Tag Archives: Bruce Ailion

Obamas Buy Their Rental

Posted on by

2011 portrait by Pete Souza of the Obama family

Realtor.com quoted me in Former President Obama Finally Buys the DC Home He’s Renting: 6 Smart Reasons Why. It reads, in part,

Former President Barack Obama has decided that buying beats renting. The former first family have surprised many by purchasing the Washington, DC, house they’ve been leasing and living in since January, coughing up $8.1 million to call the place their own.

After vacating the White House, the Obamas had moved into the 6,441-square-foot, nine-bedroom, 8.5-bath mansion, located at 2446 Belmont Road NW in the tony neighborhood of Kalorama. The neighborhood has since become the place for the new political elite, with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump moving into a luxe rental a couple of blocks away, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson snapping up a $5.6 million Colonial Revival down the street.

The reason the Obamas decided to stick around DC in the first place was so their younger daughter, Sasha, then a freshman at posh Sidwell Friends, could finish up high school there. With only three years to go, renting seemed to make sense so that the Obamas could easily pick up and move once she’s done.

But apparently, there’s been a big change of heart. Why?

On its surface, their decision seems a bit puzzling, given Sasha now has only two–and-a-half years to go. In real estate, the general rule is that it makes sense to buy a home only if you plan to stay put for five years, because this allows time for your house to appreciate, which helps you recoup hefty closing costs.

“People who sell after a year or two of ownership will often find that they have lost money on their purchase,” explains David Reiss, research director at the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship at Brooklyn Law School.

Nonetheless, real estate agents and other experts we spoke to say there could be plenty of reasons it’s smarter for the Obamas to buy rather than rent, even for this short span of time. Here are a few possibilities to ponder.

Reason No. 1: They’re making a commitment to DC

As presidential spokesman Kevin Lewis explained in a statement, “Given that President and Mrs. Obama will be in Washington for at least another two and a half years, it made sense for them to buy a home rather than continuing to rent property.”

Granted, you can read a whole lot into that “at least” if you want. After all, as Atlanta Realtor® Bruce Ailion explains, “Many buyers think they will only be in a property for two to three years and end up living there three to seven years. That is common.”

And it might be an indicator that our former commander in chief isn’t ready to shed the political life quite yet.

“Perhaps they want to keep a foothold in Washington, DC, for other reasons with regard to political advocacy and involvement,” says Florida Realtor Cara Ameer.

Reason No. 2: In certain markets, 2.5 years is long enough to make a profit

While 2.5 years might not be long enough to profit on a home in general, that rule varies widely by neighborhood, based on rent levels, home prices—and how quickly both are going up. And this is one hot neighborhood.

It isn’t known exactly what the Obamas were paying in monthly rent, but estimates hover at around $22,000. It’s entirely possible that the former first couple did the math and determined that buying made far more financial sense, and that mortgage payments would be less of a monthly nut. (To find out what’s best for you, you can crunch the numbers in an online rent vs. buy calculator.)

*     *     *

Reason No. 5: This home will sell for a premium—he’s a former president, after all!

“It was always a little perplexing why the Obamas would ever rent if they planned to stay for anything longer than a year,” contends Washington, DC, real estate agent Rachel Valentino.

Her reason: “While they’re buying at market value, they can eventually financially benefit on the back end, where a buyer will pay significantly more for the celebrity factor. We aren’t Southern California, where every house has that star appeal. So, I can only imagine what a buyer will eventually pay to own a piece of history.”

Reason No. 6: Profits aren’t everything

“One lesson we can draw from this story is that buying a home should not always be seen as a financial transaction,” says Reiss. “Sometimes we buy a home because it’s best for our family at a particular time. Sometimes we buy a home because we fall in love with it. And sometimes those are the best reasons of all to buy a home, profits be damned.”

Firing Your Real Estate Agent

Posted on by

photo by m01229

USA Today quoted me in How (And When) To Fire Your Real Estate Agent. It opens,

Breaking up is hard to do. Add a house and tens of thousands of dollars into the mix, and it can get downright ugly.

Unlike romantic entanglements, though, breaking up with your real estate agent as a seller if you’re not getting the service or the results promised doesn’t have to be dramatic. Here’s what you can do early on to minimize the damage — and how to handle the situation if, alas, you do come to irreconcilable differences.

When you first enlist an agent

Review your contract closely. Many real estate agents require their clients to sign an exclusive representation agreement, which is essentially an employment contract, says Brian Pendergraft, a real estate attorney in Greenbelt, Md. These contracts spell out how the client and real estate agent will each uphold their end of the deal, and they tend to be worded to protect the agent’s interests, says David Reiss, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, New York.

As a seller, you’ll want to ensure the contract covers your rights, too. This includes outlining exactly how your agent will market your home, and a plan to generate enough showings within a set timeframe so that you’ll have a legal leg to stand on for early termination, Reiss says.

Understand your options for termination from the get-go. There are a few ways to call it quits with your agent, but the win-win situation is a no-penalty termination in which neither party is penalized if the relationship ends prematurely, says Bruce Ailion, a Realtor and attorney in Atlanta. Include this detail in your contract.

If things go sour

Consider what constitutes a fireable offense. If you’re upset with your agent about sales strategy, lack of communication or poor service, those are issues that are unlikely to be resolved easily, Ailion says. Or perhaps you’re worried that your agent is in murky legal waters, such as refusing to show your home to people from certain protected groups or failing to share a property disclosure with buyers. Report these issues immediately to the agent’s broker of record, who is responsible for the real estate agents in a brokerage, Ailion says.

Put it in writing. If your agreement is in writing, you have to get out of it in writing even if there’s no specific expiration date, Pendergraft says. Write a letter or email to your agent requesting to part ways. If you get no response, hire an attorney to write a demand letter for you, Pendergraft says. This shows you mean business — at a fraction of the cost to take the issue to court.

Another Housing Bubble?

Posted on by

bubble-500130_1280

Trulia quoted me in Warning Signs: Another Housing Bubble Is Coming. It opens,

Signs show another bubble coming. Some experts have a different opinion.

When the housing market crashed in 2008, it caused what came to be known as ”The Great Recession.” When the bubble burst, it ”sent a shock through the entire financial system, increasing the perceived credit risk throughout the economy,” according to a report published in The Journal of Business Inquiry.

The crash caused homes to lose up to half their value. People became underwater, owing more than their home was worth. And who wants to pay on a mortgage that’s larger than what the home could sell for? Although some people did just that, many more opted to short sell their homes or to simply walk away and have the bank foreclose.

Present Day

Fast-forward to 2016, and we are seeing hot, even ” overheated,” housing markets; bidding wars; rising home prices; and house flippers – all the signs of a housing bubble that’s about to burst. Are we repeating the mistakes we made before? Yes and no. Let’s explore four reasons the housing bubble burst and whether we’re experiencing the same conditions today.

1. Easy Credit

Before the 2008 crash, credit was easy to get. Pretty much, if you were breathing, you could get a mortgage loan. This led to people getting mortgages who ultimately couldn’t afford to pay them back. They lost their homes, and this contributed in large part to the housing crisis. Today the situation is different. ”Credit is still much tighter than it was before the financial crisis,” says David Reiss, professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. ”This is particularly true for those with less-than-perfect credit scores.” He explains: ”There are almost no no-down-payment loans as there were in the early 2000s. Those defaulted at incredibly high rates.”

But what about Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans? They feature ”low down payments, low closing costs, and easy credit qualifying.” Those are the very features that should sound some warning bells. But before you get too alarmed, keep in mind that the FHA has been making loans to people who do not qualify for a conventional mortgage since 1934. ”While there are low-down-payment loans available from Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA, their underwriting standards appear to be higher than those for low-down-payment products from the early 2000s,” says Reiss.

2. Low Interest Rates

Mortgage rates have been low for so long that you might not realize that was not always the case. In 1982, for example, mortgage rates were 18 percent. From 2002 to 2005, the rates stayed at about 6 percent, which enticed people to take out mortgage loans. And in 2016, we’re seeing historic lows of under 3.5 percent. If rates go up, we might see housing demand and housing prices fall.

3. ARMS

Before the housing crash when home prices were rising fast, many people were priced out of the market with a fixed-rate mortgage because they couldn’t afford the monthly mortgage payments. But they could afford lower payments that were possible with an adjustable-rate mortgage – until that rate adjusted up. In 2005, 38.5 percent of the mortgage market was ARMs. But in 2015, that amount has dropped considerably to 5.3 percent.

4. A Buying Frenzy

There’s an old story that before the stock market crash of 1929, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., sold his shares. Why? Because he received a stock tip from a shoeshine boy. Kennedy figured, the story goes, that if the stock market was popular enough for a shoeshine boy to be interested, the speculative bubble had become too big.

Before the housing crash, this country saw a home buying frenzy similar to what happened before the stock market crash. Everyone from lenders to rating agencies to investors (foreign and American) to investment bankers to home buyers was eager to get into the mortgage game because house values kept rising. Today, we are seeing a similar buying frenzy in some markets, such as San Francisco, New York, and Miami . Some experts think that the price increases of homes in those areas are not sustainable. They say that because heavy foreign investment in those areas is part of what’s driving up prices, if those investments slow or stop, we could see a bubble burst.

So what do some experts think?

David Ranish, owner/broker for The Coastline Real Estate Group in Laguna Beach, CA, says: ”There are concerns about another housing bubble, but I do not see it. The market could stabilize, but a complete collapse is highly unlikely.”

Bruce Ailion, an Atlanta, GA, real estate expert, says,” ”Five to six years ago, I was a buyer of homes. Today I am a seller.”

David Reiss says, ”It is probably a fool’s game to predict the future of the housing market or whether we are in a bubble that is soon to burst.”

Dual Agency Explained

Posted on by

photo by Richard P J Lambert

Trulia quoted me in What Is Dual Agency? (And Why You Should Beware). It opens,

Home sellers and homebuyers are two sides of a complementary transaction. Should they each have their own agent, or is one agent enough? The answer: It depends.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” But if you’ve ever puzzled over it’s meaning, here’s a hint: If you eat your cake now, you won’t have any left over to look forward to eating later. In other words, sometimes a person is forced to make a choice between two good options. In the real estate world, dual agency breaks the cake rule: If your real estate agent also represents the sellers of the home you want to buy, you don’t necessarily need to ditch them. In many cases, you can keep your agent and get the house too — if you want to, that is.

Whether you’re buying a home in Providence, RI, or Tampa, FL, it’s typical for one agent to represent the seller and another agent to represent the buyer. With dual agency, one agent works for both the buyer and seller — and keeps the full commission. Dual agency also occurs when agents from the same brokerage represent each party. But like enjoying a huge slice of cake and in return getting a bellyache, there are definitely pros and cons to agreeing to dual agency.

Pro: Streamlined communication

Because one real estate agent or brokerage represents the buyer and the seller, the agent doesn’t need to wait every time communication needs to happen between the parties. Streamlined communication often creates a smoother transaction. “You are in charge of both sides, including paperwork, scheduling, and deadlines,” says Mindy Jensen, a Colorado agent and community manager of BiggerPockets.com. “We’ve all been involved in a sale with an agent who didn’t respond in a timely manner, missed deadlines, and in general did not perform their duties as they should have. For us control freaks, dual agency can seem like a great thing.”

Con: No advice

Because a dual agent is working in a potential conflict-of-interest situation — one client (the seller) wants to get as high a price as possible, while the other client (the buyer) wants to pay as little as possible — the agent can’t take sides or give advice. Bruce Ailion, an Atlanta, GA, real estate agent and attorney, compares dual agency to having one attorney representing both husband and wife in a divorce. “The parties’ interests are adverse and are best represented by independent professionals,” he says.

The agent in a dual agency situation becomes, instead of a coach, more of a referee. “The agent cannot disclose confidential information to either party and has to act in a neutral position during the transaction,” says Emily Matles, a New York, NY, agent with Douglas Elliman. Matthew Berger, another New York, NY, agent with Douglas Elliman, says: “When the listing agent steps into the role of dual agent, they cannot give advice to the seller nor the buyer.” On the other hand, when you have an independent agent, “You are more likely to get the benefits of being a principal getting fiduciary benefits,” Ailion says.

Pro: There must be full disclosure

Whether you’re a seller or a buyer, there’s nothing to fear about dual agency: If you don’t consent to the practice, it won’t happen. “The dual-agent broker must ensure that both parties know of the arrangement and consent to it,” says David Reiss, professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. His advice: “Home sellers should review the terms of the listing agreement before they sign it to see if dual agency is being contemplated.”