Assist2Sell

Last Sunday, KUSA 9 News did a story about how Denver-area real estate brokers responded to warm weather and positive financial news (like the recent Fed Rate rate cuts and economic stimulus package) by hosting open houses all over town.  They interviewed Todd Barker, owner of Assist-2-Sell Home Buyers & Sellers Realty in Denver, about why would-be homebuyers were coming out for these open houses.

Watch "Warm weather, financial news, increase open house activity."

January 28, 2008
WFMZ-TV 69 News
New Home Sales Drop Record Amount

Dale Sadler, owner/broker of top producing Assist-2-Sell offices in Bath, Allentown and Easton, Pa., was interviewed for a recent segment about how the housing downturn is affecting Leigh Valley, Pa.  Watch the segment online or read the transcript below.

New home sales fell by a record amount last year. That's the word from a new Commerce Department report. The report underscores the difficulty of the housing downturn. But are the problems as pronounced in the Lehigh Valley? WFMZ's Mike Lowe reports.

So what does it all mean for the Lehigh Valley? Is it a good time to buy or sell a home here? We spoke with local real estate experts to get a sense of market. >> Sign, sign ... everywhere a sign. For sale signs dot the national landscape ... but the homes aren't selling. Last year sales of new homes fell 26% nationwide -- the steepest decline on record. >> But local real estate experts say the bad times have not blown into the Valley. >> Sadler: "If I know anything about real estate, it's that real estate is local." >> Assist-2-Sell broker Dale Sadler says the Lehigh Valley remains a strong market. >> Sadler: "We have good value in the Lehigh Valley. We have not seen the wild appreciation in the Lehigh Valley, that makes it more reasonable." >> McElwain: "The Lehigh Valley is somewhat insulated because we have a pretty good growth industry." >> Kevin McElwain is the president of Allentown Mortgage Corporation. He says because the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates last week, it's cheaper to borrow money to buy a home. >> "To buy today versus buying a year from now, when I don't know the what the rates are a year from now ... this is the perfect opportunity." >> But a national decline in home values is a troubling trend. The National Association of Realtors says the median price of a home in December 2007 was down 10 percent from the previous year. And Merrill Lynch analysts say that home prices could decline another 25% by 2009. Allentown-based Financial advisor Jack Robinson says it's best to wait it out. >> Robinson: "If I were moving into the Lehigh Valley and I were a young couple, my suggestion would be don't rush into the housing market." >> But, even the numbers cast doubt on the short term market, McElwain says the Valley has a strong future. >> "The long-term forecast is fine." >> One point everyone we spoke with made is that in the wake of the sub-prime crisis, lenders will be doing much more thorough checks on potential home buyers.

It's been 20 years since Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle Martin left the "traditional" world of real estate to start Assist-2-Sell®, a full-service discount real estate company based in Reno, Nev. Today, hundreds of franchise offices throughout the United States and Canada utilize Assist-2-Sell's "Full-Service with $avings!"® program, saving consumers a significant amount of money without eliminating any of the service and support they need.                                                                                                                              

"I just laugh when people say we aren't ‘real' real estate brokers because it's simply not true. We do everything ‘traditional' real estate companies do, we simply charge less," says Todd Tramonte, owner/broker of Assist-2-Sell Buyers & Sellers Realty in Dallas. "It feels great offering excellent service at an excellent value."

Assist-2-Sell's experienced brokers and agents handle everything throughout the entire process of selling a home, including:

• Helping price the home accurately;
• Implementing a targeted marketing campaign aimed at reaching active homebuyers directly-online and offline;
• Utilizing the MLS, as appropriate, as a marketing tool;
• Taking all phone calls;
• Showing the home to prospective buyers;
• Arranging for other agents to show the home;
• Pre-qualifying homebuyers;
• Helping the homebuyer obtain financing;
• Negotiating the purchasing agreement;
• Writing the sales contract;
• Handling all paperwork;
• Meeting with appraisers;
• Arranging for all inspections; and
• Supervising the closing. 

Home sellers pay a low, flat fee, instead of a percentage of the home's sale price, only after their home has sold.

The Assist-2-Sell model was born out of frustration with the way real estate was being practiced. Recalls LaMeres-Pomin, "Home sellers had little choice but to pay high commissions with no assurance they'd receive high value. Because so many agents were struggling to secure their next listing, they spent less time marketing homes and more time marketing themselves."

Adds Martin, "Consumers were unhappy and a lot of agents were unhappy as well. We wanted to create a system that not only produced satisfied customers but also helped agents be more successful."

Assist-2-Sell helps franchise owners set up highly organized and efficient offices with trained support personnel and proven sales and marketing techniques. Offices that utilize the "Assist-2-Sell System" can easily handle the volume their lower fee generates, allowing them to operate profitably while still saving their customers a lot of money and providing a high level of service.

"I've been in business for only two months and I've already listed 24 homes. There hasn't been one potential client who has interviewed me and then listed with somebody else or decided to sell on their own," raves EJ Rosenberg, owner/broker of Assist-2-Sell Buyers & Sellers Value Realty in Black River Falls, Wis. "This system is too easy and it works. If you follow Assist-2-Sell's comprehensive training program, it's hard to imagine not being successful."

For more information, visit www.assist2sell.com or call (800) 528-7816.

Don Schriver, the owner of Assist-2-Sell Good Sense Realty in Buckeye, Ariz., is quoted in today's Wall Street Journal.

January 24, 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Housing Slump Starts to Hit Stronger Cities
James R. Hagerty

It's getting harder to hide from the housing bust.

Tight credit, fragile consumer confidence and a weakening economy are slowing sales and depressing prices even in some places -- such as the Pacific Northwest and North Carolina -- that until recently had avoided the housing slump afflicting most of the country.

Even Manhattan, where prices continued to rise briskly last year, looks more vulnerable to a slowdown. Falling home prices and soaring defaults elsewhere have created more than $100 billion of losses on mortgage-related securities at Wall Street firms, destroying many jobs in the New York area. The number of homes listed for sale in Long Island and Queens at the end of 2007 was enough to last 18 months at the current sales rate, up from a 12-month supply a year before.

Local markets still vary hugely around the country, according to The Wall Street Journal's quarterly survey of housing data in 28 major metropolitan areas. Inventories of unsold homes are enormous in much of Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas and the Detroit area. But the number of homes listed for sale declined last year in Boston and Denver, and they were flat in Dallas.

Few expect a quick recovery. Stricter credit policies at mortgage lenders have disqualified many potential buyers, and foreclosures are adding to an already glutted supply in many areas. In California, notices of default filed by lenders in the fourth quarter totaled 81,550, more than double the 37,994 filed in the year-earlier period, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a research firm in La Jolla, Calif. Meanwhile, builders caught with too much inventory are slashing prices.

All those factors create "a lot of indigestion, and I think it's going to take all of this year to work its way out," says Ronald Peltier, chief executive of HomeServices of America Inc. in Minneapolis, which owns brokerages in 19 states. He expects the market to begin slowly improving in 2009.

For now, people trying to sell homes "don't seem to have a prayer" in competing with lenders offering foreclosed homes and builders dumping excess inventory, says Don Schriver, owner of Assist-2-Sell Good Sense Realty in Buckeye, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. He points to a four-bedroom house in Buckeye that was built in 2005 and sold in August 2006 for $775,000. After a lender acquired the home through foreclosure last year, it sold again in December for $380,000.

In California's Orange County, around a quarter of the listings are either foreclosed properties owned by lenders or homes owned by people trying to do "short sales," or sell for less than the amount they owe the bank, says Steven Thomas, president of Re/Max Real Estate Services in Aliso Viejo, Calif. Short sales require approval from the lenders, often a lengthy process.

Steve Karsten, a plumber who rents a small house in the Los Angeles area, is typical of today's wary home shopper. He has been going to open houses and looking into possible bargains on foreclosed homes. But he aims to make a down payment of more than 10% and get a fixed-rate loan. And he won't jump at the first decent house he finds.

"I'm in no hurry," Mr. Karsten says. "The longer I wait, the more money I save."

With buyers on the fence, sales are stalled. December sales in the San Francisco Bay area and in Southern California were the slowest in at least two decades, according to DataQuick.

DataQuick says sales have dried up partly because of relatively high rates on "jumbo" mortgages, those over the $417,000 limit on loans that can be guaranteed by government-sponsored investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Rattled by defaults, investors are shying away from jumbo loans. The resulting higher costs for these large loans are pinching sales in California and other high-price areas. Home sales in the Bay Area financed with jumbo loans were down 66% in December from a year before, according to DataQuick.

Some of the fastest increases in home listings have occurred in relatively strong markets. The inventory in the Seattle metro area counties of King, Snohomish and Pierce leapt 50% last year. At the end of December, when listings are lower than usual because of the holidays, the inventory there was enough to last 4.9 months, denoting a fairly balanced market -- but up from a very lean 2.7 months at the end of 2006. In King County, the median price in December was down 2.6% from a year ago.

Given the rise in supply, home prices in Seattle probably will fall further, says Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, a real-estate broker based there. "If you walk around town, you see cranes everywhere," he says.

In Portland, Ore., another fairly buoyant market, the inventory at year end was 5.7 months, up from 3.7 months a year earlier, and the median price fell 4%. In Charlotte, N.C., the supply grew to 7.8 months from 5.9 months.

Listings in the eight-county San Francisco area surged 42% last year, but there are big differences in price trends, depending on location. In December, DataQuick reports, the median price was down 22% from a year before in outlying Sonoma County but just 1.9% lower in San Francisco and virtually unchanged in Santa Clara County, home to many thriving technology companies.

Manhattan so far has dodged the housing slump, but it may not escape completely unscathed. The median price of condominiums and cooperative apartments sold in the fourth quarter was about $850,000, up 6.4% from a year earlier, according to Jonathan Miller, research director at Radar Logic Inc., a research firm. (In the luxury end of the market, the median price jumped 28% to $4.3 million.) The inventory of co-ops at the end of 2007 was down 26% from a year earlier, while the supply of condos was unchanged.

Now, though, the housing slump that afflicts most of the country is creating huge losses at some Wall Street firms that gambled on mortgage securities. That means more job cuts and smaller bonuses this year. On the plus side, the weak dollar continues to bring in foreign buyers. Mr. Miller sees "very modest" price increases this year.

But Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington who has been bearish on housing for years, says Wall Street's woes make New York's real-estate market look "quite vulnerable."

Job growth in the next two years is likely to be very weak in the New York metro area, where financial services account for about a quarter of income earned, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Wall Street is unraveling and taking the economy with it," he says.

In Miami-Dade County, there was a 37-month supply of condos listed for sale at year end, according to figures compiled by Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell, a big local real-estate broker. But that excludes "for sale by owner" units that aren't listed, as well as about 19,000 units due to be completed this year, says Jack McCabe, a real-estate consultant in Deerfield Beach, Fla., who says he advises investors who hope eventually to find bargains in the area. He notes that foreclosures will add to the supply and predicts that 2008 will be "the year of the great condo meltdown."

Monica Harvey, a real-estate agent for Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell in Miami Beach, says sales have slowed so much that she can work out at her gym more often and even drive to the airport to meet potential buyers. Ms. Harvey is encouraged, though, by the flow of buyers from Europe and Latin America, taking advantage of a weaker U.S. dollar. Already a Spanish speaker, she's thinking of studying Mandarin. "I'm waiting for the Chinese," she says. "I know they're going to come at some point."

Charles and LaVondra Coleman didn't start the New Year vowing to exercise more and lose weight. Instead, the owners of the Mishawaka Assist-2-Sell office made a commitment to raise as much money as possible for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is dedicated to finding cures and saving children with pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.

"When a young boy in my son's school was diagnosed with cancer, we decided to do something to help," explains Charles. "We donated some money personally, but we wanted to use the growth of our real estate business to help other children in need."

The Colemans have challenged themselves to save area home sellers at least $150,000 in real estate commissions in 2008. At the end of the year, they will make a donation equal to 2.5 percent of the total seller savings to St. Jude. The donation will be funded by the company, but made in the name of sellers that sold their homes with Assist-Sell in 2008.         

Continues LaVondra, "Last year-in our first few months of operation-we saved our customers more than $56,000.[1] We started thinking about what our customers were doing with the money they saved. Many mentioned that they were making some type of charitable contribution. This sparked our thoughts."

In addition to donating a portion of their proceeds to St. Jude, the Colemans will also encourage their customers to match their donation.

If you would like to help the Colemans in their fundraising efforts, call Assist-2-Sell Buyers and Sellers Smart Choice at (574) 258-5377 or e-mail management0762@assist2sell.com.

Assist-2-Sell Buyers and Sellers Smart Choice is owned and operated by Charles and LaVondra Coleman. They opened the Mishawaka, Ind., office in April 2007. Assist-2-Sell, North America's Leading Discount Real Estate Company^SM, provides home sellers with full brokerage services for a low, flat fee, saving consumers more than $800 million in commission.[2] Homebuyers also have access to a full range of services, including Assist-2-Sell's exclusive listings databases. All brokers and agents are fully licensed and REALTORS®. On the Net: http://www.4indianahomes.com/

[1] Savings based on statistics between Apr. 11, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2007, for the Mishawaka, Ind., office compared to paying six percent. Six percent used for comparison purposes only. Commissions may be negotiable and are not fixed by law.

[2] Savings based on statistics since January 1, 2000, for all Assist-2-Sell offices in North America compared to paying six percent commission. Six percent used for comparison purposes only. Commissions may be negotiable and are not fixed by law.