NAR is reporting that overall housing inventory fell 3.5% to 3.8 million units for sale in May. To put this in perspective, that is a drop of nearly 2 weeks of national inventory in one months time. (10.1 months of inventory in April to 9.6 in May) 

What’s stalling even more progress?
Appraisals….NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun has verified what every Real Estate Agent already knows…. appraisers are killing deals right now with extremely conservative valuations.  To put this in basic terms….. buyers and sellers are coming to agreements at certain prices, however, appraisers are often appraising the property at a value well below this amount. As a result, the # of closed sales reported in May is well below what it could have been.

How does information relate to Congress Realty?
We have seen an enormous increase in offers in CA, NV, and AZ over the past 8 weeks. We have also seen a large # of escrows cancelled because of low appraisels. Our sellers should be informed of their surrounding comparables and be willing to share their pricing data with appraisers before the appraisal is completed.

MLS dot com is coming under fire from NAR right now for the mis-use of the term MLS. In a nutshell, MLS dot com has nothing to do with any local MLS and has nothing to do with NAR. (National Association of Realtors(R)) In its most basic form, MLS dot com is simply a site dedicated to selling leads back to agents and charging agents a fee to add their properties to the MLS dot com database.  The site wants to make money off agents by charging these agents the right to advertise their own listings. How can they do this? Simple, they own the URL MLS dot com, and in short, take advantage of the phrase MLS.

Is there any advantage to my property being listed on MLS dot com?

Yes and No, the reality is that less than 15% of all MLS listings across the country will show up on the MLS dot com webpage. Sites such as Realtor.com are much more effective marketing tools.

Recently, it has become more and more popular for MLS’s to forbid the use of a combination lockbox on an MLS listed property. The MLS’s general reasoning is that they feel the combination lockbox compromises safety. While I agree the E lockboxes are much safer, the fact is that the MLS makes money by charging agents for E lockboxes. An agent can only purchase an E box from the MLS, thus, the MLS controls all of the revenue generated by these boxes. Furthermore, the MLS also makes money by charging monthly service fees for keypads. (these are the devices that open the E boxes) The bottom line is that the MLS profits greatly by forcing agents to use their boxes.  How can an MLS enforce this policy? Easy, they fine any brokerage that places a mechanical box on the property. If you refuse to pay the fine, they shut off your MLS service.

A few MLS’s that have adopted this rule:

NWMLS in WA
Northern Nevada MLS
Sacramento, CA MLS.

http://www.abor.com/about_abor/GreenRealEstate.cfm

To summarize,  the city of Austin is requiring energy audits for home sales moving fwd. Sellers will be required to pay a few hundred dollars to have their home inspected for its energy efficiency. The findings are then provided to the buyer during the escrow period. The goal is to encourage sellers to make their homes more energy efficient.

I don’t think anyone will argue that we all want more energy efficient homes, however, why in the world are we hitting sellers with additional cost in Austin….. in an already slumping housing market? The timing of this is just dreadful. If you’re wondering how you can live in Austin and not have heard about this… simple… the city of Austin has done a terrible job of letting homeowners know about this new requirement. I would estimate that less than half of Austin Homeowners are aware of this.

The southern part of Washington in the Vancouver area shares an MLS with the state of Oregon, RMLS. This system inludes many areas of Oregon, including Portland, Eugene, and surrounding areas.  Personally, I think this is a brilliant move on the part of the Vancouver, WA Realtors(R).  It allows them to increase their marketability on the buyer side to current residents of Portland. Plus, look at the alternative, if Vancouver was not a part of the RMLS system, it would most certainly be a part of the NWMLS. This would then require all Vancover agents to compete for business against Seattle/Tacoma brokers. The way it stands now, Portland brokers can not compete for Vancouver business without also having a WA license.  In short, Vancover brokers have the best of both worlds, they get the advantages of being a part of a large MLS but do not have to compete with a large # of brokers for local business.

More and more sellers are running into this situation in Arizona b/c of the dramatic increase in recent activity. When you have multiple offers as a seller, you need to decide if you want to accept one offer, reject all of the offers, counter 1 offer, or counter all of the offers together at once. The first 3 scenarios are self explanatory.

In order to submit multiple counter offers, the first thing you want to do is to disclose to all parties you have multiple offers and you will be countering more than 1 party. You do not have to disclose how many offers you received.  (2 versus 20) Arizona promulgates a multiple counter offer form that can be downloaded from our website. It is imperative that you use this particular form. Do not use the basic AZ counter offer form. The multiple counter offer form will help you avoid having more than one party make a claim to the property in the event more than one party accepts your counter offer.

Another alternative to countering is to go back to all parties and ask them to resubmit their highest and best offer. Then simply choose the best offer.

Always try and use the phone # that you will be most often available to answer. Try and avoid routing calls to attorneys or other points of contact when you can avoid it. If you have a cell phone, use this on your sign and MLS listing. (and phone forwarding if you select this feature) The problem with making your attorney your point of contact is that this individual will most likely not be available on weekends and evenings. (when many showing request take place)

Also, try to avoid putting too many phone #’s on your listing. Ideally, have one phone dedicated solely to selling your property. Thus, when you hear this ring, you know to put down what you are doing and address the call.

This has come up multiple times within the past 2 weeks in Arizona for a handful of our properties. Underwriters are requesting desk reviews of appraisals prior to final approval. What this means is that the underwriter is asking for another party to verify the appraisal price of the property.  Typically, this results in the desk review coming in at a lower price than the appraisal. Lenders will almost always go with the desk review price and not the appraisal. The problem as a seller is that there is very little you can do to combat this. The good news is that the reason this is happening is because values in many areas are starting to rise again. As a result, lenders not familiar with Arizona are questioning why appraisal values are coming in much higher than they were 2-3 months ago.  (hence, asking for the desk review)

As a seller in Arizona, it’s important to remember that even though the appraisal may have come in at your price, wait and be certain a desk review does not take place prior to assuming the sale is a done deal.

Documents that fall under Rule F in Colorado include Purchase Contracts, Addendums, Sq Ft Disclosures,  Counter Offers, Agency Disclosures, etc… So what is a rule F form? The first thing to keep in mind is that this only applies to Colorado and has nothing to do with any other state, thus, if your property is outside of Colorado, you can completely ignore this entry.

Taken from the CO Dept of Real Estate Website:

F-7 Commission Approved Forms

Real estate brokers are required to use Commission-approved forms as appropriate to a transaction or circumstance to which a relevant form is applicable. In instances when the Commission has not developed an approved form within the purview of this rule, and other forms are used, they are not governed by Rule F. Other forms used by a broker shall not be prepared by a broker, unless otherwise permitted by law.

So what does this really mean?
It means the state of Colorado produces specific documents that they force CO Real Estate Brokers to use when the particular document applies to that situaion. In basic terms, the state feels they can better protect everyone if they force Real Estate Brokers to use pre-printed contracts approved by the state. It is very important to keep in mind that this only applies to Real Estate Brokers. Two unlicensed parties can still draft a contract without the use of a Rule F form if no broker is involved.

The Las Vegas multiple listing service is operated by the GLVAR. The Las Vegas MLS does a very good job of policing statuses within their system. What this means is the MLS ensures that properties that have sold are marked sold in a timely manner, properties that show active in the MLS must really be active, etc.. (for example, a pending property can not show active) What this does is help agents and sellers price their property with the most possible accurate data. (and saves agents time by not showing properties that are not available)

The Vegas MLS is one of the few MLS’s left that still allow for gate codes and mechanical lockbox codes to be placed within the system. Sellers in gated communities and with mechanical boxes should strongly consider taking advantage of this. This allows an agent to go right to the property and not have to make an appt to acquire the gate code, etc.. anytime a seller can eliminate potential barriers to a showing, that’s a good thing. The Vegas MLS also has very clear showing instructions that sellers should utilize to their advantage.

Vegas Showing Codes and Definitions:

KeyAny - On E box and vacant
KeyCall - On E box or M box - call before showing to confirm
ApptOwn - No box - must call owner to make appt
ApptTen- No box - must call tenant to make appt

By utilizing all of the various nuances of the Vegas MLS, sellers can actually increase the #of showings on their homes.