Northfield HomeStretch Classes

December 30th, 2009

Beginning on January 9th, 2010 the HomeStretch Homebuyer Education Class will be available monthly in the Northfield area.  This class will be taught by Susan Jackson of American Dream Services. 

 

American Dream Services is a full-service mission driven organization that provides HomeStretch Homebuyer Education classes, mortgage and real estate brokerage services.   Since 2003, ADS has offered 83 English homebuyer education classes to over 1,500 households.  Susan Jackson is a Minnesota Home Ownership Center and NeighborWorks Certified Homebuyer Educator and has a B.A. in Marketing Management from Concordia University.  She has been a licensed realtor since 1993 and a Minnesota real estate broker since 2000.

 

The key to buying a home is information. Purchasing a home is one of the biggest investments most of us will ever make. The first step to unlocking the secrets to home ownership is by attending a Home Stretch workshop. The classes provide the attendees with information on each step of the home buying process, from budgeting through completing a loan application, all the way to closing on the sale of their new home.

 

Home Stretch is required to qualify for many affordable mortgage loans and down payment assistance programs. Classes are $35 per person and covers morning coffee and treats, your professional instructors, course materials, a manual, and a certificate of completion.

 

To register, go to www.adsmn.com and click on the Homebuyer classes or call Susan Jackson at 952-270-1084. Classes will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Northfield Community Center beginning on January 9th, 2010.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

St. Paul Make It Possible Program

December 30th, 2009

Another interesting program is now available for homes purchased in St. Paul, MN.  The Make It Possible (MIP) Second Mortgage Program is for 1-4 unit dwellings located within St. Paul that buyers will occupy as their principal residence.  Up to $45,000 can be secured in the form of a second mortgage at an interest rate of 3.5% for entry and/or closing cost assistance, equity contribution or rehabilitation of an existing property.  For more information, call Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services at 651-774-6995 or visit their website at http://www.dbnhs.org

Susan

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

My Green Parachute

September 7th, 2009

Just so all of you know what is going on around here!

My Green Parachute Names Jackson Minnesota Designated Broker

My Green Parachute, the real estate referral and residual model for the future, launches business in Minnesota with the announcement of a Designated State Broker, Susan Jackson.

 

St. Paul, MN September 1, 2009 – My Green Parachute, a cutting edge real estate referral and residual business, has named Susan Jackson of Northfield, Minnesota their Designated State Broker for Minnesota. My Green Parachute is a unique real estate model for the future based in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. My Green Parachute Founder and CEO, Carolyn Kindley-Single, expressed excitement at Jackson joining the company; “Susan has a long and successful history in the Real Estate and Home Ownership arena and is well suited to making My Green Parachute a huge success for us in Minnesota”.

 

My Green Parachute helps former and current real estate agents and brokers build business by cooperating to capture business that formerly only benefitted agents actively selling. The model for My Green Parachute allows agents who are licensed but no longer actively selling to continue earning commissions from past and even new clientele. Whether the agents are retiring or transitioning to a new industry or career, they currently would leave any past clients or opportunities for future commissions behind.

 

With My Green Parachute, these agents now with the title Professional Real Estate Referral Agents, have their client base registered with them and actively marketed on their behalf. If they are contacted for real estate needs, or run across someone who has real estate needs in their daily life, the formerly active agent can refer them into the My Green Parachute system. The Professional Referral Agents then benefit from any commission that is earned from the real estate transactions for these clients.

 

The referrals are handled by Active Field Agents, Real Estate Agents who are actively selling and may build their own teams of Referral Agents for the benefit of both agents. This new model allows agents who have long served customers in achieving home ownership the ability to continue that relationship in the future by getting their clients top notch service and earning themselves residual income from their past successes.

 

Kindley-Single noted that real estate was formerly a business with “No Pension plans. No Stock Options. No Residual Income. If you slow down or stop working…there goes the money! With My Green Parachute, that no longer needs to be the case.” Jackson is also enthusiastic to start helping Minnesota agents benefit from their past, and current, work adding: “My Green Parachute allows these hard-working agents and brokers the opportunity to retire or leave the business with some structure in place to protect all the hard work, time, and investments they have made”

 

My Green Parachute welcomes immediate calls and e-mails from interested former and current agents who believe they can benefit from this model as they wind down, or grow, their real estate business.

 

About My Green Parachute:

In 2006, Carolyn Kindley-Single wondered why the amount of time, energy, and money spent by both new and experienced brokers and agents in the real estate business was virtually lost when they left the business? Carolyn imagined there must be a way for everyone involved to benefit from a program that captured real estate transactions at the source. So after almost three years of researching state real estate commission requirements, real estate laws, solid operational procedures, and cutting edge technology, My Green Parachute is launching throughout the country.

 

Contact:

Susan Jackson, Minnesota Designated State Broker

My Green Parachute MN

612-774-9200

http://www.mygreenparachute.com

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

110 Days Until $8,000 Disappears

August 12th, 2009

How long does it take to buy a house?  I have heard this question with repeated rapidity each day the last month and I suspect it will continue to increase as we approach the deadline that is November 30th of this year.  Why?

If you have been in a cave or focusing on the Cash for Clunkers production, then you may have missed that $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that close by November 30, 2009.  It IS a great deal since there is no repayment of the credit (unlike the previous years cumbersome repayment of the $7,500 credit).

Suddenly as Summer rolls into August, people are getting off the fence, beach or mountains and saying “Hey, maybe I should buy a house!”  So, they call someone like me and say “How long does it take to buy a house?”

And since I’m a smart aleck, I say: “Do you have cash?” and we both laugh and I give the following explanation:

To buy a house in the most logical, sane manner, the first step in Minnesota is to visit a Home Stretch Class.  It will give you a tremendous overview of the process you are about to dive into and you will be infinitely more prepared to buy a house.  You can find classes throughout Minnesota at www.hocmn.org or go to our website at www.adsmn.com to register for our class.

Next, you need to visit a loan officer and get pre-approved.  By that I mean, you get to the point where you share documents and information with the loan officer, they run you through their systems and give you a pre-approval letter, Good Faith Estimate and Truth-In-Lending statement.  If you don’t have these, you haven’t been pre-approved.  Period. End of story.  If a loan officer hasn’t seen your paystubs, looked at your credit and gotten a couple dozen documents from you, then you are merely pre-qualified which means NOTHING!

So, make certain your loan officer has you pre-approved and will give you a letter that represents that clearly to a real estate agent.  Once you are pre-approved, you can go shopping.  Find a Real Estate Agent you trust.  Interview a couple or get a reference from a friend or family member.  Referrals are the number one source of business for Real Estate Agents especially for the ones who do a good job.

So, how long does this part take?  Somewhere around a couple weeks as long as you do your class, meet with the loan officer and deliver documents and find a Real Estate Agent you like.

Your home search?  It could take anywhere from a weekend to a month or two if you’re looking for that perfect house.  Once you find the home and make an offer on it, that process can take anywhere from a couple days to a month as well.  It may take a month if the Seller is a bank or liquidation company and the offer needs to get through their system (though these time frames have been a bit better of late).

Once the offer is accepted, you’ll be able to close in something like 30-45 days since there is still plenty of title, appraisal and paperwork to do.  It can be quicker but I wouldn’t want to bet $8,000 on it!

So, how long does it take to buy a house?  Looking above, you could do it in two months but more likely you’re looking at 3 months which means time is running out for you and your $8,000 payday.  If you are looking to close by November 30, 2009, the time is NOW for you to move forward.

I’m busy answering the phone and e-mails but I’d be happy to slip you in to get pre-approved or to go out and buy a house.  Judging on the phone calls and e-mails I’m getting, the next 60 days we’re going to be even busier than we have been!  Let’s go!!!!

RW 651-774-9200  ron.williams@adsmn.com

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

How To Get 23 Offers On Your Property

August 11th, 2009

I’ve said it before and I will say it again here and now:  There is only ONE reason a property does not sell:  Price.

If it’s a great property and priced accordingly, it will sell in a reasonable amount of time in a normal market.  If it’s a junky property, then it should be priced as a junky price.  Get it?  All the sellers in the world can be shown by their professional REALTOR all the data at their disposal and still listen to their neighbor/Mom/friend/whomever who says “I think you should start at a little higher price just to see if you can get it.”  Based on what????  Their Magic 8 Ball?

Best way to kill interest in your property is to price it above what the market says it is worth.  No one is interested!  Why do you think that most Tuesdays real estate brokers and agents serve coffee, donuts, pasta, subs, any food to get other real estate agents into their listings for an Agent Open House?  They do it to expose the property to the professional market but also to get validation that the Seller is asking a little too much for a property.

If you’re going to hire a REALTOR to sell your house, and I always think you should, then hire one you trsut and listen to them.  You’re paying them to give you expert and professional advice and guidance NOT to listen to you like a sheep and do what your uneducated advisors ‘think’ is the right thing!

So, how do you get 23 offers on your property?  1) You wait for a market like the one we have now: Anything structurally solid and with fairly new mechanicals (furnace, roof plumbing, electric) is in very high demand.  2) You look at what the data from neighborhood sales and listings say the house will most likely sell for.  3) You price it at least $10,000 less than that market data reflects.  4) You wait for the offer frenzy.

Of course, thie relies on the fact that you actually have all of those circumstances.  For those of you who think I’m making this up, there’s a house for sale right now that one of my buyers is considering and when I called to check on status, the agent said: “We have 23 offers already in and are taking offers until Noon tomorrow”.  Cool, huh?  A Seller’s dream come true.

All of the above circumstances apply right this moment and I can bet that this Seller will get at least $10,000 OVER their asking price and the Buyer will be happy to pay it.  Why?  Because it is priced lower than everything else in the area and will sell for a very reasonable price at or above where the rest of the market is in that neighborhood.

So, remember: The number one reason a house doesn’t sell is PRICE.  Listen to the professionals in your market and let them help you price your house attractively to get as many people in as possible in a very short time.  After all, you do want to sell your house in a timely manner, right?

RW

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Attack of the Killer Fees (A Continuing Saga)

June 9th, 2009

If you read anything I write as a first time, second time…ANY time homebuyer, please read this.ย 

A long time ago in a fairy tale land called REALESTATE World, an edict came down from the government on high that real estate companies shall keep client records in their dungeons to document these valuable transactions.ย  The office managers and brokers at some companies decided that this was quite a burden and implemented a fee called the ‘Real Estate Broker Admin Fee’.ย  What a pretty name.

When introduced, the fee was a very reasonable $50.00 at closing to the buyer so that your real estate company would keep your documents safe and sound (which, we will recall, they are REQUIRED to do).ย ย  Buyers somewhat gladly agreed to pay this because what’s $50.00 when you’re already bringing a bag of gold coin to closing?

The years passed and the fairy tale has become a horror story.ย  It appears the real estate companies in REALESTATE World have become a tad greedy over the years when it comes to this simple little fee that started out as a way to make buyers pay for the real estate companies to hold their documents.ย  Why do I say this?

Well, a few years later it appears that this simple fee has become a minor moneymaker for some, not all, real estate companies.ย  A simple phone call to 5 Twin Cities real estate companies found the following fees disclosed (followed by the reason they are charged according to the person delivering the information):

Broker Admin Fee: $295.00ย  (To “store information regarding your transaction”)

Real Estate Broker Fee:ย  $595.00 ย (”Everyone has to pay this.ย  It’s just a fee my broker charges”)

Broker Administration Fee:ย  $195.00ย  (”It’s a storage fee”)

Broker Admin Fee:ย  $350.00ย  (”This covers the cost of doing business with a company like ours”)

Real Estate Broker Fee: $395.00ย  (”We charge this because we have to keep your file forever and that costs money”)

So, a few things are clear.ย  This simple fee has become another way for real estate brokers to get money from homebuyers and they won’t stop until you speak up!ย ย ย  Let’s face it, for first time homebuyers who might get $3,000.00 in downpayment and closing cost assistance, a ‘Broker Admin Fee’ ofย  $295.00 is nearly 10% of that spent on what is at best, questionable, and at worst, a completely bogus bloated fee.

So, pay if you like or stand up and make your assistance or your savings for downpayments and fees go further.ย  When you see ‘Broker Admin Fee’, say NO!ย  Yes, maybe we’re the fools for not charging them (Yes, our ‘Broker Admin Fee’ is $0.00), but it just doesn’t seem like anything other than a junk fee.ย  And after all, fees are negotiable.ย  If you don’t ask, your real estate agent doesn’t get the opportunity to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.ย  Better yet, you don’t get the fun of finding out if they even know what this fee is for!

You make the call and stay tuned for the next ‘Return of the Killer Fees’!ย ย  RW

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I’m Not Short, The Sale Is!

April 29th, 2009
While Short Sales are not new they are certainly more likely to come up now then ever in the past.ย  The basis of a Short Sale is that the Owner of the home is either in the beginning of foreclosure OR they have a house that’s value is below what they can sell it for because of a falling market.ย  In each case, the owner of the home is essentially trying to sell the house ‘Short’ of what they owe the bank.ย  The owner will settle for most any offer and then pass it along to the bank hoping for approval and to be released from their obligation.ย 
ย 
A Real Estate Agentย has no idea how much any unaccepted offer that already exists on the houseย isย (and no ability to find out) but in multiple offer situations on a property that is decent, it is clear that the asking priceย would beย the minimum you would put in an offer for.ย  The last competitive offer I put in for clients was accepted at $6,000 more than asking price.ย (Not a short sale, a bank owned property!)ย  We just never know in competitive offers but we do know going under asking price in this situationย is not a good use of anyone’s time.
ย 
A short of sale offer is submitted to the Seller and is then sent to the bank or mortgage company.ย  At that point, the bank can take whatever offer they want, sit on their butt’s and/or wait for a betterย offer or counter whatever offer they want.ย  There appear to be no rules, logic or timetable with banks and Short Sales.ย  They truly do whatever they feel like with no regard for the buyers.ย  They are simply looking at the bottom line.ย  Putting a deadline in your purchase agreement is about the same as NOT!ย  Banks don’t care about your deadline, they care about theirs.
ย 
The problem is that the Short Sale process is not fair to anyone since the bank simply looks at as many offers as possible at their own speed and selects whatever they like.ย  It could be the first, second or thirtieth offer so it isn’t a level playing field.ย  IMHO, these Short Sale houses are not really for sale in the traditional sense and are much more trouble and pain then they are worth.ย (And I am well aware of the one or two short sales that get through the process in a relatively timely manner but if you think you’re that lucky, buy a lottery ticket today!)ย ย  RW

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Dayton’s Bluff Homebuyer Money

April 21st, 2009

Another new program will soon be available to homebuyers in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood by the Pohlad Family Foundation. $8,000 will be available to anyone who purchases a single-family home or duplex in the east side of St. Paul by the end of 2009. This money will be forgiven if the homebuyer remains an owner-occupant for seven years. There are no income limits to qualify. For more information, check back here or contact Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services at 651-774-6995.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Are you a Hero?

April 16th, 2009

The St. Paul City Council approved a new program on April 8th for civil servant heroes who wish to buy their first home in St. Paul. Program is offering 0% deferred loans of up to $15,000 which can be used towards downpayment and closing costs. Repayment will not be required if the homebuyer lives in their home for at least 10 years. Hero-worthy applicants are someone who has been in or discharged from the military, cops, firefighters/paramedics/EMTs, healthcare workers, teachers or any public employee with any recognized governmental unit. Eligible properties are townhomes, condos or single-family homes up to four-plexes. Homebuyer must qualify for a traditional fixed-rate mortgage and households or two or less have a maximum income limit of $92,000. More information on this program will be forthcoming.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

New is the Word

April 6th, 2009

New website. New Blog. New Programs.ย  Lots of change and movement in the loan and real estate market these days and we hope to bring you the latest and greatest for homebuyers, sellers and even you fence-sitters.ย  Join as often as we get a minute, to tell you what’s happening in the real world of mortgage and real estate.ย  Susan Jackson and I have been in this business at the micro and maxi level for over 20 years and we keep thinking we’ve seen it all.ย  Nope.ย  Every day brings a new trick, treat or conundrum to puzzleย  us.

We hope in talking with you here we can share our experiences and frustrations with this unique business we are part of.ย  Feel free to offer your reasonable opinions as well, because we certainly will.ย  And as anyone who knows us will tell you, we don’t always agree.ย  Hence, the blog title.

Welcome to our home mortgage, real estate buying and selling, homebuyer education, financial and credit counseling world.ย  We’re glad you joined us!

Ron Williams

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »