Selling Poinciana One Property at a Time.

Hi humans. My name is A. House and I'm five years old. I know that doesn't sound old to you but for A. House in Poinciana Fl that's pretty old. Some nice folks gave birth to me back in January of 2002. They liked me a lot. They made me look real purdy too. I was dressed up in bright red carpet and my skin inside and out was bright pink. I guess they figured since my street name was Flamingo they would make me look like a bird. I didn't mind too much since they took excellent care of me.

I knew they loved me. They paid $149,500 for me in January of 2002 which was a lot of money for A. House, my size, back then. I remember something about them not needing any money to give birth to me. So, maybe some of that money was closing costs but I'm not sure.

Everything was going well and then all of a sudden in late 2003 they quit taking care of me. I thought they didn't love me anymore. They quit making payments and started letting my grass grow and everything. I was neglected.

Then in May of 2004 this nice lady come over and stuck a sign in my yard and was trying to get people to give my humans $129,900 for me. I guess no one wanted me because 30 days later the sign was gone and my humans moved out. I was left here all by myself. It sucked.

I was all alone for more than two years. Finally, some guy in a three piece suit adopted me. But he didn't care about me, he never even looked at me, just put me on the books and renamed me REO. My name is A. House not REO!

Here I was, all alone again, until February 2007 when this big guy came over and stuck another sign in my yard. I don't know who he was but he was sooooo good looking. He was nice too. He had all these people come over and they gave me a bath, cut my grass and made me look purdy again. I was so happy. I thought he was going to move in and take care of me but he was just trying to find me some humans to adopt me for $185,000.

Not only was the big guy sooooo good looking but he was an excellent adoption Broker too! In fact, only 19 days later, some humans came in and decided they wanted me! I was so excited! I was so tired of being alone and just wanted someone to come stay with me. It's not good for A. House to be alone.

Then a few weeks later something happened. The guy, that was sooooo good looking, came back and put his "For Sale" thingie on his sign again. Something about the sub-prime fall out. The humans, that wanted to adopt me, couldn't do it any more. I was pissed!!!

It was very frustrating. Humans kept coming over and walking all over me but nobody wanted me. I felt so inadequate and started getting a real bad inferiority complex. I think the sooooo good looking guy was getting frustrated too. He changed my price to $165,000.

Then in August, another human came over and walked all over me. He had this funny looking thing in his hand and it looked like he was punching in numbers or something. I don't know if he loved me or not but he told the sooooo good looking guy that he would adopt me for $150,000. I guess the sooooo good looking guy was tired of coming over every week and checking up on me because he said, "deal!"

Three weeks later I had a new human! He was cool too. His name was Mr. Flipper. He came in and pulled up all my bright red carpet and replaced it with all this tile stuff. It was a little cold but it was real shiny!! I was lookin' good! I was so excited. I couldn't wait for this human to move in and take care of me. No more loneliness for me!

Well, was I ever wrong, Mr. Flipper, sent another lady over and she stuck a sign in my yard this morning. At least Mr. Flipper thinks I'm worth a lot of money. He now wants $225,000 for someone to adopt me! While I'm flattered, I fear I will be lonely for a long time to come. He ain't never goin' to get someone to pay $225,000 to adopt me. All the other Houses around me only get $150,000. Why is he doing this to me? I'm A. House, I'm not a retirement fund!

Maybe this time they'll change HIS name......to Mr. Flopper! You humans suck!

Copyright © 2007 Broker Bryant Real Estate Ramblings | All Rights Reserved

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This morning, I was talking to one of my Investors and he told me something that I was kind of expecting but was truly hoping wouldn't happen. "Broker Bryant, I spoke with my bank this week about placing an equity line on one of my Poinciana properties and they said they couldn't do it. They aren't lending money in Poinciana right now."

Let me repeat that, "They aren't lending money in Poinciana right now." There it is, in plain English. I knew it was coming....but damn....I was really hoping it wouldn't be so soon.

Sub-prime is almost impossible to get. FHA is clamping down on down payment assistance programs and now some banks have decided not to write loans in Poinciana!

If you read my post earlier this week, "Poinciana is numero uno baby!" you know that Poinciana has the highest mortgage default rate in Central Florida. Now, to add insult to injury, we can't get mortgage money!

Folks, I'm a very optimistic person and I always move forward but....I must say, it's starting to feel like I'm pulling a train through the mud with my teeth! What are my poor Sellers going to do? What little equity they have left is disappearing and now it's only going to get worse.

Qualified Buyers are going to be holding all the cards. For a Seller's Broker, like me, that sucks! My Sellers, that really need to sell, are going to be forced to consider any crappy offer they get. If we turn them down we may not see another one for a long while.

Oh well, what you goin' to do? I guess I need to brush up on my USDA Rural Housing loans. There was a time, about 8 years or so ago, when "Farmer's Home Loans" ruled in Poinciana. It's a pretty good loan. You can do 100% financing and you can put the closing costs in the loan. I don't think it's credit score driven either. The only quirk, that sometimes poses a problem in Poinciana, is that the property can't be in a flood zone. Also, no pools and no jalousie windows are allowed.

Now folks, I don't do loans but I do need to know if my listings qualify for certain programs or not. Just because I rarely work with Buyers doesn't mean I don't need to know this stuff. So, I'm off to the USDA website to do some studying.

Times are difficult. That means, it's time for me to get better at what I do. It's really the only option I have. Real Estate is what I do and my Sellers need me to "up my game".

So, for all you Buyers out there. If you are looking to live in Central Florida, values are down and you don't need any money to buy a home in Poinciana Fl. All you have to do is contact Broker Bryant. I'll take it from there. Are you dialing yet?

All content copyright © 2007 - Broker Bryant Real Estate Ramblings

Hi folks. I'm writing this post today to bring you guys a dose of "feel good about your market" stuff. So if you are feeling down and your market is beating you up, sit back, relax and have yourself a little read. It will make you feel better I'm sure. Unless of course you are one of my Sellers. In that case....sorry...but it is what it is.

Our local major paper, the Orlando Sentinel, has been running a series on foreclosures and how they affect the market in Central Fl. There's a link below to the article that ran this past Monday. The Sellers, who are the feature of the article, are my Sellers in Poinciana. Some of you guys may know them as "The Lovely's". I'm briefly in the article as well. Anyway, here's the link, check it out.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the series:

"Only 924 homes were sold in September by Orlando Realtors in their core market, the fewest re-sales since January 1999. By comparison, sales in September 2005 -- near the market's record-setting peak -- totaled 2,964. A year ago, 2,054 homes changed hands in the core market, which consists mainly of Orange and Seminole counties but includes some deals in surrounding counties"

"South Poinciana is home to the worst-hit ZIP code in Central Florida -- 34759 -- where nearly 300 homeowners have defaulted on their mortgages so far this year"

Hey....do you see up there where it states: "South Poinciana is home to the worst-hit ZIP code in Central Florida" Isn't that cool? My market is numero uno baby!!!! Hey if you have to be something you might as well be number 1. We don't do things half-ass in Poinciana!

My market encompasses two zip codes. The worse, South Poinciana, is 34759 and has 386 homes in some stage of default (at least 3 payments behind), foreclosure or auction. North Poinciana, zip code 34758, has 307.

Currently there are 1673 active listings (single family) homes in these two zip codes. That's actually down about 50 listings from last month. Most of those properties have been removed from the market. I withdrew 9 listings myself. In September we had 32 closings TOTAL! September 2006 there were 102. So we are holding steady at about a 60% decrease in sales for the year. Year to date there have been 480 sales. Last year same period 1184. So again holding steady at around 60% decrease. Now if I were to extrapolate out the sales for this year we may hit 575. That means our absorption rate (amount of time needed to sale existing inventory) in Poinciana is about 3 years.

Folks, Tutas Towne Realty, Inc (me) is having our 4^th best year out of 14 years in business. So I'm here to tell you that no matter how bad your market is you CAN not only survive it but do pretty darn well if you keep motivated and keep moving forward. Hang in there my friends. Do your best. Be honest with your Sellers. That's really all we can do. Things will get better, just not anytime soon.

OK, that's it. Can anyone out there beat these numbers? My opinion is that Poinciana Fl is the worse market in the country right now. Any one able to prove me wrong? PLEASE!!!!! Someone make my day. If not, I hope I made yours. Oops! Got to run....my shift at Wal-Mart starts at five. Or not!!!

****All data is from Realtytrac, The Orlando Sentinel and the MFRMLS and of course Broker Bryant.

All content copyright © 2007 - Broker Bryant Real Estate Ramblings