Jeff Launiere's (sweethometampa) Blog

Home sales plunged 27% in July, year over year, to a seasonally adjusted 3.83 million homes, the lowest rate in 15 years. Much of this was likely due to the $8,000 First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit that artificially raised sales over the past year. About 70% of the buyers according to some surveys ...

  It happens to everyone at some point. You walk away from the closing table wondering if you made the biggest mistake of your life. Did you sell your Tampa home for less than it was worth? Will you be able to create new memories in your new home? This is called seller’s remorse.  Here are some t...

If you’re a homeowner who is unable to refinance to a lower interest rate because your Tampa home’s value has decreased, there’s hope. A program called the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) has been extended for another year.  This program, intended to help borrowers whose homes have falle...

While those who own Tampa homes for sale are worried about the real estate market, some buyers are getting good deals. However, there are plenty of people on both sides of the market with a case of cold feet. For instance, some with Tampa homes for sale took them off the market. Others, who’ve t...

Selling a home is sometimes a long process. You can sit around worrying and wondering when you’ll have a buyer, or you can get busy to help the time fly.  Here are 10 things to do while waiting for your Tampa home to sell: 1.    Clean. I’m sure you’ve already cleaned every part of your Tampa hom...

An article on the ToledoBlade.com discussed “Virtual Staging” and quoting some Realtors it goes on to show what a fraud Virtual Staging is. In my experience however, all Virtual Staging Companies that I have seen online and in talking with them, they will not alter anything to do with the struct...

If you’re in the middle of buying Tampa real estate, for which you’re hoping to get a Homebuyer Tax Credit of up to $8,000, you have more time to finalize it. After a close brush with the deadline, Congress passed a 90-day extension of the Homebuyer Tax Credit closing deadline.   The extension a...

According to RealtyTrac, 1 in 70 homes have received foreclosures notices since January, 2010 – a total of 1.7 million houses in the U.S. Was your Tampa home one of them? In previous blogs, we’ve covered several ways to avoid foreclosure, but a rising trend has brought another possibility to the...

Going it alone and listing your home as for sale by owner can be exciting at first, but there is a turning point where the prospect of losing money makes it necessary to bring in help. Here are four reasons to change your plan and list your home with a Tampa real estate agent in order to facilit...

When you first set out to sell your home, you are probably excited by all the possibilities, maybe a little scared, and often thinking about the best ways to save money. Many times saving money when selling Tampa real estate means trying to sell it as a FSBO (For Sale By Owner). If you have the ...