Real Estate Matters
www.reporterherald.com • Saturday, December 24, 2011 • Reporter-Herald
Online credit score may not be correct
Sale
your home
in 2012
ILYCE GLINK TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Q
uestion: I am an avid reader of your column and have been a mortgage loan officer since 1995. Many times, you have given incomplete or inaccurate information, but there was an article recently that struck a chord, and I felt the need to respond. I am concerned with your advice to consumers to pull their own credit scores from annualcreditreport.com and to use that score to ask a variety of lenders to quote rates. You need to do some research to understand that the scores received from that site do not use the mortgage scoring model that lenders use. It is not uncommon when we go to pull a tri-merged credit report to have scores that are 60 to 100 points lower than what the consumer has received from annualcreditreport.com. Answer: Thanks for your comment. You are correct that lenders use a different scoring mechanism for mortgage loan applications than the credit score obtained through annualcreditreport.com. However, we don’t tell borrowers to rely on that score as a final guide to their credit score, but rather as a way to introduce themselves to a mortgage broker like yourself, who can give them much more information about loans and the process of getting one. Getting their score on■ See GLINK/Page D2
ILYCE GLINK AND SAMUEL J. TAMKIN TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
I
know someone who sold a house this year. It took them seven months, and they had to cut their price a lot lower than they wanted, but they finally got a good offer and the property is scheduled to close by the end of the year. It isn’t easy being a home seller these days. Home values are off 33 to 60 percent from their high in 2006. Roughly 25 percent of homeowners are underwater with their mortgage according to third quarter 2011 data from CoreLogic, a data aggregator. And a million homeowners lost their home to foreclosure, putting downward price pressure on neighborhoods across America. Despite record-low interest rates, which touched 3.7 percent for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage and 3.25 percent for a 15-year loan, buyers have been reluctant to jump into a market where it’s uncertain whether home prices are appreciating, holding steady or declining further. If you’re hoping to sell in 2012, you’ll be facing all these challenges and more. The real estate industry isn’t expected to improve much over the next couple of years. Certainly, until the unemployment picture improves substantially, it will be difficult for the real estate industry to gain any positive momentum. That’s why North Dakota (with a 3 percent unemployment rate) also ranks as one of the stronger housing markets. So what can you do if you want or need to sell in 2012? Consider my classic New Year’s resolutions for home sellers:
OVERCOME ANY POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS A BUYER WOULD HAVE Sellers often don’t understand that their primary job is not only to eliminate any potential objec-
tions that keep a buyer from making an offer, but also to exceed their expectations. If your home is competitively priced, and your home’s condition exceeds a buyer’s expectations, you’ll get an offer.
may have to meet that price point in order to sell. Is it worth it? Probably not, but you’ll have to really evaluate price and timing in order to get the most for your property.
GET YOUR HOME INTO SELLING SHAPE
BE REALISTIC ABOUT THE MARKET
Cleaning your home is a must. After that, you should consider hiring a stager to give your home the television-worthy polish that many buyers expect today. Assess what other sort of work needs to be done, such as fixing things that don’t work, touching up paint, or cleaning or replacing your carpets.
INVITE AT LEAST THREE AGENTS TO CREATE A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Find out what types of properties are selling in your area and how many days they’re sitting on the market. Accept the reality of your local market and make sure you price your home realistically.
DON’T BE DRIVEN BY GREED Remember, a successful sale means everyone walks away feeling happy. If you get so greedy that the buyer walks away, you’ve let the deal get the best of you.
Often, sellers simply call the agent who sold them their home to list it. While you may wind up hiring that person, you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you invite a couple of other agents in from different firms. That’s because each will bring different ideas to the table about how much your house is worth AND and what kind of marketing plan will work.
UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WILL TAKE If you live in an area with foreclosures, you
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For more information, call Glink’s radio show at 800-972-8255 on Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m., write to Real Estate Matters Syndicate, P.O. Box 366, Glencoe, IL 60022 or visit www.thinkglink.com.
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