Here at Intero, we have a charitable foundation (the Intero Foundation), fully funded by the agents at Intero, whose goal is to positively impact the well being of children in the communities in which we work, by supporting organizations focused on assisting in their education and personal development.

Last Monday, we presented a check for $8,000 to a very well-deserving organization here in San Mateo County called “Advocates for Children“.

All I can say about AFC is….wow…what an amazing organization that is doing so much good for children in San Mateo County.

The SAMCAR Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the San Mateo County Association of REALTORS® – of which yours truly is a member, announced their third quarter 2010 grant recipients recently and awarded three organizations $12,500 in grant monies.

The Foundation provided $5000 grants to both Habitat for Humanity and Shelter Network to support the work they do in the community of providing housing and shelter. The Foundation also provided $2500 to the Daly City Youth Center, which encompasses the Jefferson Union High School District and services the Pacifica high schools, as well.

Help us, help others!

We invite members of the public and real estate professionals throughout the region to help the SAMCAR Foundation raise funds for local charities by attending the Foundation’s Annual Charity Spaghetti Feed on September 16th at the Peninsula Italian American Social Club from 5:30 pm-10:00 pm. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by calling SAMCAR at 650-696-8200. For more information, visit www.samcar.org and click on “2010 Events”.

Where the grant funds are going:

Habitat for Humanity is currently building a condo complex to house over 35 families in Daly City. Each family will provide 500 hours of work on the project and in return, will have an affordable home they can call their own. Habitat for Humanity also offers classes in credit repair and debt reduction to help consumers prepare themselves for homeownership. For more information, go towww.habitatgsf.org.

Shelter Network is committed to providing housing and support services that create opportunities for homeless families and individuals to re-establish self-sufficiency and to return to permanent homes of their own. Shelter Network operates thirteen programs, has more than 50 full-time staff, and thousands of volunteers. Shelter Network is the Peninsula’s principal provider of housing and support for homeless families and individuals. Find out more at www.shelternetwork.org.

The SAMCAR Foundation, which provides more than $50,000 each year to charities that work with housing, and quality of life issues in San Mateo County, is currently accepting grant applications for the fourth quarter of 2010. Please go towww.samcar.org/foundation for grant guidelines and to learn more about the charities that SAMCAR supports.

Since its inception, the San Mateo County Association of REALTORS® Foundation

focuses its charitable efforts towards benefiting organizations and programs that strive to make San Mateo County a more livable, affordable and thriving community. Through its work, the SAMCAR Foundation has made significant financial contributions enhancing quality of life throughout San Mateo County. The SAMCAR Foundation also supports and encourages grassroots member-organized efforts that enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

There’s a polarizing issue in the Highlands Park neighborhood of San Carlos these days, and it has to do with the potential to install artificial turf at the neighboring park.

How does this affect homes and home values? Since everything under the sun has to be disclosed when selling a house, here’s a simplified after-effect of installing artificial turf in a public park:

1. Turf on athletic fields at public park  = Year round sports instead of seasonal
2. Year round sports = Constant soccer, baseball, basketball games going on year round
3. Constant games going on = Lots of cars parking on streets in front of homes
4. Lots of cars parking on streets = Impact on ‘peace and quiet’ of neighborhood
5. No peace and quiet = Perceived value of homes goes down
6. Home values going down = Local residents do not want artificial turf

In the SJ Merc the other day was this article.  Here are some of the salient highlights:

With San Carlos poised to start installing artificial turf at Highlands Park today, a group of residents who sued to block the project say the city is taking a big risk by breaking ground before a judge has ruled on the lawsuit.

They say the city shouldn’t start the project until a San Mateo County Superior Court judge weighs in on the lawsuit filed by Save San Carlos Parks, which argues the city didn’t properly review the new field’s potential environmental effects on health and traffic. Judge Marie Weiner is expected to rule by Aug. 25.

If Weiner decides the city must do further environmental work, it will have to pause construction and leave the park unusable and in a state of disrepair indefinitely, said Greg Harris, a member of the residents’ group. He said it’s worth waiting another two weeks for a ruling on a project that was conceived a decade ago.

City officials counter that they could take a financial hit if they don’t proceed with installing turf, which has been done without controversy in other Peninsula cities but has been one of the hottest topics in San Carlos for years.

Officials say the $1.7 million bid from Interstate Grading and Paving, which the city council accepted in February, is an exceptionally low price due to a job-hungry construction industry and an Italian turf manufacturer who is offering a discount to break into the American market.

Harris dismissed the cost argument, saying it’s possible the city could get the same bid or an even lower one if it advertises the project again after the judge’s decision.

The city plans to fence off the 3.5-acre lower athletic field at Highlands Park today for site preparation work. Excavation and grading work will start next week, said Public Works Director Robert Weil. If all goes well, the project will be finished by the end of the year.

Weil acknowledged that the park will be unusable if the city has to pause construction to do further environmental studies, which could take months, but he said officials will ensure the park doesn’t pose a hazard.

Proponents say the artificial surface will lower maintenance costs and allow the field to be used year-round. The grass fields, on the other hand, must periodically be closed so they can recover from heavy use.

But opponents have said the extra use allowed by the new surface will bring more traffic to the neighborhood. They also had objected to the use of rubber pellets between the grass blades, though the city has since decided to use an organic infill instead to address those concerns.

“We’re not going to delay a project that will benefit thousands of people because a small neighborhood group has filed a lawsuit against us,” Klein said.

One of the most critical things when getting your mortgage to purchase a home is the loan contingency.  Speaking from recent experience, and understanding the new reality of overly scrutinizing lenders, here are Ed’s must-know things when it comes to loan contingencies:

Don’t Take Shortcuts

Firstly, please, please, please, for the love of God, work with a mortgage lender who’s got a proven record of being able to secure a loan.  This has got to be one of the most important to-do’s before you go out shopping for a home.  This is as important, and may even be more important than the loan rate you lock in.

Yet, with still so many choices out there – direct lenders, mortgage brokers, etc. – you may ask yourself, how do I find a good one?  The best source, I’ve found, is to get recommendations from friends, relatives, or trusted realtors.

A good lender who’s truly looking out for your best interest should ultimately be able to tell you what you can and cannot afford.  A great lender will go above and beyond to get the job done.

Do Your Homework

Where are your downpayment funds going to come from? From your own savings? Cashing out some WebVan stock? A gift from your solvent parents?  Whatever the source of your funds, you have GOT to make sure you let your mortgage lender know early on in the process.  Any  funds that are NOT coming directly from your own savings, might be subject to major scrutiny by the lender – and you may find yourself having to provide a boatload of documentation showing where the money’s coming from, or, in the case of a gift, additional scrutiny on whoever was giving you the money.  And of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, that kind of scrutiny can very well happen at the 11^th hour when you least expect it, probably right before you’re supposed to close escrow.

Final Thoughts

Be realistic about your loan contingency period. Don’t put it at 14 days if you’re not 110% positive that your lender can do it. Better to be conservative and ask for more days than you think you’ll need.

Be sure your lender knows of any red flags during the contingency period. Find this out early on in the process. Continually ask your lender what the current conditions to close (CTCs) are, and are they being met.

Remove your loan contingency as close to on time as possible. No one, particularly the sellers and the sellers’ agent, get more stressed out when loan contingencies aren’t removed on time.

Oh, if only I could though, then I could remove “part-time procrastinator” from my resume’.

Seems that in the process of moving my Gory Details Blog from TypePad over to WordPress (all coinciding with my recently redesigned www.EdGory.com), the change in my FeedBurner feed regurgitated a bunch of old posts, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

(non-techie geeks can just ignore)

Hopefully the bugs will all work themselves out now, and I can now stop posting blogs about predicting the market for 2006.

Woo-hoo!

Let’s say you just received an offer from someone who wants to buy your home. You’re excited and relieved, until you realize the offer is an unrealistic lowball price. Insulted? Disappointed? How should you respond to ensure the buyer doesn’t beat a fast retreat? Bottom line: set aside your emotions, focus on the facts, and prepare a counteroffer that keeps the buyers involved in the deal.

An offer, even the lowball type, means someone wants to buy your home. As Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross so eloquently said, “a guy don’t walk on the lot unless he wants to buy.”  Unless the offer is laughably low, it deserves a cordial response, whether that’s a counteroffer or an outright rejection. Remain calm and discuss with your agent the different ways you can respond to a lowball purchase offer.

So unless you’ve received multiple purchase offers, the best response is to counter the low offer with a price and terms you’re willing to accept. Some buyers make a low offer because they think that’s customary, they’re afraid they’ll overpay, or they want to test your limits. Sometimes it just feels like a class in Haggling 101.

A counteroffer signals that you’re willing to negotiate. One strategy for your counteroffer is to lower your price, but remove any concessions such as seller assistance with closing costs, or features such as kitchen appliances that you’d like to take with you.

Consider the terms

Price is paramount for most buyers and sellers, but it’s not the only deal point. A low purchase offer might make sense if the contingencies are reasonable, the closing date meets your needs, and the buyer is preapproved for a mortgage. Consider what terms you might change in a counteroffer to make the deal work.

Review your comps

Ask your agent whether any comparable homes have been sold or put on the market since your home was listed for sale. If those new comps are at lower prices, you might have to lower your price to match them if you want to sell.

Consider the buyer’s comps

Buyers sometimes attach comps to a low offer to try to convince the seller to accept a lower purchase offer. Take a look at those comps. Are the homes similar to yours? If so, your asking price might be unrealistic. If not, you might want to include in your counteroffer information about those homes and your own comps that justify your asking price.

If the buyers don’t include comps to justify their low purchase offer, have your realtor ask the buyers’ agent for those comps.

Get the agents together

If the purchase offer is too low to counter, but you don’t have a better option, ask your agent to call the buyer’s agent and try to narrow the price gap so that a counteroffer would make sense. Also, ask your agent whether the buyer (or buyer’s agent) has a reputation for lowball purchase offers. If that’s the case, you might feel freer to reject the offer.  No need to proverbially “drop your pants” if you really don’t need to.

Don’t signal desperation

Look, buyers aren’t dumb. Most buyers are sensitive to signs that a seller may be receptive to a low purchase offer. If your home is vacant or your home’s listing describes you as a “motivated” seller, you’re putting up a BIG SIGN that says “Make me a lowball offer.”

If you can remedy the situation, maybe by renting furniture or asking your agent not to mention in your home listing that you’re motivated, the next purchase offer you get might be more to your liking.

In this episode, Ed interviews Adam O’Donnell from WJ Bradley Company, a mortgage banking firm that truly knows that there is more to home financing than simply securing a low interest rate. Topics covered include a state of the market, particularly as it relates to governmental programs for buyers, and how rates are affected by the Fed’s termination of their purchasing of mortgage-backed securities.

Click away below, because the April 2010 edition of “The Gory Details Podcast” is now available!

(1) iTunes users, get it right here

(2) Or get it at http://edgory.podshow.com

(3) And, always available at http://www.edgory.com

Happy listening!

In this episode, I interview the always entertaining, highly regarded speaker Carole Rodoni, to discuss the current state of affairs in today’s real estate market.

Shadow inventory… 3/5/7 year cycles … the budget crisis’ effect on real estate… Carole covers it all.

For those of you who don’t know her, Carole Rodoni is a highly regarded speaker, author and advisor in Bay Area real estate. Formerly president of Fox and Carskadon Realtors, COO of Cornish & Carey Real Estate, President & COO of Alain Pinel Realtors, she is now president of her own consulting firm, Bamboo Consulting

Click away below, because the March 2010 edition of “The Gory Details Podcast” is now available!

(1) iTunes users, get it right here

(2) Or get it at http://edgory.podshow.com

(3) And, always available at http://www.edgory.com

Happy listening!

It’s safe to say that mortgage interest rates have been at
historic lows since the summer of ’09, mostly around and sometimes even under
5%.  Currently, they’ve been floating
around the 5 & 1/8% range.

Part of the reason for these low rates has been because the Fed
has been on a buying binge of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). The Fed has been buying $1.25
trillion in mortgage-backed securities in its effort to prop up the economy but
has said it will end those purchases March 31.

As
I speak fairly regularly with seasoned, well-informed, and intelligent mortgage
lenders and brokers, one thing they all seem to agree on is that the
expectation is that, after March 31^st,  rates will head upwards, and will likely be
in the 6% range.

Still
pretty low, historically – but, a significant impact to the buying power of
home buyers out there.

Just
think about it, if you’re looking at a loan amount of say $700,000, this means
that a 1% increase in interest rate translates to paying $450 MORE per month on
the same loan.  Or looked at another way,
a 1% increase in rate just reduced the sale price you can afford by about
$80,000.

Quoting
some highlights from a recent WSJ article:

What happens when it (the Fed) stops buying hundreds of
billions of dollars in financial assets?

In its monetary-policy statement, the Fed said it would
“gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth
transition in markets.” Suddenly cutting to zero, presumably, could prove
too much of a jolt.

But even a gradual pullback could have big repercussions.
Zero interest rates and Fed purchases — financed by printing money — have
played a massive role in reviving stocks and bonds and rekindling the economy.

Mortgage rates will likely move up, as private-market buyers will charge more than the Fed for
bearing the risks of holding government-backed mortgage securities. Now,
the Federal Reserve has said they would consider reopening its program to
support the mortgage market if interest rates spiked or the economy showed new
weakness

In its best corporate-speak, the Fed said they will
“evaluate the timing and overall amounts of its purchases of securities in
light of the evolving economic outlook and conditions in financial
markets.”  That is, if markets play
along. Investors are already balking at the heavy use of printing presses. Just
look at the sliding dollar.

Ok, so obviously there’s nothing in Les Propheties
that I can think of that predicts any real estate market. But if I was Nostradamus, here’s what I’d
predict:

“ Your local housing market will be one of the
following; up, down or the same.”

Whoah, Ed….prolific
yet prescient. How can you be so sure?

Ok, so obviously I cast
a little doubt on “experts” predicting the market. But I think primarily it’s
because the information the general public receives on a daily basis seems to
manifest more personalities than Sybil.

I mean, one look at
the articles in today’s media, and surely (bolding for sarcasm) one can get a
great sense of what’s going on.

Example numero uno.
Here’s two recent articles…tell me which one you believe:

“Pending Home Sales Down 16%”

vs.

“Home Resales at Highest Level in Nearly 3 Years”

Headlines aside, let’s look at the
two main themes of these articles:

“The
number of people preparing to buy a home in November fell sharply in the latest
sign that the housing market, which had been rebounding strongly, may be headed
for a “double-dip” downturn over the winter.”

vs.

“Sales of previously occupied homes surged in
November to the highest level in nearly three years, spurred by federal
subsidies for starter homes and a massive Federal Reserve push to drive down
mortgage rates.”

Example numero dos.

Construction
of New Homes rebounds in November

vs.

Construction Spending falls more than
expected

Huh? What? And both of these articles came from the
same news outlet (MSNBC, whose coverage I humbly admit I usually tend to like).

And though while the title of this
final article is quite vague:

“Home prices rise for 5^th straight month”

..one of its key points was this: “Prices have climbed for at least six months in a row in
Denver, Washington, Minneapolis and San Francisco. But in Chicago and Tampa,
Florida, prices are down by more than a percent from September.”

Its premise points to one clear
truism: all real estate is local.

Thus, NostraGoryus was right…Your local housing market will be one of the
following; up, down or the same.

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