Have a Vacant Home? Every Penny Counts!

With thousands of single family homes for sale and currently vacant – You need an edge as a seller. You can’t afford to be just another vacant home on the block. Your home may be vacant due to downsizing, divorce, foreclosure, death, loss of job, moving out of state and so much more. Many homeowners don’t know where to turn in this sudden and unknown situation. There is help; it’s called “Home Management”. Here’s how it works.

A professional “Home Manager” occupies your vacant home until sold. Home Managers are similar to house sitters and basically “house sit” your home when you no longer occupy it yourself. They are not renters. You may not want to have a long term lease or deal with tenant issues. Home Managers bring in their own furniture (so there is no added staging cost). They are often professionals in transition themselves, who are looking to buy a home in the near future. The Home Manager understands the home is for sale and maintains the home “show ready” at all times and agrees to move once the home is sold.

This really is so helpful to the homeowner since the monthly costs can mount because many homes in today’s market are for sale for months, if not longer. Often we forget the monthly “holding costs” such as electricity, water, gas, pool, yard maintenance and sometimes HOA dues. These costs can add up and take away from the homeowner’s profit! You do not want to take “one penny” away from your bottom line. With the glut of homes on the market today and tightening of mortgage qualifications homes can sit for longer than desired.

We all know a vacant home does not show well, and gives the impression of being distressed which brings in low ball offers. Also thieves and vandals are attracted to a vacant residence. A small water leak or other maintenance issues may be missed and escalate because your property is no longer being maintained and no one is present to catch problems when they arise. This added stress is not what you need when you want to sell your home. Another issue to consider is the insurance coverage on the home. When you move out, your homeowner’s policy may no longer cover the vacant home.

Statistics show that an occupied home sells up to 30% faster and usually brings 7-10% more money at closing. Your home is your castle and you deserve to reap the rewards by having your home cared for as if you were still present. Don’t abandon your valuable asset!

Realtors and homeowners need an edge and they realize every penny lost is a deduction from the bottom line. An occupied home with a professional Home Manager is a perfect answer to today’s real estate market as well as helping to reduce these costs.

Arizona Vacant Home Solutions LLC is a local company offering these services in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. This company is owned and operated by two entrepreneurial women who understand the needs of their community. Arizona Vacant Home Solutions provides peace of mind in these difficult times. Ask how you can receive this incredible service at no charge!

602-456-9020 info@AzVacantHomeSolutions.com

Thank-you Homeowners Working With us to Sovle the Vacant Home Problems in Arizona! You're Awesome!!!

Arizona Vacant Home Solutions, LLC

http://azvacanthomesolutions.com/

info@AzVacantHomeSolutions.com

The Vacant Home Problem (an Estate Planning Attorney's view)

By Karen Sinchak Higby
April 2010

When a person dies, his or her home is often one of the most valuable assets in the estate. In many cases, the home will be sold by the executor, so the cash proceeds of sale can be distributed to the heirs. Until recently, homes could usually be sold in six months or less, especially when the executor was willing to drop the price below the market norm.

Today, the picture has altered dramatically. Because of the downturn in the real estate market, due in part to the number of foreclosures and the inability of prospective buyers to obtain financing, a home can be difficult to sell, even at a substantial price reduction. Executors are finding themselves still sitting on the estate's home after two years or more. Funds must be retained in the estate to cover the ongoing costs associated with the estate home - mortgage expenses, taxes, insurance, maintenance and repairs, etc. Oftentimes, the heirs receive little or nothing until the home can be sold. Worst of all, vacant homes have become targets for vandalism. Appliances, lighting fixtures, even copper plumbing, has been ripped from homes, bringing down the already depressed value even further.

We attorneys who represent executors, find it difficult to advise our clients about how best to deal with these problems. The role of the attorney in counseling his client who is serving as an executor is to make sure the executor meets his fiduciary duty to the heirs of the estate. That can be a difficult task in today's economic environment, especially when there is a vacant home to sell.

One option for the executor is to rent the home until it can be sold. The obvious advantages are that some or most of the expenses can be shifted to the renter and the incidents of vandalism can be reduced or eliminated. Unfortunately, the disadvantages are glaring - finding a qualified renter can be a daunting task and delaying the sale usually makes the heirs more frustrated.

The good news in this dreary picture is a new real estate service which can eliminate most of these problems. An example is Arizona Vacant Home Solutions, LLC. This firm places qualified, temporary home managers (not renters) in a vacant home for whatever period it takes to get the house sold. The home managers are carefully screened; they know in advance that they must be willing to show the home to prospective buyers while they are occupying the home, and that they must be willing to move out on short notice, when the home is sold. During the term of occupancy, Arizona Vacant Home Solutions will pay most of the carrying costs other than debt service. The advantages to the estate are enormous - the home is no longer vacant, it is no longer attractive to vandals, it "shows" better to the prospective purchaser, and the estate's expenses are greatly diminished. Sometimes, the home manager turns into the purchaser. This appears to be a win-win situation. The key to its success is the diligent homework undertaken by the placement firm in identifying qualified home managers. That might mean someone who is new to the city or area and wants a chance to get the feel of a new community before buying into it. Or it might be a high-level executive who is on temporary assignment and prefers a home over a hotel room. Or it might be a person in the process of selling a home elsewhere who has a good income but can't qualify as a buyer until the other home is sold. It seems as if there are a myriad of situations which produce that qualified temporary home manager for a vacant home, frequently with their own furnishings, making this matching of interests work well for both parties. Executors (and also trustees of trusts, who have identical issues with vacant homes) are better able to fulfill their fiduciary duties to the heirs they serve.

Hats off to firms like Arizona Vacant Home Solutions who have had the vision to solve one of the real estate market's toughest problems!

Karen Sinchak Higby, Attorney
SINCHAK & ASSOCIATES. P.C.
8901 E. Pima Center Parkway
Suite 135
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258

Phone: 480-991-8101
Fax: 480-991-7447
khigby@sinchakpc.com

Are Rising Home Prices a sign of Recovery?

House prices rose 1.4% in June 2009 following a 0.5% increase in May as the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20 city house price index registered it's first consecutive monthly increase in over three years. " For the second month in a row we're seeing some positive signs", said David Blitzer, chairman of S & P's index committee. Only 2 cities, Detroit and Las Vegas, in the 20 city HPI experienced price declines from May through June. If you look only at these narrow statistics to base an opinion, like is frequently portrayed by the main stream media, you might think the housing market has hit bottom and the recession is at an end. Is this 2 month price rise really a sign of recovery?

Yale University professor Robert Shiller cautions that it may not be a turning point due to high unemployment and the large inventories of foreclosed homes weighing on the market. Despite the upward momentum in house prices,"I would express great reluctance in forcasting where we are going from here, because we have conflicting signals right now", Mr. Shiller said.

Atlanta Fed Cheif Dennis Lockhart expressed his opinion that the July 2009 jobless statistic of 9.4% nationwide would move closer to 16% "if one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking - and those who are working fewer hours than they want". The employment environment is not showing signs of improvement yet.

Keep in mind that the June Home Price Index shows that house prices are down 15.4% from one year ago and down 30.2% from their peak in the second quarter of 2006. But, Freddie Mac reported that the percentage of loans 90 days or more past due and in foreclosure rose to 2.95% in July 2009, up from 1.01% a year ago. We have to take a look at the price range of homes going into foreclosure and who the buyers of these homes are.

Subprime mortgages have been leading the default surge since early 2007. Their prices, mostly REO properties, have dropped so significantly that investors with cash have started buying them up because they will cash flow as a rental, even if prices continue to decline. They can get a rental return of $500-700/month on a home that only cost them $35,000. That's a better return than most stocks, CD's or other paper assets. But is this up tick in purchasing really a sign that the housing market is improving? What about the Prime Loan market and Jumbo Loans? Since February 2009, default and foreclosure rates on option ARMs have passed those of subprime mortgages, according to the research firm First American Corelogic. Many option ARMs are not eligible for refinancing and because they tend to have higher balances, compared to subprime loans, resets often double the payments. First American Corelogic anticipates 600,000 option ARMs will reset in the next four years and Diana Olick of CNBC believes it will be even higher, at over a million. What impact do you think this will have on the prices of homes overall when higher priced properties going into default are increasing and financing of jumbo loans is still extremely difficult to get?

Don't let a couple of months of home price increases fool you in to believing that the housing crisis is over and recovery is on the way, at least not yet. There are still several factors that would indicate otherwise.

If you have a home to sell and you have it on the market VACANT, Arizona Vacant Home Solutions offers a FREE service that will give you the edge you need to sell more quickly, and bring a higher price at closing, in this competitive market. Read about it on: http://azvacanthomesolutions.com/ than contact us to discuss what we can do for you.

Unbelievably valuable site for everyone - you should keep on hand. Contains useful information on economics, social indicators, household units, density, marital status, household income, occupation, unemployment, poverty, demographics, race, age and more.....
Investigate your potential home location before purchasing, renting, or investing...

http://zipskinny.com/

Try out a neighborhood before purchase a home. Preview our site to see if you qualify as a home manager.

Mortgage Firms to Step Up Loan Modifications

In a letter to 25 loan processing firms, Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, and Urban Development Secretary, Shaun Donovan, have urged the firms to modify more home loans. Analysts say the Obama administration's loan modification program has not done enough to stem the rising tide of foreclosures so far. The program's effectiveness has been hampered by mortgage firms not being able to keep pace with the applications received for loan modifications. " We believe there is a general need for servicers to devote substantially more resources to this program for it to fully succeed and achieve the objectives we all share," wrote Geithner and Donovan in their letter.



The administration exhorted the firms to provide "an escalation path for borrowers dissatisfied with the service they have received" and suggest ways of improving the design of the program. Industry experts have been disappointed with the pace of the program so far. "We are not getting anywhere near the level of resolutions we expected," says Bruce Dorpalen, national director at Acorn Housing Corp. Housing councelors say there is a need to raise homeowners' awareness of the program. "Homeowners on their own are not able to navigate the system," says Maeve Elise Brown, executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates.



AZ Vacant Home Solutions can assist homeowners in finding a company that can get the loan modification completed successfully, in most cases, when the homeowner has not been able to make any progress on their own. Get information on this topic by requesting it at info@azvacanthomesolutions.com



If your home is not selling as fast as you'd like and you need to move due to job relocation or other reasons, they can provide a home manager to stage the home and give it an edge in this difficult real estate market. Staged and occupied homes are proven to sell faster and often bring a higher sale price than a 'cold and vacant' home. Find out more about the company at http://azvacanthomesolutions.com/