SFR Certified

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Deonna Sheffield
RE/MAX By The Lakes
972-922-6046
972-442-1277
Deonnasheffield@remax.net
http://deonnasheffield1.point2agent.com/

Deonna Sheffield Earns NAR Short Sales and Foreclosure Certification
Buyers and Sellers Benefit from REALTOR® Expertise in Distressed Sales

Wylie, TX, 12/28/2009 — Deonna Sheffield with RE/MAX By The Lakes has earned the nationally recognized Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource certification. The National Association of REALTORS® offers the SFR certification to REALTORS® who want to help both buyers and sellers navigate these complicated transactions, as demand for professional expertise with distressed sales grows.

According to a recent NAR survey, nearly one-third of all existing homes sold recently were either short sales or foreclosures. For many real estate professionals, short sales and foreclosures are the new “traditional” transaction. REALTORS® who have earned the SFR certification know how to help sellers maneuver the complexities of short sales as well as help buyers pursue short sale and foreclosure opportunities.

“As leading advocates for homeownership, REALTORS® believe that any family that loses its home to foreclosure is one family too many, but unfortunately, there are situations in which people just cannot afford to keep their homes, and a foreclosure or a short sale results,” said 2009 NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth. “Foreclosures and short sales can offer opportunities for home buyers and benefit the larger community, as well, but it’s extremely important to have the help of a real estate professional like a REALTOR® who has earned the SFR certification for these kinds of purchases.”

The certification program includes training on how to qualify sellers for short sales, negotiate with lenders, protect buyers, and limit risk, and provides resources to help REALTORS® stay current on national and state-specific information as the market for these distressed properties evolves. To earn the SFR certification, REALTORSÒ are required to take one core course and three Webinars. For more information about the SFR certification, visit www.REALTORSFR.org or call 1-877-510-7855.

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Freezing Weather Alert

Freezing Weather Alert



Protect Your Home and Your Listings




With the freezing temperatures forecast for the next few days dfwREALTORS.com - MetroTex wants to remind you to protect your home and advise your clients to do the same. Frozen water in pipes leads to pipes bursting at their weakest point and can cause incredible damage to a residence. Pipes in attics, crawl spaces and outside walls are particularly vulnerable to freezing in extremely cold weather, where holes in your house’s outside wall for television, cable or telephone lines allow cold air to reach them. An eighth-inch crack in a pipe can leak up to 250 gallons of water a day. By taking a few simple precautions, you and your clients can save yourselves the mess, money and aggravation frozen pipes can cause.

To keep water in pipes from freezing, take the following steps:

Wrap outdoor pipes in newspapers or insulation and cover with plastic.

Insulate pipes in your home's crawl spaces and attic. These exposed pipes are most susceptible to freezing. The more insulation you use, the better protected your pipes will be.

Heat tape or thermostatically-controlled heat cables can be used to wrap pipes.

Seal leaks that allow cold air inside near where pipes are located. Look for air leaks around electrical wiring, dryer vents and pipes. Use caulk or insulation to keep the cold out and the heat in. With severe cold, even a tiny opening can let in enough cold air to cause a pipe to freeze.

Disconnect garden hoses and, if possible, use an indoor valve to shut off and drain water from pipes leading to outside faucets. This reduces the chance of freezing in the short span of pipe just inside the house. If you don't have a separate valve to turn off outside water, wrap or cover faucets or hose bibs with an insulating material.

Letting a faucet drip during extreme cold weather can prevent a pipe from bursting. Opening a faucet will provide relief from the excessive pressure that builds between the faucet and the ice blockage when freezing occurs. A dripping faucet wastes some water, so only pipes vulnerable to freezing (ones that run through an unheated or unprotected space) should be left with the water flowing.

Open cabinet doors to allow heat to get to pipes under sinks and appliances near exterior walls.

Happy New Year

Make the most of 2010! The past is the past, the present is the present and the future is what we make of it. Move forward, have a plan and have a great, positive outlook and things will be great! Happy 2010!!!

Interesting read!

By JIM CARLTON

The green building movement is targeting a goal once thought virtually unattainable: zero net energy use.

While the trend is nascent, dozens of "net zero" and "near net zero" developments -- projects designed to use only about as much power from the public grid as they can save or produce on their own -- have sprung up across the U.S. over the past five years.
Zero-Sum Game

View Interactive

See the details of a net-zero house, which produces as much energy as it consumes.

In Greenfield, Mass., nonprofit Rural Development Inc. has completed eight of 20 planned duplex homes that use almost no net energy. In Berkeley, Calif., ZETA Communities Inc. plans to build a 30-unit net-zero apartment building after opening a factory that can construct 400 to 500 prefabricated net-zero homes a year. And in Green Valley, Ariz., builder Pepper Viner Homes says it plans to incorporate green techniques into a senior housing community so that it reduces energy use more than 50%. U.S. officials are working to wean federal buildings off fossil fuel by 2020, a step they say will help the buildings become almost net-zero energy users.

Behind the push is the fact that buildings are a major consumer of power, accounting for an estimated 40% of energy usage in the U.S.

But a bigger shift toward net-zero construction faces hurdles, largely because such buildings often are more expensive to build. To reach zero energy use, for instance, a building needs to produce its own power such as through solar or wind. Rooftop solar panels can cost upward of $10,000 on a three-bedroom home alone.

Some industry analysts say the costs of erecting net-zero homes have declined somewhat as green building has become more mainstream. With energy costs more than doubling across the U.S. in the past decade, energy-savings measures have become more attractive to builders.

In Greenfield, Mass., where Rural Development is putting up duplexes, the premium for a net-zero home is as much as 15%. For example, it has one three-bedroom home on the market for $240,000, compared with about $203,000 for a comparable home without net-zero features, says Anne Perkins, a Rural Development director. Most of that extra cost is for solar systems, she says.
Building Green

View Interactive

See how the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is building a $64 million "net-zero" research campus.

* More interactive graphics and photos

Eight of Rural Development's net-zero homes built so far have been purchased. One selling point: energy bills that can run more than $2,700 a year are cut to about $700, and total energy savings allow buyers to recoup the purchase premium in roughly 12 years after tax incentives and rebates are included.

Officials of Western Massachusetts Electric Co., which provided financial incentives for the development, say they want to see more projects like this. "The more you can have of this type of work, the less power plants you have to put on line," says John Walsh, a conservation supervisor at the utility.

Some consumers have found a way to add green features to their homes without piling on extra costs. In Hermosa Beach, Calif., Robert and Monica Fortunato are planning to expand their 50-year-old home, adding 611 square feet to their existing 1,329 square feet. The two are committed environmentalists, and their plan is to make the home net zero, despite the increase in size. They expect the work to cost $400,000, about the same as a conventional remodeling that lacked energy savings.

Mr. Fortunato, a management consultant, says he and his wife, an occupational therapist, plan to use special insulation panels that help modulate room temperatures by melting and resolidifying of paraffin wax inside, which reduces energy costs. They would offset the cost of the panels by not having to buy a big furnace.

"We want to save the planet," says Ms. Fortunato.

Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com

A word from one of my trusted lenders:

I always advise my clients to lock in their interest rate at the earliest opportunity. Gambling with a client's interest rate is never advisable. In my business, I have a standardized system in place that we adhere to for all of our clientele.

A mortgage loan cannot be closed without locking in a rate, and there are three main elements to take into consideration:

• Interest Rate
• Points
• Length of the lock

Locking in on a rate does not obligate the client to commit to the loan until the loan is actually closed. The lock simply eliminates any risk of the borrower being exposed to market volatility. It provides the security of having time to complete the mortgage and real estate transactions with some sense of order. The lender must disburse funds to complete the transaction within the rate-lock period, or else the original commitment to provide a loan at a certain interest rate will expire.

When a lender permits an extended lock-in period, the borrower will usually see either a higher interest rate or more points associated with the loan. The lender does this to minimize their own exposure to market volatility; hence the borrower pays for the lender to take on this risk.

For example, a 30-day rate lock commitment may cost the consumer one-half point, while a 60-day rate lock commitment could cost 1 full point. If the borrower needed an extended lock period, but did not want to pay points, the lender could make up the difference in the interest rate. In this case, typically, a 60-day lock would have a higher interest rate than a 30-day lock.

In my business, our standard procedure is to lock in a rate as quickly as possible once we have received the loan application. My team and I let our clients know that while interest rates fluctuate daily, most lenders do not want to lose any business. We know that in many cases, if there is a significant rally in the market that causes interest rates to drop .25% or more, we can ask the lender to renegotiate the rate. or understand that we will take the loan to another lender. Often the lender allows for a renegotiation of the rate to avoid losing the loan to another lender.

If we allow our clients to sit on the fence and not lock in a rate quickly, we would leave them exposed to market volatility. Then, if rates do increase, the borrower may be unable to qualify for the loan they want, which is a situation we try to avoid at all costs.

By knowing our clients' needs and working intimately with them to make the right decisions, my team and I are proud to say that we have many clients who are raving fans.

Home Price Expectations - Will They Rise?

Home Price Expectations—Will They Rise?
by Phoebe Chongchua
According to a recent fourth quarter survey by HomeGain.com, 72 percent of Realtors believe that home prices will either stay the same (48 percent) or increase (24 percent) in the next six months. Despite that news, the study found that an increasing number of homeowners (41 percent) think that their homes should be listed 10 to 20 percent higher than what is being recommended by Realtors. In the third quarter of this year that figure was down to 38 percent and in the second quarter it was at 36 percent.

But the flip side of the coin shows that 62 percent of buyers think homes are still overpriced. According to the survey, that figure is slightly down from 64 percent in the third quarter but up from first quarter statistics (59 percent).

The national study surveys 1,000 current and former HomeGain Realtor members and was conducted between December 1 to 6. According to the study, 21 percent of those surveyed say that half of their transactions involved a first-time homebuyer. The extension of the tax incentives for buying homes is being credited. (Read my column: Extended Tax Credit for Homebuyers and Homeowners.)

In a statement issued by HomeGain’s Louis Cammarosano, the company’s general manager, said, "The fourth quarter HomeGain Home Prices Survey of Realtors shows that Realtors believe that the first-time homebuyers tax credit has driven sales and stabilized home prices, for now. Realtors, however, expressed concerns about the cost of the credit to taxpayers and whether sales will continue once the credit expires later next year and additional inventory hits the market.” The study also asked respondents “whether they approved or disapproved of President Obama’s performance so far—42 percent approved and 58 percent disapproved, unchanged from the third quarter and down from the second quarter when the President’s approval rating stood at 57 percent.

Another poll, the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Approval Rating Tracking Poll, published on December 11, 2009, stated that, “Overall, 47 percent of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-one percent (51 percent) disapprove.” Still, respondents remain optimistic about the housing industry, “The vast majority of Realtors expect prices to remain the same or increase in the first six months of 2010,” said Cammarosano.

With more first-time buyers searching the market for homes, everything from short sales to foreclosures is being considered. And for sellers, estimates that as high as one in five of homeowners is underwater are causing them to take a hard look at their financial situation. Some are turning to an informational Web site called PayorGo.com. It offers a calculation service to help make the decision but doesn’t offer financial or legal advice on the site. The site aims to address this question, “Is it in my economic interest to walk away? You decide.

This calculator is just a tool to help. Numerous variables are involved but the biggest is probably your assessment of the future of housing pricing.” Interestingly, buyers may not be capitalizing on all of the available incentives and resources. In an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle in early December, Walter Zhovreboff, the administrative director of the Bay Area Home Buyer Agency (that promotes homeownership) said, "Many cities have adequate funding to assist families here (with down payments) and we're not running out of money. It's phenomenally frustrating." Some cities still offer down payment assistance for low-to-moderate income levels. Many of these loans are known as “sleeper loans” which provide a period where no money is initially needed to be paid toward repayment, then a moderate interest rate is applied and the loan is paid back over many years.

As always, give me a call for more information and additional resources for your area.