Last year I had a client who despite my efforts, and the loan officer’s efforts, to explain the mortgage process made a pretty big mistake. Before starting our home search we sat down with the loan officer to determine the payment he was comfortable with and get his mortgage pre-qualification letter. The client said he did not have the money for a down payment on a loan but did have the money for the closing costs in his bank account. Not a problem, there are plenty of 100% financing options available. . He explained in detail how the mortgage process works and what to avoid. The loan officer did a credit check and his credit score was decent so he qualified for a couple of the programs. The loan officer sat with my client and went over his income and debt to determine his ratios. Every thing looked good; he qualified for the loan at a good interest rate, so off we went to look at homes.

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IBS Team Real Estate Directory provides quality advertisement for Real Estate Agents web sites. Besides regular listing with your web site name and description it gives you two additional direct links to your MLS/Home Search and Agent’s/Office Property Listings. There is a free listing details page comes with it, which may be featured with your custom content, graphics, layout and links to your internal pages. Also, you can include your blog feed which will be automatically displayed on the page. Free submission require link back from indexed by Google page. All submissions reviewed by human editor, acceptance is not guaranteed.

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It is typical for a market slow down in the Burlington County area as we approached the holiday season and the winter months. This year, November had 764 properties listed with 530 properties sold. The number of properties listed is a significant increase compared to the properties listed in November over the last couple of years.

November 2005: 764 Listed 530 Sold
November 2004: 643 Listed 632 Sold
November 2003: 606 Listed 504 Sold
November 2002: 540 Listed 505 Sold
November 2001: 579 Listed 523 Sold

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I figured I’d start out with horror story of my own. I was fresh out of real estate school, had a couple of pending contracts, and was on my way to my very first settlement. I had the buyer during this transaction. Throughout the previous couple of weeks the buyer and seller had been in touch with each other and had seemed to develop a working relationship. They had made arrangements for the buyer to keep some of the furniture, including a very old piano that could be restored. They seemed to get along great.

The settlement was originally scheduled for a Friday, and the seller requested the weekend to move. The buyer was willing to postpone settlement until the following Monday. The buyer did have fish that needed to be relocated to the new house, since the buyer’s house settled Friday morning. The seller agreed to allow the buyer to move the fish tank in on that Friday. The buyer went to the property multiple times over the weekend to feed the fish and had multiple conversations with the seller. The buyer was told the movers were scheduled for first thing Monday morning.

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This section of my site is devoted to tales of transactions "gone wrong". Throughout each transaction there are many reasons that could cause a real estate transaction to fall apart. The purpose of this section is to give you, the future home sellers or buyers, an understanding of how different things can affect your real estate transaction in hopes of preventing you from making the same mistakes that others have made.

If you have a Real Estate Horror Story and would like to have it posted here please send your story via email to info@roxanneardary.com . I welcome agents, home buyers and sellers to submit their stories. Be sure to send a detailed explanation of your horror story and don’t forget to include how the horror story could have been prevented. Please refrain from including names of specific companies or people so we don’t run into legal issues down the line.

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An arictle printed in the Courier Post this morning discussed the Voorhees property tax assessment. The article title and excerpts are as follows:

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This year Moorestown, NJ was named the No.1 "Best Places to Live" for 2005 by Money Magazine and CNN/Money. Researching over 1300 cities in the country, Money Mag and CNN choose their top 10 and Moorestown ranked above the rest.

In November, Morgan Quinton announced their results for the 12th annual America’s Safest and Most Dangerous Cities naming Camden, NJ as the most dangerous place to live in America.

Funny thing is for those of you not from this area, they are only 15 -20 minutes from each other.

You don’t have to be a professional home stager, or higher one, in order to obtain a faster sale and a higher offer. Follow these simple guidelines and you can make your home stand out from it’s competition.

Before Showings Begin - Prepare Your Home

Prep Step 1: Clean!

Before you let a potential buyer step foot in your home, make sure the entire home has been cleaned from top to bottom. Everything in the home should be spotless, including appliances. All windows and skylights should be crystal clear. Be sure to clean vents and mirrors too. If you do not have time to do it yourself, hire a cleaning service.

Prep Step 2: Eliminate Odors

If you have pets or are a smoker, your home could have odors that you do not notice but a potential buyer would. Try to keep pets confined to an area that is not part of the main living areas. If you are a smoker, smoke outdoors and not in the home because the scent lingers. If it is possible that your carpets, furniture and curtains are retaining odors that may be offensive to others, be sure to have professional cleaners handle this as well. Offensive odors can be the cause of homes sitting on the market for a long period of time.

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I came across these articles today that discuss the increase of white collar crimes in the mortgage industry. The first article states the following:

"Another rapidly-growing threat the FBI investigates is mortgage fraud. Nearly 22,000 mortgage-related suspicious activity reports have been filed this year. Losses have increased from $429 million in 2004 to over $1 billion in 2005. Like corporate fraud, mortgage lending and the housing market have a significant impact on our nation’s economy. Many people want to believe their homes are worth more than they are, and the recent housing booms across the U.S. have attracted criminals who want to exploit the situation to make a quick profit.
The FBI investigates mortgage fraud in two distinct areas: fraud for housing and fraud for profit. Fraud for housing represents illegal action perpetrated solely by the borrower, the motive being to acquire and maintain ownership of a house under false pretenses, such as misrepresenting income or employment history, or using a stolen identity for the transaction.
The FBI focuses the majority of its mortgage fraud efforts on fraud for profit. This is commonly referred to as "Industry Insider Fraud," which speaks for itself. We estimate that 80 percent of all reported fraud losses involve collaboration or collusion by industry leaders. Typically, their M.O. is revolving equity, falsely inflating property values, or issuing loans based on fictitious properties.

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Hello and thanks for stopping in. I’ve created this blog to talk about the different aspects of real estate in the Burlington County and Camden County area, as well as to share some personal experiences.

For starters my name is Roxanne Ardary a.k.a “Real Estate Rox”. I will begin with how I got into real estate. I used to teach Ballroom and Latin dancing as well as compete professionally around the country. I thoroughly enjoyed the sport and met some wonderful people while teaching and traveling. Unfortunately, over the course of 12 years, I sustained quite a few injuries that made dancing and teaching extremely difficult at times. I decided it was best I started looking for other career options.
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