The Western Upstate Multiple Listing service has finally allowed us to add the ability to seach for “bank owned” homes to our website!

This means you can now select the criteria “Bank Owned” in addition to any other search parameters you wish to select on our Advance Search page. Once this selection has been checked, you can see all the homes that are currently tagged by the listing agent as being owned by a bank, typically after foreclosure. You can use this along with any of the other choices to find, for example, all the Bank Owned homes priced between $125,000 and $175,000 in Anderson County.

While Craigslist is great for lots of things, it has its dark side and is fertile ground for those looking to fleece the unwary.

We’ve just been targeted ourselves, as we received several calls yesterday and today about one of the homes (300 Brittany Park) we currently have listed for sale as being for rent at a great price. Problem is, this home isn’t for rent, and neither us nor the seller was aware of it being advertised for rent. But there was an ad on Craigslist, complete with our photos and description, offering this home for rent along with an email to request more information.

So the next time we got a call, we asked the caller for more details. She said she had emailed the poster, and he had replied with an email saying that he was in West Africa on a mission trip and needed to rent the home out. He also included a “Rental Questionnaire” that asked several personal questions, obviously a phishing scam. A quick Google search found that other instances of a legitimate home for sale being hijacked with a “For Rent” listing on Craigslist. The bogus homeowner ends ups asking the potential renter to send him the first and last months rent via  Western Union, and he will email the keys to them. Of course, that’ll never happen.

Here’s a link to the fake Craigslist ad and our real Craigslist ad. I assume they got the pictures and description from our website and just made their own post.

You just can’t be too careful these days!

UPDATE:
It looks like this happened to a couple in Simpsonville recently. WYFF-4′ s Mandy Gaither did a nice story about it.

UPDATE 2:
After we contacted WYFF4 with this latest scam, Mandy Gaiter came out and did an interview with Elizabeth!

If you have funds in an Individual Retirement Account, like most you’ve probably invested in traditional options like mutual funds, stocks, bonds and similar items. But did you know the Internal Revenue Service actually allows IRA funds to be invested in almost any type item – including real estate? With all the great deals out there currently in the real estate market and recent instability in the stock market, you may have been looking for better returns for your retirement dollars.

It’s called a “self-directed IRA” and just like it sounds it gives you the choice to put your IRA funds in any allowed investment that you choose. Here’s how it works in a nutshell (this is a general overview and does not cover every fact):

• Most banks and brokerages only allow you to purchase mutual funds, stocks, etc. so you’ll have find an IRA custodian that allows self-directed investments. You transfer some or all of your IRA funds to new custodian (following all IRS rules, of course).
• Once you’ve found the property you wish your IRA to purchase, you direct the IRA custodian to send the funds from your IRA to the closing attorney, who handles the transaction just like a regular real estate purchase.
• Now the property is owned by your IRA, and you can either fix it up and resell it, rent it (rent goes to your IRA) or hold on to it as a long term investment.
• When you’re ready to sell, your closing attorney will again perform the legal transfer, and your proceeds from the sale are sent to your IRA custodian for deposit into your IRA.

Note some very important requirements!

• You or your family member cannot have any personal use or benefit from the property. That is you can’t buy a beach house with your IRA funds and then vacation in it. You can’t buy a rental home and then allow your children to live in it – even if they pay you fair market rent. And you can’t sell something you already own to your IRA.
• If you plan to fix up the property, all the funds for doing so must also come from your IRA (via the custodian). You cannot put any personal funds into the home. As a matter of fact you can’t even do the work yourself for free! Also, all funds for taxes, insurance and so forth must also come from the IRA, not you.
• If your IRA wants to buy a property for more than is currently in the IRA, you can get a loan, but it has to be a non-recourse loan that does not hold you personally responsible. But your IRA can also partner with another IRA, like your spouse’s, to purchase the property.
• Once you reach 591/2, you can remove the property from the IRA and use it personally (taxes may be due, of course).

Basically, you and your IRA are two separate entities, and you can only contribute to your IRA under IRS guidelines and limits. You working on the home or taking a personal mortgage out is considered “contributing” and is strictly prohibited. There are other requirements that must be meet, but the basic idea is that your IRA can invest in almost anything, including real estate. And there are some really good deals out there in Anderson County real estate now.

Another thought: If you have a Roth IRA, which is one you don’t pay taxes on the gain at all, the growth of the real estate investments you have will be tax free forever!

The National Association of Realtors has an article explaining more details, or feel free to call us at (864) 225-2503 or email us for more information. Of course, we’re not accountants or attorneys, so you will want to check with your finacial / legal advisers before investing.

It looks like 2010 is starting off pretty well, with home sales in Anderson County up 25% from January of 2009.

During the month of January 2010, there were 81 homes that closed, with an average price of $139,547. That’s up in both numbers and price, as January of 2009 only saw 61 homes sell with an average price of $132,360. That continues the trend we’ve seen since September, 2009 where each month has sold more that the same month of the preceding year.

As is typical, the Under $100,000 range accounted for the largest portion – about 47% of sales. The highest price home to close was a Hartwell Lake waterfront home for $1.1 million, while the lowest was $9,500.

The sales were spread across the county, with MLS Area 109 being the most active. This is the area between Highway 81 and Highway 29, from downtown Anderson to Interstate 85. There were 13 sales in this area with an average price of $161,000.

The Absorption Rate – which is the measure of how quickly the market is absorbing the inventory and is defined as total homes on the market divided by total homes sold in a month – is still very high with the average being around 18 months. This means it would take a year and a half to sell all the homes currently in inventory at the rate they are selling today. By way of comparison, historically a Seller’s Market is considered 0 to 5 months, a neutral market is 6 to 7 months, and a Buyer’s Market is over 7. Currently the only segment close being even neutral is the Under $50,000 price range with about 7 months of homes in inventory. The highest is the Over $700,000 range with 44 active listings and only 1 home selling in the last 3 months – giving us 132 months or over 11 years of inventory!

The bright side is that homes are still selling, while pricing and condition are even more crucial than ever. Another interesting fact is of the homes that didsell in January, over two-thirds of them were on the market for less than 6 months. With interest rates remaining low and over 1,600 homes on the market in Anderson County, it is definately a great time to be house hunting!

If you’d like to know everything about the state of the Anderson County real estate market, we’ve released our January 2010 Real Estate Market Report. Check it out and let us know what you think.

As always, if you’re considering buying or selling a home please give us a call at (864) 225-2503 or email us for more information about how we can help you.

It’s official – nobody sells more Anderson County real estate than the Elizabeth Gray-Carr Team!

For 2009, we participated in the sale of just over $12 million dollars in real estate in Anderson County, making us the #1 team in sales volume according to figures from the Western Upstate Multiple Listing Service. The second place team – also with RE/MAX Foothills - sold just over $7 million dollars worth. The third place team was another RE/MAX Foothills team with about $6.5 million in sales.

RE/MAX Foothills was the top in company sales, with about $75 millions dollars of sales, more than doubling the sales of our second closest competitor (Prudential – C. Dan Joyner) who had just under $36 million in sales.

All sales figures are from the Western Upstate MLS, and include all residential sales in Anderson County only that closed between January 1 and December 31, 2009 and had been turned in to the MLS as of today. Sales are credited to both the listing agent/team and the selling agent/team. For example, if a home sold for $100,000, the agent who had it listed and represented the seller would get credit for $100,000 in sales, while the agent who represented the buyer would also get $100,000 in sales. It the same agent handled both sides, they would get $200,000 credited. Thus the sum of all credited sales will be exactly twice the amount of the sum of all the home sales in the area.

The U.S.  House has passed the bill including an extension of the first time home buyer’s credit,  and the President is expected to sign it Friday morning.

The new credit will be available on contracts signed by April 30, 2010 and closed by June 30, 2010. For first-time home buyers (and those who have not owned a home within the past 3 years), the credit will still be 10% of the sale price of the home up to $8,000. This bill also added a credit for current home owners who have owned their homes for at least 5 years. These owners will be eligible for a $6,500 tax credit when they purchase a new home.

The income limits have also been raised – they are now $125,000 for individuals and $225,000 for couples. Only homes under $800,000 are eligible and they must be your primary residence.

Hopefully this will spur some activity in our market, as we’ve seen several homes selling because of the current tax credit. It will be particularly interesting to see how current homeowners will react to the new credit.

Most everyone has heard about the $8,000 tax credit the federal government is offering to first time home buyers as part of the stimulus package. But you may not know that it is scheduled to end soon – you have to close on your new home before December 1, 2009, which of course means on or before November 30, 2009. (And that’s a Monday. Just image what the attorney’s offices will be like. I wouldn’t even think of setting a closing for that day!)

So realistically you need to find your new home by around the middle of October, as banks are often taking 45 days to close new loans these days.

Some quick points:

• The amount of the tax credit is 10% of the purchase price, up to $8,000. So if your home is $65,000, the tax credit would be $6,500.
• Only first time home buyers are eligible. A first time home buyer is defined here as someone who has not had an interest in a principle residence in the past 3 years.
• Your adjusted gross income (AGI) must be no more that $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for joint filers. The credit is reduced until it is $0 for those making over $95,000 single and $170,000 for joint filers.
• The home must be purchased (generally meaning “closed”) between January 1 and November 30, 2009.
• You can take the tax credit when you file your 2009 returns next April, or you may be able to file an amended 2008 tax return and get it sooner.

The credit does not have to be repaid unless you sell the home within 3 years, and then you must pay the entire amount back with a few exceptions (death, divorce, etc. where special rules apply.) It even applies to new construction if you meet all the criteria.

The National Association of  has published a great pamphlet with lots of details. We’ve added it to our website, and you can download it here.

As always, we welcome your questions and comments.

The SC Association of Realtors recently released their sales reports for all the Multiple Listing Services in the state, and the numbers show a tale pretty much like Anderson County – sales are way down for the year, but the month of June showed a shallower drop than the months before. You can download the full report here.

For the first six months of 2009, home sales statewide were down 23.7%, but the month of  June only showed a drop of 11.3%. And three MLSs – Spartanburg, Cherokee and Hilton Head – actually showed increases in June.  To me, this is an encouraging sign because I can’t wait until the month that shows an improvement over the previous year in Anderson! Hopefully it will be soon.

Overall, our MLS (the Western Upstate MLS that covers Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties) was down 21% for the year, which puts us slightly better than average. The best MLS so far this year is the Beaufort MLS, which is down “only” 14.7%. The worst is the Greenwood MLS, which has seen a drop of 37.5%.
Other areas include:

• Charleston area - down 25.6%
• Greenville area - down 26.2%
• Spartanburgh area - down 15.3%
• Myrtle Beach area - down 15.0%

Median prices are all over the place, with many showing double digit declines while others actually show increases. The Western Upstate MLS had a 20% drop in June, but for the year is only off 1.6%. Hardest hit was the Southern Midlands MLS (Orangburg) that showed a year-to-date decline of 21.8% in median price, while the Beaufort and the Rock Hill area MLS’s both showed increases ( 0.5% and 5.2% respectively).

And it doesn’t look like July will be the month that finally stops the decline in home sales in Anderson County. As of this writing, 67 homes have closed versus 140 last July. While closings typically cluster at the end of the month, that’s still a lot of ground to make up. But we’re cautiously optimistic, and really think that we’ll see the losing streak broken by the end of the year.

As always, please feel free to call us at (864) 225-2503 or you can leave a comment here.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

The results are in for home sales in the first half of 2009 and the numbers are not great, but there is reason to think that the bottom is close!

From January 1 to June 30, 2009 there were 585 homes sold in Anderson County for an average price of $126,958. That was a drop of 35% from the prior year – which was down from the year before that. The average price also dropped , about 21%.

To make matters even worse, the homes that did sell went for about 94% of their asking price as compared to 96% last year. They also took longer to sell, with the average days on market going from 94 days last year to 151 this year.

Most of the homes that sold were first time home buyers, downsizers and those looking for bargains, with the large majority of homes selling for under $200,000 (about 85%) and almost half (45%) selling for under $100,000. (See more details, including all the homes sold this year, on our Market Update page.)

Though the past 6 months were not strong, we feel that the bottom may be close. While May home sales were off by 43% from the previous May, June 2009 was only off 23% from June 2008. And we have definately seen an increase in the last few weeks in the number of showings and buyer calls. We already have several closings in July and see more in the coming days.

The best indicator of how we are thinking is that after months of reducing the size of our team, we’ve been adding lately. We brought back our Closing Coordinator, Cathy Proner, to help with the closing load and we’re actively looking for a Buyer’s Agent to work with the buyers that our marketing has been generating.

If you’re thinking of buying, now is a great time. Of course interest rates are still low, and both inventory and many seller’s motivation are high. If you’re selling, you need to make sure your home is priced aggressively and that its condition is as good as possible. Homes that are priced right and look great do sell.

Please feel free to email or call me at 864-225-2503 if you have any questions!

Elizabeth

After some great feedback from a few clients, I’ve revamped the page that shows the results of your search. The biggest problem was that when viewing a list of dozens of homes, when you clicked on one to view the details, and then went back to your list, you had to start all over again at the beginning. I can see how that would be pretty frustrating if you’d already paged through 17 pages and then had to begin again. Now the paging system is a bit different, but when you click to view a home’s details, then use the “back” button to return to the list, you’ll be on the same page where you left.

Also new, and again based on client feedback, is the additon of the ability to search for homes based on the number of floors – one story, two story, etc. This way if you only want to find single level homes, you can easily do that. The number of stories each home has is now on the search results page as well.

I also added this layout the the list of Elizabeth’s homes for sale, and am working to get it added to the New And Reduced list too.

Thanks to everyone who left comments or emailed.