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About Teresa
Teresa Turner, Realtor & Broker, with The Teresa Turner Realty Group at Keller Williams Town & Country Realty, is one of the most established and respected names in NW Florida Real Estate with 25+ years of experience in Residential Real Estate. Over that time, she has developed a superior pipeline of connections and is the go-to person for getting results in Residential Real Estate. She understands and cares for people and is excellent at coming up with unique marketing strategies to solve complex problems and get homes sold. She keeps your personal information confidential and considers discretion to be her duty in dealing with your real estate situation. Teresa maintains a strong work ethic and is committed to building relationships based on trust and integrity. She is a Real Person with Real Solutions to your real estate needs.
Tag Archives: fsu foreclosures
Formula for Successful Short Sale
Everyone has heard a Short Sale horror story or two. However, the reality is that Short Sales are here to stay and we are experiencing more success for both buyers and sellers than failure. The banks have gotten much more streamlined with their Short Sale processes and the length of time to close them has decreased as well.
What you need to know most is for your transaction to be successful there’s a formula…2 good & knowledgeable agents (Buyer’s Agent and Listing Agent) + a cooperative bank with a good process in place + very patient buyers = Short Sale Success!
Study: We’re getting less friendly on Facebook
Whether it’s pruning friends lists, removing unwanted comments or restricting access to their profiles, Americans are getting more privacy-savvy on social networks, a new report found.
The report released Friday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that people are managing their privacy settings and their online reputation more often than they did two years earlier. For example, 44 percent of respondents said in 2011 that they deleted comments from their profile on a social networking site. Only 36 percent said the same thing in 2009.
The findings come a day after the Obama administration called for stronger privacy protections for people who use the Internet, mobile devices and other technologies with increasingly sophisticated ways of tracking them. Pew’s findings suggest that people not only care about their privacy online but that, given the tools, they will also try to manage it.
Along those lines is “profile pruning,” which Pew reports is on the rise. Nearly two-thirds of people on social networks said last year that they had deleted friends, up from 56 percent in 2009. And more people are removing their names from photos than two years ago. This practice is especially common on Facebook, where users can add names of their friends to photos they upload.
Among other findings:
Women are much more likely than men to restrict their profiles. Pew found that 67 percent of women set their profiles so that only their “friends” can see it. Only 48 percent of men did the same.
Think all that time in school taught you something? People with the highest levels of education reported having the most difficulty figuring out their privacy settings. That said, only 2 percent of social media users described privacy controls as “very difficult to manage.”
The report found no significant differences in people’s basic privacy controls by age. In other words, younger people were just as likely to use privacy controls as older people. Sixty-two percent (62%) of teens and 58 percent of adults restricted access to their profiles to friends only.
Young adults were more likely than older people to delete unwanted comments. Fifty-six percent (56%) of social media users aged 18 to 29 said they have deleted comments that others have made on their profile, compared with 40 percent of those aged 30 to 49 and 34 percent of people aged 50 to 64.
Men are more likely to post something they later regret. Fifteen percent (15%) of male respondents said they posted something regrettable, compared with 8 percent of female respondents.
Possibly proving that with age comes wisdom, young adults were more likely to post something regrettable than their older counterparts. Fifteen percent of social network users aged 18 to 29 said they have posted something regrettable. Only 5 percent of people over 50 said the same thing.
Pew’s phone survey of 2,277 adults was conducted in April and May 2011. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The data about teens came from a separate phone survey Pew conducted with teenagers and their parents.
By Barbara Ortutay ~ The Associated Press
Understand the difference between a “backup contract” vs “multiple contract”
Most short sale addenda have provisions for backup offers if your Realtor checks the appropriate box. It is the opinion of Berlin-Patten Attorneys that, generally speaking, your Realtor should not check the box permitting backup offers when dealing with a short sale. It creates too many unnecessary legal and practical issues.
Most importantly, many lenders and their automated systems (such as Equator) will not allow two contracts to be under review simultaneously. As such, once a second contract is presented to the lender, the time frames run anew with that second contract. Moreover it has been have found that the two buyers are not adequately counseled with respect to the implications of permitting two or more contracts, and it is the attorney’s universal experience that one buyer will be very unhappy (sometimes to the point of legal threats) when all is said and done. In other words, the buyer with the lower offer will obviously have an issue if a higher offer is subsequently submitted to the lender. As such, if the seller is going to entertain more than one contract, they had better do so very carefully, with proper legal counsel, and with adequate disclosure.
There are also significant legal considerations. For example, one needs to understand the difference between “backup” contracts and “multiple” contracts. There is a significant legal distinction, a distinction that is important to understand when encouraging more than one contract for the same property at the same time. A backup contract is just that, a contract that is clearly subordinate to a prior contract. It contains a backup contract addendum or similar verbiage that makes it clearly subject to a prior contract. If, however, two contracts are executed for the same property, and neither contains a backup contract addendum or similar verbiage, this is a multiple contract situation and potentially creates significant legal liability to not only the seller, but the realtors as well. You cannot have two valid contracts for the same property without backup language in one of them.
As such, we strongly encourage any party who is considering the execution of more than one contract to consult with an attorney to determine (a) is it the best thing to do under the circumstances, (b) do they have the right to do so, (c) is the prior contract still in full force and effect, (d) if so, does it permit backup contracts, and (e) is adequate backup contract language contained within the second contract. Each of these decisions carry significant timing, factual and legal implications, and should not be taken lightly.
Information provided by Berlin-Patten, PLLC, Attorneys at Law
4 Questions to Ask Before Buying a Foreclosure
Foreclosures can offer big bargains, but buyers need to be careful that they don’t get over their heads in purchasing a home that may need more repairs than they bargained for.
Foreclosures are usually sold as-is, and homes that are left vacant standing too long can have a lot of maintenance problems.
Real estate experts suggest buyers consider the following questions:
1. How long has the home been vacant? Be cautious of a foreclosed home that has stood vacant for more than a few weeks or had its utilities shut off a long time. Marvin Goldstein, a home inspector for many foreclosed properties, says a home can deteriorate quickly when heating, cooling, electricity, and running water have been turned off for awhile.
2. How old is the home? Goldstein says that homes that are more than 50 years old may have a failing plumbing system or inadequate electrical wiring.
3. How does the home look? Are there broken windows, gutters hanging down, or damaged siding? “Trust your instincts. If the house looks bad from the outside, it’s probably worse than you think,” Goldstein told The Oklahoman.
4. Is there anything missing? Sometimes former owners remove anything of value from the home, such as built-in light fixtures, bathroom tile, water heaters, air-conditioning units, and hardwoods, says Bill Jacques, president-elect of the American Society of Home Inspectors.
Housing experts encourage buyers to get a home inspector to look at the property, even if it is sold as-is, so that home buyers know any repairs needed and cost estimates before they purchase the home.
“Buying a bank-owned home gives you the opportunity to enter the market at a very low price level,” says Dorcas Helfant, a past president of the National Association of REALTORS®. “You can find terrific values among foreclosures, especially if they’re not in too bad shape. But, remember, these houses are discounted for a reason.”
Source: “Foreclosed Homes May Need Extensive Repairs,” The Oklahoman (Jan. 28, 2012)
Everything You Need to Know About Buying a Bank Owned Property
Buying a bank-owned property is a little different than buying an “arms length” 
type property. One of the major differences is that there is no emotion involved with the banks.It is strictly numbers, and rules. Most banks want the property sold and off their books in120 days or less.
Most bank owned properties are vacant so they are easy to look at, but many of them don’t have power so you need to make arrangements to get there during daylight hours. There is a coded lockbox on the property, but this is for the banks and the property preservation companies to have access. You should contact a Realtor to set up a time to see the property and not try to go in on your own.
Most banks will not accept contingency contracts. If you have a property to sell to qualify for your finanacing, and it is not disclosed, the bank will consider this fraud and will cancel the contract and keep your deposit.
ALL bank owned properties are sold “as is” with all their faults. There may be some instances that the bank will do some repairs prior to closing, but it is rare. If work is to be done, then in most cases, it will be completed prior to marketing. There are no Sellers Property Disclosures. In most cases, the seller/bank has never seen the property or physically visited the property. The Buyer will have the right to inspect the property. The inspection time is usually 7-10 days from the date of the fully executed contract. Getting the signed contract back from the bank can take anywhere from 24 hours to 5-6 days.
Banks do not usually want to finance their bank-owned properties; however there are a couple of exceptions to this. BB & T now offers special financing on their bank-owned properties, and Wells Fargo and Bank of America require a pre-qualification from one of their lending officers to be submitted with the contract. The Buyer is not required to get their financing with either Wells Fargo or Bank of America, but they want the opportunity to offer the Buyer financing.
Most banks have their own special addendums. Some banks have a standard addendum that they want with the contract package and others negotiate the contract and then generate the addendum that are specific to the contract. THERE ARE NO CHANGES ALLOWED ON THE ADDENDUMS. If the Buyer wants to make changes, then they will not get the property. It is important that you understand the addendum before signing it.
The Buyers are not to have access to the property prior to closing. This is a liability issue for both the Real Estate Agent and the Brokerage Office. Buyers are not to be in the property without their Real Estate Agent present. Under no circumstances should the Buyers be given lockbox codes to access the property at will.
Most Bank Owned Property closings are “dry” closings for the Real Estate Agent. The banks have their own title company that they retain to take care of the closings and these title companies are usually out of town. The good thing about this is that they pay the Buyers’ owners title insurance. The Buyer is responsible for the work fees and the mortgagee’s policy (if they are getting a mortgage). The title company sends a mobile notary to a designated location that is mutually agreed upon, and they are responsible for getting the closing documents and funds back to the title company. The commission checks for the Real Estate Agents are cut and and mailed once the title company receives all of the closing documents, and this usually takes anywhere from 2 days to a week.
If you want to purchase a foreclosure, it is helpful to understand how the process works. Bank owned properties can be a great buy, but you the Buyer, have to be willing to deal with any and all repairs and play by the bank’s rules to get that property.
Information provided courtesy of Cindy Crona-Hudson, Keller Williams Town & Country Realty
