What is Flipping all about in Real Estate?
The Art of Flipping
Buy right to come out on top. That is -buy in the right neighborhood at the right interest rate. In a hot housing market, flippers know they can make money. For the past 5 years, many people were attracted by the handsome profits they could make from flipping a home. They bought low and sold high in a matter of a short time. When the housing market was sizzling, it did not matter whether the neighborhoods were great or had great schools for the kids, there were buyers lining up to purchase the homes. Once things have changed in a market, flippers are the first to jump bail.
What is Flipping?
Flipping is the buying and rapid selling of residential properties for a decent profit. You are talking about homes that have been sold and owned six months or less.
The Housing Market is Cooling Down
The Housing Market is Cooling Down
While residential housing is crippling these days, commercial construction is heating up. Anywhere you go in California and the rest of the US, New York, Boston and Florida, construction companies such as Donald Trump are building hotels, towers, warehouses and shopping centers. Since the cool down, cuts will largely occur in the residential sector. Many people will lose their jobs. The housing industry workers who will be affected are construction companies, mortgage brokers, real estate agencies, landscapers and construction materials suppliers. To a large measure, the construction workers will try to find new areas to work at. Home appraisers, inspectors, mortgage lenders, decorators, termite exterminators and many others will have to follow the construction forecasts.
In a cooled housing market, what can sellers do?
Sellers can do a few things to attract potential buyers. They can promise to give a car or other valuables. Most buyers want the sellers to pay the closing costs. By closing costs, we mean escrow, loan fees and other payments. The seller can also pay for extended home warranties or a lower interest rate on the buyer's new loan. At the same time, the seller may be worried about whether or not the appraisal was right. It must cover the selling price, plus the closing costs. Sellers can offer bonuses to real estate agents who bring traffic to their listings. Thanks to the large equity that is in the homes, sellers can afford to be generous. Sellers must adapt to the reality of the times. There are too many inventories of homes. Potential buyers must have some good incentives to check and select the sellers' homes.
California Real Estate: New and Existing Homes for Sale
Existing homes and new home sales are going for a slide show. Things are not looking up in the real estate market these days. It is the time for sellers to give lots of incentives to attract the few buyers willing to take a risk. Some home sellers and builders resort to offering up to 12,000 incentives to attract buyers. Who thought that the housing market would get to this impasse? Flippers or fly-by-night investors have already gotten out of the market before it gets normal. But those who thought that the boom was going to be there for ever are in for a huge surprise. They still have quite a large inventory of homes to sell. So they are desperate as the banker is threatening them. Home prices are sliding badly in Fresno county. Industry insiders report that it is worse there than the rest of California. It is time to compete. Competition among sellers is fierce in the San Joaquin Valley, especially Fresno, Clovis, Bakersfield, Modesto and all over California. Home sellers need to make their property stand out. If they need more landscaping job done, they need to contract out with a good landscaping designer. If they have to add some fresh layers of paint, it is better to get it done. Otherwise, they will have to cut down the initial listed price of the homes. From Clovis, Sanger, Selma and elsewhere, sellers are cutting down the prices. Lands are expensive. Construction materials are not cheap either. So, whichever way an investor looks at it, there is a lot of money that has been poured into new development and the acquisition of homes.
The housing boom may be over for good. While it lasted 5 good years, it made many people lots of quick money. New home sales are falling. Existing homes sales are on shaky grounds. These hectic times make us remember how good it was. For five consecutive years, sales of both new and existing homes set records. Granville Homes resorts to hosting movie in the park at La Ventana to attract potential buyers. A broker is happy to slash the prices of his homes as long as he can find good buyers. Highlands Homes is advertising $500 downpayment will get buyers a home. In the fine print, they must qualify and be willing to go with the company's own or referred mortgage company. Sweet deal of homeownwership or potential rip-off for the uninitiated! No matter what, there are some good offers out there if one knows where to look. Keep in mind that these deals will not last for long. The Highlands deals in Clovis existed only to sell some a certain inventory. It was a success for the company. They want to repeat the same success in Madera. So the company is advertising the deal in Spanish language papers and markets.
Spring Break Damages to Condos, Beach Houses & Private Homes: Housekeepers' Secrets
Spring Break University: Post-Rental Memories & Lessons 101
Spring break evokes fun-filled nights and days by young men and women coming from very far to change the rhythm of a sleepy beach town. Writing about spring break usually brings forth the major spring break destinations such as Florida, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Daytona Beach, Jamaica and other Caribbean hot spots. What many rental properties have not shared with the public is the amount of money and repairs that go on after the wild beer-laden and overcrowded parties are over. To get an idea of what went on at these rental houses, condos and hotel rooms, we have been talking to those who clean all the mess up. Yes, the cleaning people have a few good points to make about Spring Break. For them, it is not all fun. Many homeowners and rental managers end up losing sleep over the conditions in which their house is found.
It is not uncommon to spend thousands of dollar to repair some of these fancy beach houses. Anything that is supposed to go wrong can go wrong during these days where young men and women roam the beaches searching for the next alcohol fix and fun. If you leave a furnished house, you may find it empty with holes in the walls, towel racks yanked loose, cigarette burns, broken chairs, tables and plates. The bad part can be overflowing toilets. So real estate agents and housekeepers know that some slobs that live among us, the rest of human species. These people can turn your stomach due to their pools of vomit and antics of hiding blood-soaked towels, pillow in closet and between mattresses, tacking condoms on the wall, stacking every stick of furniture, ripping a ceiling fan down etc. Nights of alcohol have the distinct way of destroying rugs, busting doors and windows to say the least. Housekeepers clean puke in the porches and sinks. They have to clean up the garbage disposal and the refrigerator that is full with rotten foods and pizzas. Every Summer, beach towns all over the US, Mexico and Jamaica have to deal with Junebugs, these college and high school students who come to have fun. Yes, they bring the money, but the damage they cause can be huge. Owners are always surprised to see what these kids can do. They leave maggot-filled meat on the table and the counters. They also used feminine products in the restroom and bedroom. It is like a disaster area.
The Best Time to Go House Hunting is Now
The Best Time to Go House-hunting
Of course, people who want to buy a home shop all the time. But many real estate experts say that these people are actively looking when Spring arrives. In the past few years in the Central Valley, every day was a good day to strike a deal. And agents lived through the busy times of the local real estate boom to tell about it. From San Francisco, San Jose, CA to the other parts of the Golden state, millions of homes were sold in the past few years. It was the hottest real estate time in the real estate industry. Houses did not stay long on the market. For the sellers, it was just a matter of putting up some for sale signs and receiving countless requests. Then, it was a sellers’ market. Sellers did not have to do much. There were stories of agents selling up to 20 homes in a few weeks. Super agents always saw their commissions rise thanks to the large high demand from folks wanting to purchase. The Central Valley benefited from this boost in real estate values. There is no doubt that developers and homebuilders have enjoyed the greatest real estate boom in many years.
Now that there is a slowing of the market, things have changed. Many experts say that this time was needed to adjust the market. Now there are more houses for sale than selling and/or sold. Houses take far longer to sell. In our neighborhood, homeowners who wanted to sell their houses either have reduced the prices or removed the signs altogether. Agents, developers and real estate brokers are betting on March and April to see whether there are any changes. There is a large supply of houses for sale out there. The number of houses listed for sale exceeds the number selling or sold. Now that only puts more pressure on prices. From Sanger to Reedley, Kingsburg, Clovis and Fresno, for sale signs are springing up in every neighborhood. What happens is that a lot of people who bought houses as investments are trying hard to get the best prices possible before the market really cools off or adjusts itself.
Cooling off period in Real Estate Market Does Not Mean Expensive Homes Will Loose Luster
If you build them with the right features and accessories, they will come. Buyers will purchase them. That is what the McCaffrey Group, McMillin, Wathen-Castanos, Granville’s Ventana Hills, Wilson Homes, Cambridge homes, de Young properties with Brentwood homes have always known. It makes sense that Gary McDonald has sold some million dollar houses. The market for high-end homes in the Central Valley is a new niche. More and more people with lots of cash to burn want to replicate the grandeur and poshness of the Bay Area and Los Angeles in the Central Valley. Builders of elegant homes know how to build homes of distinction in the Central Valley of California. Buyers pour in from the Bay Area and elsewhere. Demand for multi-million homes will continue to stay stable. These companies may not have to worry about the fly by night competitors. They have established a large group of satisfied customers who can bring in more customers through their testimonials. New builders are going to Kerman, Selma, Fowler, Reedley, Parlier, Kingsburg, Clovis, Fresno to buy lots. Farmers who have huge bank debts are often forced to take the huge sums of money being launched at them. The Central Valley is growing more homes than crops according to Max Arax, a Los Angeles Times writer and local farming chronicler. Now that the Winter months are over and that Spring has already started, we will see how much change there is in the inventory of houses listed for sale and those sold.
Table Mountain Casino offers $10,000, in the Spotlight For The Wrong Reasons, Machine Malfunction
While Chukchansi is basking in all the free advertising it has received thanks to its new deal with the Grizzlies Stadium Officials bearing its name in the heart of Downtown Fresno, one of its competitors, Table Mountain Casino, is having a hard time recognizing a jackpot winner, Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack. He is a loyal player who had been playing without luck until this fateful day this past week. But the Table Mountain Casino leaders and managers have nothing to do with Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack. They claimed that the machine was not functioning right. It was not programmed to let a player win this much money. Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack sought the court of public opinion which the Table Mountain Tribe may see as bad publicity. Who wants to play the Deep Pocket slot machines if a win is not recognized? That is why the leaders are trying to solve the problem by offering an appreciation payment of $10,000. In the meantime, local lawyer, Scott Kinney's services were retained by a friend of Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack. The tribal leaders reasoned that the $10,000 offer was the cash equivalent jackpot for the progressive slots.
Did Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack have so bad luck that the Deep Pockets would Malfunction?
Attorney Scott Kinney wants the video cameras and machines to be examined. In the meantime, both international Game Technology, the builder of Deep Pockets slot machine and Progressive Gaming International which programmed it into a network of machines said there must be some type of anomaly. The machine was programmed to award only $10,000. There was no way it could award 73 times that amount according to these officials. The only other casino to have experience this type of irregularities was Hard Rock Casino which had a winner paraded only to be told later that he did not win. In the case of Table Mountain Casino, the tribe wants to put this error or malfunction behind them. They want to reward Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack with the amount the machine would have awarded, but not the large sum which he captured with his digital camera. In the meantime, the deep pocket slot machine is under surveillance and investigation. Officials, attorney and Sornpaserd Unkeowannulack would like to know what went wrong.