RE/MAX equity group’s  branded “Audio Home Finder,” powered by VoicePad’s Mobile IDX Audio Search technology, allows home buyers immediate access from any telephone to all the broker shared listings from the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) in Portland and Vancouver and from the Willamette Valley Multiple Listing Service (WVMLS) in the Salem area.

RE/MAX equity group “For Sale Signs” will now include a local number for home shoppers to call for immediate and detailed information, in both English or Spanish, on homes listed in the local multiple listing service, 24 hours a day - seven days a week. In the Portland Metro area, the phone number is 503-270-HOME (4663). In  Vancouver, the local number is 360-258-CELL (2355). In Salem, the local number is 503-371-5200. 

“Buyers can easily receive instant information about the home they are interested in by calling our system and simply entering the house address, on our listings or other listings in the local MLS,” said Jim Homolka, President of RE/MAX equity group. “Home shoppers who call the RE/MAX equity group Audio Home Finder can also receive the estimated mortgage payment and opt to receive a text message with the home’s features sent directly to their cell phone.”

In addition, the Audio Tours for RE/MAX equity group listings will also be available, in both English and Spanish, on the company’s website at www.equitygroup.com. This provides greater accessibility to listing information on the site.

RE/MAX equity group agents can also register the buyers they’re working with on the new RE/MAX equity group Audio Home Finder. It enables a home shopper who’s out and about and finds a home of interest to instantly get more information on a specific property and alert their agent at the same time. They will also receive an email with the details on the homes they were interested in.

“Consumers are the real winners with this service,” said Homolka. “They get the information they want, when they want it, without scrambling for paper to write an address down, collect flyers, or having to research houses they saw later. They will have it all on their phone.”

The Salem Association of Realtors recently chose Peggy LeGrande, of RE/MAX equity group’s Salem Business Center office, as their 2009 REALTOR of the Year.

LeGrande was selected for her high level of integrity and attentiveness to her real estate clients as well as being a giving and supportive person who brings a smile to the face and radiates a special energy for all to share in. In receiving her award LeGrande was described as “hard-working, and industrious, she knows how to do what needs to be done to achieve goals and get to the other side of hardships. She is a problem-solver and looks for the highest and best results for all concerned in every situation.” 

LeGrande holds the Certified Residential Specialist and Graduate, Realtor Institute designations and has been a licensed Realtor for more than 27 years.

The information provided on is not intended to be legal advice; it merely conveys general information related to legal issues commonly encountered in real estate sales.  If you want to know the impact of this information on your particular situation, please consult with an attorney. 

Whether we are talking about loan wraps (selling to a buyer without paying off the owner’s mortgage), lease options (option agreements), lease to purchase arrangements (leases with a contractual right to purchase the property) or, perhaps, straight rental agreements, these alternatives for relieving a property owner of the burden of a mortgage when buyers are scarce carry risks.

Deeds of trust in this day and age have very restrictive “due on sale” clauses which prohibit property owners from transferring ownership or control of all or a part of the owner’s interest in a property to another. These due-on-sale restrictions likely prohibit the owner’s alternatives for mortgage relief.  Therefore, any property owner considering these financing alternatives should review his or her deed of trust for due-on-sale restrictions and consult with the trust holder and/or an attorney to determine what alternatives may be available.
 
An owner who violates his or her due-on-sale clause may well be giving the trust deed holder (the lender) the right to accelerate the loan, i.e. the right to call the loan immediately due and payable in full.  If this happens, the seller must pay the full amount of the loan within a short period of time or face foreclosure proceedings.  If the lender calls the loan, where will the owner get the money to pay it?  The owner probably can’t re-finance his or her loan either because he/she has transferred an interest in the property to the buyer or because in today’s tight credit market, financing is not available.  The owner very likely cannot get it from the buyer because the buyer likely needed alternative financing in the first place because of an inability to get a direct loan. 
 
My clients often assert the fact that there is no due-on-sale jail, i.e., it is better to ask for forgiveness and not permission.  Although the risk of criminal prosecution exists for those who commit loan fraud, it is true that, for buyers and owners, the risk is more likely to be monetary than criminal. 

In addition to the lender calling the loan, the risks of financing alternatives to property owners include:

• For lease options, lease to purchase and, straight lease arrangements, the seller will be a landlord during the lease period with all of the obligations attendant to that role, including compliance with Oregon’s Landlord-Tenant laws.  The landlord may have to evict the tenant, make major repairs (to provide a habitable space) or deal with the damages inherent in the rental of property.  Also, if the parties have agreed that the buyer will make all repairs during the lease period as though he or she were an owner, the seller risks that the buyer will make repairs without governmental permits, use self-help on repairs (and be incompetent) or hire incompetent help.
• For owners who are leasing/renting the family home, the owner may be giving up an exemption to capital gains tax.  The owner will also have to declare rent as income.  Property owners considering financing alternatives should consult with their own tax professional for advice on the tax ramifications.
• Only 7% of these transactions close.  The buyer, given that he or she is likely a marginal credit risk, may (i) lose interest in buying the property, (ii) suffer a change in family circumstances; or (iii) discover that he/she will not be able to secure financing when the time comes to purchase the property.  If this happens, the Landlord will still have the house with all of the additional problems inherent in selling a rental property.  Also, if the buyer abandons the property, the buyer’s right to purchase the property may well remain, resulting in a cloud on the title and preventing the seller from selling the house until the purchase right expires or a court vitiates it.

The risks of financing alternatives to buyers are: 

• Only 7% of these transactions close.   In a static or declining market (where prices are not increasing) in which credit may remain difficult to obtain, the buyer has little, if any, incentive to lock up a purchase price on a property this way. 
• Option money and/or increased rent money intended for a down payment may be nonrefundable and, even if the money is refundable, the property owner may have spent the money and have no ability to repay it. 
• Loan wraps, lease to purchase and lease options are usually not recorded, allowing the property owner to further encumber the property through lines of credit or by way of judgment liens for unpaid credit card bills, child support, etc. such that the owner will be unable to convey clear title when the buyer is ready to finance his or her purchase.
• The owner may stop making mortgage payments such that the lender institutes foreclosure proceedings.  In that case, the buyer will be evicted and his or her only remedy against the owner will be in court.  Since the seller stopped making mortgage payments, it seems unlikely that the seller will have money available to pay the buyer even if a court says the owner must do so.

The bottom line is that any owner or buyer considering alternative financing arrangements should get competent legal advice to protect him or herself from the risks inherent in creative financing arrangements. 

“Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.”  Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

We’ve been abused by statistics.  Let’s make sure we know what the statistics mean:

Median -  If you array all the sold properties in order of sold price, the median sold price is the one that falls in the middle.
Average -  If we add up all the sold prices and then divide by the number of solds we will get the average sold price.

While these two statistics are the most commonly quoted, neither of them give us any help in pricing an specific property.  In fact, both may lead a buyer or seller to a wrong conclusion. Sellers want to believe that prices are still going up. Buyers want to believe that every seller is on the verge of foreclosure and should be happy to take any offer.

We in the business know that prices on individual homes, for example, have been falling, modestly here in the Northwest but dramatically in some other parts of the country. We also know that most sellers, although they may want to sell, are not in dire straights.

For Sellers:  If you don’t need to sell and are not willing to be realistic in pricing, don’t bother entering the market.  If you need to sell, your home has to be priced very competitively, be as clean and attractive as possible, be accessible for showing, and be marketed appropriately by a professional REALTOR who understands this market and where the buyers are.

For Buyers:  A REALTOR can find you a “steal” of a home. A REALTOR can find you the home of your dreams. They are not likely to be the same home. What is most important?  Are you waiting for the bottom of the market? Well, as a colleague in Orange County says, “No one is going to ring a bell to tell you when it is the bottom of the market.”  It might be next week, or next month, or next year. Or maybe it already happened last month! Right now we have lots of homes available, pricing is better than it has been for years, and interest rates are still at historic lows. If you are a buyer who intends to live in or hold a property for five years or so, this is a terrific buyer’s market. If you are a “flipper” looking to sell for a quick profit you probably ought to sit it out for a while.

Dave Koch, CRB, e-PRO is a Vice-President of RE/MAX equity group, inc. and principal broker of its Lake Oswego office. He has a BA in Economics and an MBA in Finance. He has served as President, Clackamas City Association of Realtors 1989; Founding President of RMLS 1990-1991, and President, Oregon Association of Realtors, 2002. He was selected as CCAR Realtor of Year 1992; Million Dollar Club, Broker of the Year 1996; Portland Metro Association, Realtor of the Year 1997; and Oregon Association of Realtors, Realtor of the Year, 2002.

The new real estate bubble is building fast…it is different than the last bubble which was made up of a huge over-supply of homes and the blind reliance on the hope that the prices of homes would continue to accelerate at a record pace forever.

This new bubble is comprised of buyers.  Did all the buyers who would have bought in the last year disappear, or are they just waiting for good news?

Much like  the TV show ,“Lost”, whose characters seem to frequently disappear and then reappear, the buyers who disappeared when the big, sloppy Real Estate Bubble burst are, for the most part, still there.

Which buyers will probably not return for a very, very long time?  The “flippers” have pretty much disappeared.  Many of them were very clever individuals who bought a run-down house, cleaned it up, and then sold it for a healthy profit.  Were it not for rampant price inflation, they would not have been as successful.  Many of them are now sellers.

Another category are those buyers in the last few years who were able to get into a home even though they had no money, no credit, and not enough income to pay the initial payment, let alone the huge increase in payments lurking around the corner after the bubble burst.  Again mortgage brokers, lenders, appraisers, and the people who insure and purchase these loans were counting on continued price inflation to keep pushing prices upwards and protect their investment. 

But in most areas of Oregon and  Washington, those buyers who had no business buying in the first place were in the minority.  Most homes being sold were being sold to people who have a real desire to own the home they live in and could afford to do so. Another group was investing in residential real estate for the long haul and understands the cyclical nature of the real estate market. 

Why do I feel most of the delayed buyers are still out there?  Take a look at the numbers:

• The US jobless rate averaged around 4.5% in 2006 and 2007….the lowest in six years. 

• Our so called recession economy in the U.S. added 1.1 million jobs in 2007.  (Buyers with jobs…what a concept!)

• The Federal Reserve has lowered short-term interest rates six times recently, which means the cost of housing should go down, and the cost of debt for US citizens will also decrease.

• More than half of the families in the US now earn more than $54,000 per year.

• The net worth of the American household has risen for 19 consecutive quarters.

• More than 20% of the population of  Oregon moved here from out of state in the past 10 years.

• The State of  Oregon projects almost 100,000 people between the age of 40 and 79 to move into the Portland Area, or almost 1,000,000 into the State in the next 10 years.

• Average wages for Americans have risen by 8% in the last two years.

• During the same period, there were nearly 2,000,000 new households formed.

• Employers are planning to hire 16% more college graduates in 2008 than they did in 2007.

In my visual of this new Buyer Housing Bubble, each one of these statistics is a gigantic shot of air into the bubble.  More people,  more jobs, more college grads, more people moving into the state, more families being formed, lower interest rates, lower prices…this new bubble is getting very big very fast.  I really hope it doesn’t burst like the last one. Rather it would just make that funny “ffftttttt” sound when somebody lets go of a full balloon and it flies around the room.   

Listen for the “ffftttttt” when the media begins to talk about good economic news rather than use scary stuff to attract readers and viewers.

Things are looking pretty good right now.

As always, these are just my opinions.  Sometimes I am right! 

Gary Taylor, CRB, GRI is the principal broker for the Sunset Corridor office of RE/MAX equity group, inc.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors and is Chairman Elect of the Regional Multiple Listing Service. He was awarded the PMAR Realtor of the Year for 2007, the Million Dollar Club’s “Managing Broker of the Year” for 2006, the Oregon CRB of the Year in 1996, and WCR Member of the Year in 2001. He was also a Notary Public in 1974. He can be reached at 503-495-5577 or garyt@remax.net

To read the local newspapers, you would think that our real estate market is in the tank.  No one is buying.  Nobody can sell their house.  What a mess!  How can anybody make money in a real estate market like this?

Let’s look at this mess for a minute.  The Portland (and Seattle) markets are the least affected of all major West coast cities by the “crash” in the real estate market.  House prices are holding pretty much steady with a slight decline in some areas and a slight increase in others. 

I was in downtown Portland early one Sunday morning in late November and had a hard time navigating around all the street blockages due to the “lifts”.  Lifts are what  commercial construction people call lifting mechanical equipment to the top of buildings that are under construction or extensive renovation.  Gigantic cranes blocked the streets.  Really big equipment that, for the most part, looked like HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) units were being hoisted to unbelievable heights.

My immediate thought was that I had no idea this much commercial construction was taking place. That is the sign of a VERY healthy economy!  A healthy economy means the creation of new jobs and the creation of new jobs means the creation of new home buyers!  I love it!

But what about all the doom and gloom I’m reading about in the papers?  First of all, the City of Roses is a huge exception to the rule…the residential real estate market is down a little but still flourishing. There are families moving into our fine city literally by the thousands.

Second is that the media would have you believe that all purchases of residential real estate are primarily a financial decision.  This is simply not true.  Most purchases of residential real estate are due to the very unusual need for a family to have a roof over their heads.  What a revelation.  Right now mortgage money is cheap and readily available to those with reasonably good credit and a job.  Many families would rather own that roof over their heads and will save money for a down payment and buy a house. 

But even if I concede that, for many, buying a house really is an investment first, it is STILL a good market.  My simplified investment strategy is buy low, sell high.  This is not rocket science.  For some reason that really puzzles me, many people want to invest in real estate when the market and prices are at their highest and then panic sell and complain when prices are low. 

Now is the time to buy.  Oh, you want to wait until prices are at the very bottom.  I see.  The problem with that theory is you probably won’t realize there was a very bottom until prices have already begun their climb up again.  For the average investor or even homeowner, real estate is a long term investment and with the exception of the past couple of boom years, has never been a vehicle for quick profits. 

Remember, the house you don’t buy today will never go up in value for you.  The house you buy today and sell down the road in a few years will almost certainly be a good investment for you and your family.

As always, these are just my opinions.  Sometimes I am right!

Gary Taylor, CRB, GRI is the principal broker for the Sunset Corridor office of RE/MAX equity group, inc.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors and is Vice Chairperson of the Portland Regional Multiple Listing Service. He was awarded the PMAR Realtor of the Year for 2007, and the Million Dollar Club’s “Managing Broker of the Year” for 2006.  He was also a Notary Public in 1974.

Loan programs have been cancelled, standards have tightened,and lenders have imploded.  Have buyers run out of options?

Far from it!  The truth is that mortgages written today are more solid than ever, safe for buyers as well as lenders. Interest rates for conforming mortgages are still at very reasonable, historically low levels.

While it’s true that many of the looser and more extravagant financing options are gone or going away, buyers still have options. Here are some of the programs available from reputable lenders:

• Traditional

• FHA

• VA

• ODVA

• Flex 100

• My Community

• Oregon Bond

• Programs for First Time Homebuyers

While there may be a lot of panic in the markets today, the cycle will run its course as it always has. Lenders who have stayed focused on professional service and results for their clients remain on solid financial ground and are available to meet the needs of buyers today.
 
from: Equity Home Mortgage, which was founded in 1997 through a partnership with RE/MAX equity group, inc. and Eagle Home Mortgage LLC.  Eagle Home Mortgage, LLC is wholly owned by Lennar Corporation, who is currently the second largest home builder in the U.S.

Instead of guessing about the income needed for someone to buy your home, have your favorite lender print up a flyer giving 3 different ways the buyer can finance.  I have done this for years and it is amazing how many times a seller has said something along the lines of: “It is amazing that someone could put $120,000 down on my house and their payment is over $3,000 per month…who can afford that?”  This might help adjust your expectations to be more realistic.  For lending information and assistance, go to www.equity-home.com.

If you have a question about a legal issue, you will need to consult with an attorney.  Do not rely on your real estate agent for legal issues…they are licensed and educated in REAL ESTATE!

If you have a question about the tax ramifications of selling your property, you need to talk to an accountant. Do not rely on your real estate agent…they are qualified in REAL ESTATE, not accounting!

In July of 2002 if new listings were to cease, it would take 4.7 months to sell all the houses at the then rate of sales.  In July 2007, it would take 30 DAYS LONGER THAN THAT! Yup, it would take 5.7 months to sell all of our listings at the current rate of sales.  TERRIBLE!  We have almost 1/3 more homes to sell than we did five years ago! 

Look at closed sales for the year to date for July 2002 at 2,337 vs. 2,624 for July of this year!  THAT IS A 12% INCREASE IN SALES!  THAT IS TERRIBLE!  Wait A minute…a sales increase is actually a good thing. 

In July of 2002 the average market time was 61 days.  The average market time this past July was 52 days!  THAT IS TERRIBLE! 

Appreciation must be TERRIBLE!  In the market we are in, prices are dropping like a rock!  For example, our office does a lot of business in Hillsboro/Forest Grove, and the annual appreciation rate year to date in 2002 was 5.7%.  This year, for the same time period, it dropped clear down to 10.8%.  Isn’t that UP almost double?  In Gresham, the appreciation rate went from 1.2% to 12.7%.  What a travesty!  The Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS) showed three areas in July of 2002 that had negative appreciation, and none in 2007.

We are in a state of emergency in this country regarding foreclosures.  They are at an all time high.  Well, they are at an all time high in Illinois, Michigan, California, Colorado, Arizona and Florida.  In our area, foreclosures are actually down.  Foreclosure rates in

 I don’t pretend to ignore the fact that the real estate market is much different today than it was a couple of years ago.  Financing is more difficult.  The real estate market is and always will be very cyclical in nature. 

The problems in the early 1980’s were much different.  High interest rates (12% to 18%) were prevalent.  Unemployment was high.  Today we have good employment, a bustling economy and low interest rates. 

While we face a different set of problems today, they are not yet, and probably won’t become overwhelming…unless you let them, and that would be TERRIBLE!

If you don’t have a safe deposit box, get one.  Store your valuables there that you can fit.  If you have valuables that won’t fit in the box such as a stamp collection, rare books, or those lovely porcelain commodes from Austria, find a place to store them securely.  Perhaps at a neighbor or relative’s home, or in your PODS.

If you take any type of ‘feel good’ medication, keep only a very small amount in the bathroom and hide the rest.

Have your REALTOR^® place a lockbox on your house.  You need to have it ready to be shown nearly 24/7.   If a REALTOR^® with a buyer has a choice of showing a house that is easily accessible, versus one that is difficult to show, which one do you think gets shown?

Provide a Home Warranty for the buyer.  You will save yourself a lot of potential headaches after the sale for a very low amount.   If the furnace doesn’t work when the buyer turns it on this Fall, think of how much money you saved by including this simple warranty.  Go towww.ahswarranty.com and learn more. 

More next week…