Daytona Beach Real Estate, Daytona Real Estate

This 2005 built home is lovely for the price!! 4 Bedrooms, 2 Full Bathrooms, 2,108 Square feet of living space, 10,000 square foot lot, cathedral ceilings, 2 car garage, gently lived in, with a great floor plan. It has lots of character and it’s located in the subdivision of Matanzas Woods. This home also has a Golf Course view…for those who love to golf. This seller is offering a lease w/option of seller financing…let’s talk! [mls148121]

This is a wonderful Central Florida locale…. Call Janet Fetterman today. Telephone 386-299-6393 to arrange a tour !

Wishing you sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County and Flagler County Florida real estate and business to the world!

The foreclosure tour is finally here and coming the week of August 25th through September 1st!  We have over 50 houses in some stage of marketing, some premarketing, some listed that we will be holding open houses at the end of the month.  To see a tour schedule with photos and more …. click on this website http://www.midfloridaforeclosure.com

If you would like to receive a copy of our inventory, and be added to our Foreclosure Hotsheet Service, just send me an email at: janet@FunCoastLife.com. We send out the list around the 15th and the first of the month.

We give you the list of repairs needed (if applicable) a copy of the Broker Price Opinion of value so that you can see the comparable homes and of course, on the tour, you will have a route of more than 50 homes to tour at mini open houses.

Meanwhile, you might want to check out our Joanne Mathison’s rehab money programs. 

Wishing You Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County and Flagler County real estate and business to the world!

This Sunday we launched the boat and took a leisurely tour of the canal homes in Edgewater. We meandered and mingled with the dolphin who frequent the canals and we even met a mommy dolphin and her baby. What a thrill to see them up close and watch the natural synchronization of the pair as the surface and dive together.

Around 11 a.m. we headed for JB’s Fish Camp (they open at 11:30) and it wasn’t hard to find through the islands and Government Cut as about a dozen jet skis suddenly appeared around an island and they raced their way to the restaurant for prime dockage space.

We had the spicy boiled shrimp and rock shrimp and it was cooked to perfection. Their Orange Cream pie for desert was just the perfect sweet/tart flavor and quite a good ending to a delicious meal.

Heading back home we experienced a pod of about 10 manatee. In our lil 16′ runabout boat, it was pretty thrilling to be in the water and surrounded by these creatures. With some incredible splashing and water roiling…we figured out that we were among a pod of mating manatees! Respectfully, we cut the motor and just floated in their presence.

How wonderful it was to know that these gentle giants were creating new ones and my heart just filled with gratitude for this experience. Not wishing to disturb them we floated out of their circle before starting up our engine. Then slowly we left them behind.

What a day….what a perfect, wonderful day.

Wishing you Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County and Flagler County Real Estate and Business to…the world!

Currently I am working with a young couple purchasing their first home. Through an internet search from this site they identified a listing that was in the desired geographical area. When I went to the local MLS in New Smyrna I discovered that the house was not listed for sale in the MLS. This would be the proper geographic listing service for an Edgewater address. This is the logical place for people looking to buy here, and the logical place to look here for homes.

Not all agents belong to all the MLS Boards that service their market because it is costly. In Volusia County we have 3 Boards, the New Smyrna Board of Realtors, the Daytona Beach Area Board of Realtors and the West Volusia Board of Realtors.

Not finding the house in the NSB Board I went to the next logical board in Daytona where I found no listing and then I looked in the West Volusia Board for the listing as well. As it turned out, this was where the listing was found. From a seller’s stand point, the odds of real estate agents showing his or her home who are located 20+ miles away are far less than a local agent who is familiar with the area and who is working with local buyers for the area. Buy hey, this is a discount company, they’re saving money, right?…

Once I found the listing, the directions were to go to their Tampa Bay Company website and go online for showing instructions. This turned out not to be as easy as it sounds. The website links did not work. I was unable to schedule the showing online. All I got were error messages. Maybe discount prices means they can’t pay IT folks to keep their site working? hmmm

Not to be deterred, I went to the “contact us” section and started making Sunday morning phone calls. The agent’s phone, the office phone and any other phone number that I could find as I clicked through the site….went to the same recording which by the way, did not have an option to leave a message. This was starting to get bizarre! You had to go back to the online website to schedule an appointment or get more information and none of those pages were working!

On my 6th phone number that I dialed, because believe me I was dialing any and every number I could find, I mis-dialed by a digit and was about to hang up when a human being answered the phone. I explained how their site wasn’t working (better for them to get the notice from me than the seller!) and she very nicely gave me the combination for the lock box.

We wrote a full price contract, with the seller to pay all the closing costs as they had advertised in their MLS narrative. We’re all thinking this should be a done deal. But, once again…there was a surprise in store.

When the listing agent called me he told me that with our contract as written, the seller would have to come to the table with $10000 to sell his house. I asked the natural question, as to how this could happen? You see, when working with a seller, it is the agent’s job to explain the costs to sell and help them estimate the seller’s net proceeds.

The agent said that the seller “didn’t realize” his bottom line when he dropped the price. You see, it was the seller’s fault!

We are currently at the drawing board looking to how we can make this work for both the buyer and the seller.

With real representation you see, the seller’s best interest would be paramont to the listing company. Now I haven’t seen his listing agreement and what the listing company promised for their fee but I can tell you this, delivery of services from what I have experienced, have been tremendously discounted off of what is the norm.

Now here is the kicker: 1) In looking at the costs to close that this discount company is charging, all the junk fees plus commission add up to about a 6% commission. So I’m wondering how these folks are saving money?

Some of the fees that this discount company has collected were paid up front by the seller, instead of when they performed their services and the deal was closing.

In conclusion: The seller is not really saving any money. The seller is not getting adequate marketing coverage for his property. The seller is spending money up front with the listing company with no assurance of performance and the seller is making monthly payments on a house that isn’t likely being shown thus extending the marketing time and the seller’s out of pocket expenses.

Oh, and I just love this…it’s the seller’s fault that it is priced where it is.

So the moral of this story is you get what you pay for….but sometimes, in a case like this you get even less!

Wishing You Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County and Flagler County Real Estate and Business to…the world! 

God Bless Our Veterans
Thank You For Our Freedom

This Memorial Day I give thanks to those who gave their lives so I may live mine in Freedom. This Memorial Day I give thanks for the men and women in uniform, who every day and every night serve so that I may sit in the comfort of my home and enjoy freedom.

I’m not a political person and whether a war is right or wrong is not the purpose of this post. You see, today I sit in awe and reverence and gratitude of those men and women, thankful for all these souls who would do this for me, it brings to mind
John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

God Bless our troops, God Bless the souls who gave all, God Bless the U.S.A.

Janet

Selling Volusia County and Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….. to the world!

Many folks these days have their homes up for sale, it is a Buyer’s Market and supply has outstripped demand. This situation has resulted in a decline in prices. Many analysts have said that the 2005 top end prices were artificially inflated to begin with and the market is just doing a normal correction.

Real Estate, like most of life and the markets operate in cycles. 2003-2005 was a cycle of tremendous upward appreciation. The early part of 2006 began the downward trend as more houses came on the market and buyers didn’t show for the normal winter months to buy.

Regardless of the whys, what can you do to position your home in such a market?

First of all, there isn’t any big mystery as to the factors that sell a home. There are three factors and they are: 1)Price 2) Condition 3) Location. These three factors need to be weighed objectively when you are putting your home on the market for sale.

Let’s take Price, this is an emotionally charged issue for most, even real estate agents. We all know the blood, sweat and tears that we have put into our homes making improvements and doing routine maintenance. This tends to color our perception of the value of our personal homestead. We all believe our home is the best in the field of competition, it is just human nature…but it is important that you base the value on facts and not emotions.

What you “need” to get out of the house and what the market will bear are not necessarily the same figure. Many folks who refinanced during the height of the market may now find as the values have adjusted, that they are upside down in their home and really can’t afford to sell until values adjust upward again. If you did that, you must realize that any money you took out of the home for repairs, debt consolidation, etc. is money you have benefited from. You’re just kidding yourself to think that your home ownership didn’t benefit you if now there is no more equity to pull out.

When you are making decisions with regard to who should market your property, your decision should not be based on which agent told you the most favorable price or value for your property. Unfortunately, not all agents are created equal in their skill levels of assessing values and unfortunately, not all agents have the best integrity. I have been the 2nd agent in to be interviewed after the first agent has given the home owner some inflated idea of the value of their home. Some agents do this to get the listing and then they spend the rest of the listing period beating the homeowner over the head to reduce the price.

In all types of markets, you REDUCE marketing time by pricing your home among the competition to stand out as a value. Buyers want to get the most value for their money and if your home stands out with more amenities for the same dollar, your house will be selected from the active listings rather than remaining on the market. An experienced agent will prepare a CMA- comparable market analysis. This is a mini-appraisal type opinion of value for the property. The guidelines are: Comparable sized homes; comparable vintage home; same construction that have sold within the last 6 months, within two miles of the subject house. Same guidelines for active listings to see where to position your price in the field of competition.

Condition: This seems straight forward enough, but all repairs, no matter how small, need to be made and they need to be professionally done. If you don’t have the skill level to make the repair, you do your home a disservice by doing the work yourself as shoddy workmanship is a red flag to buyers and their agents. Buyers view shoddy workmanship as an indication of how you generally took care of and maintained the property.

Fresh paint and clean carpet are two of the least expensive and best things you can do to prepare to sell your home. Speaking of clean, if you have pets, you need a brutally honest person/friend or family member who does not live with you to tell you if you have pet odor in the house. Air fresheners and heavy incense and perfumes only mask odors and can be as offensive to a buyer as the pet odor itself.

Location: Oh, if there was anything we could do about a bad location. The best you can hope for if the location of the home is not desirable is to minimize the issues to the best of your ability. Perhaps a privacy fence is in order so that the neighbor next door with 20 cats, 3 cars on blocks in the back yard and an over flowing trash is not visible from your home will help. If high crime is an issues, install a security system.

Keep in mind, you bought at this location so someone else will and they will likely have the same profile as you. You and your agent just need to seek that type of buyer, price the home accordingly and be sure it’s condition is good.

There are more tips available regarding marketing your home in this market. I’d be glad to share them with you here or in person. If you are thinking of selling, feel free to call me at: 386-299-6393 and I’ll prepare a CMA for you…for free!

Wishing You Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….to the world!

Do you wonder if real estate is still an opportunity for investing? During the sky rocketing appreciation days of 2005, buying real estate was a no brainer, the challenge was finding real estate that was affordable to purchase, hold on to it and watch it appreciate.

However, recent inventory levels of homes on the market are at record highs. Supply has exceeded demand and home prices are declining. Interestingly enough though, it depends on the price range of home that is declining and which homes are holding their values.

My many bank/lender clients hire me to do broker price opinions and on average I do 40-50 of these a month. They aren’t as complicated as an appraisal, they are best to laymen known as CMA- Comparable Marketing Analysis.

This weekend past I realized that in the Port Orange market, which is always a good place to invest, single family homes in the $120k-$160k price range have not declined in value over the last 12 months. This was one of those AHA moments! Why would this be so? Simply that price range of home is what most Volusia County residents would find affordable. Port Orange being the desireable community that it is with excellent schools, good policing and well planned growth/development keeps this real estate truly a Florida home deal that needs consideration.

Today we are faced with inventory….houses, houses, everywhere for sale. Now is the time to buy. Now is the time to evaluate your portfolio and pull equity out of your house and buy real estate. Back in November I met with FunCoast’s Gene Garrard for the very first time. He had an awesome product for investor types that functioned like a refi-umbrella, allowing investors to pull money out of their homes and investment properties, improve their cash flow and buy more property. It was a great program and if you’d like more information about it, just click on Gene’s name and it will shoot an email to him.

There are three ways you make money in real estate: 1) Appreciation 2) Tax Advantages 3) Cash Flow. The ideal property would obviously offer all three ways. I’d like recommend James Duerr, 386-299-6393 who is a CPA whose practice is 90% real estate investors. James can help you weigh the proper way to structure your business to maximize your tax savings.

There are many strategies to employ in real estate that go beyond buying fixer uppers, remodeling and flipping them. We’ll be discussing more of them in the days ahead. Stay tuned!

Wishing You Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….to the world!

It is good to report an increase in phone calls and contracts this past week in the Volusia Flagler real estate market. There has been much activity on my Edgewater properties and with price reductions on pool homes in New Smyrna Beach, we are sure to have a contract any day now.

New Smyrna Beach is known for its beautiful beaches, the quaint down town Canal Street and beachside, Flagler Avenues shops and restaurants. Located only 4 miles to the beach, 445 Myrtle Avenue is a pool home of block and stucco construction. This home needs TLC but it will return plenty of good living space for your investment and share of elbow grease. Currently on the market for $135100, this pool home needs Cosmetic Surgery.

New flooring, paint and fixtures and plenty of scrubbing will bring this home back to lovely. Our rehab guru, Joanne Mathisen has just the perfect type of financing to purchase this home and have the repairs wrapped into the mortgage.

If you or anyone you know is interested in this phenomenal fixer upper, call me….386-299-6393.

Wishing You Sunshine,

Janet

Selling Volusia County Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….to the world!

Leaving sunfilled skies and warm breezes behind, I traveled to Connecticut and Maine for two family birthday celebrations and to meet our new grandson Cooper this past week.

We had rain, sleet and snow for the first 4 days and it occurred to me how much weather affects the daily lives of folks who live with the seasonal changes. While it was beautiful to watch the goose down plump snow flakes finale on the last day, it was preceded by floods, driving conditions that were very dangerous and power outages for a quarter of a million (plus) people.

Even though Sprint advertises Nationwide coverage, I discovered that territory/land in the last 3 hours drive to the Canadian Border is excluded. Suddenly with no cell coverage and no air card internet coverage daily life in the real estate business became quite a challenge.

The flight back to Florida was good and seeing palm trees and lush vegetation upon touchdown brought back all my comfy feelings. It is good to be home.

Meanwhile, Mike and Misha have been in their “Auntie’s” care and, true to form, they have had many “extra” priveleges I’m sure. Misha doubled in size! Auntie Kanani has certainly missed her vocational calling, she should be raising cattle!

Misha’s cute little pom pommed tail wagged to beat the band. Mike, the Boo Bear ran from his “dad” to me and we were welcomed home with many wet kisses. The pack is back!

Tommorrow we’ll be processing 3 new foreclosure listings. Stay tuned for more information!

Janet

Selling Volusia County Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….to the world!

Many Folks do not realize that the Standard Poodle is a hunting dog. Yep, the images most folks see the foo foo photos of fancy fireball hair cuts, painted nails, ribbons and rhinestone collars. Most folks wouldn’t think they’d find a poodle tracking a scent or retrieving a bird, but I’m here to tell you that they are Hunters!

Mike is a veteran house hunter and Misha, the newest pack addition, is in apprentice mode. While out prospecting for listings or preparing a listing for sale, Mike is first on the scene to check out security issues. He’s looking for safety issues such as an out of control lizard population. Often times he’s quick to point out agressive squirrels who seem to think that they own the place!

So far, 9-week-old apprentice Misha has found her specialty as well. She is most at home fertilizing lawns and bushes. I encourage this, as you can imagine, it makes for a neater “at-den” environment.

Stay tuned for more upcoming house hunting bounty. We’ll be bringing you fixer uppers and foreclosures in the days ahead.

Wishing you sunshine:)

Janet
Selling Volusia County Flagler County Florida Real Estate and Business….to the world!