As mentioned previously in an article on this blog MLS listings are now starting to be offerred by agents on a flat fee basis effectively giving owners access to the MLS through the back door. One such service is operating in Georgia. Flat fee Georgia MLS listings mean that it you were thinking of selling your property as FSBO but want to list it on the MLS…now you can.

The Agent is basically selling a 1 point service giving you access to what used to be the bastion of the Real Estate Agent. Whether this is a case of hard times influencing the market or a move in trends due to a fluid expansion of the ever-changing market is yet to be seen.

If more MLS offers start to pop up then there could be a rush for market position.

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It had to happen at sometime. Maybe it was the downturn in the Real Estate Market that has shown that the power of the internet is starting to usurp the value of the Real Estate Agent service. Whichever is true, the Flat Fee MLS has emerged and is here to stay.

The Flat Fee MLS is a merger of ideas, taking the ability to list on a property on the MLS with the FSBO method of an individual property owner selling their house without a Real Estate Agent. MLS listings have  in recent years always been the bastion of the agents. The increase in internet use has meant that to get good exposure for a property then an MLS listing was almost essential.

Now we are seeing the emergence of brokers ’selling their birthright’ for a flat fee, allowing the individual the access to the MLS through their brokerage but not offering any other service.

In hard times  it is something that may spread!

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The holiday industry in Spain provides the majority of income to the coastal areas of the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol etc. A good chunk of this goes to private villa owners who rent their properties to holiday makers through the summer months

Spain Rentals are big business. So its no surprise that the Estate Agent Association AMLA is getting in on the act. The Spanish Property MLS is set to launch a sub domain for villa rentals Spain. The site differs from most because it has the ability for property Agents and Owners to market their holiday vill using video as well as the normal photo layout.

AMLA, who recently also launched their community & property forum and video sub-domains intends to market heavily to attract Costa Blanca villas owners and Costa del Sol Properties where video production facilities are available at low rates,    

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There are some great sayings in real estate. One that stays with me in times of depressed markets is that 'a home is worth what some-one is willing to pay for it'!
So much for the valuation models that are used by the industry if this is true. The Real estate market is governed by simple supply and demand economics. In a market as large as the US this means that whilst home loans may be depressed in California, it is not necessarily the case that the market is not buoyant elsewhere.

The major factor affecting the market on a national level is the rate of information transfer and the understanding of it. Put simply...confidence has been lost in the market due to a lack of confidence, (demand) in the market due to a mis-understanding of the news reports of an isolated section of the market...the sub-prime crisis.
Equity loans are on the up as people turn to home equity loans instead of moving.

What will it take to bring back confidence? Well you can bank on the media to start the hype just as they have preached the doom and gloom. Their inability to explain a complicated issue in more than two syllables causing widespead uncertainty works for creating hope out of a 1/4 point cut in interest rates in the same way. In any event....don't panic....it wont take long.

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It's 2008 and the New Year holds many changes for a lot of people. Moving home is one of the biggest changes you can make in life....and one of the most stressful. Home loans in the latter part of 2007 were given out much more sparingly due to the credit crunch caused by the sub-prime collapse in the mortgage market. Property prices faltered in some states and there was a general feeling that the property market bubble may have burst.

Lots of people are putting off moving home and are turning to an equity loan to make improvements or add additions to their existing homes rather than poke a toe into the homes sales market.

Home equity loans can provide a simple way of coping with that ever-increasing family or just to bump up the amenities...a new kitchen, ROTG or similar project that will put off the need to move for a year or two until the market shows signs of rising confidence

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Lets make that two things on my mind....The Righteous Brothers and a Georgia Mortgage
The mortgage payment is on most peoples minds these days. What with the sub-prime crisis and effects of those variable rate mortgages cutting into everyones income its not surprising that refinance is at the top of a lot of peoples christmas list. Georgia refinancespecialist Georgiarate.com have some good ideas on the subject. They specialise in Atlanta Home loans so if you are in the need to refinance to get out of an upcoming rate hike you should see what they have to offer.
I am a little surprised at the trouble that variable rates have caused. most of it though has not stemmed from the rate being variable but from the fact that mortgage lenders lent too much money at subsidized rates just so they could lend.
In the UK, variable rates have been around for as long as I have...thats a long time! If the lenders had been a little more realistic in the income multiple that they lent against and a little more forthcoming about the actual costs when the real rates kicked in...things would have worked out a lot better.

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The AMLA Group who controls the Spanish Property MLS seems to be exploding! In the last few weeks the company has launched a Video site, a Spanish language version of its MLS - AMLA Casas, a Spanish Forum and now…if that wasn’t enough it is set to launch a site for holiday and villa rentals in Spain. The No.1 ranked site for Spanish Property seems to be going all out to corner the property market in Spain. Its use of a forum to bring the Ex-Pat community businesses together with the future residents will create the first social networking site in the Property Industry…An interesting concept combining the most popular type of searched site in the UK with property sales and rentals…..could be an interesting result…..lets watch and see! Comments are off for this post

It sounds good doesn’t it, someone out there has got so much money they can be a cash property buyer. The reality is however that these are usually people who have access to financing such that they can buy properties almost instantly, in effect making it appear like they have piles of cash sat in the bank waiting. The big advantage of being a cash buyer of properties is that you can get large discounts on property asking prices, especially where the seller needs to get their hands on the money really quick. Following the credit crisis and falling property prices some people may think it’s the wrong time to buy properties as an investment, but the fact is if you are an effective cash buyer you can get some huge discounts, more than enough to cover any residual fall in the property market. The upshot is that the canny property buyer can lock themselves into some prime properties for when the market recovers. Comments are off for this post

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