You may believe that selling your home is impossible in today’s market. You may feel powerless to the process. What could YOU possibly do to turn this housing market around? There is no doubt that today’s real estate market is extremely difficult to navigate. However, we want you to know that thousands of homes sold yesterday, thousands will sell today and thousands will sell each and every day from now until the end of the year.

It is totally within your power to guarantee that your house will sell even in the current market.

“How?”, you ask. Let’s look at the simplicity of the famous Serenity Prayer and apply it to selling a home in today’s real estate market.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

Accept the things you cannot change

The two main reasons that the housing prices have softened:

1. the current economy
2. the inventory of distressed properties (foreclosures and short sales)

As an individual homeowner, there is no way for you to impact either of those two situations. The best think-tanks in the country are struggling to discover solutions.

Have the courage to change the things you can

There is not a vacuum of buyers in the market. There is a vacuum of homes a buyer in today’s market will purchase. Let us explain: could you sell your home today for $1? … $1,000 … $10,000? Of course you could. There are plenty of buyers in the market for a home they consider priced correctly. You have to decide what the correct price is for your home if you truly want to sell. If you want your house sold, you must list it at a price a buyer will pay for it. Not a buyer from 2006 but today’s buyer who has plenty of homes from which to choose.

It will take courage to sit with a real estate professional and honestly decipher the true value of your home. If you want to sell, you must have that courage.

The wisdom to know the difference

We all realize that the economic situation will take some time to correct. If we want to wait for prices to return to 2006 levels, we will probably have to wait for 5-7 years.

Look at the reason you decided to sell in the first place and decide whether the extra money you would get from the sale is worth that wait. Is money more important than being with family? Is money more important than your health? Is money more important than having the freedom to go on with your life the way you think you should?

This is where your wisdom must kick in. You already know the answers to the questions we just asked. You have the power to take back control of the situation by pricing your home to guarantee it sells. The time has come for you and your family to move on and start living the life you desire. That is what is truly important.

• 901 homes sold in the Greater Louisville area, Southern Indiana area and Etown/Ft. Knox area in the last 30 days?

• The average number of days homes spent on the market in the Greater Louisville area the past month was 97 days?

• The current average list price of homes for sale in the Southern Indiana area is $153,647?

 For more current real estate statistics in these areas, as well as numbers from the past month and the past year, click here or on the image above.

Be sure to check out www.Semonin.com to find homes for sale, connect with a Realtor®, get mortgage information, and more!

These rates are provided to you by HomeServices Lending.  Semonin Realtors® is not a mortgage lender; please contact HomeServices Lending directly to learn more about its mortgage products and your eligibility for such products.

What is it for you?

Posted by the KCM Crew at www.KCMBlog.com

There has been much written on the recently negotiated National Mortgage Settlement. Most of the reporting has revolved around the $25 billion that will be issued to consumers and states that have been impacted by the robo-signing scandal of 2010. We want to talk about a different issue addressed by the settlement.

Foreclosures have been slowed to a snail’s pace since the third quarter of 2010. Banks were concerned about the penalties that would be imposed by the settlement and decided to delay the actual seizure of foreclosed properties until the settlement was reached. This group of properties is known as the ‘shadow inventory’ which is currently hanging over the market.

The banks now have the roadmap they can follow which will allow them to repossess a home without penalty. The backlog of these distressed properties will now find their way through the process and be put on the market for sale.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president for Carrington Holding, explains:

“The bottom line is that 2012 will see a lot of foreclosures that should have taken place in 2011 and didn’t.”

How many foreclosures could we be talking about?

The Washington Post reported:

“Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said the settlement helps the housing market in the long run because it allows banks to proceed with millions of foreclosures that have been stalled.”

This leaves three important questions:

1. When will these properties hit the market?
2. What impact will they have on housing values?
3. Which areas will be affected the most?

Every buyer and seller should contact a local real estate professional for the answers to these questions in their region.

These rates are provided to you by HomeServices Lending.  Semonin Realtors® is not a mortgage lender; please contact HomeServices Lending directly to learn more about its mortgage products and your eligibility for such products.

Share a memory about the house in which you grew up.  Take a trip down memory lane; think back to when you were young, living at home, and relatively carefree.  What is one memory that stands out to you that describes your childhood?

• Do you remember playing in the snow, making snow ice cream, then coming in to sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows?

• Can you recall helping clean the house every weekend with the promise of a dinner out or an ice cream cone as a reward?

• Did you build forts made of blankets, sleeping bags, and chairs and “camp out” in the living room?

There is bound to be at least one memory that stands out to you.  So what is it?  Tell us something about you in the house in which you grew up.

People are delaying the decision to buy a home because they are not sure where prices are headed. If they buy and prices continue to soften, they feel that they will not have purchased at the optimal moment. They reason that, if they sit and wait, they can’t be hurt. This thinking assumes that a non-decision comes without consequence.

The normal retort to this thinking by people bullish on real estate is that prices may soon turn to the positive or that interest rates will start heading upward. Buy now before the cost of buying increases! Today, we want to look at this from a different angle. We want to alert our readers that their housing expense is about to increase if they continue to rent.

Currently, in most parts of the country, buying is less expensive than renting. Plus, purchasers can lock in their housing expense for the next thirty years by buying now. They will get a sensational price and a record low interest rate. What will happen if they continue to rent?

The Alternative to Buying

If a family continues to rent, they are looking at a housing expense which will rise with the market. Rental costs increase by 3% a year historically. But today’s rental market favors the landlord to a greater degree. Below is a graph of how rental prices have increased recently and where they are projected to go over the next few years based on a report from Marcus & Millichap.

Bottom Line

Hoping to save by delaying the purchase of a home may result in higher housing costs while you’re waiting, thus achieving the exact opposite result. Check with a local real estate professional to determine the best option for you and your family.

These rates are provided to you by HomeServices Lending.  Semonin Realtors® is not a mortgage lender; please contact HomeServices Lending directly to learn more about its mortgage products and your eligibility for such products.