Selling tip " Show them so they will see it"

What do you do with a property that is seriously outdated in every regard, or in Realtor speak
"original". You've heard all the helpful selling ideas before like, bake a loaf of fresh bread, paint the front door, stage the property, de clutter and so on, good tips but none would help sell an outdated home.

No,  if you want to sell your "original" home you must help buyers see it as it could be and show them how little it would cost. This is important especially when you consider that most buyers and Realtors have no clue what it costs to remodel/update a home so they guess wrong and that normally doesn't bode well for the seller. If you want to sell your home quickly and for the highest possible price, take the guess work out of the equation.

All you have to do is go to your local Home Depot or Lowes and let them know you want to find out how much it will cost to remodel your home or kitchen or bath, whatever.  They will help you every step of the way and they will do it for free. When your finished you will have color renderings and prices which you can share with buyers to show them what can be done and for how much or little. This will be a tremendous help to potential buyers and beneficial to you, by your removing the guess work they can see your home as it could be and not as it is. In sales this is called " selling the sizzle not the steak" Its works, so be sure to try it, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Take a look at this example

What Is

Completely redesigned kitchen, Corian counter tops, new high end Stainless appliance all for under $14,000

Is the rebound in housing for real? Really!

While our national real estate market has clearly been on the mend for at least the past year, building positive momentum month after month there are still many potential buyers who refuse to believe what they read, hear and see as it relates to housing.

These doubters are scared  to their own detriment. Which brings to mind this saying " The error of optimism dies in the crisis but in dying it gives birth to the error of pessimism. This new error is born, not an infant, but a giant." Which is exactly what has happened to many who now look at home ownership as high risk.

So while they will believe what they believe, lets look at some simple clear signals that in my opinion tell a very different story.

1-For the first time since the housing collapse most areas throughout the nation are experiencing home price appreciation. Many of these have realized year or year gains of 10% with estimates for continued positive gains ranging from 3-5% yearly for the next  five years. Home prices are going up for real which cannot be disputed.

2- Those who are still fearful have decided its better to rent then own. As a result of this phenomenon rental rates have been rising at double digits rates year over year. So it should come as no surprise that investors are buying up houses at a steady clip because they know its better for them to own and collect rent because there is no shortage of tenants.

3-  When you look at builders stock prices you will see that many have rebounded quite nicely the past two years and since the markets looks forward not backwards its been signally investors believe the turn around in housing is for real.

4- Another way to gauge the housing markets is to look at housing related commodity prices, for instance, look at lumber prices which collapsed in 2009 but have since rebounded to their old highs. If you do not believe the housing industry is in recovery how do you explain such price appreciation if there is no demand? Where is all the lumber going? What is it being used for if not the construction industry?

5-Yearly housing starts have risen to a little over 1 million, almost double from their lows of just a  few years ago but still half what they were at the height of construction. So housing starts are rebounding and have room to grow.

6- Another telling signal the real estate market is on our minds is seen in the rise of Internet searches concerning real estate which have doubled the last few years.

7- Then who hasn't heard the local stories about houses hitting the market one day, getting multiple offers the same day and going to contract. Its happening all over the country.

Granted these may not be the same indicators that the main stream media report on when talking about  the real estate market rebounding, but none the less they are worthy of consideration. Sooner or later all these bits and pieces of information will come together to form a real conclusion which will be " I don't want to say I told you so , but I told you so".

Peter ReJune
Realtor Broker Associate
Keller Williams Palm Beach
561-793-2493

Short Sales in Palm Beach County not handled well

As a real estate professional I find it very upsetting to find distressed owners in desperate need of help, getting little if any from their real estate agent. It unfortunate that so many of these distress owners have little or no idea how to traverse the complicated maze one needs to when dealing with a Short Sale workout. What's even worse is that their real estate agent who they are depending on for this help and guidance in most cases will provide neither.

Distressed owners looking to do a Short Sale workout with their lender need more then just finding a buyer for their home. While this is an important piece of the Short Sale work out puzzle, believe it or not it isn't the most critical piece of the puzzle.  I say this because unless the owner and lender can work out all the many other important details of the Short Sale and do it in the shortest period of time either the buyer will get frustrated and cancel the contract or the owner will end up in foreclosure canceling out the Short Sale contract. This happens because the lender will pursue both (Short Sale and Foreclosure) simultaneously to insure either way they will get this matter resolved without concern for what best for the owner.  

OK then so what does a distressed owner need to do to dramatically increase their chances they will resolve their differences with their lender.

First they must acknowledge their in trouble and need help. Second they need to find a professional Realtor who has the knowledge as well as access to the resources needed for a successful and expeditious Short Sale workout.  Realtors need to do more then just list a Short Sale home for sale, though this is where most agents stop, leaving the owner to deal directly with their lender which often ends very badly for the owner.

A professional Realtor will take the time needed to properly evaluate and determine if the owner will meet the lenders heart ship requirements for short sale consideration. Once that is established the Realtor would then get its support team in place to help with processing the owners work out package as well as monitor and assist the owner through what is actually a seven stage process that can take up to four months to complete.

Sadly, the failure of many distress owners to secure a Short sale workout from their lender is evident in Palm Beach County as our foreclosures are up 20% year to date. Also Per Realty Trac as of the end of January this year there was approximately 30,000 foreclosures pending in Palm Beach County. While foreclosure is the last and worst option for both distressed owner and lender, it is much worse for the owner then the lender. 

So the take away is that distressed owners need to find a professional Realtor like myself who has both the knowledge and support team needed to insure that they secure a Short Sale workout with their lender and not end up in Foreclosure.  

Peter ReJune

Realtor Broker Associate

Keller Williams Palm Beach

561-793-2493

Palm Beach Home sales exploding

The residential Palm Beach real estate market is BACK. Although the national home real sale statistics had shown for many months that the nations real estate market in general was on the mend with many areas posting year or year double digits price gains, the same could not be said about Palm Beach. However now the Palm Beach residential real estate market can boast the same excellent results as well.

When you compare this years first four months Palm Beach residential sales with last year you can see a definite positive strong trend in place.  Compared to last year this time, there has been a 37% increase in homes under contract, a 40% increase in homes sold, the listing price to sales price ratio is up 4%, and the average sales price is up a whopping 20%. So the metrics for Palm Beach residential resales is looking very good, with the only negatives being a shortage of resale inventory, with active listings down 17% and new listing down by 13%. However this is precisely when a negative is actually a positive for sellers because when supply is down, with buyer demand remaining constant or improving, home prices rise and the market begins to turn. This is exactly what is going on right now in Palm Beach. Its a phenomenon we haven't seen in this market for many years, buyers competing for a limited supply of quality homes. Can somebody say " sellers market"

West Palm Beach Foreclosures (REO) coming soon

Once again Palm Beach county is setting records in the world of real estate "according to RealtyTrac’s Foreclosure(REO)  Market Report for February 2013: One in every 282 housing units with a mortgage had a foreclosure filing during the month – more than three times the national average." that ups 6% from January 2013 and up 20% year to date. Florida has the honor to be #1 in the nation with the highest foreclosure rate for the past six months in a row!

Now dont let these stats get you down, on the contrary if your a buyer you should get excited because what this means to you is OPPORTUNITY. These REO homes coming to our markets soon have been in the REO pipeline for a long while. In the mean time Palm Beach County homes sales has been steadily growing with inventory drying up which has resulted in a shortage of good resale inventory.

So if you have been wanting to buy a home in our area look at the increase of REO properties coming as OPPORTUNITY to get a good quality home at below market prices.

You can keep track of REO inventory as well as daily changes through my website http://www.peterrejune.kwrealty.com. Just select the area of the county your interested in,

Palm Beach County Homes sales

Just like the Beatles sang " Its getting better all the time" Palm Beach County homes sales for February when compared to this time last year have shown dramatic improvement.

Resale inventory ( Listings for sale) have dropped to 5.8 months supply which is down 11.1% YOY and considered very light supply. This is not enough to meet the current demand, which bodes well for sellers who can expect more competition from buyers which translates into potentially even higher sales prices.

Single Family Homes sales are up 27% YOY
Condo sales up 28.5% YOY

Number of days a property is on the market for sale has dropped 13.9% from 101 to now 87 days YOY

A whopping 55% of all sales were to cash buyers which is up 6.2% YOY

So if your thinking about selling, there is no better time then right now to get your property listed for sale because the momentum is clearly on your side. Whether the market for sellers gets better or not is anybodies guess but for right now you have the wind to your back. Just dont fight it, what I mean to say is if you want to sell faster and at a higher price you need to make sure your home is priced properly at fair market value otherwise all you will be doing with your over priced listing is directing your potential buyers to look at and buy other more fairly priced homes, not yours.

If you've been thinking of buying you better get serious because everyday you wait is costing you money, right now homes prices are on the rise so do not let a good deal get away from you, you have to act sooner rather then later. If you need to finance your purchase be sure to get yourself pre approved because most sellers will want to know up front if your qualified because they do not want to waste their time finding out, especially when they can sell to somebody else that is qualified.

Whether your a buyer or seller you can call me to help you put together a detailed plan on the best way to approach this market so that you will come out ahead.

Thank you
Peter ReJune
Realtor Broker Associate
Keller Williams Palm Beach
C-561-793-2493

West Palm Beach foreclosures (REO)

Yes we did it again, as of February 2013 Florida has the distinction of being #1 with the highest home foreclosure (REO) rate in the nation for the sixth month in a row. Thats up 6% over January and up 20% year over year.

There are about 15,000 Palm Beach County foreclosures that were filed between 2007 and 2010 that are still unresolved with a total of about 30,000 foreclosure cases pending as of the end of January 2013

Now as bad as our  REO numbers sound Palm Beach County was not ranked in the top 10 REO spots for the nation. Florida did grab 7 of the top ten national spots, Miami was awarded the #1 position, Orlando at No. 2, Ocala No. 3,Tampa No. 4, Palm Bay No. 5, Jacksonville No. 8 and Naples No. 9. but as you can see Palm Beach County wasn't one of them.

So in other words Palm Beach County seems to be slowly but surely making progress digging its way out from under its REO back log. As a result of demand for good housing in Palm Beach county banks will be very receptive to get their REO inventory back on the market ASAP. This bodes well for first time home buyers who are finding good quality valued homes harder to find. Many of our REO properties often are in very good condition and priced to sell quickly, getting multiple offers within the first week of availability. So any increase in REO inventory will represent OPPORTUNITY to thousands of buyers.

If your interested in tracking the REO inventory in Palm Beach county you can do this right from my website  http://peterrejune.kwrealty.com/ look under communities served, click the area that interest you, and you will find regular listing, REO and short sales for that area.

Good luck,

Peter ReJune
Keller Williams Palm Beach
Direct-561-793-2493
realestate53@comcast.net

Real estate sale stats nationally

The National Association of Realtors says that based on the recent national housing stats it appears the industry could be shifting from a buyers market to a seller’s market.

Supporting data:
New home listings fell in January by 4.9%, leaving approx. 1.75 Million properties for sale which is the lowest sales inventory since 1999.
Home sales rose in January, to an annual rate of 4.92 million sales which is up from 9.1% one year ago.

So right now we have more buyers chasing a declining number of homes that are for sale. If the current pace of sales continues it will take about 4 months to sell the entire current national supply of homes on the market. Not only does this help to confirm the market could finally be shifting to the sellers side but then add to that a consensus by economists that they see sales increasing nearly 12% from last year and it really seems like a change in market sentiment.

This then explains why NAR believes sellers are beginning to have the upper hand.

Some advice for sellers:

If you want to sell quickly and get the best price possible put your feelings aside and look only at the current facts. You have to take into consideration your local resale market conditions, your homes overall condition, your neighborhood condition and your personal financial situation.

Its a known fact that homes priced to Fair Market Value will sell more quickly and at higher prices then over priced listings. Say what?

A home priced properly will get many showings its first week on the market then an over priced listing.

A home priced fairly will get more written offers faster then over priced listing if they get any offers at all.  

A home priced fairly will be contracted and closed before an over priced listing gets its first written offer.

A home priced fairly means money in your bank account sooner rather then later, or permits you to move into your new home sooner rather then later.

An over priced listing means you will be losing more and more money every single day it doesn't sell and close.

If your goal is to put as much money as you can in your pocket then hire a professional Realtor who will tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear. You will be better off for it!

real estate location is important but whose?

Now anybody in the business worth his/her salt knows when it comes to buying or selling any property location will one day play a pivotal role in its future saleability. But contrary to what you may think this is not a discussion of property location its a discussion concerning the location of the prospective Realtor used to list ones home for sale.

When interviewing Realtors is it important to owners that their Realtor live on their block right next door to them, or perhaps in the same building, or in same complex or at least in the neighborhood. While this on the surface may seem to be very important there is no data to support the belief that if your Realtor lives nearby you that they will do a better job for you then another Realtor who doesn't. 

The question is not whether or not your Realtor and or even their office is nearby you,  its what does the Realtor and or his office bring to the table that will help you sell your home faster and for the highest price possible.  Does it really matter where they are located or does it matter what they can do for you where you are located.

Don't be so quick to dismiss any Realtor just because they or their office isn't the closest to your home.  Do yourself a favor and give then some time so you can find out how they can help you, give them time to explain their marketing strategy, find out if you like them  which IMO is very very important, do you trust what your hearing from them, do you like their idea etc.

Remember the Realtor you list with is almost assured not the one who will sell your home, it will be another Realtor who found your listing in the Multiple Listing Service. So If the Realtor who sells your home doesn't live on your block, or in your building, or in your complex or in your neighborhood will you really care, I donut think so, so why put so much credence in the location of where your Realtor lives and works. The location of your listing agent is not as important as their ability to properly market your homes for sale which has noting to do with their location as much as it has to do with their motivation.

Florida real estate scams- one for the books but why?

Its started out simply as a normal day at the office. Until I received an inquiry from a young woman who I will call Jane,  who was looking for a 2 bed 2 bath condo on Palm Beach, price range 250-300,000. She needed to get into something quickly, but didn't really know what she wanted or needed and so to better understand her needs I began to ask the important questions. She didn't mind all the questions I was asking her, in fact she thanked me for being so thorough because the last agent she worked with wasn't and ended up sending her 30 properties to review. Over whelmed she just gave up and stated to look for another agent, which ended up being lucky me.

After speaking with her for a short while and asking her questions she couldn't answer she advised me that she wasn't actually buying the property, somebody she knew was buying it for her to use because he wanted to help her improve her current living conditions which were not healthy. Ok, I thought no problem, so I suggested that she speak with her benefactor and get back to me with some answers. Next thing I knew I was on a conference call with lets call him John. John introduced himself to me and said that Jane had nothing but nice things to say about me (stroke, stroke). Of course I was flattered ( I am a professional thank you) and appreciative they appreciated my candor. So anyway John jumped right into the Frey and advised he wanted to buy something for Jane to use because of her problematic living arrangements. Without asking I figured Jane was in a bad marriage, or bad relationship, maybe physical and or mental abuse, in any case I wanted to help them both out.

Now the conversation moved quickly and decisively, we went from moving a 20MPH to 100MPH , John tells me he wants to spend between 500- 1 Million dollars, monthly expenses were of no concerns because they were business deductions. John tells me how busy he is, that he expected me to do the research and get back to them like yesterday. I'm like no problem, will hop to it. So our conversation ends with me telling Jane and John they will hear from me within very soon. To which John says just talk with Jane, you know what I want so no need to speak with him again because he is a busy busy man.

Within  a matter of hours I find three rare Palm Beach Town Homes for sale in one small community that fit their every need. So I called Jane, who liked the properties I found so she calls John who tells her to set up appointments to see them all ASAP. Within 24 hrs. Jane and I are touring all three properties, and within one hour Jane had her favorite of the three. (Yes) Then Jane calls John, John calls me, John tells me to send him the comparable info to justify the values and help him establish which one represents the best value. Ok now Im excited, this deal is moving fast, we have a serious buyer that wants the bottom line to determine if he will make an offer or not. Its does happen :)

The next day I'm working up a complete value analysis, and because I'm thorough I really work my magic to show John he is dealing with a professional. I email my analysis to Jane who emails it to John, John then calls me the next day and tells me, great job his team reviewed my numbers and their numbers concurred with mine (stroke, stroke Im so smart). So the next step was to get a contract offer in the works, so I tell John are we going to make an offer. To which he responds Yes. Not wanting to show my excitement I calmly explain the process that would follow. This is when John starts to open up to me, you know because we are friends now. John begins to tell me about the businesses that he is involved in over seas from his home base in Monaco. How he moved there for reasons he could not get into but drops high profile politically connected names to impress me which I was. Yet I was for the first some what uneasy about this because, in my experience most high profile business men keep quite about such things, but I just figured he felt comfortable and safe talking with me so. In any case the next day I get instructions from the buyer how to prepare the contract, Johns corporation would be the buyer and he would be the authorized agent of the corporation to execute the contract. So I prepare all the contract documents and email it to John and I wait. After about 24 hours I call him, Oh I forgot to tell you he felt so at ease with me that he gave me his direct email and cell number, (stroke, stroke). Now when I speak with John he tells me to send the contract to Jane to give to his people for legal review. I thought it was strange he didn't forward the contract himself but I did it because you know I didn't want to upset the apple cart. yes we were friends now but not yet BFF.

Now a couple days go by and I find out my contract did past legal review ?  and was ok, only problem was my contract had already expired so I had to resend which I did with new dates. Then John started traveling for business, always flying here and there and so the new contract expired as well which required I send another. However the third time was a charm, he signed it and got it back to me in time to submit it to the seller for review. Unfortunately the deal was rejected and John put it on the back burner. In the mean time John has now taken me into his confidence and advises he needs to get some properties lined up for his staff and executive people to use. You know when they come to Palm Beach to conduct business on the Island. John explains that the cost of staying in the best hotels on the Island was crazy and it was better for them to own something rather then rent in high season. So John instructs me to find other properties for him to review. I'm secretly over joyed but John never knew because I was calm cool and collected, I'm a professional Realtor who knows how to conduct business without showing emotion :).

So Im looking through my Palm Beach listings for suitable properties for my high profile businessman, who BTW is now calling me and texting me multiple times a day. With each passing day the price of the homes I'm researching is growing and the explanations provide by John made sense. After all these people, his executives he tells me make many millions a year and were used to living life large and so he was instructed to locate properties befitting their professional stature in life.

Before I knew it I was looking at properties in Miami Beach, now I'm not talking small places I'm talking big expensive high profile properties. Ok so I know what I know about Miami can fit in a thimble but I'm thinking to earn the kind of money I was looking at I can sure learn and so I take up the responsibility. Now Im working from morning to night researching, analyzing Miami real estate, and talking to John via texting on  a regular daily basis. I'm making calls to Miami agents, getting info, working on putting together a multiple unit package of properties. Before I know it I working on deals I would have never thought were possible, in amounts that didn't seem real.

As excited as I was working on this I was concerned I never was able to get any real info from John as it related to his place of business. Normally when working on large deals I would have asked for the pertinent info upfront but since this started out as a regular small deal I fell into a trap of not feeling comfortable after working with John for so long.  What corporate info. he did give me I couldn't verify and when I mentioned this subtly he didn't respond he just went on to discuss other things about other properties.

Going into my second week of working nothing by John deals I did start to wonder what I was doing because when you step back and look at it from a  distance what I was doing it really didn't make sense, in pieces it looked OK but in total it didn't add up. To make it even more troubling we never are inking and deals, we get close but then John has me looking at new properties. But then I would rationalize because I wanted it to be true, Ive been working so had and long on this and I knew of stranger things that have happened, people do win the lottery, movie stars are discovered in fast food restaurants, so why cant my deal be real.

As I talked more and more to the Realtors I was working with in Miami a few started to ask me some pointed questions which I didn't have answers to and BTW I felt like an idiot because I knew I should have had the answers. Yet I was still in denial, what if there was one glimmer of hope this was real, I couldn't just let it go, so I hung in but I was beginning to frey around the edges and my confidence was cracking.To try and recover I started to advise John how things would be need to be in order to move forward on any of these transactions (escrows, proof of funds) to which he didn't respond directly. He did slowly move more in the direction I needed as it related to making offers so I hung in and hoped for the best, John seemed to be coming around, I thought.

With each passing hour I grew more and more skeptical, and was trying to figure out how to finally determine if John was who he proclaimed himself to be. Normally this wouldn't be so hard to do from the onset but considering I was two weeks into this it was nothing less then very awkward. To make matter worse some of the Miami Realtors I was talking with advised how they have been involved in similar situations and ended up just wasting there time. So knowing I was not the only one who may have been snookered and knowing in my heart no matter how much I wanted to believe this was real it was probably not, see not a true believer yet :)

So I decided to try to some how smoke him out, enough was enough and to that end I sent him an email that was IMO soft, requesting only the smallest of information to set my mind at ease. See my email below with some personal info removed

"I need your help. If you recall I advised that I had to go to meetings/drama the past couple days the concern how I was spending my time doing business the past couple weeks. Of which my primary focus has been working with you, providing you with information on high end properties in Miami as well as Palm Beach. Resulting inquiries have become quite pointed requiring that I verify your LLC as a registered U.S corporate entity, which I have not been able to do using the information that I have. As a result I need you to confirm and or provide revised corporate information to verify this LLC is registered in USA as well as that you are the authorized agent to sign for transactions exercised in its name. I really need to verify your corporate information through whatever state government site is required. Verification of this information would only take me a few minutes and that would go a long way to solve this matter, allowing me to move forward.

As somebody that conducts the types of business transactions that you do I know you understand because you would and do require the same proper due diligence be performed on any entity or person you would deal with.

Thank you in advance for your help in this matter."

Ok I tried to be as nice as I could but guess what that was all it took to shut this entire process down in a matter of minutes. His response was quick and direct resulting in his cutting off all business ties with me as a result of what he proclaimed was my unprofessional conduct. All I can say to that is Dear John, Thank you

So there you have my cautionary tale. "If its sound to good to be true, your probably right" Dont let yourself get sucked in like I did, one bit at a time because before you know it you will be up to your eyeballs in Horse shit and expecting to find a pony somewhere under neath it all.

To all the Realtors I worked with during this time I want to say I'm sorry I wasted your time, you were all very professional and very helpful and that was the one good thing that I got out of this entire crazy experience knowing how professional and helpful you all were.

In the end I have no idea why anybody would do what my Dear John with me but it wont happen again because as Mark Twain once said " If a cat sits on a hot stove it wont sit on a hot stove again but it wont sit on a cold one because its over learned from its bad experience"

This whole experience brings to mind Cuba Goodings demands of  Jerry Mcquire

 "SHOW ME THE MONEY"

Palm Beach Real estate sales and national

When looking at the real estate stats its important to understand that not all stats are the same, its gets back to the basics of real estate LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

Lets talk about the national numbers first.

From Morgan Stanley Research Dec 2012: 2013 US Housing Projections: As 2012 winds down, we continue to expect aggregate home prices to finish the year up 7-9% from where they were last December. For 2013, we project an annualized increase of 4-6% in our base case. Our bull
and bear case projections posit increases of 7-9% and 0-2%, respectively. We expect both new and existing home sales to increase in 2013 in response to positive demand and supply factors. We are calling for new home sales to increase by 15% to 450,000 and existing home sales to climb 10% to 5.26 million. As far as transactions are concerned, we expect the composition of home sales to remain weighted towards non-distressed transactions. However, we do expect the number of distressed transactions to increase from current levels.
 

So in aggregate Morgan Stanley paints a pretty good scenario for the national real estate market in general for 2013


Here are the year over year numbers as provided by the Palm Beach Board of Realtors 

"New Listings were down 1.4 percent for detached homes and 9.7 percent for
attached properties. Pending Sales increased 53.6 percent for single-family
homes and 75.9 percent for townhouse-condo properties. The Median Sales Price was down 13.5 percent to $596,900 for detached homes and 27.0 percent to $365,000 for attached properties. Months Supply of Inventory decreased 32.3 percent for single-family units and 31.8 percent for
townhouse-condo units."

The numbers are even more interesting when you focus on Town homes and Condos.
 

New listings (93) -9.7%,  Pending Sales (51) +75.9%, Closed sales (25) +8.7%,  Days on the market (158) +18.8%, Median sales price (365K) -27%, Average sales price (438K)  -54.5%, discounted from original list price (+9%) still -14%, For sale units (679) -17.8%, months supply(15.9) -31.8%




So the Palm Beach stats for attached Town homes and or condos seems quite different then the national numbers as well as for Palm Beach detached homes. Its appears that these properties are not yet in recovery, in other words they don't appear to have hit bottom yet. Which makes sense because in Palm Beach probably 80% or better of all sales are for cash. As a result the pressure to sell during the great recession wasn't as great as for those owners who had leveraged there purchase using a mortgage, which in many cases would have resulted in the owner owing more then the value of their property. This being the case those buyers would have a great incentive to sell to break even or at a loss to get out from underneath the debt. While these types of sales do take place in Palm Beach they are far and away in the minority, actually these types of distress sales have for the most part had already taken place during the previous couple of years.

So then what explains such a difference in the stats for Palm Beach Town homes and Condos as compared to the national numbers. Well many Palm Beach condo/town home owners have misinterpreted the good national housing news to mean that what happens on a national level happens in Palm Beach as well. Well now we know that's not exactly true, the Palm Beach housing market is quite different in many ways, one of the biggest reasons is the preponderance of cash transactions that take place on the island. So with little pressure to sell many owners are reluctant to reduce prices to reflect current market conditions. Also there are many owners who have owned their units for several decades and done so without doing any major renovations but still expecting  to sell at top dollar.  So when you factor in high price and original condition you can see why the year over year stats in Palm Beach for these types of properties is not reflecting the positive results that are reflected in the national sales stats. So once again if you want to sell, you need to price your home properly to reflect its fair market value. Thats why its imperative that any owner looking to sell deal with a professional Realtor who will do a proper full market analysis and explain to the owner all the relative factors that will help or hinder its sale so that the required steps to maximize results are employed from the start.