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Oct 09 2014

Protect Yourself From Identity Theft When Selling Your Myrtle Beach Home

When selling your Myrtle Beach property it is imperative that your your home and your belongings are as safe as possible. There are professional theives that contact agents to view homes. They obviously are not wanting to see these homes to purchase, but to see what type of items they can pick up.

They may have visited during an open house, or seen a picture online of the home and think this home may be a good target. As an Myrtle Beach real estate agent, it is our duty to try and keep everyone together when showing a home, but if there is an entire family along, it is virtually impossible to keep an eye on everyone. The really good pros have partners that they visit with, or even bring along children to help cause distractions.

So, below are a few tips to help keep your house safe.

1. Put away all jewelry. If there is jewely laying around on a dresser or nightstand, it is a very big & easy target for someone to pick up. Either put the precious gems in a locked safe, or if you do not have one, place the gems in either a drawer or in a box. A safe place to place them is in a shoe box in the closet. Or, put in a flat envelope that you can hide in between stacked sweaters on a shelf.

There are plenty of ways to hide them. The key is to make sure they are out of site.

2. Hide the credit cards & bills. With the identity theft on the constant rise, it is crucial that any type of credit cards or mail that you have is secured. Place any mail or cards in either a filing cabinet that can be locked, or in a desk that can be locked. Crooks can be sneaky and will try and find a way to get alone in a house.

3. Remove the Personal Pictures. It is a good idea to put away any personal pictures. One of our clients that is a single woman was very uncomfortable having her house listed for sale because of safety.

One of our suggestions to her was to put away all the pictures that were just of her and only leave out the ones of her with her one cousin. Nobody knew if it was a husband, or relative. This gave her peace of mind.

4. Put away your money! You would think this one would be a no brainer, but I cant even begin to count the number of times I have gone to show homes that have had money sitting around on the kitchen table, or on a dresser, or nightstand. Sometimes there have been rather large amounts of money there too!

Like your jewelry, put this in a locked safe, or safe hidden place.

5. Hide anything with your name, address, phone number, social security number, etc… Just the other day I walked through a home that had prescription bags on the refrigerator with the persons name, telephone number, social security, and address. Some that you may not think of would be the kids softball schedule, or your nursery schedule for church.

These all have enough information that someone could use to steal from you. All they need is your name & phone number, they already have your address, and it can be a giant nightmare.

Here is a funny video, but I think gets the point across as to what could happen!

These are just 5 simple ways to protect yourself when selling your home. If you are currently thinking of selling your home, do not hesitate to contact me.

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Aug 25 2014

How Much Earnest Money Do I Need To Buy A Myrtle Beach Home

One of the questions that arises on a regular basis when helping someone buy a Myrtle Beach home has to do with earnest money. First, what is earnest money? Wikipedia gives a wonderful definition of the term here. Basically, it is the deposit made towards the purchase of real estate and is part of your down payment. In South Carolina, this money is held in a trust account of a real estate company or closing attorney. It cannot be used by the real estate company for any other purpose.

So, here is the big question that normally comes up in regards to earnest money is How much should I give for earnest money? People are looking for some sort of formula to calculate out how much is needed. Unfortunately, there is no exact formula to determine how much for your offer. Some use the 1% of purchase price principal, but that does not always work. For example, if you are buying an $75,000 condo, you may want to offer more than 1% or $750.00. In this scenario you may wish to offer $1,000.00. On the other hand, it could be some sort of offer where you are limited on money for down payment at the time of making the offer and only have $500.00. This amount is something that can be negotiated just like any other part of the offer.

The key concept behind earnest money is that it is the money you use as part of a down payment and is given at the time of presenting the offer to show good faith or earnest in a property. The more that you put down shows a higher level of genuine interest. You do not want to put too much money down because you do run the risk of possibly losing that money. However not enough can offend a seller. Here is an example.

A few years ago we had a gentleman in town that wanted to purchase a 22 unit motel that was for sale for $660,000. The gentleman made a fairly reasonable offer on the property and wanted to close in a rather short time of just over 30 days. He was supposed to pay cash for the deal. So, when we asked how much he wanted to put down as earnest money, he stated that he didn’t have the money at this time, but it was “coming soon.” He never would tell us where he was getting the money or could provide us with proof of funds. So we asked once again, how much would you like to use as earnest money.

The gentleman reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill and slammed it down on the desk and said: “Here is my earnest money. And I am not putting another penny down!” A single dollar, that was his earnest money. Needless to say when we presented the offer to the seller, they were not amused by this offer. In fact, they were so annoyed that they flat out declined the gentleman’s offer.

This is a prime example where not enough earnest money caused a seller to not even want to negotiate with a buyer. The reason the seller was so offended is that if the gentleman changed his mind about purchasing and walked away from the deal, the seller would only receive $1.00 for incurring all types of expenses for various tests, inspections, attorney fees, etc, all while taking their property off the market during that time.

Hopefully this clears up the issue of earnest money a little bit. In closing, I leave you with this piece of advice in regards to earnest money. Each and every market all around the US is very different in regards to how much is enough/not enough. I would strongly urge you to ask a local REALTOR® for guidance when determining how much to give.

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Apr 10 2008

Great Views vs. Safety Issue When Buying a Myrtle Beach Home

One of the American dreams is to own that wonderful home with the great water views. In our area of the country there are several ways people are able to accomplish this dream, Due to the high amounts of rain we may receive at a time, developments are required to have retention ponds built for water runoff. This protects the homes and neighborhood roads from being flooded. At the same time, it also provides wonderful water views for home buyers on a creek, river, pond, lake or the ocean and normally will command a premium lot price. In some Myrtle Beach neighborhoods, a home on the water as compared to one not on the water can be a difference of $20,000+.

While those water views create wonderful ambience for your home, there is also a safety issue you should always take into consideration as well. This past week, in the Myrtle Beach area, a two year old that was visiting his grand parents almost drowned. At last update, he was still in the hospital in critical condition. Apparently, while visiting them, the toddler snuck out of the house and was walking around the side of the home when he lost his balance and rolled down the bank into the water.

Drowning remains the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 14 and under and is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 1 to 4, according to Drowning Prevention Foundation numbers.

This also applies to those beautiful swimming pools that carve out the landscape of many back yards. Since Myrtle Beach is a nice warm climate so much of the year, building an aquatic masterpiece appeals to many home owners. If you install a pool at your Myrtle Beach home, make sure to take the proper steps to keep everyone safe.

So, before you buy a Myrtle Beach home because of the great views it has, think about the safety issues that go along with it. If you do live on a body of water, you may want to consider installing a fence to give you an added level of security against someone accidentally falling in and the risk of potential injury.

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