Margaret Rome's Blog

The Other Pile of Paperwork

 Anyone who has bought, sold, or refinanced a house in the last few years knows that there are stacks of papers that have to be signed before the keys change hands. Fortunately for the buyers and sellers, most of those papers come from the Realtor®, the title company, and the lender.

But even before the first offer comes in, sellers should be finding the "other" paperwork. Those are the papers that - depending on how long you've been in your home - might be scattered or buried in old files or boxes.

You'll want to find:

1. The settlement documents from when you bought the house - these would include the contract, the settlement sheet, loan documents, title insurance, and any others that came to you at settlement.
2. Any other loan documents from a refinancing, home equity line of credit, or second mortgage along with the loan numbers and bank information.
3. Receipts and permits for any major improvement or renovation that you did such as adding a bathroom or extending a deck.
4. Warranty information for any appliances or home systems that you've repaired or replaced recently.
5. Homeowner association, condo, or co-op documents, including any documents that show you've complied with the rules for renovations or additions such as decks or color changes.
6. Tax receipts and bills that will show a prospective buyer what the gas, electric, water, and tax charges have been for the past year.
   

Having these ready as you list and sell your home will help things run more smoothly. And when the house is sold, and you pack those papers to move, keep the first three on the list together with the new settlement papers - you'll need them again come April for tax time.

Baltimore,Md

www.HomeRome.com

Unrepresented = Under Priced

Today I had the pleasure of sharing the microphone on the WCBM Radio  show, All About Real Estate. We had a terrific show with many call-ins, and we covered a lot of subjects. One of our listeners talked about sellers who want to "save" money and sell their homes without a professional. He brought up an interesting point - that even after deducting the agents' commissions, unrepresented sellers UNDERsell their homes by an average of $13,000 compared to what people get when they work with a Realtor®.

Price is what people think of first, but it's not the only issue, of course. Sellers who try to go it alone are usually unprepared for the complexity of the paperwork that is part of today's house sale. Worse, they don't know where the traps are that a knowledgeable agent could help them avoid. We hear stories all the time about a sale that fell through leaving the do it yourself seller with a contract that didn't get to settlement, after they've moved on and are suddenly paying two mortgages.

As I said on the radio, anyone can sell a house. Put a "For Sale" sign out front and you'll probably get offers. What a Realtor does is not just help you sell the house; your Realtor makes sure you get from sale to settlement. That's when the real work is done.

www.HomeRome.com

Baltimore,Md

The headlines of the Baltimore's THE SUN today "Going From Boom to Glut".

I am doing a live radio show today at noon! In less than 35 minutes.

I invite the Active Rain members to call in and let's let the public know that we are not sitting around. We are busy and we are selling and marketing homes. This market has great opportunities and the top agents are getting results.

Here is a chance to tell the world about Active Rain and our active group of Real Estate Pros!

Here is the information. You can listen live by going to the website and you can call in.

www.wcbm.com 1-410-922-6680 1-800 922-6680 12 -1pm  WCBM 680 AM

Hope to hear from some of you!

Baltimore

www.HomeRome.com

The question is: What can you buy tax free in Maryland through Sunday, August 27?

If you have kids going back to school and wanting new clothes, or maybe you are watching the Fall Clearance sales, then this is the time to head to the mall. From the 23rd through the 27th, Maryland is giving shoppers a break - no sales tax on clothes and shoes! The break applies to items priced under $100 and covers things like jackets, shirts, sweaters, pants, and socks. You still have to pay the tax on accessories like handbags, jewelry, and ties, but there's no limit on how much tax you save provided each item is under $100.

The state's web site for the sales tax holiday is here, and you can download and print a list of what's taxable and what's exempt here. If you have shopping to do, now's the time!

Baltimore,Md

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A New Real Estate Market Indicator

There are as many opinions about what the market will do - or is doing - as there are Realtors and real estate columnists. Finding an indicator you can trust is not easy. So I was happy to read about one that I can understand...statues of St. Joseph.

That's right, one of the seller's favorites to bring good buyers to their home has become a reliable indicator of how the housing market is doing in any area. A recent Boston Globe article tells how a local shopkeeper sees a real estate downturn because these days he's selling 300 St. Joseph statues a month; when the market was booming, he was lucky to a couple a week.

According to the article, "Tradition has it that if you bury a statue upside down and facing the property you are trying to sell, St. Joseph will direct a buyer your way." It goes on to say that the belief goes back some 500 years when it originated in a convent in Europe.

Wherever it started, the custom of burying a St. Joseph statue on your property is popular in many places today. I'm not saying I believe it makes a difference, but with the market cooling in some areas, people are probably thinking, "It couldn't hurt!"

Baltimore,Md

I was quoted in today's Wall Street Journal! The title of the article: Make Me an Offer: Buying Unlisted Homes-  

  "Margaret Rome, a Coldwell Banker agent in Baltimore, once ran an ad in the
Baltimore Jewish Times announcing that one of her buyers was seeking a "funky"
four-bedroom ranch house in a particular school district for less than $400,000.
An owner of such a house, which wasn't yet listed, responded, and a sale was
quickly arranged, Ms. Rome says."

You can read the article on line if you are a WSJ subsciriber. www.wsj.com

And today was my Mom's birthday and she would have been so proud!

 Happy Birthday Mom!    

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Of Lobster Claws and Cream of Crab Soup

We went to Maryland's eastern shore recently for a quick get-away and some good food. We came back from Ocean City well fed on fresh seafood and with new appreciation for restaurants in Maryland's beach town.

One of our discoveries was an award-winning cream of crab soup. For the last two years, the Ocean City Downtown Association has sponsored a crab soup contest among local restaurants. Last year the Marina Deck's soup took secondplace, and this year they swept the field. One taste of chef Dennis Kalchthaler's creation and you'll understand why.

While we enjoyed their prize-winning soup, Carole Spurrier gave us a Marina Deck lesson on lobsters. Did you know that...?

• American lobsters are found not only in Maine and Massachusetts, but also along the east coast of North America, from Newfoundland to North Carolina.
• Lobsters grow by molting (shedding their skins) 25 times in the first 5 years of life; an older lobster only molts every 4 or 5 years.
• It takes about 7 years for a lobster to reach 1 pound, the minimum legal size. After that, they grow just a pound every 4 years.
• There are limits on the size of lobsters that can be taken in U.S. waters, so if your dinner is more than 8 pounds, it's probably from Canada.

There's a trick to steaming a really large lobster. Because the claws are so thick they take longer to cook. You steam them until the tail meat is tender then remove the tail and continue to cook until the claws are done. Of course, if you want to cook a lobster like the one in the photo, your first challenge will be finding a steamer pot big enough!

For famous cream of crab soup, and lobster cooked just right, you can't beat our OC!

And now there are well over 2000 agents! Congratulations on such quick growth! 

Baltimore

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Try Talking Them Out of Buying That House

We've all had this happen. We work with someone for a while, showing them houses that we think are right, or that they want to see. One day they say, "This is the one - I want this house."

Instead of whipping out a contract offer and saying "Sign here," try asking a few questions first. I did this recently and helped someone avoid what could have been a mistake...but I didn't tell her, she came to the conclusion on her own.

I asked, "What do you like so much about this house?" She answered with the obvious things - the land around it, the building that would house her office, a wonderful updated kitchen. Those are the tangibles, the things that are easy to identify. It's the intangibles, though, that make a home. It's the intangibles that make you feel safe, happy, and relaxed when you walk into the right home. Or uneasy, annoyed, and ill at ease when it's not right.

In this case, the house was older, had small rooms and low ceilings; these folks were moving from a newer home with high ceilings. When I asked how she would feel walking into the master bedroom, her first response was about the low ceilings.

Before long the rosy picture she had painted for herself - she really wanted to like this house - began to change in the light of reality. We didn't make an offer on that house.

Try talking them out of buying that house. If you can, it wasn't right for them in the first place. I passed up a sale that day, and solidified a relationship that will carry years beyond this one transaction.