Weekly Local Lehigh Acres New Spot

Home Improvement Ideas

Now is not the time to sell if you don't absolutely have to so many homeowners are turning to restoring old, refurbishing and renovating their existing homes. There are many ideas that you do-it-yourselfers can tackle with a little time and some small expense, can make a huge change in how your home looks and feels. For this week's blog, we will give you a few quick easy ways to spruce up your kitchen.

Let's start with lighting. You can go a long way with updating your lighting with some track lighting or hanging tube lighting both available at most home improvement stores like Lowes or Home Depot. Mood lighting with candles, oil lamps and dimmers make a dramatic look vs the old hard lighting regular standard light bulbs or flourescents create.

Not happy with your cabinets? Why not paint your old ones. There is some great paint out there again available at local hardware stores and can real update your old cabinets on a budject that is affordable.

One last consideration is to cover your old countertops with tile. You can do it an a much lower budjet than marble or granite and it really can make a difference to pick up the room and dress it up.

If you are on a budget than can afford some outside contractor work, we can help you. We are painting contractors and work with a general contractor to do any and all home renovations at a price that might pleasantly surprise you. Give us a call at 239-303-1318 for a no cost evaluation or price quote.

Housing Statistics:

Lehigh Acres snapshot of the last 24 hours sold 11 homes at an average price of 53,622. There are 34 new homes that hit the market today at an average price of $115,591. 85% of these homes are banked owned properties. This time last year we had sold in the month of Feburary 58 homes at an average of $133,419. This year the decease is 147% in price at an average of $54,419. You ask if the deals are out there? Yes Yes Yes they are. Call us today to find out what deals are out there for you.

In The News:

"Lehigh Reputation takes big hit" This is the headlines of the News Star (Local Lehigh Acres Paper) The New Yorker Paper had an article that named Lehigh Acres one of America's potential new "slums". I am disgusted personally about how this article was written and I beg to differ. I am not saying that Lehigh Acres doesn't have it's problems but it's mostly due to the unsuspecting people that were taken advantage of by the big banks and disgracefull lenders that took many nice hardworking folks, wrung them up and twisted them up and now spit them out as wasted as they foreclose one after another on homes they should have never lent them money in the first place to buy. And then to make things even worse, in case they didn't do enough harm, they now foreclose and sell the houses to someone else at 1/4th of the price they sold it for the first time. When the buyers asks for modification to avoid the foreclosure, they are told the help is available. In fact most times the help available is not enough to save them. So the cost is passed on to the bank to foreclose, manage and resell at a price that is out of control low. How's that for fair? Is there anywhere we can call safe anymore? The New Yorker should look at their own neighborhood and take the plank out of their own eye before taking the speck out of ours. Lehigh Acres will come out of this, bigger and better and we will be a growing community of mostly hardworking good folk that want to be part of a neighborhood of decent human beings and you all will see!

Hot Buys:

How about $48,000 for a 3/2 pool home in Lehigh Acres? That's right. 4113 2nd St SW Lehigh Acres is a property that has a pool, a fenced in back yard, a shed and lot's of potential. Call us today for more information and a showing at AAA Realty LLC 239-368-8520.

Gov't May Force Banks to Reduce Homeowners Mortgages to Meet Market

Capital Hill debates go on and this very controversial legislation looks like it's on the fast track to be passed into law, maybe as soon a the end of February (This very month).

You may have heard it called "Cramdown" legislation and it's designed to help financially distressed homeowners from losing their homes to foreclosure. So the idea is in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the homeowner shows that they owe $200,000 on their home but the home is now only worth $80,000 the courts will tell the banks that now the homeowner only owes you $80,000 and you can't foreclose, so live with it.

What are your thoughts?  This sounds too good to be true for some and has others completely up in arms thinking about the people that will take "advantage" of such a law and may default even if they really could pay their mortgage.  

My opinion, for what it is worth is that it could be great for some very unsuspecting people that were taking advantage of by unscrupulous mortgage brokers, banks and Realtors.  Ouch did I just say that?  Sorry but it really is true.  Many people were taken advantage of and the guilty of the originators is what it is.  So again in my humble opinion, there needs to be laws in place to stop that and if the banks suffer some more because of it, well so be it.  They may learn a thing or two- Those that are left.

My advice and only my opinion again is that if you are in a position that you need to possibly foreclose on your property, talk to a lawyer first.  Get advice from them and only after you really know all the facts, should you go forward with your plans to foreclose.  The time you take could save your home, a lot of aggravation and many sleepless nights.

For more information on foreclosures, feel free to contact us at 239-368-8520.

AAA Realty LLC 

55 Homestead Rd N

Lehigh Acres, FL 33936

BUY YOUR INVESTMENT PROPERTY NOW

No one has to guess right now as to when is the best time to buy an investment property.  Now is the time.  The deals are out there and cash flow is positive if you buy right.  

Never had the opportunity to buy but now you have some money that is not making money for you in the stock market and you may be thinking about a real estate investment.  This blog entry will deal with some suggestions of what to look for and also what to watch out for when considering an investment property.

First you have to decide what your exit strategy will be.  Is it to hold the property for long term, rent it now and wait for the market to turn?  Is it to move some fast cash flow and move on to another? Depending on which is your desire or goal, you would buy very differently.

Let's talk about buying and holding for a few years.  If this is your goal then consideration needs to be made on how the house will rent will play a large part in the decision process.  If you don't know the area, this is where enough can't be said that you need to research research and then research some more.  Call a realtor in the area or maybe 2 or 3 different ones.  Ask them as many questions as possible to ascertain the best or most popular areas.  Where are the schools?  Where is the center of town?  Where is the police station?  Check the local crime logs to see if you can see a pattern.  Go at night time to the area if you are close by and see what is happening at night in the neighborhood.  These are some ways of determining very quickly the better areas to invest for the best return of your investment.

Buying to flip the property can be looked at slightly differently.  It's a numbers game.  If you can get the property cheap enough and can clean it up and resale it, everything has a selling price and if you are not greedy and don't take anything personally you can flip a property and make an easy few thousand dollars and then move on to the next.  The end buyer gets a great deal and you made your money and move on to the next one.

In any case of these two opportunities we spoke about, you absolutely should be working with a Realtor.  Their expertise, if it's a good one, will pay for itself over and over.  

Tune in for the next post where more discussion on specifically what to look for in the investment opportunities we spoke about above.  

In the meantime, feel free to contact us and we will be happy to sit down or talk on the phone and explain in more detail how you can safely invest in real estate that can bring you many years of monthly positive cash flow now and a later when you decide to sell, some retirement money or whatever your desire is to do with the money made on your investment.  

The best part of it all is:  You are in charge of your investment.  You are the boss.  Try that in the stock market when your money goes down the tube and you can only watch it happen!

Call us today at AAA Realty LLC at 239-368-8520.

To Buy Or Not To Buy-That is the question

When exactly is the bottom of the market? When is the time to buy? If You buy now, will your home be worth less in a year from now? These are all the questions that many are asking themselves now and are seeking out advice from Realtors.

To first clear up a common misconception- Realtors are not fortune tellers. They base their "educated guesses" based on history. That's all "we" have. History shows that our finance system is like a clock.

As told by Peter Switzer of the Daily Telegraph "A clock at 12 o'clock is boom time. At one o'clock interest rates are rising. By two, share prices start to fall and by three commodity prices start to fall too. At five, real estate feels the pinch and six o'clock is recession. At seven o'clock the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates to kick-start the economy and by eight share prices anticipate an improving economy, beginning to rise. Commodity prices perk up at nine o'clock and, as unemployment falls, real estate makes a comeback about 10 or 11 o'clock."

This is how the system has worked for hundreds of years. So based on this clock, where are we today? Looks to me based on the bail out plan from our federal gov't just being passed and Reserve banks cutting interest rates that we should soon see an upswing and we are pretty close to the bottom and recession status. Pretty clear isn't it?

So it appears to me and it should to you also that now would be a great time to buy. Wait too much longer and prices may start to rise and there may have been great "missed" opportunities.

Bottom line and my point in this article is this: If you are even remotely thinking of buying and fall into one of the great programs that have been released as recently as this past weekend- get with your realtor and start looking. You can buy now for less than most rentals and if you are in a position to buy as investment, you have a unique position to buy and have a long term investment and a monthly cash cow.

Don't let our economy scare you, make no mistake, even though this is a rough time and records are braking in the foreclosure market and things appear very scary, it's all just part of our system of finance. We will survive and will rebound and be the resilient and thriving country we have always been.

So to answer the question about when to buy. There is no time like the presence. You can call us at AAA Realty LLC at 239-368-1831 or check us out on the web at http://www.aaarealtyllc.com/ .

What Is A BPO?

BPO stands for Broker's Price Opinion. This is a valuation report that is done by a real esate agent or broker to determine price for a home in a particular market at a particular time. Even though they are used quite frequently by lenders getting ready to foreclose on a property, or allow a particular price for a short sale, this valuation report is not new to the industry. Prior to the dramatice increase in foreclosures and distressed sales, when a borrower was to refinance or regular loan servicing would be reasons for a lender to order a BPO.

Now that you know what they are, we want to tell you when it would be wise for you to utilize one for your own benefit. First if you are an investor and are considering a short sale of a property, it would be prudent for you to order your own BPO so you will know approximately what the bank expects or may be willing to price their home.

How do you get one of these BPO's? If you do a google search of your area of agents that perform these reports, you can contact them individually to order one. There are also BPO Companies that work for the lending industry and have at their disposal in most cases, agents though out the country that perform bpo's for them.

If you have any more questions, or are in need of a BPO in the Lee County FL area, you can call us directly as we are "Certified Property Valuators" and will be happy to answer questions you have and also quote you a price on what your valuation report would cost you. Call us at 239-368-8520 or email at tammyjrodriguez@gmail.com for more info.

We Buy Homes For Cash

Any situation. Divorce, pre-foreclosure, fire, death. Any shape- excellent, good, average or poor. Call our toll-free line (information line only- no pressure or pesky sales person) Call and the info line will give you some options that you may not have realized you had available to you. Call 1-877-408-3726 (not a live call) After the infomation call, you will have the option of talking directly to us, leaving a message or simply just hanging up.

If never hurts to get more information. "A man, though wise, should never be ashamed / of learning more, and must unbend his mind."- Sophocles

Short Sales

Let the words I say on this blog hit you and sink in because it is a fact that many people are going to lose their homes in the next two years. If you are in trouble with your current mortgage company or are adding up that debt on your Credit Cards and don't see that it is helping but instead is getting you deeper and deeper in debt, you need to take action now! Don't wait until you get the heartbreaking news that there is a lins pendens filed against your property and now you are out of options.

It doesn't just go away. It is real and you can't sleep it away. There are options for you but you must take action as early as possible.

For the writing of this blog entry, I will just tell you that there is hope but you must take action. For the next blog, we will discuss what your options are.

In the meantime, go to the two websites and spend some time learning about us and what we have to offer. WWW.AAARealtyllc.com and www.2galslovehomes.com.

We look forward to taking more about this subject in coming weeks. Call us with any questions at 239-368-8520 or toll free at 1 (866) 434-0717.