Hi and welcome to our newsletter for February 2021.
First of all – Sorry for the lack of newsletters the past two months. Both Ryan and I neglected our newsletter duties. I wish I had a good excuse why but I don’t. Don’t worry though, this newsletter will be so amazing it’ll make up for it. If you enjoy it you can call or text me here and inflate my ego with your compliments.
OK here we go. The market is still crazy and I know some buyers are getting a bit discouraged. I’m going to keep this newsletter concise and offer 5 things that may help if you’re a buyer in this market.
5. Set your search price a bit above your pre-approved amount – No we don’t want you to be house poor however it’s somewhat common for people to overprice their homes in this market. It’s good to keep an eye on overpriced listings and ask your agent what they actually think it’s worth. For example I just closed on a house that was originally listed at 310k, after 30 days they finally dropped it to 300k and we closed for 291k with 6k seller paid closing costs so essentially 285k. They also paid off a 25k solar system at closing, free electricity what a sweet deal!
4. Write a personal letter to the seller – Although this practice may be banned soon due to fair housing laws, I’d recommend doing it while it’s still an option. It really helps to show that you’re a human instead of just an offer. The argument for fair housing laws is that if you give personal information, there could be discrimination against you in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation, familial status etc. I personally think it’s important for sellers to know a bit about the person who’s buying their home.
3. Get conventional financing if possible – Some people find FHA loans more attractive on the surface because they sometimes offer a lower interest rate. It’s really tough in this market to be competitive with FHA. In any multiple offer situation a seller is more than likely going to discard the FHA offers first. This is simply because there’s a higher probability of repairs to satisfy the appraisal requirements. They can flag all sorts of small things which would be a non-issue using conventional financing.
2. Get a responsive agent – I’ve worked with a couple people in the past year that fired their original agent due to their lack of urgency. In this market you need to get to any home that’s priced correctly within the first day or two if you plan on locking down a contract.
1. Keep an eye on listings that come back on the market – It’s super rare that a house comes back on the market because of something that’s unfixable. Usually sellers understand what they have to do in order to close whether it be repairing 4 point items for insurance or giving a credit to the buyer to take care of issues after closing. Sometimes homes will come back on the market due to low appraisals. It’s one of those things where you just need to ask your agent to make a phone call and figure out what happened.
Ok that’s it for our February 2021 Update. Feel free to check out the two articles I posted this past week – Top 4 Reasons St. Pete, Florida Is The Best City To Buy A Charming Historic Home & Top 4 Reasons Why Buying Property In St. Pete, Florida Is The Real Estate Equivalent To Bitcoin.
I’m working on making all my new articles more concise by keeping it to a roughly 5 minute read or less, any feedback would be appreciated!
Local News
Tropicana Redevelopment Bids Are In – 80+ Acres of prime Downtown St. Pete real estate will be redeveloped in the coming years. 7 developers have submitted their proposals.
Fergs – The long standing sports bar next to the Tropicana Stadium
St. Pete Developments Planned For 2021 – An overview of upcoming and ongoing developments around Downtown St. Pete.
More skyscrapers coming to Downtown St. Pete