Here is the Gainesville Fl Condominium Market Report  for August 2012 that shows (3) Month Statistics on the Gainesville Florida Condominium & Townhouse Market.   These charts reflects the June, July and August 2012 data of units sold.  This data is compiled from the Gainesville Multiple Listing Service. This first chart below shows the total number of active listings in the MLS and how that compares to the number of pending sales, and the closed sales for each month.   You will see that our inventory of active listings has gone down, and shows a higher number of pending contract.  The month of August shows 48 closed sales, which is down from the month of July.  This reflects that most student condo sales are at the end of the student/condo season.  Yet the Gainesville Condo Market is r... 09/22/2012

As a Realtor® member of the Gainesville Alachua County Association of Realtors it is my pleasure to pass along an exceptionally well done market analysis for the Gainesville Florida (Alachua County) real estate market. See the Report HERE All Real Estate is LocalConsult a Local Professional If you have any questions and are interested in answers, feel free to contact me. 09/14/2012

Sinkholes in Florida is not a happy topic to discuss, and sinkholes in Gainesville is even more stressful to talk about.   But, we received a great email today from Mike Webber Farm Bureau Insurance in Gainesville about SINKHOLES in Florida. With all the rain we have had this summer, and some sinkhole activity in the Gainesville area, this is great information for all of us to know about Sinkholes.   You can download this sinkhole brochure! The Sinkhole & Catastrophic Ground Collapse Brochure  is packed full of information that every Floridian should know about Sinkholes,  and was compiled by the State of Florida Financial Services Thanks Mike for sharing this with us, and I am using  our Gainesville Real Estate Talk blog post to spread the word! Your email and this sinkhole brochure ma... 09/10/2012

Well, it's been a busy month and I am delayed in getting my JULY 2012 Market Reports completed and posted on my blog. But here is the Gainesville-Alachua County Real Estate Month Market Report for HOMES SOLD in July 2012. Gainesville Florida Single Family Homes Sold Market Report – July  2012 Here are the statistics for Gainesville Florida single family homes real estate market for the May, June  and July 2012. This chart below shows you the number of CLOSED SALES for the months of  May 2012, June 2012 and July 2012.   Also the relationship of (DOM) the average days on the market for those sales, and the current PENDING SALES. This chart below provides a graph as the number of ACTIVE LISTINGS in the Gainesville Florida Multiple Listing Service for this same three month period.  We have ... 09/07/2012

Here is the Gainesville Fl Condominium Market Report  for June 2012 that shows (3) Month Statistics on the Gainesville Florida Condominium & Townhouse Market.   These charts reflects the May, June 2012 and July 2012 data of units sold.  This data is compiled from the Gainesville Multiple Listing Service. This first chart below shows the total number of active listings in the MLS and how that compares to the number of pending sales, and the closed sales for each month.   You will see that our inventory of active listings has gone down, and shows a higher number of pending contract.  The month of July shows 60 closed sales, which is down from the month of June.  The stats are showing the the number of units for sale is down which may be an indicator that the condo market is no longer in d... 09/07/2012

Pricing of your Gainesville Short Sale Pricing the property right will have a greater chance for it to sell. There is a strategy to pricing depending upon several factors. This will depend upon condition of home, last mortgage payment made, the short sale lender involved, foreclosure sale date and market conditions. The main factor in pricing a home is if it is in active foreclosure and or how long the payments have been in arrears. Once a homeowner stops making mortgage payments the clock towards foreclosure starts ticking. This means you should start becoming more aggressive with your pricing strategy the longer time goes on when mortgage payments are not being made. Depending upon the condition, location and time line short sales typically sell anywhere from 5 to 20% below market val... 09/02/2012

Strategies to Market your Gainesville Short Sale - Anson Properties has expert Gainesville Short Sale Realtors who have successfully handled short sale listings, require listing periods of no less than 1 year on the Gainesville Short Sale Homes. During the listing period, short sale lenders are observing the status of the property. If it takes a period of time for the listing to be approved, the lenders may request an extension of the short sale to be listed. It is necessary to make sure to get duration of one year for the listings to avoid trouble. If it is near on the time-frame given, that’s the instant wherein we obtain another extension for the listing. Aside from having 12 month listing period for the short sale, there are several points to take note while the listing duration is ... 08/31/2012

Gainesville - How to Process a Short Sale File Anson Properties, who successfully handles short sale listings, understands the time sensitivity of the short sale process. During the listing period, short sale lenders are observing the status of the property. If it takes a period of time for the listing to be approved, the lenders may request an extension of the short sale to be listed. It is necessary to make sure to get duration of one year for the listings to avoid trouble. If it is near on the time-frame given, that’s the instant wherein we obtain another extension for the listing. Aside from having an annual period for the short sale listing, there are several points to take note while the listing duration is on-going. Here they are: • Have a Marketing List of all the online and off... 08/28/2012

All homeowners are keenly interested in what their home is worth. Periodically they ask a real estate professional to help them to know their home value as they attempt to measure their net worth. As licensed real estate professionals we have the credentials, experience and market access to provide this information and while it is usually at a dinner party or a soccer game with the question posed as a favor we normally do this for community members and friends for free. As licensed professionals we can also provide this service for a fee and do so routinely in the form of Broker Price Opinions (BPO) for banks that are in the process of turning foreclosed property over and back on to the market for repurchase. Market access for real estate professionals comes in the form of the multiple ... 08/20/2012

Gainesville Short Sale Agent and Attorney Communication Short Sales sometimes carry a bad stigma when it comes to the amount of time it takes to work through the short sale process. Though short sale lenders are improving their process timelines there is still much to be said about taking 4 - 6 months to work a file and keep both the buyer and seller on pins and needles. It is important to have an attorney as part of your short sale to assist in answering any legal questions that may arise. If legal counsel is sought I would recommend doing so in the very beginning. You will also want to ensure the attorney you speak with not only handles (processes) short sales but also has plenty of experience. There are many attorneys out there that are great and those that have not navigated short s... 08/13/2012

Why Closely Monitoring a Gainesville Short Sale is Important Anson Properties received a short sale approval yesterday and from the start, working with the lender proved to be extremely difficult. We've jumped through several loopholes while maintaining as much patience as we could muster. The homeowner's loan was transferred from their lender to ServiceLink for processing as a short sale and in doing so the loan number was changed. First of all the seller was not notified of the transfer until weeks after it took place, thus delaying our short sale communication. I would email and call and leave messages with our assigned negotiator at the original bank, with zero response in return. After 2 weeks of persistence I finally had enough and escalated the file to a supervisor which took an ... 08/12/2012

Gainesville Short Sale Owners filed against Leading Lenders Last year, several lenders vowed to work together with the underwater homeowners to avoid deceitful practices as mentioned in the national legal settlement. However, just recently, there are numerous homeowners in Florida who reported complaints versus the leading lenders. A deal was made by several states and federal leaders last February which was believed to compel America’s top five lenders to minimize their interest rates, trim down principal or propose cash to those mortgage clients that are struggling. What has surfaced recently are largest lenders’ clients are greatly disappointed. The percentages of those complaints are in immense numbers; this record was provided by the Florida Attorney General’s Office to the Orlando... 08/12/2012

Military homeowners to get short sale assistance Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) acting director, Edward DeMarco, announced short sale policy changes for active-duty military homeowners. With this new set of rules, military homeowners can now short sale their homes without having to take a loss. This means they will be free from any deficiency judgments— no cash contribution or promissory note at closing. Plus, they don’t have to default on their loans to qualify. This policy applies to military homeowners with Permanent Change of Station (PCS) order whose mortgage is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Furthermore, the home must have been bought on or before June 30, 2012. PCS orders usually require a quick move. This creates hardship for military homeowners who are underwater b... 08/12/2012

736K self-insured Florida residents to get rebate The Florida Department of Health and Human services announced that health insurers will pay $124 million to about 1.3 million Florida self-insured residents. The amount may vary but the average is about $168 rebate per household. This rebate is part of President Obama’s 80/20 rule in his Affordable Care Act. This health care reform requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of consumer’s premium dollars directly on patients, medical care, and quality improvement. The other 20% should be allocated for administrative and operating cost such as salaries, sales, and marketing. Insurance companies who do not meet the 80/20 rule must send rebates to their policyholders not later than August 1 this year. It has been reported that about ... 08/12/2012

This story takes the cake and I am still trying to get my mouth closed after hearing it.  About 6 months ago I hired a woman, I will refer to as Mary, for a marketing project I was working on.  It was simple in nature and did not require any more skills than the use of a camera.  This was nothing fancy so there was not a need to hire a professional, I needed pictures in the raw. After 3 hours my temp hire Mary came back with only 8 photos which left me scratching me head.  I gave directions and specific instructions and in 3 hours time I expected about 30 - 40 pictures to work with. Frustrated, I brought the woman into my office thanked her, paid her for her time and told her I was moving in a different direction. Fast forward to July 2012, I recieve a call from no other than Mary.  She... 08/09/2012

Sustainable high performance residential building construction utilizing leading edge technology has been going on in Gainesville Florida since well before the term GREEN was the label coined for such endeavors and long before the Federal government began to shake things up with  incentives and mandates from the top down to motivate Federal, State and local municipalities along with the general public to conserve energy, utilize more renewable sources of energy and embrace sustainability (see Energy Policy Act of 2005 and Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007). Sustainability is an action word in Gainesville Florida since the mid 1990′s The following is a chronological sampling of sustainable projects clearly demonstrating the accomplishments and early sustainability leadership ... 08/07/2012

30-year FRM hits record low at 3.66% Short-term mortgage rates to remain unchanged, according to 50% of experts polled by Bankrate.com. Experts who account 17% of the poll foresee further drops, while the remaining 37% predicts an increase. The average U.S. loan interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell this week to a record low for the 7th time in just 8 weeks. Cheap mortgages take the credit for the modest recovery of the unstable housing market. Freddie Mac disclosed that the average interest rate on a 30-year loan dropped to 3.66% from its previous rate of 3.71%. This is the lowest interest rate since the long-term mortgages began back in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the average interest rate for a 15-year mortgage declined to 2.95% from its previous rate of 2.98%. The current rate i... 08/03/2012

Foreclosure review deadline, extended Foreclosed homeowners who think they may have been victims of unfair foreclosure process between the years 2009 and 2010 have two more months to ask the federal government to review the proceedings. The Independent Foreclosure Review intends to determine whether individual homeowners suffered financial harm and should receive compensation or other remedy because of errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies that may have occurred during their home foreclosure process. Request for review have been extended to September 30, 2012. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) emphasized that ex-homeowners who believe that they have been financially injured due to th... 08/03/2012

REO agents under investigation for AG settlement Real estate agents washed their hands clean from the problems that led to the $25 billion “robo-signing” settlement with the nation’s Attorneys General—but it doesn’t mean that they will not be affected with the issue in any way. Within the grounds of legal agreement, mortgage servicers are required to justify their payments to external firms that handle everything from documentation to asset management which includes REO brokers and agents who handle the listings. Real Estate Owned specialists are paid to conduct inspections, provide broker-priced opinions (BPOs), and handle trash-outs and other services. However, the settlement clearly states that these providers should not be paid if they encourage undue haste or lack of due diligence ... 08/03/2012

Pressing for insurance change, Florida lawmakers The lack of progress on Florida property insurance issues disappoints a pair of key legislators, which prompts them to prepare for another push when the matters calm down this November. Rep. Bryan Nelson, R-Apopka, and Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, chairmen of their respective chambers’ insurance committees released a three-part position paper that highlights the hidden risks all insurance policyholders face in the event of a devastating storm. Even if the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (CAT) and the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. are in their best financial shape in years, the pair argues that the programs’ relative health conceals their vulnerability and the risks it could yield to its policyholders. Despite general agreement t... 08/03/2012