Focus Professionals, Inc Real Estate Blog

Happy Holidays everyone!

Christmas with the family was a great treat… the food was fabulous…

During the course of Christmas eve Mandie had to deal with a closing, which meant the folks who bought ended up having Christmas in their new home, even if they did not have furniture… Focus Real Estate Group provided a tree for the young couple… they were exstatic.

For the new year, we want to announce two new web resources for the group:

1) Homes-In-MA.com — our new site for Southeastern Massachusetts real estate services. A comprehensive site, with features for home buyers, home sellers, and property investors working in Bristol County and Cape Cod, and most of Southeastern Massachusetts.

2) TheFocusRealEstateGroup.com — our new corporate site. This site includes information about the various resources we provide to clients, whether home buyers and sellers, investors, or income property owners.

We hope the addition of these sites makes the group of sites we provide more comprehensive for our clients and for the general public.

Have a great holiday season! From all of us at Focus Real Estate Group, Inc.

Looking for a place to rent in Rhode Island? Renting may not be so much cheaper than buying… despite the high prices of homes today as compared to 5 or 6 years ago…

Seems the gig is up… Rhode Island is now ranked as the fourth least affordable STATE to rent an apartment in the country! Rhode Island!!! Fourth!!!

According to one source, Renters must earn $19.36/hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the state, according to Out of Reach 2006, the annual survey of rental affordability released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. A household needs the equivalent of almost three full-time minimum wager earners to afford the rent.

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For you investment property owners, and for home buyers in general, you should be made aware of any lead paint in your properties, generally by the Listing Agent. This is a statutory issue, and MUST be disclosed in MA, and in RI, a pamphlet detailing the property owners’ liability must be given as well. When this is not done, the real estate brokerage can be held liable. Here, below, is a letter sent to one of our agents, working in MA, because of his expertise in legal issues regarding lead paint, mold, and other health issues. Don’t let this happen to you!

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We are closing three more sales before the end of the year, and holiday activities for our buyers will be somewhat hampered during this season… Never the less, we at Focus Real Estate Group are making the closings, and the moves, as easy and painless as possible for our clients.

For the rest of you, we would like to wish you a very happy Hanukah, Christmas, and New Year.

May your new homes, families, friends, and associates all have a year rich with dreams, and even richer with fulfilment of those dreams.

Happy Holidays To All

From the team at Focus Real Estate Group, Inc.

We are now in a Buyers Market. Yet, for some reason, Realtors are failing to educate their sellers about this fact. This failure, or the seller’s refusal to acknowledge that their properties may not be worth what they were this time last year, is resulting further in houses coming on the market at prices ridiculously high for the market, increasing days on market, and very low ball offers from educated buyers.

Then the sellers reject the offers out of hand, and the houses sit on the market even longer.

Statistics show that housing prices have fallen, and in fact, most statistics do not include houses priced under $450K. Of course, most houses fall under this limit. We have seen auctions now taking place where the highest bid is 25% less than the previous listing price.

As Realtors, we need to educate our seller clients. As Realtors, we also need to educate our buyers. Without this effort, we are seeing buyers lose the houses they want, with sellers sitting on them, sometimes empty after having moved on, for months. Sure, if you can afford to sit on your house and pay two mortgages for another 18 months, great, but most of us don’t want to do that. A certain realistic approach must be had.

Is your real estate agent educating you, or just humoring you? Which do you think will best serve your interest?