Murfreesboro Tennessee Real Estate

David Estes give another exciting tour of a HUD Home!

John goes over the American Dream Survey that caught his eye earlier this week.

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JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today, I’m going to discuss an interesting survey I saw this week done by Trulia, which is a national home search engine or search engine for finding real estate homes.  Most people know about it.  And it’s called the Trulia American Dream Survey. 

And the survey asked a series of questions, but two of the key questions or two of the things that I took away from this that gives me a lot of optimism on signs of housing demand is one of the questions was: What do you think is one of the best long-term investments you can make?  Fifty-seven percent said owning a home.  It was just above 52% said putting money away in a 401(K) or some type of retirement account.  Twenty-nine percent said purchasing mutual funds.  Twenty-six percent said buying gold.

Twenty-five percent said investing in the stock market.  Fifteen percent said buying government bonds.  Eleven percent said keeping cash under the mattress, which probably would have been a good one here lately.  And then 8% other things.  So 57% say owning a home.  Whether they’re correct or not is not really the point of this.  It’s the perception.  That they think owning real estate is a good long-term investment.  And as we know, it is.

Eighty percent of homeowners plan to buy another home in the future.  So there’s another reason for optimism that so many people are thinking forward, that they will be buying a home in the future.  So I just thought it was an interesting survey, one that gives me a little hope that not everybody that’s out there is doom and gloom and that people understand that real estate is a terrific buy at this time and over time a terrific investment opportunity, as we see that over 80% of the people surveyed say that they will be buying a home in the future.

So anyway, just a little food for thought.  I hope everybody’s having a great fall break, enjoying your time off if you are so lucky to get that time away, and we’ll see you next week.

Joe Has a short interview with Marcia Toms about PEMCO Pulse that will be starting soon. Scan the QR Code in the video to go to PEMCO's Ustream channel.

John tells us what the differences are between REO, Bank Owned, HUD, and Short sale Properties. He also gives an idea of what to expect when dealing with each type of property.

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JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Something I want to talk about today is something that’s very confusing to the public and confusing to me sometimes.  But it’s what is the difference between an REO property, a bank-owned property, a HUD home, a short sale.  I get that question all the time and it is very confusing because we see all those different terms out in the marketplace.

So I’m going to try to clear that up for you.  An REO, which means real-estate owned, is a foreclosure.  It is being marketed and dispersed of usually by a company hired by the bank called a real-estate owned company.  A bank-owned home is the exact same thing.  It is a foreclosure, just a different term.  A HUD home is a foreclosure as well.  The only difference is it was formerly an FHA loan, so the government guaranteed that loan so the government is responsible for dispersing of that property.

 But all three of those have one thing in common.  They’re all foreclosures.  They’ve already been foreclosed on, and those entities are trying to disperse and get those properties off the books.  A short sale.  A short sale is a home that is still owned by the homeowner, probably in imminent danger of foreclosure, trying to garner an offer that the bank will accept shorting the amount that the homeowner owes the bank because they are in a distressed or hardship situation and can’t make the payments.

Pricing.  Can you trust the pricing on foreclosures?  Generally, you can.  If they put a price out there, it’s pretty much like any type of other seller transaction or seller pricing.  They’ve got a price on there, usually negotiable, and generally you can trust that price, meaning if you paid that price, they’re going to sell you the home.  They generally, if they don’t have offers in the first few weeks, they will lower them every few weeks.  They are trying to, like I said, get rid of these properties and get them off the books.

A short sale is a little different.  It’s a price that the homeowner and the agent put on the property in hopes of getting an offer.  They don’t know for sure what the bank will accept.  The bank will not tell you that until they get an offer and order their appraisals and then at some point you will find out basically what the bank will do.  It makes it a lot harder to negotiate on them because you have no clue if that price is a true price or not because, like I said, you really won’t get the bank’s answer or response or see their hand until an offer has been made.

It makes it a little bit more difficult.  Short sales require a lot more patience.  Foreclosure homes generally you’re going to get an answer in a couple of days, and you’re going to be able to close in a timely manner.  I get asked this all the time:  “John, where can we get the best deal?”  Both of them can offer pretty good deals.  I haven’t seen a ton of what I would call steals, but I have seen where you can buy both foreclosures and short sales below the market.  A foreclosure is a lot easier to deal with as far as getting answers and getting things on a timeframe.

Short sales do require patience and do require a little bit of maybe Valium is a good word because they can be very frustrating because these banks have a ton of them and it just takes them a while to get back to you.  But either one can give you a pretty decent value.  I hope this cleared up a lot of confusion for you.  If you have any more questions, please give us a call, 867-3020.  Thank you.

David gives a tour of a Fantastic HUD home at 408 Conquest Dr.

Joe Hafner giving a tour of 4000 Anderson Rd.

Enjoy! Be sure to call us if you are interested 615-867-3020.

Joe giving a tour of  219 Davis St. Sorry for the video quality everyone I will Film the next one in a landscape format. Enjoy!

David gives a tour of 3825 Hendricks Hill Dr.

John touches on the subject of phone calls and their importance, but he gives a more in depth look at how they should be made.

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JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here.  Another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  I’m going to take it off real estate a little bit today and more specifically we’re going to put it on sales in general.  And we’re going to talk about calling our clients, picking up that telephone, the 5,000-pound elephant as some call it.  A lot of people hate making phone calls.  Your most successful salespeople love the telephone.  It’s quick; it’s easy; it’s a way to connect with people in a meaningful way.

To be great in sales, you’ve got to use the phone.  You can reach too many more people by using the phone than if you don’t.  So why do people not want to use the phone?  Typically, anytime we don’t want to do anything in this world it’s because of fear.  So how do you get rid of that fear?  I truly believe that fear is the absence of love.  So if you just concentrate on loving people, the fear will go away. 

So when you make a phone call to a past client, potential client, whomever, I feel like you have to have a distinct plan in making that call.  We have like a four-step process in making a phone call and it’s very simple.  The worst thing you can do is call a client or potential client and just say, “Hey, Jimmy, this is John.  I’m just checking in on you guys.  What’s happening?”  Okay, there’s no purpose to that call. 

People are busy.  People have got things going on.  Unless it’s a really close, close, close friend, they’re going to be offended by that call because there’s nothing there.  You’re not adding value to their life.  So there always has to be a purpose.  That purpose might be happy birthday.  That purpose may be happy wedding anniversary.  That purpose may be happy home anniversary.  That purpose may be hey, I read about your kid in the paper.  Whatever it is, there has to be a purpose.  But the first part of the phone call is salutation.  Simple enough. 

“Hey, Jimmy.  This is John Jones, how are you doing today?  Great.  Do you have just a few seconds to talk?  Is this a good time?”  Get their permission.  “Certainly, John.”  Then I’m going to go right into the second part of the phone call, and that’s FORD (family, occupation, recreation, and dreams).  Go into one of those subjects.  Talk to them.  Find out about them.  Get interested in them.

How’s the family?  How’s Betty doing?  How’s her job?  How’s your new job?  How’s the golf game?  How’s little Johnny’s high school football going?  Something to do with them.  Break the ice.  Get some conversation.  Show them you care about them.  Then go into the purpose of the call, and I always simply say, “Hey, John, look.  The purpose of my call is I wanted to tell you about these three new homes that just hit the market” or “I wanted to tell you about these three homes that just sold in your subdivision” or “I want to tell you about these two new listings I’ve got over in your area.  You may know someone.”

“Jimmy, I just wanted to call and tell you happy birthday, man.  Have a special day.”  Once you get through the purpose, then go into forward again.  Something about their family.  “Hey, what’s going on with you guys.  Are y’all going to the MTSU game this weekend.  Great!  Well, maybe we’ll see you there.”  And then end the call.  Each call should go two to three minutes.  You can bang out 20 calls in an hour to past clients.  You set aside two hours, you can call 40 people and touch them in a positive way.

And if you want to be good in sales, you’ve got to call the people and talk to them.  You’ve got to pick up this phone.  Next time you’re supposed to sit down and make phone calls and that fear or whatever gets into you, just concentrate on you know what?  Today, I’m going to love on 40 people.  Forget about anything else.  Forget about selling.  I’m going to call and I’m going to love on 40 people.  And when you do that, the fear will go away.  Thanks a lot.

In this video John presents the official MLS statistics from August 2011 vs August 2010 for Single Family Home sales in Rutherford County to help give you an idea of what is happening in the local marketplace right now.

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JOHN:  Hey, guys.  Another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Thanks for tuning in.  Today, we’re going to talk about the August market statistics.  August was pretty positive compared to last August.  We were up 27%.  Last August, we did 227 single family homes.  This August, 290.  Our pendings were up 22% over last August from 252 to 308.  Our median price was down 6.9% from 148 last year to 137,750 this year.

Our current inventory, another good sign, is down 6.5%.  Our year to date is still down 15.7% over the same time last year, but remember guys, a lot of that was due to the heavy volume we had in the first quarter of last year due to the tax credit.  If we keep on the trend we’re on, we should at least match or possibly go above last year’s totals, which would be the first year that that has happened in several years.  So right now, the average square footage home that is sold in this town is 1,948 square feet.

The average sales prices in this town this year is $158,787.  That’s down from $164,000 last year.  But what’s amazing, it’s down from $184,000 back in ’07.  So our current absorption rate right now is 7-1/2 months.  We’d like to get that on down at least to six.  But things are kind of starting to look a little better.  It’s going to take some time.  We’ve still got a lot of foreclosures, a lot of distressed properties, short sales running through the market.

Once we get the market cleansed of those properties, things will start hopefully getting back to normal and going up a little bit.  But anyway, if you have any questions about anything, please call us at John Jones Real Estate, 867-3020.  Thank you.