Teaching The Shoe Shine Boy to Flip Homes Well there it went, the first radio ad broadcast for or a seminar on how to flip real estate in the southwest Florida area. Why the adster even boasts that the Greater Fort Myers area is ripe for the picking. If want to make money in two [...]
New Homes & New Construction in Bonita Springs New Construction in Bonita Springs is trending as the best value in real estate. You heard it here first. Local Bonita Springs Real Estate (the resale real estate) is suffering from low inventory. Many of the properties that hit the market don’t last long and often sell [...]
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New Construction – Builder Product – Spec Homes Thinking of purchasing new construction or builder product in the Bonita Springs and Estero Florida area? You should consider using a Realtor for your new construction purchase to get the most information and widest exposure to the most suitable real estate in your budget and search criteria. [...]
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Thieves, Fraud and Real Estate Con Artists Every once in a while I publish an attempt (even ridiculous and feeble attempts) at committing fraud in the real estate industry. Real estate fraud is ever evolving. This is the first time I ever had the fraudster suggest that I conveniently send the real estate contract via [...]
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Use a Trusted, Referred Mortgage Broker or Banker If you’re thinking of looking for real estate in Bonita Springs or you’re in the process of shopping for a home you’re going to come to the crossroads of financing your real estate purchase if you’re not a cash buyer. Your real estate agent, if they’ve got [...]
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Bonita Springs Real Estate Cover Your Assets If you’re buying Bonita Springs real estate, what exactly should you, as a consumer, be entitled to or legally expecting form “the other side” when it comes to information pertaining to the homeowner association? Here it is in a nutshell: A selling consumer is required to be notified [...]
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Follow Up On Submitted Real Estate Offers Closed sale. Not long ago I closed a sale on a single family home in San Carlos Park area. It’s a competitive real estate market for entry level housing, usually for first time buyers, just north of Bonita Springs, Florida. Every real estate transaction has a story. This [...]
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Choosing a Bonita Springs Buyer Agent What’s that old saying? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. No matter what the relationship is, the only thing worst than being dumped or cheated on is being dumped or cheated on twice by the same person twice. Unless my content was stolen, [...]
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Turned Down For Financing?Private Money – Hard Money If you’re in the position where you need to buy a home in Bonita Springs but you don’t qualify for conventional financing there are alternatives. Many buyers immediately think of looking for owner financing which offers a very limited pool of eligible real estate for sale. First, [...]
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An As-Is Contract is Not a Hostage Situation There’s a nifty little fail safe when writing an offer on real estate, the as-is with the right to inspect contract or the as-is with the right to inspect addendum. Depending upon what side of the fence you’re on it’s generally meant as a form of protection [...]
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Wetlands Studies, Special Assessments on Vacant Land At the time of publication, most of the properties in San Carlos Estates have assessments for the new infrastructure. If your mission is to figure out if a property has a special assessment for the new road paving, water and sewer you can check the Lee County Tax [...]
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Bonita Springs Real Estate and First Time Home Buyers There’s never been a better time to buy a home … unless the buyer is financing the purchase. It’s not because it is difficult to finance real estate or that the banks aren’t lending, it’s because the entry level real estate market is chock full of [...]
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The Truth About That 10% Real Estate Value Increase Did you know that the second Tuesday of every month all of the real estate agents of southwest Florida show up at a secret location, one minute before midnight, to formulate a plan to manipulate the entire real estate industry? Well neither did I. Apparently, I [...]
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Negotiating the X Factor in Real Estate The last ditch grasp … as long as they pay closing cost. It never fails, sooner or later there is a negotiation for real estate volleying back and forth and one party will agree with the condition of “as long as they pay closing costs.” The average consumer [...]
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Where Does the Real Estate Offer Go? What happens to an offer after signing it? It’s a fair question to ask of whomever is helping you write the offer, whether it’s your real estate attorney or your real estate agent. If your attorney is involved they’re generally concerned with making sure you’re legally protected. They’ll [...]
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Bonita Springs Real Estate – Buyer’s Remorse Sometimes it’s just the quiet, the way too quiet that is the first sign. Calls aren’t being returned or some type of required, follow up documentation isn’t being produced in a timely fashion. In this day and age of nearly constant contact it doesn’t take long to figure [...]
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Renegotiate the Real Estate Contract – Concessions It doesn’t matter what side of the transaction you’re on sooner or later the question, “what can we ask for” is going to come up. It’s the nature of the game, human nature even; to question, to negotiate or renegotiate as a real estate transaction evolves from initial [...]
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Bonita Springs Real Estate Values … Up, Up and Away When buyers of real estate began cautiously moving back into the southwest Florida real estate market when there was plentiful inventory at rock bottom prices there were skeptics questioning whether it was the right time to buy. Certainly, the communities which were experiencing excess inventory, [...]
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Reserves for replacement collected in condominium and hoa fees.
How To Measure Real Estate Agents and Brokerages What do you mean you’re not with Coldwell Banker real estate? I was sitting in a listing presentation interview when the home owner asked that question. Why he thought I was with that particular real estate brokerage, I’ll never know. I’ve never been with that brokerage in [...]
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Why Are There So Many Real Estate Addendums About a decade ago I faxed (fax machines were once bleeding edge) a contract to a prospective real estate purchaser. She worked in the Pennsylvania school system and gave me a number at work to fax it to. A few hours later she called and said, I [...]
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Real Estate Lead Capture Maybe you’re curious about what your home is worth or you’re a serious buyer prowling the web for the latest new listings or price reductions in the area you want to buy a home in, sooner or later a pop up window will ask for more information. Whether you’re a buyer [...]
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Real Estate Photograph Fails It’s a no brainer that pictures sell real estate, especially in the digital age. What is surprising is that there are still so many homes skating by or even floundering in the real estate market without proper or, at the very least, a weak representation of its unique characteristics whether they’re [...]
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Condo Inspections, AS-IS Contracts and Nit Pickery It’s mail day! There have been a variety of question regarding home inspections from both buyers and sellers. Here’s the latest and greatest from the mail bag that I’m able to squeeze into six-hundred-ish words or less: Question: The home we’re interested in is offered as-is with the [...]
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Save The Drama For Your Mama There’s no crying in real estate. At least there really shouldn’t be. Typically, all parties involved in the transaction have a common goal for real estate to change hands so what is it that makes it all go haywire? So there everyone is, minding their own business when “exhibit [...]
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Making Sense of Condo Maintenance Fees This is going to be exciting! There is nothing more exciting than talking about numbers, budgets and statistics to get everyone hanging on the edge of their seats … or the abyss to boredom. <sarcasm/> One of the more consistent questions asked by real estate consumers is, what exactly [...]
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Buy a Foreclosure and Earn a Foursquare Badge! More often than not there is a buyer at the other end of the phone or an email requesting help to purchasing a foreclosure. Today, I actually received an email asking what’s the best value is, foreclosure or short sale? It’s been years since a day has [...]
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Choosing a Real Estate Attorney or Law Office You may have already asked or someone may have told you but using a real estate attorney to close your real estate transaction isn’t required in Florida. It is, in professional opinion of most real estate agents, a very wise choice for most transactions. The real estate [...]
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What We Can’t Tell You About Your Neighbors Prior to ushering buyers around in my car I’ve occasionally recommended buyers drive around a little to familiarize themselves with the area. If, for example, there is a cute little cottage that buyers think they just have to see but I know it’s built between a Quikkie [...]
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Take the L Out of Lover & It’s Over … Unless There’s a Note So a while back I’m at this party … when the room thinned out and got a little quieter “Rick” mentioned that he was on his way across town to sign some papers. As a matter of fact, it had just [...]
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Hire a Team of Real Estate Help First If you had to speculate what a first time home buyer looked like how would you describe one? I asked a few contemporaries and got answers like: In my area, under the age of thirty, newly weds, recent college graduates, young people building “the dream”. The other [...]
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Real Estate on The Waterfront Every consumer has a different idea of what waterfront real estate really is. Consumers come from all over the United States, all over the world, to buy Bonita Springs real estate. Since Florida has so much waterfront real estate buyers often start looking for waterfront homes and condos. Waterfront real [...]
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Foreclosure Fixer Uppers and TLC Needed Defined Just exactly how much “tender loving care” does a property that needs TLC really require? Well, isn’t that a question just chock full of possibilities? The definition of fixer-upper and “needs TLC” really is in the eye of the beholder. Any one person’s opinion of what is a [...]
Fees, Closing Costs and Good Faith Estimates How do I find out, in advance, all of the closing costs and fees related buying real estate here? Whether you’re buying or selling real estate you should be able to calculate the majority of closing costs prior to closing day or even signing a contract. This answer [...]
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Tempting Fate with Poor Real Estate Advice The World Wide Web has opened the doors of information for real estate consumers. The possibilities are almost limitless. Online home searches are a breeze, public and tax information is a click away and even community information, walk-ability statistics and crime rates are at the other end of [...]
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Ya Snooze Ya Lose Real Estate Naturally, this is the time of the year southwest Florida is visited by tourists. This year those visitors recognized some of the tremendous real estate values and were inspired to start buying real estate. We’ve had a robust winter sales season and the mountain of great deals which was [...]
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Tips for Florida real estate buyers dealin with multiple offer scenarios.
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Condominium & HOA Rules and Regulations Most condominium owners have a set of docs that perform little practical function other than taking up space on a shelf or in a cabinet. That is, if they bothered to keep them at all. Those documents are the rules for the association. The rules; you will obey them [...]
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Foreclosures and Failed Real Estate Offers So you keep making offers on property and not “getting the deal”. I’ve gotten a couple of emails from buyers asking that same question who feel there are shenanigans going on. Without first hand knowledge of the actual transactions, there are a several very real dynamics in play which [...]
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Home buyers who make elaborate excuses to get out of real estate transactions when the “out” is only an inspection away.
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What Sets Real Estate Buyers Apart? What compels a seller to accept one offer over another besides dollars and cents? Putting aside the black and white aspect of a business decision based solely on numbers, image that you’re in a position where the offer you are placing on a home finds competition. We’ve had a [...]
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Yeah, this just about boils it down to the ugly reality of buying an, reo, foreclosure, bank owned home. If you do not see the video above CLICK HERE.
Identifying replacement properties for a 1031 exchange.
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If you do not see the video above Click Here
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Humanizing The Buyer and The Offer A fax to email showed up the other day and I opened it to find a cancelation of an offer for one of my listed properties. Having buyers get cold feet isn’t that unusual these days. Heck, if the Dow goes down 200 points on a random Tuesday buyers [...]







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