Marian S Bennett

Part 1: Top Tips for Coastside Open House Visitors

Part 1 of 2: How Prospective Buyers Can Get the Most out of their Coastside Open Home visits:  4 Top Tips

Part 2 of 2: How Buyers Find out about Coastside Open Houses

As the web has become a more prevalent home-buying tool(1), we are also noticing a shift in buyer behaviors here on the Half Moon Bay Coastside.  The buyers out and about now are first time home buyers, relocating buyers, local move-up buyers, and vacation home buyers(both locally and from out of the area).  An issue we spoke about at yesterday’s office meeting (held at one of our listings) is the effectiveness of Open Houses here on the Coastside.  It used to be that Open Houses were primarily for the seller to feel that their property was being fully marketed without much result from open houses visitors.  That’s changing in our local towns.  Buyers visiting open houses now are shopping for a home and they are pre-qualified or have cash!  With more buyers utilizing mobile search and mapping applications, and taking advantage of the growing sophistication of web marketing, it is much easier to get to the open houses that are found online.  So, buyers, armed with your smartphone of choice (or not)…here’s a few tips to feel good about your Coastside open house visits…

1. Have fun and be respectful.  Be discreet with comments in public earshot.  Remember, we are “small town” and many of us are less than six degrees of separation – more like 3.  Listing agents handle open houses in various ways – for some it’s an event and for others it’s all business, and everything in between, so enjoy the variety.  While the purpose of the open house is to expose the property to the buying public; as a visitor, it’s OK to look for the sake of looking, and you don’t have to explain yourself.  Respect the shoes/no shoes request since we have a mix of beach, country, and neighborhood properties in all price points.  Ask the agent permission before you take any pictures.  Respect the signs about pets if any animal is on the premise; however, many pets are thankfully taken on an outing during open house days.  (Coastsiders love pets as it is a wonderful place to raise and enjoy animals.)  Coastside Realtors store a wealth of local knowledge in our brains - feel free to take advantage of that unique local expertise.

2. Be aware of WHAT you say and to WHOM you say it.  The agent holding the open house may or may not be the listing agent.  The listing agent is in a contractual relationship with the seller.  If someone else is holding the property open, they may not be representing the seller.  It’s OK to ask the relationship to the seller if not voluntarily provided.  The main reason an agent other than the listing agent holds a home open is to make new contacts, and hopefully establish a new client relationship.  It never hurts to highlight our brands along Highway 1 either.  If you provide your contact information to the open house agent, you are “opting in” to that agent’s contact database and are saying you are open to further discussion.  If you already have a trusted relationship with another Realtor, present her/his business card.  It happens more than you think that we share a buyer “need” with our office mates only to find one or two other colleagues are doing the same work for the same person!  Ask the Realtors that you may be interested in working with “how they work” with their buyer clients before you establish a relationship.  Some Realtors may have this discussion up front.

3. Plan your time and take notes.  If you’re coming from San Francisco, the mid-peninsula towns, or the South Bay, be aware of your timing.  Local open houses usually run from 1:30-4:30 pm.  Some may be from 1-4 or 2-4, or both Saturday and Sunday.  If the weather is warm and sunny, it could take you longer than usual to get to the coast because warm weekends at the Coast are popular!  Leaving at 11:30 or 12 may be ideal so you don’t feel rushed and can stop along the way at some of our fabulous shops if you want.  Make notes after you leave the property so that you remember what you like and didn’t like… perhaps while decompressing at a local cafe.  Some of the best details of the trip may be wasted if you get home and find the stack of flyers have already emulsified in your head.  Those scribbles may be just what you need to help you make a decision at some point in the near – or distant – future.  On nice days, you may experience traffic on the way back also.  Locals know the traffic patterns, so we know what it takes to see an open house on a beautiful weekend day (we multi-task!).

4.  Look beyond the obvious – use all the senses.  A house in a great location may not look like a gem at first, but upon further inspection it might be.  Location is key on the Coastside:  location within the neighborhood and location in relation to Highway 1 and the beaches.  An agent in our office made a very funny (and true?) statement that got us laughing:  “If you don’t want to hear the highway, don’t move to the coast!”  Some people confuse highway noise for the sounds of the surf.  Most buyers pay attention to layout, smells, upgrades, storage needs and stairs.  It’s OK to open closets, we prepare our sellers for this.  If a door is locked during an open house, it’s locked for a reason.  If you are a serious buyer for the property, you can see that part of the house another time.  We also have lots of farms – do you care about the wafting aroma of crops, or flowers, or horses?  As a buyer, pay attention to details that are important to you.

My Buyer clients give me their feedback from their open house visits and I keep the notes to see if there is new information provided based on their initial and possibly evolving criteria.  I look for patterns.  We discuss pros and cons of the various properties as they relate to their needs in the next home.  Sometimes I take them or meet them at an open home if our schedules allow.  Sometimes we see the properties separately and discuss what we each noticed from our different perspectives.

Source:
(1) Per National Association of Realtors 2009 Report summary - 90% of home buyers used the internet as an information source.  Actions Taken as a result of internet home search – 77% drove by or viewed the home.

Additional reference:  Not all local (and certainly non-local) agents have accurate information about our public schools.  If schools are important to learn about on your open house visits, follow it up with a conversation with the Superintendent of our local public school district – found on this Schools Reference Page.

 

Coastside & Pacifica Sales: 6/30/09-6/30/10

In the last twelve months :  June 30, 2009 to June 30, 2010

Coastside Sales - Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Moss Beach, Montara – SINGLE FAMILY HOMES

166 TOTAL ranging from $90,000 to $2,200,000.  Of those 166:

9 were short sales ranging from $462,560 to $1,600,000 - 5% of all sales

25 were bank-owned ranging from $330,000 to $940,000 - 15% of all sales

29 total sales sold for $1,000,000 or more - (19 between June-Dec 09; 10 between Jan-June 2010) – 17% of all sales

Pacifica Sales – SINGLE FAMILY HOMES

218 TOTAL ranging from $360,000 to $1,849,000.  Of those 218:

19 were short sales ranging from $450,000 to $699,000 plus 1 at $1,175,000 - 9% of all sales

33 were bank-owned ranging from $410,000 to $915,000 – 15% of all sales.

8 total sales sold for $1,000,000 or more (2 between June-Dec 09; 6 between Jan-June 2010) – 4% of all sales

Traditional sales dominate -
132 sales (80%) on the Coastside and 166 sales (76%) in Pacifica were “normal” (i.e. not distressed) sales in the last full 12 month period.  Distressed properties, whether short sales or reos were NOT the dominant market force in our communities.   We continue to get inquiries about short sales or bank-owned properties – the people hoping for a needle-in-the-haystack kind of deal – although those calls are slowing a bit.  Most sales are for people moving here from out of the area or moving within their same community.  Also, some people move to the Coastside from Pacifica and vice-versa.

Bank owned fare better than short sales -
More bank-owned properties closed than short sales.  With the bank-owned properties, it’s just the lender as seller.  Short sales have been a challenge for all parties involved, especially with sellers who are no longer committed to the property because there is no equity and the additional contingency of lender approval on behalf of the seller.  Processes are continually changing, but within the last year I believe the dominant reason for lack of sales is that buyers didn’t want to wait as long as needed for the bank to complete their approvals.

High end sales lag -
More high-end sales on the Coastside is consistent with its larger number of high end locations, including waterfront and acreage properties, compared to Pacifica.  Although it is interesting to note that there were more high-end sales in the latter half of 2009 on the Coastside (19) compared to 2010 through June (10), and there was an increase in high-end sales in Pacifica during the same period in 2010 (6) compared to the last half of 2009 there (2).  Both Coastside and Pacifica show this segment of the market continues to represent a small percentage of sales in the last 12 months – 17% Coastside; 4% Pacifica.

Tags: coastside, Pacifica

Half Moon Bay | the Coastside | Real Estate & Lifestyles

Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Moss Beach, Montara real estate searches, homes for sale, community information, san mateo county links, recreation, schoools, weather, commute

Tags: coastside, Half Moon Bay

Part of the Job: NOT making the sale

I cancelled an escrow today.  Part of me feels some pain because a successful close of escrow is how I earn my living, and this one is now gone.  Part of me feels good because I helped guide my clients to the right decision, which was helping them – ultimately - understand that they weren’t ready to buy what they really wanted.  Our Agency relationship requires me to look out for their best interest, which is really the most important part of our job.  This is an example of what Agency is all about.  I allowed them to come to this conclusion when I knew they were ready to grasp it.

This borrower was married but the spouse could not contribute to the purchase because of a prior short sale attempt that turned into a foreclosure on an investment with another family member within the last year.  The spouse doing the purchasing in this case has stellar credit and a well paying steady job/career, but this newly married couple could only use the one spouse’s financials.

There was a pre-approval.  They learned that they were not competitive with only 10% down in the price range they could afford with just the one qualified borrower.  After a few lost offers, I strongly recommended that they speak with a financial planner to assess their overall financial picture and goals.  They agreed and now have a bigger picture plan in place.  They will hunker-down, continue to save money for the needed 20% or higher downpayment so that several months or maybe even a year down the road they can get into a property that will ultimately make them happier. 

They still want to get the property alerts so they can watch the market until the right time.  No more property viewings for now!  In a strange way, this is kind of good pain.

If you plan on borrowing in this lending environment, it’s a good idea to be a “strong” borrower.  We use the term “strong” to describe a borrower who is well qualified:  good FICO score, good debt-to-income (DTI) ratio, and a sufficient downpayment saved up for the purchase, which will provide an adequate loan-to-value (LTV) ratio on the property you want to purchase.

Times are Tough on Credit – do we care?

The economy continues to be watched.  Homeowners, buyers and sellers continue to get on with their lives in various ways.  I was struck by a paragraph in a SJMN article I read this morning…

(the homeowner) has yet to receive a notice of default but he did receive letters this spring from his lender about the possibility of a short sale – selling the condo for less than he owes. 

“I have not responded to that,” he said.  For now, he’s sitting tight saving money so he can rent a place after foreclosure, which he considers nearly inevitable.

Are we getting to the point where homeowners don’t care about their credit history/score anymore?   CNN Money wrote a recent article sharing the most current credit hits to one’s report for various late or delinquent scenarios.  It reported that a short sale, foreclosure, or deed-in-lieu all account for a similar credit report hit – 85 to 160 point hit.  I wonder what the long term impact of people who don’t care about their credit will be?

Did the bank offer a loan modification option?  Loan modifications aren’t easy either but the persistent homeowners that I hear from directly have found some moderate to large successes.  Homeowners I speak with in this situation do what they can to find work or obtain other methods of income.  A couple options I’m seeing are people taking jobs outside of their areas of expertise, and also renting rooms.  Some people become overwhelmed and drained in their current situation.  This is all tough.

Contact a trusted advisor (not your neighbor, but bless our good neighbors) to explore all the options for YOU.  Get the facts.  Your Realtor may know of contacts and web resources to get you started on the right path out of a dilemma.

Cash is still king in the real estate world.  50% down screams “we’re strong”; 20% down says we’re “solid”; 10% down is on the weak side – for conventional loans.