Ah…the Fine Print

houseofmoneyEver read a newspaper article where someone is suing a company for misleading them? The company always says something like “we disclosed all the information to the client” as their defense. Want to see it in action? Countrywide Home Loans recently sent a client some unsolicited mail (i.e. junk mail) in which they offered a No closing cot Refi! At the top in big letters on a stand-out blue background it says:

“Pay hundreds – or even thousands at closing

or PAY ZERO with Countrywide.

You Decide.”

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Selling Our Own Home – Day 7

home-for-saleSaturday and we’ve ended up with 5 showings. Not bad for a first weekend on the market considering how things are going in [tag]real estate[/tag] right now and the fact that it is still early April. Actually we weren’t really looking at selling in April but it was important for us to get out there first to help set the price in our market. Here is how to handle showings when you are [tag]selling your own home[/tag].

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Sell Your Own Home – Day 6

forsale-sign Well, we’re officially on MLS.  Whoo-hoo!  Frankly, it’s been a bit of kluge, but I guess in the end it all works out.  Our very first day we get a call from a realtor to setup a showing.  My wife spoke with her and after setting a time for the showing my wife inquired as to whether or not she was a realtor.  Generally you don’t stay at your house for showings.  It helps the potential buyers see your home as their home if they don’t see the people that currently live there.  Also, it keeps you from answering awkward questions.  And, if you are very lucky, they may want to spend a lot of time going back and forth and talking about your house if they are very interested in it.  However, we aren’t going to leave strangers alone in our house without a realtor.  (The realtor is semi-liable and probably wouldn’t allow anything shifty.  It isn’t worth the trouble for them.)

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Selling Your Own Home – Day 2

Home For SaleFriday, and the frustrations begin. We have decided to use Iggyshouse.com (more on that next post) to list our house. The main reason? A free MLS listing. Just because you are hip and cool and willing to do all the leg work to sell your home yourself doesn’t mean that everyone is. In fact, the vast majority of people buying homes still use real estate agents. Whether using a Realtor is a good or bad thing we will not go into today, but if you want to sell your house and most buyers are using Realtors, then good marketing sense says that you should go where the Realtors are. And the Realtors are on MLS.

Quick history lesson (don’t worry this won’t hurt). Not long ago, the MLS system was coming under scrutiny for uncompetitive practices. Like most businesses when the heat got turned up they tried to see if they could get the problem to go away without actually having to change their very profitable business model. As it ended up, MLS opened up the system to BUYERS by letting member companies provide MLS listings to the public (hello realtor.com and so on). This was a shrewd move, because the heat did go away, and they are laughing all the way to the bank. Why? Because it is still a very closed system when it comes to SELLER access. In other words, there is no way for you, Joe Public to get your home on MLS directly. You have to go through a broker.

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