What Online Lenders Can't Do for You

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Hey there everyone, thanks for checking out our blog. We hope you've had a great summer. Today we want to talk about internet lenders and what can happen when they aren't familiar with contract laws and other state specific laws. We run into buyers all the time that use online lenders that aren't in the area and they aren't familiar with our contract laws.

 The biggest thing to keep in mind here is that when the lender issues a commitment letter, you are lifting your loan contingency. If the loan happens to have some conditions that you can't meet, you are in jeopardy of losing your deposit. We've had that happen a few times lately. Conditions can't be met and the buyer's deposit was at stake. It's definitely something to watch out for and we can't stress enough why going with a local lender is crucial to avoiding this, especially in a resort type area like our own.

We would also like to send a big congratulations out to our entire team for being nominated as one of the top 50 Keller Williams teams in the country. We are very proud of our team being recognized in a pool of over 100,000 agents and we are on track to reach all of our goals for this year. We have helped hundreds of families find their dream home and we hope you can be next! If you have any questions or are looking to buy or sell, let us know. Give us a call or send us an email and we would love help you out.

How we helped Josh with his real estate needs by making sure everything was prepped to go

 "We were purchasing a house offshore in the Caribbean so we wanted to hold off on listing our home until we knew we had something locked up down there. Dylan had everything prepped like having all the photos done and everything ready to go from minute we told them we were ready. We told them on a Thursday night and by Friday afternoon we had our first offer, which we accept and had a second backup offer before the weekend was over. I can’t say enough good things about them!"

How we helped Nancy sell her home within 10 days by being proactive

"We had great results! We listed the house and had a contract within 10 days. Dylan was very proactive and immediately had an open house right after we listed it. They were efficient, responsive, and really just went above and beyond!"

What You Need to Know About Online Home Search Tools

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Zillow and Trulia are immensely popular real estate sites that allow you to do research on property values online. While they aren't a bad place to start searching for homes, they're pretty hit and miss when it comes to placing an accurate value on your home.

Why might that be?

It's important to keep in mind that these evaluations don't take into account upgrades you have made inside your home. Many of the estimates we found online were much lower than the real value of the home. For example, one house we have listed is worth $45,000 more than the "zestimate" we found for it. Further, we found homes were undervalued in 15 different instances when we checked our price against Trulia and Zillow.

Although home evaluations tend to be inaccurate, these sites can still serve as an important resource. For example, Zillow predicted a 15% appreciation of the market last year and that's about what we saw. This year they expect it to fall to 2%, and we have reason to believe that's an accurate estimation. These forecasts show that sometimes these sites do have people on the scene to provide accurate numbers.

So, what's the verdict? Should or shouldn't we use these online search tools?

We would advise you to use them sparingly - to take the information they give you with a grain of salt. Your best option is to hire a professional. We'd be happy to come by and take a look at your house, no obligation. We can give you an idea of how much your home is really worth in today's market and help you develop an effective plan to get top dollar in an exceptional amount of time. 

Give us a call or shoot us an email to schedule a meeting today!

Win $100,000 to put toward a New Home Purchase in our Great Home Giveaway

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

The Great Home Giveaway is here!
I have been waiting a long, long time to announce this, but the great home giveaway is finally here! We have partnered with agents all across the country for a sweepstakes that will be giving away $10,000 every two weeks for consumers to use on the purchase of their home.

There will also be a grand prize of $100,000 to be used towards a new home purchase.   

You can register on our website, and the sooner you register the better off you will be. You can register here. The first drawing is on June 30th, so be sure to enter soon.
 
We are very excited about this, and hopefully you can use this money on your dream home in Jupiter!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call or email me.
 

Real Estate Update for our Local Jupiter Market

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today I wanted to update you on our local real estate market here in Jupiter. I wanted to go over some stats from March of last year compared to March of this year in order for you to make more informed decisions about real estate this spring.

• Closed sales are up by 8.8% from last year. 
• The amount of new listings in Jupiter exploded by 55% (241 to 374 from 2013 to 2014).
• Our average sales price currently sits at $475K, which is a decrease of 15.8%.
• Median days in market has been cut in half this March. Last year the average days on market was 105, and we currently sit at only 52 days on market! Properties are selling very fast with the proper marketing. 
• The average list-to-sale price ratio for this March is at 91.1%, but our team is actually averaging 93% to 94%. 
• Inventory has increased by 39.2% (1,346 in 2014 from 967 in 2013). 
• Months of supply is also up, and we currently sit at 7.5 months of supply, which is a 35.9% increase.

Hopefully this information was helpful to you.

To wrap this up I would like to show you some of the things that my team is doing to sell homes.

As you can see, these two listings in Abacoa were beautifully marketed and we had them both under contract within their first week on the market.
 

We have another property on the Intracoastal that a man bought less than a year ago and we're helping him to turn it around and make a healthy profit. If you're looking for an investment property, there are some really good deals out there.

The last listing here is not yet on the market. It is a 'coming soon' listing that we have in the gated community of Nativa. It has 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, and is 4,000 sq. ft. It has a pool along with some very elegant upgrades such as LED lighting. This home is a must-see and is going to be listed at $1.2 million.

As always, if you're looking for real estate in the Jupiter area, then please feel free to contact me via phone or email. I am always willing to set aside a time for you to discuss your particular situation with me in order to meet your individual needs.
 

The 5 Worst MLS Photos I Have Seen This Year

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

The 5 Worst MLS Photos I Have Seen This Year

Today I wanted to take some time to show you some of the phoniest MLS photos I have come across this year. These are perfect examples of ways you should not be marketing your home.

1. This heart-shaped bathtub is very romantic, but is it appealing to a wide base of buyers? Probably not. The Mickey Mouse rug in the background doesn't help to neutralize the home either. When you look at this photo do you see a nice bathroom, or do you focus on the goofy features? Avoid leading your buyers astray with distractions like this.
2. The next photo is a very distorted hallway photo. I am not sure why the realtor would use this photo, but they did. The true dimensions of the hallway are distorted terribly, and it gives the potential buyer no idea of what the hallway might look like in real life. It looks like it could be a very nice hallway, but the fish-eye lens is doing it no justice. Make sure your buyers can see your property clearly.
3. This 'selfie' photo of the agent and the shower head is puzzling. He seems to have missed the shower and gone straight to the shower head. This photo doesn't look very professional, and it also doesn't highlight a nice-looking shower.
4. This photo with the dirty litter box in the shower is pretty bad, and I feel awfully sorry for the sellers. I'm not sure why anyone would ever post this photo on the MLS. For future reference - don't photograph litter boxes for MLS photos.
5. The photo of this apartment or condo is actually very nice and appealing - until you look in the corner and see a 'Chucky' doll that is wielding a knife. In an otherwise great photo, this one creepy little detail absolutely ruined it. I don't know why they didn't remove the doll beforehand, because the condo looks very nice otherwise. 

Hopefully some of these photos made you laugh, but I also hope they made you more aware of what a bad MLS photo looks like. At our office here in Jupiter, we use professional photographers and stagers so your photos never look like the ones I have shown you. 

With 97% of buyers looking online, it is important for you to have the best photos possible to attract the most buyers towards your property. 

If you would like to arrange a time to sit down and talk with me about our home staging strategies, or if you would like to speak about real estate in Jupiter, then please do not hesitate to call me.

My Buyers Agents Always Work in Your Best Interests

There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Working as a Team vs. Working on Your Own

Today I'm going to be talking about the pros and cons of working with a real estate team opposed to operating as a single agent. I've been in this business for 14 years and worked on my own for quite a while with a large amount of success, but there comes a point in time where your business grows so large that you have to leverage out. 

You probably know about the law of leverage and specializing in certain areas to maximize productivity. I specialize in the listing side of the business, so I work with a lot of sellers. As my business expanded, I started working with more and more buyers, and it has reached the point to where I now have 5 buyer agents to handle all the leads that our marketing is bringing in. I am going to briefly introduce my team of professionals to you if you have not met them yet.

Rebecca Winter is my executive assistant, and she has been working with me for just a little over 5 years. She helps me with the marketing aspect, paperwork, and also keeping in touch with past clients in a customer service type of approach. 

Judy Roedel is our client care coordinator and our transaction coordinator. She helps with the entire process from contract to close, making sure that all the hundreds of details are taken care of. She also makes sure all the deadlines are met within a timely manner. 

All of my buyer specialists work in different areas and can find you a perfect home in whatever neighborhood you want to move to. This team of professionals includes: Carey Murray, McKinley Navaroli, Kelly Rue, John Clairmont, and Erin Duke-Warren. These agents will represent YOU at all times and put 120% of their effort into finding you a perfect house. They're not working for sellers, they are pounding the pavement to find you a perfect home. Buyers agency is highly recommended in this state and in this area, and it will certainly help to get you a satisfactory home.

I know you may not see me often, and that's because I am running this team of professionals who are committed to your satisfaction. I just wanted to take the time to introduce you to my team and show what we can do for you. 

Thanks for watching, and if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, feel free to contact me at (561) 951-9301 or email me at dylan@dylansnyder.com

3 Ways to Stand Out as a Home Buyer in a Competitive Market

 There are many great Jupiter area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (561) 951-9301(561) 951-9301 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

In a competitive market with low inventory, such as the one we're currently experiencing, it's more important than ever for you as a buyer to stand out to a seller. Some ways you can manage to do this will be through making a confident, trustworthy offer on a property.

1.     Rather than having our buyers get a pre-qualification letter, we get a Pre-Approval with a direct under-writing report. This essentially transforms you into a cash buyer, which is much more desirable in the eyes of a seller. In a competitive market where multiple offers will be made on homes, this is crucial.

2.     Put a sizable Escrow Payment down to show some good faith towards the seller. The more you put down, the more trustworthy you will appear, so shoot for $5-10K (depending on the purchase price) instead of $500 or $1,000. 

3.     A property is really only worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it, so be careful with appraisals. In my own opinion, two different appraisers can price the same property at wildly different values. If you waive the appraisal and agree to cover any shortfalls in the process, you will become an even more desirable buyer. 

These tips will hopefully make you stand out as a buyer, and can help you to win over a seller in a multiple-bid situation (which is now commonplace). Whatever you do, be sure to advise your agent throughout the process to make sure your offer stands out. 

Thanks for watching, and we appreciate your business! Have a great week and don't ever hesitate to reach out to me for any assistance. Call me at (561) 951-9301 or email me at dylan@dylansnyder.com.

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Looking for a stable investment? Real estate's ROI cannot be beat

Welcome back to my video blog! Lately, quite a few people have asked me if now is the right time to jump into the market.

That's a great question and I can give you more than just my opinion! If we look at data from January of 2000 to November of 2013, those who invested in real estate saw a 59.5% return. That's an incredible number by itself. But if you compare that ROI to the Dow (47% return), the S&P (29.5% return), and the NASDAQ (3% return), you start to see just how dominant real estate investments have been over the last decade and a half.

If investing is important to you - do not wait. Now is a perfect time to get into the market. That said, if you have any questions about how to get started, contact me today! 

Call me at: (561) 951 - 9301
Email me at: dylan@dylansnyder.com

Don't wait! Let's work together.

How Will the Real Estate Market Affect You in 2014?

Welcome to my video blog. The New Year is here which might have you wondering what to expect for real estate in 2014. Last year was phenomenal; we saw incredible interest rates and a housing market on the rebound. We expect that trend to continue, but as the housing market gets healthier interest rates are likely to rise. Small increases might cost more than you think on your overall investment.

Let's take a look at what effect interest rates have on your purchasing power. If you buy a home for $250,000 at an interest rate of 4.22%, your monthly payment is $1,225.45 However, if you wait and buy the same house when rates are up to 5.3%, your monthly payment will be $1,388.62. That's a $162.80 monthly difference!

Don't wait to buy because it could cost you thousands of dollars. If you have any questions about the market or are ready to buy or sell, please give me a call at 561-951-9301.