3 Skills to Separate a Good Agent from a Great One

There are over half a million real estate agents throughout the country. Odds are likely that at least half of those real estate agents are good at their job. So when selecting a real estate agent, by simply flipping a coin you will likely find a good real estate agent. But thankfully, you are not just looking for a good real estate agent. You are looking for a great real estate agent.

But how do you distinguish between a good real estate agent and a great real estate agent? Here are three important factors.

As a professional real estate agent with Real Living, I participate in the the Premier Service program. This program is an exclusive promise made by all agents with Real Living Real Estate that guarantees delivery of a measurably superior and highly satisfying service experience for our clients. When selecting a real estate agent for you next project, make sure the agent you select can expertly identify these three skill sets.

Trusted Advisor
I will listen to your goals, help you reach those goals, always be responsive, share feedback promptly, recommend the right resources for your needs and wants, and use my professional skills to ensure you get the best deal for you.

Skilled Negotiator
I promise to help you explore all options, evaluate and review all offers and any counteroffers, and steadfastly represent your best interests throughout the entire transaction while always respecting your confidentiality.

Expert Facilitator
For sellers, I will develop and implement a marketing plan utilizing all channels that are appropriate for selling your property and work to ensure that the sale is finalized smoothly and efficiently to your satisfaction. For buyers, I promise to handle all the details of the purchase including recommending and scheduling the right vendors for your home, and to ensure that the sale we put together, stays together.

Once your real estate agent has proven that he or she can provide you with these three important skills, then you are all but guaranteed to have a successful and enjoyable experience in your next real estate transaction.

Buying the Perfect Home

There are several important steps to follow when buying your new home.  To make sure you are following the right plan and working with the right real estate agent, click the picture below to learn how to buy the perfect home.

Here is the transcript to the video:

Hello and welcome to Real Living Casa Fina Realty.  My name is Nico Hohman and I will be your guide in today’s video: “Helping You Buy the Perfect Home.”

There are four important steps when buying your new home. In today’s video we will briefly touch on all four of these topics.

The first step is to analyze your needs and wants. Where do you want to live? How big does your home need to be? What special features do you want in your new home? These are just a few of the concerns you need to address first when buying your new home.

The second step to buying your new home is to determine how much you can afford. Typically, homebuyers will purchase a home using some sort of financing. To determine how much of a loan you can afford, we’ll make sure you have been pre-approved by a lending institution.

Then, once you are pre-approved, we’ll figure out exactly which loan product is right for you and your home.

No matter if this is your first home or you are looking to buy a fixer-upper, there are plenty of programs available to assist you with the purchase of your new home.

Now we know what type of home you need, and how much you can afford, we can begin to look for your new home.

The first place we’ll look is online.  We will use various online sources including the MLS, Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia and many other outlets to find the right home for you.

Along with all of these outlets, we will use my RealLiving.com portal to concisely organize all of your wish lists and favorites.

Not only do we have a wide variety of online outlets to find the right home for you, we can seamlessly continue your housing search on the go with my mobile and table apps. Simply download the “My MLS App” to help you find the right home for you.

After visiting a few homes, we found the perfect home for you to buy. Now what? Next comes the all-important offer and negotiation process. To first make an offer on a home, I will conduct a conduct a Comparative Market Analysis, or CMA.  And within a CMA, I will look at different factors that help us determine the right price to offer.

Once a fair offer has been extended, we enter negotiations to get exactly what you want out of your new home.

After negotiations have been settled, I will guide you through the next few weeks that lead to you finally moving into your perfect new home.

Great! We have now completed a brief review of the four steps of “Buying Your Perfect Home.” Now, let me paint you a quick picture of the team you will be working with to buy your new home.

With over 7 years of experience in the real estate and construction industries, my mission is to help you buy the right home for you and your family for the lowest possible price in the shortest amount of time while negotiating the details and representing your best interest.

When you choose Real Living to represent you and your home search, you not only have the opportunity to work with me, but with my entire dedicated team.  With decades of combined experience in all types of real estate transactions, our team will be here to answer every and any question you may have.

On top of a strong local brokerage, Real Living is part of a large, national brand, affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway.

The Premier Service program is an exclusive promise made by all agents with Real Living Real Estate that guarantees delivery of a measurably superior and highly satisfying service experience for our clients. I promise to be a Trusted Advisor.   I will listen to your goals, always be responsive, share feedback promptly, and use my professional skills to help you make informed decisions. As a Skilled Negotiator, I promise to help you evaluate offers, and represent your best interests throughout the purchase while always respecting your confidentiality. And as an Expert Facilitator, I will develop, implement, and maintain your deal throughout the entire transaction.

Through our promise with the Premier Service program, Real Living continues to lead the industry with a 96% national customer satisfaction rating – that best in the entire real estate industry.

Thank you for watching this video on “Helping You Buy the Perfect Home” with Nico Hohman at Real Living Casa Fina Realty.”  Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me anytime.  You can find all of my information here.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.  Thanks again.  And remember: Nico Hohman, Your Realtor with the Builder’s Edge.

7 Steps to Successfully Purchasing Your New Home

Throughout your house hunting journey, you probably will have many questions. Is the home in a good neighborhood?  Will the schools provide a high quality education? What renovations can I add to my new home to make it more valuable when it comes time to sell it in the future?

These are just a small sample of questions that real estate agents are ready to answer for their clients. They know buying a home can be an overwhelming prospect. Whether it's your first home or your fifth, there is a lot to consider. So, how do you decide whether buying a home makes sense?

Fortunately, I want to share with you my 7 Steps to Successfully Purchasing a Home. Reading this plan will help you discover how to research effectively, finance appropriately, and choose wisely.  

Step 1: Establish your needs and wants

Begin your home search by carefully thinking about what you need and what you want. Write down the top 5 most important things you need in your new home, like “must have a 2-car garage” or “must be in a good school district.” Then, write down the top 5 things that you wish you had in your new home, like “should be on the water” or “wish it had a pool.” I will then find you a home that closely matches your list of needs and wants.

Step 2: Determine how much you can afford

Set up a budget so you know how much money you have to spend. Most lenders suggest that your monthly housing payments be no more than 28% of your total monthly income. It is important to set up a financial plan for purchasing your home that best reflects your finances now and in five years from now.

Step 3: Get Pre-qualified and Pre-approved by a Lender

You will save yourself time and heartache by meeting with a lender early in your home search. Lenders help you understand what it takes to qualify for certain loans. By reviewing financial documents you provide the lender, they can qualify you for a loan amount range. This is the pre-qualification stage.

To be absolutely certain that you can be approved for a loan, ask to be pre-approved. In the approval process, all of your documentation is completed and submitted to an underwriter. The pre-approval that you will receive is an actual loan commitment from a lender.

Step 4: Highlight the 3 Top Priorities for a Real Estate Agent

Today’s real estate agents are expected to be many things for their clients. To be sure you are selecting the right agent for you, make sure they possess these 3 important priorities: a Trusted Advisor, a Skilled Negotiator, and an Expert Facilitator.  If your agent can not provide these 3 skills for you and your family, select an agent who can.

Step 5: Finding the Perfect Home for You

Give your agent a detailed list of your needs, wants, and any research you have already completed about homes you would like to see. Make sure that your agent is aware of your time schedule and your expectations. With this information in hand, your agent will provide a narrowed list of homes for you to take a look at and make an offer. 

When looking at homes, tell your agent what you like and dislike about a particular home. That way, your agent can refine your search and hone in on the exact right home for you.

Step 6: Making an Offer on Your New Home

Your real estate agent will act solely on your behalf when making an offer on a home. It is their duty to represent exactly your needs and wants. After conducting careful market research, your agent will provide you the best offer to present to a seller. Then, as a Skilled Negotiator, your agent will make sure to refine the details of the deal to best fit your needs.

Step 7: Follow a Smart Financial Plan

There are two major investments to consider when buying a home: initial investment (including down payment and closing costs) and the monthly payment (including principle, interest, taxes, and insurance).

To save on your initial investment, choose a low down payment loan. You do not necessarily have to put 20% down. You can put as low as 3.5% down on some loans, but be aware of added monthly private mortgage insurance.

As part of your offer, ask the seller to pay some or all of your closing costs. Sellers are usually allowed to contribute to a buyer's closing costs. In many cases this is a negotiable item.

Shop around for your home insurance. A little shopping can save you a significant amount of money.

To keep your monthly payments low, qualify for a loan with no monthly mortgage insurance premiums, or PMI. You may be able to reduce PMI by paying a more at closing. Or, by putting 20% down, you may be able to eliminate PMI payments entirely.

With any financial planning, be sure to always contact a certified accountant and tax professional.

So there you have it, my 7 Steps to Successfully Purchasing a Home Plan. Hopefully, with this information in hand you are ready to buy your new home.

Multifamily Investment Property Growing Strong

The market for multifamily and investment properties is still going strong, particularly in the Tampa, Fla. market.

Image courtesy of IMT Tuscany Bay

According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal, IMT Capital of Sherman Oaks, Calif. bought two apartment complexes in the northwestern portion of Hillsborough Co. including the Preserve at Westchase Apartments and Tuscany Bay Apartments.  Records indicate that both properties were purchased from Archon Group in Dallas, Texas for a combined $78.2 million.

More recently, the Carroll Organization – based in Atlanta, GA and headed by M. Patrick Carroll – purchased the West Park Village apartment complex in the Westchase area.  The deal included 617 luxury apartment units for a record $122.5 million.

Although some indicators in recent weeks have shown an increase in the number of homeowners throughout the country, the market for rental, multifamily, and investment properties is a strong as ever as this deal indicates.

For property investors, the importance of maintaining a portfolio with income property in good condition and good locations cannot be overstated. Not only do these income properties provide a bump in personal or corporate assets, they provide much needed cash flow.

4 Key Qualities for Today's Real Estate Agents

The role of a real estate agent in today’s economy is markedly different than the role agents played 30, 20 or even ten years ago.

It is important for all parties involved in a real estate transaction - including buyers, sellers, renters and agents - to understand these significant changes. As a buyer or seller, you do not want to work with an incompetent agent. As a real estate agent, you want to keep your skills useful and up to date to best serve your clients.

So what exactly does it take to make a good real estate agent today? Well, here are the 4 most important qualities in today’s real estate agents.

Be a Transactional Guide

This feature was valuable in an agent 20 years ago, but is just as important - if not more important - today. In years past, agents were gatekeepers of information. Today, that information is readily available through services such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. So instead of relying on a wealth of “hidden” information, agents must now serve to interpret this now public information for their clients.

A good transactional guide will advise clients of various mortgage and loan strategies; they will pay careful attention to the specific terms and details of all of your contracts; and they will oversee the various parties and service providers involved in the real estate transaction.

Have a Deep, Local Expertise

In the age of Big Data, there are countless sources of helpful information regarding homes, neighborhoods and cities across the country. The role of a real estate agent is to study and analyze these numbers and present it to the client in a way that reflects their needs and wants.

The website WebMd contains a plethora of information on all issues related to health. However, only a doctor should use this information to diagnose a patient. Similarly, Zillow and Trulia contain a wide range of data on the real estate market but only a real estate agent is best suited to interpret this data for the buyer or seller.

Be a Good Negotiator

Today’s real estate market is competitive. Homes sit on the market for less than a few days before receiving multiple offers. Homes receive offers that are several thousand dollars above asking price. There are fewer qualified home buyers in the market than years past. With such cutthroat conditions for buyers and sellers, how can you navigate these heady waters?

Real estate agents - good ones, anyways - are trained in the art of negotiation. They are sales professionals, and sales professionals understand the nuances of making a good deal. They also know the market better than anyone else, and have hard numbers to back up their art.

Be a Good Marketer

In the old days, a home was sold through the MLS and by placing ads in the newspaper. Today, anyone with Internet access and a Twitter account can be considered a marketer. How can you differentiate your home (or your buying prowess) to potential buyers (and sellers)?

The answer is a real estate agent who understands where buyers and sellers are looking for homes, how they are looking for homes, what type of home features sell a home, and what financial qualifications make a buyer more appealing.

Unlike the travel agents of days past, a good real estate agents will always be in high demand. While purchasing a plane ticket is a relatively frequent, standard, and inexpensive process the purchase or sale of a home is infrequent, contract-based, and often expensive. It is these qualities that make a good real estate agent desirable and it is those four important traits that separate today’s real estate agents from agents long ago.

A Real Estate Improvement Company

The real estate industry has many unique facets and players. But no matter what role you play or how what you do in the real estate market, there is one important goal that everyone should keep in mind.

When you consider real estate, you should consider it as an investment. And when you think of the criteria involved in making a good real estate investment, you must examine and analyze the utility and the value of such an investment.

Another way to look at utility is to look at usage. Is a particular property being used to its highest and best usage in accordance with all local laws and statues? In other words, can I put four different townhouses on this large residential lot on a busy street and receive more income in rent than I would be able to charge if I only had a single-family home on this property?

When we talk about value, we think of cost and we think of price. Can you sell a particular property for a price more than the purchase cost? If so, your property has positive value. If not, you property has decreased in value.

The goal of a real estate improvement company is to maximize both the utility and value of a property. We can do this through investing, managing, developing, and marketing a particular property.

To take our previously stated example of the townhouses, we will take a look at the utility and the value. With regards to utility, we have certainly increased - or improved - its utility. We now house four different families, versus just one previously. When looking at the value, we have increased the net operating income of a property thereby increase its value.

But just how much did we increase the utility and the value? This is where a real estate improvement company will come in hand to determine just how much utility and value this project provided versus other similar (or different) projects.

When looking at a piece of property, think about what the best usage of that property could be. Then, think about if that type of project is feasible on that property. If you have mastered those concepts and kept those goals, you have yourself a real estate improvement company.

Business Outlook Positive for Job Growth in 2014

BMO Harris recently released its 2014 U.S. Business Outlook report, containing some interesting opinions and facts regarding businesses throughout the county.

Image courtesy of BMO Harris

To read the full report, click here.

The two useful bits of information stemming from this report are the survey results for the outlook of businesses in 2014 as well as the self-reported data of those same businesses in 2013.

The first stat (the chart above) is especially good news for the state of Florida as 96% of businesses polled in the state expect their business to either increase or remain the same.  Of that 96%, over half expected their business to grow.  This is especially welcoming news as two of the most important factors when it comes to an increase in homeownership are job creation and access to capital.  With business owners expecting their business to grow, more jobs will be created and more people will have more access to capital.

The other telling stat from the report comes from the year-over-year data for companies, as 84% of companies either grew or remained the same from 2012 to 2013.  This bit of data is certainly an affirmation that companies are bouncing back from the economic downturn and expect continued growth this year as well.

For those in the real estate industry, knowing that businesses are expected to improve their performance will increase the performance of the real estate industry as well.

Jobs in Technology, Energy Pave the Way for Housing in Florid

The Milken Institute recently released their findings on the Best Performing Large Cities in the United States.  Although the state of Florida did not have a particularly strong showing, the Tampa/St. Petersburg metropolitan area ranked second overall in the state of Florida.

Courtesy of the Milken Institute

To view the full report, click here.

The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan economic think tank whose mission is to improve lives around the world by advancing innovative economic and policy solutions that create jobs, widen access to capital, and enhance health.  What professionals in the real estate and construction industries should pay particular attention to in the M.I.’s mission statement is its particular focus on helping to create jobs and gain access to capital – the two most critical pieces of advancing the housing industry.

Overall, the state of Florida did not compare well to other states throughout the country like Texas, Colorado and California.  These states are leading the charge in the energy and technology sectors.  These sectors are especially important for both job creation and access to capital.  As previously mentioned, job growth and access to capital are the two most important pieces to improve the housing market.

Not to be outdone, Tampa did rank in the Top 40 in the country for number of high tech industries last year, as well as the Top 75 in the country for concentration of high technology jobs.  Again, the concentration of jobs in the technology industries is especially important because they provide an increase in job creation as well as further access to capital.  With both of these two criterias filled, the housing market in the Tampa area will continue to show signs of improvement.

Number of Homeowners on the Rise

Wells Fargo, the largest producer of mortgages in the United States, released its most recent earnings statement.  As the country’s largest originator of residential mortgages, it can be a useful barometer for the current state of the housing market.

Image courtesy of Wells Fargo

The graph above outlines the previous five quarters of residential mortgage production and servicing for Wells Fargo.  The two most important take-aways from this graph can be found in the fourth quarter of last year.

The bad news: mortgage originations were down $30 billion from the third quarter in 2013 and down $75 billion from the fourth quarter of 2012.  Some of the loss from quarter to quarter of last year can be attributed to seasonal adjustments (i.e. fewer homes are sold every winter, every year).  Also, some of the decline from year over year can be attributed to Wells Fargo releasing over 1,000 full-time employees in their residential mortgage department.

The good news: the number of mortgage originations on new purchases accounted for a full two-thirds of Wells Fargo residential mortgage production.  This is especially good news for real estate agents, real estate brokers, and real estate investors looking for more buyers.  If more unique mortgages are produced, one can infer that there are more unique homeowners.  With more unique homeowners comes the prospect of more prospects.

In the upcoming year, keep a close eye on not only the dollar amount created from mortgage originations, but keep an especially close eye on the number of mortgages stemming from new purchases.  This could be an early signal for a successful 2014.