Charlie Ragonesi Big Canoe Realestate's Blog: Georgia: Ball Ground

I do a lot of work with first time buyers. My conversation starts the same way EVERY time. Have you gotten your pre-approval from your lender ? If not do you have a lender? if not I can send you a list of good lenders. I then explain why this step is critical. I usually set them up on Listing Book and send out an email with lenders. I do follow up in a couple of days about the Lender. If we do not get past that first step we go no where.

Explain to your first time buyers why doing the financial thing is important. The analogy I use is , When you go to the grocery store you know how you are going to pay for the groceries. The amount of money you have determines what you can buy. It is the same when buying a home.

As a Realtor you will avoid burn out and spinning your wheels. You will also be thanked by your clients

Home Owners Associations can be great things. I have been lucky in the communities I live in . For the most part the HOA folks have been great. But this is not an across the board situation. So here are some things you HOA folks out there need to know.

You may have brought into a neighborhood for a high price. As you see prices decline do not try to get property owners to upgrade their homes through new restrictions. All you will do is force more people out and make the existing homes harder to sell.

Making homes harder to sell hurts your community. This should be your number one, two and three rule to live by. When you are enacting new rules and regulations ask yourselves, will this make homes in the community harder to sell? If the answer is yes DON"T DO IT.

But you may say, we are making things nicer to increase value. What increases value is demand for homes. The more liquid a neighborhood is the more valuable it is. Folks who need to sell will get higher numbers for their homes thus keeping up values. There will be less foreclosures and short sales.

But we have to maintain our image. Yes this is true. Start looking for inexpensive ways to do so. If  a home owner is in violation work out a payment plan to fix the problem. A lien only means that you have gone to the mat.The home owner will not pay and the home will be harder to sell.

Think about what you are doing. Remember ask yourself am I making it easier or harder for the home owners to sell. Let that question be your guide. 

For a lot of my life I was a road warrior. You know that person you see on the road with a rack across the back f the car with shirts and jackets hung on it. So along the ay i have seen some wild things people do as they are driving.

When I drove n NYC it was not uncommon to see drivers driving and reading the paper in the stop and go traffic.  Later on it was talking on the cell phone. And of course the combo of cell phone talking and reading the paper.

Then there are the women combing their hair and tossing their heads while driving. In addition there are those putting on make -up and drinking coffee at the same time while driving. There were even a couple of occasions where I saw couples ..... well you figure it out while driving. BUT yesterday was the best. While at a stop sign in the middle of no where a pick up truck turned in front of me and the driver was  wait fo it .... SHAVING. I just burst out laughing. In all my years and hundreds of thousands of miles I had never seen this. So please add to this post about what you have seen drivers doing while driving

Once again we in North Georgia are snowed in. It looks like a couple of days before we get out. It is so beautiful. I will post some shots tomorrow. But rather than despair I am working full steam. I am calling folks who want to do business this year. This is a good thing. Why? Because they are trapped at home as well. So we are all talking and sharing our snow stories. I am also doing a bunch of paper work and web site work. All in all I am more productive now than I am usually. For my fellow ActiveRainers, Big Canoe ,Bent Tree,Jasper, and North Goergia freinds who are stuck in the snow. Use the time . We will be back out soon

Atlanta is a great hub for business. Other areas of Georgia are great retirement areas, or just beautiful and you would want to live there. So if you are moving to Georgia there are some thinks that you should know about how we process real estate transactions.

1 Wwe are a title State. This means that if you are unfortunate and face foreclosure it is non judicial. Fact is you sign at the closing saying you can be foreclosed on with out going to court.

2 We use closing attorneys. We almost never close in Escrow.

3 Up until 2010 we could not tell you square footage of a home. Now we will tell you this is what the tax records say is the square footage. In my experience they are 80 percent accurate

4 When you buy here unless other wise noted your property comes with the Mineral rights.

5 The contracts we use are from the Georgia Association of Realtors and have been court tested.

6 We are a buyer beware state so you really should do your due diligence

We have been in Georgia for 23 years and absolutely love it . You will to if you are moving here. If you are moving to Atlanta or north let the folks at All Mountain Realty guide you through the process.

This message applies to us in real estate but also applies to business in general. Here in Georgia the money goes into Escrow and then is dispersed. So If a buyer ,which happens most of the time, gives us a check for the Earnest money, I want it with enough time to clear. This is standard practise.

But what if a buyer or a renter, for that matter, wires you the money. This is a great way to get funds because you do not have to worry about them right? Not 100 percent right. The funds are given to you subject to settlement. This means that the sender of the funds has till the closing of the fed on that day to revoke the transaction. This happens VERY VERY rarely. But it does happen. So even if you are taking a wire make sure you have a day between you and the time the funds are being dispersed. You could be in for a nasty surprise. This goes for our business as well as others who are in business reading this post

The Title of this blog is a direct quote from Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. For those of you who do not Know. Sen. Isakson was a Real Estate Broker. He still contributes to RPAC. He is one of the sponsors of the 8k credit. He wanted to make it 15k. His Career in Real Estate was VERY successful as he grew from the ground, North side Realty. One of the largest independent brokerages in Atlanta.

Sen Isakson spoke at the Real Estate FMLS show in Atlanta this  past week. He talked about the many down turns in real estate that he had been through. His answer to the what is going on in the market is simple. We are at the bottom and bumping along there. It is a great time to buy as rates .prices, and availability of homes has never been better for a buyer. So forget about all the doom and gloom . Throw away your newspaper, turn off your TV, and get out and help folks get their first homes while the market is so good. He did it in 2 down turns and he did quite well for himself. Nuf said

This short post was inspired by Charles Buell. He did a post on fire places chimneys etc. it got me thinking and so here goes.

You have a fire place or a wood burning stove. You can either buy wood , or do likeIi do scavenge and help neighbors clear. Now comes the question. Most would say leave the wood out to dry and then split it up in the winter. The old saying is , "Wood warms your twice. "  But what you should do is split the wood after it is cut while it is wet. This does 2 things.  One, it will help it dry faster. The second thing , which I like is ,it is EASIER to split. And I mean a lot easier. Why? all you Paul Bunyan's ask. Because as wood dries out it shrinks. It becomes more dense and that makes it harder to split. Wet wood is less dense and it is easier to go through sap than fiber! So split it when you cut it. You will still get the work out but with less pain.

I posted about this a while ago . But recently I have felt the need to post it again. Many out there are looking only at foreclosures and short sales. But truth be told what they should be looking for is VALUE. Value can be found in short sales and foreclosures . But it can also be found in conventional sales. If you are a first time home buyer do not fall prey to the media hype and limit yourself to looking at one type of property. Let your Realtor show you value. What it s called after that , short sales etc etc. is really meaningless. Value dictates the amount of money you are going to spend. So why not make Value your key word when looking for a good deal?

I made an error in a blog I wrote last week. I asked for ideas and suggestions for the mountain real estate report. IN my post I did mention that we would give credit for an idea used for our weekly radio show. My error was I made the post members only. Really and truly public input is very important. So I repeat my offer. and ask for your help. The mountain real estate report which is heard every Thursday on WYYZ in Jasper after the noon news, is also simulcast on the web as well as stored on our web site www.allmountainrealty.com and placed  here on ActiveRain.  The idea behind the show is to ,for sure advertise property for sale here in our great North Georgia mountains. But that is only one component. We aim to inform. To that end we have had mayors, U.S. Senators, Builders, conservationists, tourists, first time buyers, mortgage folks, and so many more people on the show. The listeners, on and off the web drive the show. So please we are always looking for topics. If we use your topic on the show , as we did 2 weeks ago, we will give you all credit. 

Thanks for your input and forgive me for limiting the first post to members only