zillow, so if it’s important to you that your home be advertised there, you should have that discussion with any agent you interview before putting your home on the market.

We’ve actually tested 2 out of 3 of these sites and determined that while we think it’s beneficial to have your home listed on all of them, having our contact information right next to the listing doesn’t make a bit of difference in the number of people that call or get your home sold any faster.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what we are all here for?

The big financing news this week is that HUD has brought back the $100 down payment program.  Details on this program can be found here.

Remember loan amount, loan-to-value and credit scores will always play a part in the rate that home buyers qualify for.

All 30 year loans

• Rural Development 100% financing:  3.75% with 0 points
• FHA: 3.75% with o points
• Conventional Loans: 4.0% with o points
• VA: 3.75%

15 year loans

• FHA:  3.375%

This information is courtesy of:

Jeffrey Johnson, Mortgage Consultant
Nola Lending Group, LLC
7611 Maple St. Ste.A3
New Orleans, La 70118

Cell: 504-250-7210
Email: Jeff@nolalending.com
Efax: 504-648-3000

We all have a tendency to accumulate things/stuff/junk in our homes.  If you are one of those people that never keeps something just in case, then this is not for you.  For the rest of us, getting rid of things can be a chore.

Fortunately, there are a couple of really easy ways to dispose of things you no longer want, and certainly don’t want to move, that could be useful to someone else.

pickupplease.org

This website allows you to schedule a free pickup of unwanted household goods, clothing, small appliances and small furniture.  It’s easy, easy, easy to just go to the site, provide your pick up address and choose from several different pick up dates throughout the month.  I used them this week and loaded up my front porch with bags of clothes that no longer fit (don’t ask), a box full of coffee cups (I have no idea where they all came from), an old end table and a box of what appeared to be every curtain that has ever hung in my home at one time or another.  When I got back home, all of the items were gone and they left behind a door hanger receipt for tax purposes.  You can’t get much better than that!  The bonus is that donations are used to support local, state and national programs for Vietnam Veterans of America.

Visit pickupplease.org

freecycle.org

Freecycle is a community group that posts items they are offering for free or allows folks to request items they are in need of.  You’ll have to create an account with them, but once that’s done, you can post your discards on the site for pickup by anyone in need.  I’ve used this site as well, getting rid of shoes that I don’t wear anymore by giving them to a member of the Krewe of Muses who is busily gluing, glittering and otherwise embellishing shoes for the parade this year.

Visit freecycle.org

If you know of any other local businesses accepting donations that we can support or get the word out for, please leave their information in the comments below.

Remember loan amount, loan-to-value and credit scores will always play a part in the rate that home buyers qualify for.

All 30 year loans

• Rural Development 100% financing:  3.75% with 0 points
• FHA: 3.75% with o points
• Conventional Loans: 3.875% with o points
• VA: 3.75%

15 year loans

• FHA:  3.375%
• Conventional: 3.25%

This information is courtesy of:

Jeffrey Johnson, Mortgage Consultant
Nola Lending Group, LLC
7611 Maple St. Ste.A3
New Orleans, La 70118

Cell: 504-250-7210
Email: Jeff@nolalending.com
Efax: 504-648-3000

Instead, I took the opportunity to use all of that cleaning and decorating (and undecorating) to have the house spotless and perfect to hit the market in January.

Here are 5 tips you can use if you plan to hit the market in January:

While you are up there taking down the outdoor lights, go ahead and clean out those gutters and check for any needed repairs to the soffits and fascia

When you remove the wreath from the front door, take a close look at it.  Does the door need to be repainted or just cleaned up?  Take care of that now and it will be one less thing on your to-do list.

This can be a tough time of year for New Orleans gardens, but adding a new layer of mulch will freshen it up and make the front of your home look neat and tidy.

While packing up your indoor decorations, grab a couple of extra boxes and start clearing the clutter.

Since the ladder is out, get the swiffer or duster and clean those ceiling fans.

Do you need more information about selling your New Orleans home?  We can help.

• Contact the West Bank Living Team
• Read more home seller tips

With FHA being the most common form of financing across the New Orleans metro area, it’s good to see an increase in the loan limits for this type of financing.  If you need a referral to an approved FHA lender, please contact us.

These maximum mortgage limits on residential loans will be in effect January 1, 2012 until December 31, 2013 in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany Parishes.

1 unit      $287,500    

2 units    $368,050

3 units    $444,900    

4 units    $552,900

For a seller, the goal is to get that house sold.  At the highest price the market will support.  In the shortest amount of time humanly possible.

For a buyer, the goal is to find a house that says home.  With the right amount of space.  And a few upgrades.  And that is a bargain.

Since buyers and sellers have some conflicting goals, offers and counter offers can sometimes be taken personally.

What are the risks?

Counter offers always set up the risk of the other side just walking away from a possible sale.

Buyers may be fishing for a deeply discounted home and offend the owner with what they perceive as an insulting offer.  Unless their agent is experienced in keeping the emotions out of a sale, this insulted feeling can cause the seller to make a counter offer that says “go away, I’ll never sell you my home” to the buyer, either by countering at full price or just a few dollars below.  And that’s OK…as long as the seller is willing to take a feeling of satisfaction over the possibility of actually coming to terms and getting their house sold.

Sellers are, rightfully, proud of the home they have created and their pricing tends to have a lot of emotion built into it.  It’s also possible that they bought when the market was higher and need a certain price to avoid it costing them money to sell their home.  In either scenario, the home owner might be stuck on a price that a buyer just can’t justify based on what other homes are selling for.  Again, an unrealistic counter could have them looking at the backs of the buyers as they walk away.

You’ll note I said unrealistic.

If an offer is low just because the buyer thinks that every home is selling for pennies on the dollar, then they will quickly find themselves on the side of a number of rejections by sellers.  Conversely, if a seller counters at a price that their agent is advising against based on the market, they will find themselves continuing to own a property that may not fit their needs any longer as the buyer moves on to one of the other properties available.

The bottom line is that sellers want to sell and buyers want to buy.  Allowing a small amount of money to keep this from happening (on either side) is never a good strategy, but it happens all of the time.  I’ve seen buyers and sellers dig in their heels when they are only $500 apart.  As long as you are willing to risk losing a sale or the house that you want, go on with your bad self.

If you want to actually get to a closing, tamp down those emotions, listen to the advice of your real estate professional and find a happy medium, which is what a successful negotiation really accomplishes anyway.

Find New Orleans homes for sale

What’s my New Orleans home worth?

I checked out the rules with the IRS and here are the details:

From the IRS website:

Q. When does my home stop being my main home?

A. Here are examples of when your home stops being your main home:

• You sell the home.
• You transfer the home to a spouse or former spouse in a divorce settlement.
• You convert the entire home to a rental or business property.
• You converted the home to a vacation or second home.
• You no longer live in the home for the greater number of nights in a year.
• Your home is destroyed or condemned.
• You lose your home in foreclosure.
• You die. (1/6/11)

Q. When do I have to repay the credit?

A. You repay the full or part of the credit as an additional tax on your tax return when the home stops being your main home during the 36-month period following the date you purchased your home.

You must repay the full credit when:

• You sold your main home to a related person or entity
• Your home is destroyed, condemned or disposed of under threat of condemnation and you do not purchase or rebuild a replacement home within two years.
• You converted the entire home to a rental or business property.
• You converted the home to a vacation or second home.
• You no longer live in the home for the greater number of nights in a year.

You may have to repay the full or a part of the credit when:

• You sold your main home to a non-related person or entity. You repay the amount of the credit up to the amount of your capital gain. Note: when calculating gain or loss on your main home if you received the first-time homebuyer credit, you reduce your basis by the amount of the credit. See Publication 551, Basis of Assets, for more information.
• You lost your home in a foreclosure.You must repay the credit only up to the amount of gain. (1/6/11)

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of online sites that buyers can go to find lists of homes for sale.  Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo!…heck, even just a google search will turn up page after page of national sites for your perusal in addition to a large number of local agent websites.  The problem from a home buyer and seller perspective is that the MLS doesn’t allow every member agent to display every listing on their site.

• Your favorite home search might be on Trulia or Zillow, but did you know that at least one of the major brokerages in New Orleans doesn’t post their listings on either of those sites?   Add in the boutique brokers who don’t have much of an internet presence, and if you land on one of those sites your list of homes adds up to something less than 100% of the active listings.
• Realtor.com only has the listings of those brokerages that are members of the National Association of Realtors.  Although I’ll grant that it’s the majority of homes for sale, it’s still not everything that’s available.

So, why can’t you find all of the listings on all of the sites?  Because real estate brokerages in New Orleans operate under a rule that forces the home buyer to their broker owned sites if they want to search for every active listing in the MLS.

What’s wrong with the brokers controlling access to the information?

If you have spent the time researching New Orleans REALTORS® and finally found an agent that you connect with and want to work with, you are forced to leave that warm and fuzzy place when you are booted to the brokerage site for home searches.  I don’t know about you, but I get a little nervous when new windows start opening on my laptop because I clicked a link.  Personally, if I decide to search on a particular site, I want to stay there – not be cyber directed to someplace else because of an antiquated and outdated rule that has absolutely nothing to do with serving me – the consumer.

Some brokerages have the habit of gathering your contact information and then collecting a substantial referral fee to let the agent you want to work with have access to you.  Now, it’s not quite as brusque as that sounds, but the bottom line is that it’s a more than a little self serving for brokers to demand that all home searches be done on their sites AND to then take advantage of that rule to make more money.  I know…you couldn’t give a rat’s behind how much your agent makes when you buy or sell a home.  But, if they are doing the same amount of work for you that they are doing for someone that they don’t have to pay a referral fee for, who do you think is going to get priority if there is a conflict with time or resources?

If you are selling your home, one of the main goals of your agent is to get you the maximum amount of exposure to potential buyers.  When brokers limit the display of all listings to broker owned sites instead of to the sites of every agent in the metro area, they are also limiting your home’s ability to be found by buyers.  With so many buyers using the internet as their primary home search tool, shouldn’t you be able to expect that your listing will be in as many places as possible?

From an agent’s perspective

As a listing agent, I promise my sellers that I can bring the eyeballs and get their home included in the search results.  I want my listings to be on as many sites as I can get them on, whether it’s mine, another agent’s or a third party real estate site.  The current rules limit how agents are allowed to market a home.  I’ve been actively working with a group to push the MLS board to change this rule but, sadly, we have not yet been successful.  It’s frustrating, because this is NOT the industry standard.  If you’ve come from an area where open sharing is the norm, you will probably waste time figuring out that you can’t find every listing everywhere.

From a consumer’s perspective

I read this comment on a site one day and it really hit home as to why the current system is broken:

Realtors are pretty far behind the curve in terms of utilizing the internet, they post lousy photos, and do not provide enough information and make it difficult to quickly gather information. Generally most realtors appear to approach internet marketing as though they have something to hide instead of having something to show. Transparency in advertising builds trust with the public….

I have been looking for property to purchase, and am annoyed by the lack of complete information on New Orleans realtors websites, and the lousy photos, so I am using this story as an opportunity to vent, but I also know that all of the realtors in New Orleans will be reading this story, and I am hoping that they will read this post and think about what I am writing and improve their websites. Whoever does will find that they have more internet traffic and more business.

The bottom line is that the consumer should always come first.  Whether it’s a buyer searching for a home or a seller who wants to be found during that search, every agent and broker has a duty to their client to put their needs first.  Until this rule is changed, none of us is truly doing that.

Homes for sale in New Orleans (please don’t freak out when a new window opens)

From now through November 26, 2011, Entergy is partnering with The Arbor Day Foundation to give away 10,000 free trees to customers.

It’s quick, it’s easy and can be done right online at Entergy.com/arborday.  All you have to do is map your house online and then choose from a list of trees that are suited to our area.  The mapping even shows you which side of your house the tree you have chosen will perform the best.  Additionally, it calculates estimated energy savings based on the tree chosen and where you plant it.

Your tree will be shipped directly to you for planting and you can even subscribe to a newsletter giving you information on how to care for your new additional to your home landscape.

I’ve ordered mine….won’t you join me in making our neighborhoods prettier, our air cleaner and our energy use lower?  That’s a fabulous trade off for a few minutes online.

Click here to request your free tree