tampa4u's Blog: SHOUT OUTS

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Those of us who are in here have a lot to be thankful for.

Location, location, location, applies to Real Estate offices as well. Yet you will find some tucked away in a no-traffic strip mall or in the 3rd floor of a high rise building. Truthfully, a year ago, I didn't think it really mattered.

I was reluctant to have an office in Channelside. Although it is one of the most visited streets in Tampa and having an office there would give us the high profile we wanted, the numbers didn't make sense. The numbers didn't make sense either for us to start our own brokerage. We would have made more money staying in our current brokerage with our team. But my husband wanted it. He said his guts told him that's the direction we should go. We debated about this for a long time and although the numbers still didn't make any…

Almost every other day, we'll get a call from a seller wanting to know if we have buyers who may want to buy their property.  Apparently sellers know we have buyers. Question is, why didn't they list with us in the first place? - Because sellers don't look online for an agent or brokerage to list their homes. They start looking online when they become anxious after 60 days without a showing. This have been very frustrating. How can we get the message to the sellers that the buyers are online and that the best exposure for their listings will be online. Thru postcards? Bench advertising? Billboards? Thru farming?

So far we've gotten listings thru referrals and from past clients who are now selling. But the goal is to have as many sellers as we have…

As a real estate agent, you may have the tendency to see the homeowner and immediate take note of how they look on the outside as a correlation to the money they may have to spend on a home. There is fault in this judgment, both on a moral level and on a professional level. Let’s walk through a scenario for a bit.

A man and a woman walk into your office seeking a home. They do not have a new car, their clothes are not designer and they look as though they are simple, middle class people. You immediately ask if they have sought after a mortgage and been preapproved and they state they have not. Their accent kicks in and reminds you of a country song. Now you have totally turned off to the needs of this potential home buyer and tell them you are very…

In the world of the celebrity real estate drop, the listings are going up and the sales are no where to be found. As a nation, we know the financial sector is hurting when there are no big sales to report and a ton of listings.

An LA restaurant owner, Lonnie Moore, lists his home in Hollywood Hills for $3.5 million. The home was once owned by Mike Tyson and Robin Givens.

Regis Philbin is ready to ask, “Is that your final answer?” to a home buyer for his Greenwich home. The home is listed for $5.4 million.

Beverly Hills has a new listing to report. Mark Wahlberg, once a singer now an actor, has listed his home for a whopping $15.9 million. The home is nearly 9,000 square feet and was bought in 2001 for just under $5 million. Hello! The market is…

The global real estate industry is truly in an interesting time. The sluggish property market in the United States has found its way to influence all other real estate markets all around the world. Foreign investors to properties are definitely finding it hard to determine which markets thy can logically and safely infuse their highly sought after investments.

Global property analyzing group Association of Foreign Investors in real Estate or AFIRE is conducting a yearly poll to find out an updated list of hot property markets around the world. As a standard practice, the survey is asking about 200 foreign property investors from across the globe. Such investors are estimated to infuse up to $700 billion in offshore property investment opportunities.
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When it comes to the real estate market and the slump felt across America, there are a few areas of the business sector that are booming. These markets have little to do with physically selling homes and more to do with the home trashing that occurs when the home is foreclosed upon. If you own a home cleaning business, general contracting business or a landscaping business you may not be crossing your fingers for the inevitable up turn.

Home cleaning businesses traditionally market their services to the public sector. But, with the huge rise of home foreclosures, these small mom and pop businesses are seeing a rise in sales for their services. When a home is going into foreclosure, the anger surrounding the fact that the homeowner will lose their pride…

Across the nation the value of the dollar is dropping and the real estate market is declining.  Could it turn out that one will end up helping the other?  Thanks to the ailing American dollar, foreign investors have good reason to buy real estate in the United States.  A favorite choice among foreign real estate investors is the sunny state of Florida.

The nearby attractions of Florida make it a popular vacation choice.  No matter where you are you have access to warm and sandy beaches.  There are also various attractions all over Florida.  With the British pound trading 2 to 1, it creates a good opportunity for U.K. residents to purchase property in these fabulous areas of fun and leisure in the sun at a bargain price.  Tampa is one of the top choice…