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Feb 07 2018

Tax Refund Season Helps With Myrtle Beach Home Ownership

Living in or around Myrtle Beach is a dream to many. Yet, a lot of renters think that owning a home on the coast is out of reach. Actually, during tax refund season, more buyers qualify over any other time of the year! There are several ways that tax refunds create more approved Horry County homebuyers. Let’s discuss these refund benefits as well as the home loans available for Myrtle Beach area buyers.

Using Tax Refund for Down Payment

Buying a home may come with hurdles for some and down payment is usually a primary roadblock. Although, tax refund season provides a solution for this potential issue. Even though the funds may not be in the bank account yet or has just been deposited, they are considered the buyer’s own funds. Plus, as soon as they are in the bank account, lenders consider the funds as usable immediately. If a buyer has not received the refund yet, just provide the filed tax return as proof!

First time buyers that are maybe just starting out on their own or have a new job, are often short on down payment. But, there are some great low down payment mortgage options where tax refunds may actually cover the full amount needed to buy. Home loan programs include FHA, VA, USDA, Conventional, and SC down payment assistance. Down payment requirement for these programs vary from 3.5% to zero down.

No Down Payment Loans Assisted by Tax Refunds Too

As mentioned above, there are no down payment loans as well. So, how do buyers using a no down payment loan benefit from tax refunds? Just because there is no down payment doesn’t mean these funds can’t be helpful. Keep in mind that there are closing costs on buying a home. Plus, buyers must pay the first year of insurance plus taxes and insurance escrow set up (if applicable). Therefore, a refund could cover part or all of these costs for a buyer.

Keep in mind that there is an additional way to cover these closing costs. The costs could be included in the price and home loan! In order to finance these costs, a purchase contract could include seller paid closing costs. Each loan type has certain limits to this assistance, although usually the limits will cover most or all costs.

Tax Refund Helps Buyers Qualify Easier

What if a buyer has a lower credit score, high debt to income ratio, or other issues which cause qualification problems? A refund could be used to pay off debts, pay down a credit card for increasing credit scores, or just used to increase the assets for a buyer’s qualification. These additional assets could take a buyer from a denial to a purchase loan approval. While determining an approval, mortgage underwriters and automated systems weigh positives and negatives of a file. Receiving a tax refund could bolster the buyer’s profile and could make a huge difference in qualification.

An important consumer message is not to withdraw a tax refund from a bank account and convert it to cash. Lenders will not allow cash funds towards buying a home. So rather than converting the refund to cash, keep the funds in the bank account.

Other Uses for Tax Refunds

Not only do refunds help in qualifying, but they also help in life. After buying a home, the buyer could use a refund to set up an emergency savings account. Things happen and having a savings cushion really helps in these areas. Plus, after buying a home, there are usually items to buy. These could include curtains, furniture, paint or buying a home warranty. You may even choose to buy a really cool beach picture for your new coastal home!

So if you are have a tax refund coming your way in the next few weeks, feel free to reach out & get the home search process started. You may be surprised what type of home you could afford in the Myrtle Beach market today! You can either call Jeremy at 843-222-9402 or contact him here.

Jun 14 2017

Myrtle Beach Real Estate Market Minute- May 2017

How is the real estate market in Myrtle Beach these days? Well, I’m glad you asked. In the video below, I will give you an update of how things are doing in comparison to the month before in our local market. I tried to keep the video short and to the point so obviously that means I could not give a bunch of details in the video. Check it out.

Single Family Homes In May

Here’s the stats I shared in the video for single family homes in Myrtle Beach:

Current Active Homes June 13, 2017: 3,911
SOLD single family homes during May 2017: 823
Average SOLD price for May 2017: $251,695
Increase of 87 more homes SOLD over month prior.
Average SOLD price increased $16,125 over month prior.

Condos in May

The condo market also saw some great increases during May:

Current Active Condos June 13, 2017: 3,704
SOLD condos during May 2017: 559
Average SOLD condo price for May 2017: $147,421
Increase of 42 more condos SOLD over month prior.
Average SOLD price increased $1,003 over month prior.

Wrap Up

As you can see, the Myrtle Beach real estate market is pretty strong right now and is continuing to increase month over month. Over the past few years we have seen increases in home values of 7%-10% each per year. If you have been thinking of buying a home in the area, you might want to consider talking to a Myrtle Beach REALTOR® soon as home prices are going up as well as interest rates on mortgages. As this trend continues, your ability to purchase will continue to decrease. Contact me today for to get your search started or call me at 843-222-9402 now.

Jun 02 2017

Pricing Your Myrtle Beach Home To Sell

I’ve shared a lot of content over the past few months on tips for selling your Myrtle Beach home and ways that you can increase the price of your property when selling it. Today, I want to discuss in detail pricing and the importance of getting the pricing right for a quick sale and while getting you the most amount possible. I am going to actually walk you through the process I use to figure out the value for a home that I am about to list.

Pre-Meeting Work

Before taking a trip to the home to discuss what we can do to sell her home for the most amount of money in the quickest time possible, I go onto our online system and pull up some data on current homes for sale in her neighborhood as well as what has sold in the neighborhood over the past few months. I take time and study all the details of the various properties to make sure I know as much as I could to most accurately price the home for sale. I am not known for pricing my listings too high or too low.

I usually spend a good hour or two on this analyzing each of the sold and active properties to learn about the features of each property that will be current competition as well as learning what features might have helped a home sell for top dollar or for the lowest price. I also normally try to make a trip by the property the day or two before our meeting to familiarize myself even more about the subject property. When I come to visit your home and we begin the discussion on price, I am as prepared as possible.

Where Do You Rank Your Home?

One of the first questions I try to ask on every listing appointment is how do you rank your home on a scale of 1-10. A home ranked 10 is going to be like new with all the upgrades possible, freshly painted, new flooring and appliances. A 1 home is a property that probably needs to basically be torn down. I ask this question so that I can learn where the seller feels their home should be valued.

When we start discussing price on the home, it helps sellers to remember where they said their home ranks. Too many times I have someone who wants to list their home at top dollar even when they know it is an average home. When they do say that, I remind them that they said their home was only a 5-6 so it should be priced in that same range.

Upgrades vs. Maintenance

This is an area that causes some of the biggest disagreements when trying to figure out pricing of a home between a seller and a real estate agent. The seller argues that they just spent $10,000 for a new roof on the home or $5,000 for a new air conditioning system in the house, so they should be able to get that money back in the sale. Unfortunately, these type of expenses cannot be categorized as upgrades, but need to be looked at as maintenance. If you didn’t sell your home, you would still need to fix the leaky roof and cooling system in order to continue living in the home. They do not add value to the home, just help preserve the value of a home.

The other common misconception regarding upgrades is that if a seller puts top of the line upgrades into their home, they are going to get all of that money out. I remember one home I recently went on a listing appointment had upgraded all of their lighting fixtures and spent over $75,000 doing so. They thought that they would be able to recoup all of this money which isn’t accurate. While the upgraded lights might see the fixtures and love the way they look, at the end of the day they see a light and are not normally willing to spend extra just because you did. When making upgrades, think about the options you choose to make the home as appealing as possible to the largest group of buyers without spending too much on these upgrades.

Pricing in Fantasyland

When it comes to setting the listing price, it’s really important to not start too high. If you price your home too high, it is not going to sell and even if you are lucky enough to get a contract on your home while priced too high, it is not going to appraise for the proper amount. I did a video on this before sharing your options here: Once the appraisal comes in for less than the contract, what do you do? You’ve got a only a few options when this happens, you can either reduce the price to appraised value, ask the buyer to bring the difference in appraised value and contract price to the table in addition to their down payment for the loan, or the final option is for the buyer to walk away and you lose the contract.

In most situations though, the home is not going to end up selling, but instead falling apart and losing the buyer unless you are willing to take the lesser amount. One of the largest culprits of homes being listed for too much money is people looking at their competitions of other homes currently on the market. Almost every time I have a seller wanting to list their home for a much higher price than it actually should be, I hear this statement: “But my neighbor down the street just put their home on the market for $xxxxxxxx price, mine is much nicer, so I should be able to get more than that.” Unfortunately, listed prices don’t determine market value. I call the listing price of homes on the market Fantasyland.

Fantasyland prices are what people hope & wish their home will actually sell for. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t determine what a home is actually worth. We can wish & hope all day long, but at the end of the day, sold data will determine the house value.

The other common statement I hear regarding price when we list a home for sale is this: “Well, we want to try things out and then we will reduce later.” This is a REALLY bad idea. When I list your home for sale, the first 30 days is the prime time to get your home exposed out to new potential buyers who might be interested in your home. During the first 30 days, your home get sent out to over 700 different websites where buyers have registered, set up alerts & notifications when something new comes on the market that might fit their needs. If your home is worth $245,000 but you want to test the market at $260,000, that buyer never sees your home since their alert cuts off homes at $250,000.

By the time we reduce the price to the correct range, that buyer has probably already found a home or they see a home that has been on for a long time and then they want to get a deal. Ultimately, you end up losing more in the long run.

Pricing Fail Zone

The one area that no seller wants to end up in is the fail zone. These are the homes that have been on the market for a period of time but did not sell and have expired. Sometimes this is caused by listing the property with an agent that doesn’t market the home properly so it doesn’t get the exposure it deserves. Some is caused by bad images of the property, or a bad write up, or not enough information. But the main reason properties end up in the fail zone is caused by homes being listed for too much money. Just because you have an old appraisal that said the home was worth a certain amount, or when you bought the home you paid a certain amount & then added $30,000 in upgrades, it doesn’t automatically make the home worth that much more. Ultimately, the market determines the value of a home.

How Prices Are Determined

When it comes to figuring out how to price a Myrtle Beach home for sale, there is no exact science. Pricing depends on a lot of variables, but at the end of the day, I should be able to accurately give a range to my seller and be within an acceptable range of $5,000-$10,000 normally. Here’s how I go about figuring out how a home should be priced for sale which I think is somewhat similar to how professional appraisers do it.

First, thing I do is collect all data on what homes have actually sold for in a neighborhood. With the way our market is right now, I normally only need to go back 90 days to find enough properties that have sold in a specific area or subdivision. If I do not get enough properties to provide a sufficient amount of comparable properties, I will then go back another three months or as long as needed. See an example below:

On this report, it shows you several things, but the main items I pay attention to is the sold price column & the price per square foot column. At the bottom of the spreadsheet, it then also gives me an average, median, minimum, and maximum price per square foot. Then, I simply measure out the home and this should give me a base range to start with pricing on.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account all variables like an oversized garage, swimming pool, etc, those items have to get factored in separately. This is where studying all the properties comes in handy. If I see you have granite in your property where most other don’t I can then look at the other properties which sold with granite and can figure out how much would need to be added or deducted for features you might have or don’t have.

I then can tell the seller the ranges for average, median, and max for their area on properties that sold. That’s basically the extent of how pricing comes about. Usually after we finish this discussion we are ready to then discuss terms of the agreement and get the home listed on the market.

Bonus Tip

Here’s one bonus tip when it comes to pricing your home for sale that gets overlooked too often. Too many sellers and agents try to adopt a sales technique when pricing a home that ultimately hurts their search greatly. Remember when I mentioned earlier that there are over 700 websites out there with thousands of buyers who have searches set up to send them new properties when they come on the market that meet their criteria? Well, depending how you price your property can cause a huge group to miss out.

Think about when you purchased the home you currently live in. When you began speaking with your real estate agent, you gave them all the specifications for the home you wanted to purchase. When the agent asked what you wanted to spend, you more than likely gave them a range in an even number. In our market, it’s normally in $25,000 ranges. So you might say, $125,000-$150,000. Now if you list your property for sale at $124,900, you are going to miss all of the buyers out there that are willing to purchase your home for $100. The same is true for the seller that tries to be cute with the price of their home and lists it for $151,515. Think in round numbers and get more eyes on your home.

Wrap-Up

I hope that this article sheds some light on the process of how a real estate agent goes about pricing a home for sale and can give some insight to anyone who is thinking of selling their home in the near future. In the next few weeks I will go into several aspects of selling a home including how a real estate agents markets properties to get them sold, what you should do to get your home in selling condition, and what documents you will sign when selling a home.

If you are considering selling your home, do not hesitate to either call me at 843-222-9402 or simply contact me here and we can discuss how we should price your Myrtle Beach property and get it from For Sale to SOLD!

photos by: Tax Credits & aturkus, pheezy

Jan 27 2016

The Life Of A Real Estate Agent

RE/MAX just released their newest marketing campaign and I think it is fantastic. Their tagline “Doing more from FOR SALE to SOLD- That’s the sign of a RE/MAX agent.” I think sums it up perfectly. Unlike some of the discount brokerages that are out there, we do more to help our clients get their homes sold or help a buyer to purchase a home. There are many things that we as agents do that never get reimbursed for.

One of the questions I get asked the most as a Myrtle Beach real estate agent is what exactly do I do on a daily basis. Many people who buy or sell a home only see the commission that I collect when there is a successful contract that gets accepted, and gets to the closing table. For some, they feel it’s way too much money that we receive. What many do not realize, is that until you close on the property, you do not make a paycheck normally.

This means the countless hours you spend search through the MLS searching for properties for a client, time spent driving around Myrtle Beach showing properties, does not generate a paycheck. If you have a client that cannot get financing and you’ve spent the past 6 weeks showing them properties, writing up offers, doing home inspections, and everything else, you don’t collect a paycheck.

If the person decides after working with you for countless hours not to purchase a property and use you, you don’t get paid for those services. If they have not signed up with you a buyers agency agreement, you can spend months working with someone to have them go buy with someone else and you never receive any reimbursement.

We spend time working hand in hand with the lender to make sure that our buyers have their financing completed properly and on time for closing day. This is just one small item that we can end up spending countless hours on that is never even known by our buyers. Coordinating a closing between the bank and the attorney can sometimes be quite the balancing act to make sure all parties are prepared on closing day.

Of course, then there is the home inspection part. This is where things can sometimes become very tricky. While parts of the contract cover certain items pretty clearly, there are always areas of grey here that can really make a deal go awry quickly. While the contract doesn’t cover things like broken tiles, windows that don’t stay open, they are sometimes the cosmetic types of things that can make a deal fall apart when the buyers want them fixed and a seller refuses. If we can’t play the role of peacemaker, the deal can fall apart and with that so does our paycheck.

So in conclusion, while we might get a decent paycheck from time to time at closing, most people forget about all the work we have done over the past few months before getting to the closing table. As a RE/MAX agent, I’m proud to say I’m part of a team that goes above & beyond average to make sure our clients get the best service possible.

Jan 20 2016

Does Your Resolutions This Year Include Selling A Home?

Wow, January is flying by us and it’s almost February already. I’ve been busy working on one of my resolutions for this year of making myself healthier. As you might or might know, I had a little scare right before the holidays that landed me in the hospital. I’ll write more about that at another time.

I’m wondering though, was one of your resolutions for this year to finally sell your home that is too crowded and upgrade to the larger property? Or maybe you have been renting the past few years and think it is finally time to settle down and purchase your first home in Myrtle Beach.

Whatever the thoughts might be, I’m here to assist you and your family with your real estate needs. If selling your home is on your mind, let me do a comparative market analysis for you to see how much your home is really worth. I’ll also share with you how my online marketing system can help get your home sold quicker and for more money by exposing it to my online network of over 37,000 connections.

Spring market is quickly approaching and has been known for many years as one of the busiest times of the year for real estate here in the Myrtle Beach area. Fill out the form below to be contacted about selling your property today!