General advice on real estate in Coastal Delaware & surrounding areas.

FSBO: “For Sale By Owner” -- it can be a siren’s call when you first mull over the prospects for selling your house.  A Rehoboth Beach FSBO listing promises to allow a homeowner to sell without even consulting any local real estate agents! Depending on a home’s final sale price, the commission saved looks to be substantial.

While there are certainly theoretical attractions to the idea of working on your own, time and again statistics prove it is not only more efficient to work with a real estate agent -- it also frequently nets sellers more at the bottom line. There are logical reasons why it works out that way. They are the same reasons why only one in ten homes are successfully sold as FSBOs.

First off, while it may seem easy to arbitrarily pick a…

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When you have survived a career loss or made it through a foreclosure, it can take a while before you have picked yourself up and dusted yourself off. At that point, you may have been momentarily relieved to find that you have a lot of company. Nevertheless, sooner or later, it’s time to bounce back.

One of the universal hurdles almost everyone in this position faces is how to go about stepping up to secure their next home. One of our Rehoboth Beach rentals is always a choice, but for many, an unsatisfying one. As always in any other than boom times, cash is king -- and if you don’t have it, your options are limited.  Today’s would-be buyers who lack funds for a down payment (or have a credit deficit) do sometimes have another alternative: a lease…

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Rare is the Lewes property owner who doesn’t remember at least one budget-busting maintenance emergency. It may have been a roof problem; perhaps a plumbing or electrical mishap…whatever the cause, unforeseen cratering of the household bank account can furrow brows and send blood pressures soaring.

For the very wealthy, it’s a non-issue. For all the rest of us, there is one foolproof method of avoiding the problem: create an emergency fund.

Everyone does his and her best to save for the future – for everything from the great events in life to more modest occasions, like family vacations. But making a clear distinction between those kinds of savings and a special emergency fund is worth the effort. For one thing, you remove the temptation to reach for…

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When you want to sell your house, you want it to bring in top dollar. That means you want to find a REALTOR® in the Rehoboth Beach area who has the characteristics of a top performer. He or she may or may not have last month’s highest sales volume, may or may not have page after page of onscreen MLS listings. However, there are characteristics you can look for that are bound to point to the best candidate to represent your home in your neighborhood.

1) Understanding You: the Client:

I agree with REALTOR® Magazine: "One of the strongest ways to increase likability and foster a connection is to demonstrate that [the REALTOR®] understands someone else's needs, and is happy to help fulfill them.”

A great REALTOR® is inherently a great salesperson, and…

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One of the key factors serious buyers eye when appraising foreclosed homes for sale in the Rehoboth Beach real estate market is condition – the shape those properties have been left in. The Federal Housing Administration has weighed in with a program that can materially affect how that condition – good or bad – will finally affect the bottom line: it’s known as the FHA 203 (k).

If you are among those currently looking at Rehoboth Beach foreclosed homes for sale, the 203(k) can make a big difference.  Here are some points that might influence your decision:

First in line is whether the program is applicable. HUD tells us that for a local property to be eligible, it must be a one- to four-family dwelling that has been completed for at least one year.…

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How about this for a stunner: each and every day for the next 17 years, more than 10,000 American "baby boomers" will hit retirement age. That is based on 65 being considered retirement age (although many 65-year-olds I know haven’t the slightest intention of abandoning their careers anytime soon). Nevertheless, the impact that this demographic wave will have on everybody is bound to be substantial.

In the housing industry, even seniors who are anything but retired will be gravitating toward newer, smaller homes that better fit the lifestyle of adults whose children are now out on their own. So some fine-tuning of property listings will be in order. I expect more Rehoboth Beach property listings to start emphasizing smaller footprints and some other…

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In August, the number of new foreclosures listed nationally barely crept upward -- even as average sale prices leapt dramatically. Realtytrac compiles the numbers, and they show a sizeable 10%+ jump in foreclosure sales prices from July to August. Of course, homes listed as foreclosures and short sales still close at prices markedly lower than homes sold in traditional transactions, but that rise in price seems to say that more buyers are feeling confident that a home purchased now will look like a wise move in the future.

If you have been looking at the distressed property market in the Delaware Resort area, these numbers suggest that the short sale and foreclosure possibilities are still being created -- and that the value they represent is getting a…

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The other day I read an opinion piece that I really couldn’t agree with. The writer expected a pause in the pace of the residential market upturn now that many of the most obvious bargains have been snapped up. He thought that was to be expected, and that a further rebound would be likely to follow. His idea was based on the notion that many otherwise well-qualified prospects – buyers who may have narrowly missed the bottom of the market -- would now be waiting for prices to fall again. They would only reappear once they realize that those super bargains were a once-in-a-lifetime affair.

In my experience, individuals who are even half-serious about buying homes in Rehoboth Beach are usually not motivated by squeezing every cent from the bottom line.…

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Nationally, the supply of the bank-owned properties for sale has been trending down -- potentially good news for anyone and everyone with an interest in Rehoboth Beach real estate. Competition from the glut of foreclosed properties has had the effect of driving down home sale prices, so any drop in the number of Rehoboth Beach short sales and REO (bank-owned) properties will remove that downward pressure.

If the trend continues, it should also affect even the bank owned properties themselves. A drop in supply will increase competition for the bargains they represent. But this is why alert bargain hunters should keep their pencils sharpened. As retail merchants understand, just slapping a ‘SALE!’ sign on an item may help it sell -- even if it isn’t…

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The For Sale by Owner (FSBO) method of selling a home has remained at pretty much the same level of popularity. According the NAR’s most recent survey, just 10% of sales came directly from a previous owner. Since that very includes a bunch of transactions between family members, it looks as if the population of Lewes For Sale by Owner signs continues to be in something of a slump (down from the cyclical peak of 18% back in 1997).

Still, if you are a Lewes homeowner who wants to buck the trend and head down the FSBO route, you will need to do more than just stick a For Sale by Owner sign in the lawn. Of key importance is the newspaper and Internet advertising you will need to create. Here are some ‘how to’ elements that can help in that effort:

1.…

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