Charleston SC Real Estate

Volitile Stock Market

2008-10-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

The recent volitility in the stock market has caused uncertainty in the real estate market. The dow and s&p 500 have hit ten year lows which had an influence on the local stock market. Many investors sold while the market was at its lowest in fear that they would lose everything. This decreases people's overall net worth and their purchasing power. When such a large sector of the economy takes a significant downturn, it affects all other aspects of the economy.

How Long Will The Buyers Market Last?

2008-09-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to tell how long the buyers market will last, but it will vary depending on the local market. Many people believe that Charleston, SC is bottoming out and will be experiencing gains over the next year. Once people regain confidence in the market gains will continue more rapidly. Mortgage lending practies must also stabalize. The upcoming election could stimulate the economy and lead people to put more faith in the real estate market.

Selling Your Home In Today's Market

2008-08-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

What are the factors that can help you sell your home in today's market? In the Charleston SC real estate market there are a lot of options for buyers to choose from. I work for Carolina One Real Estate, the largest company in Charleston SC. As a company, we are still consistently helping buyers find houses and sellers sell them. I have personally found that many sellers are still being unrealistic about how they price their property. The number one way to sell a house or condo is to price it right. Finding the price that the market can bear is the only way to assure a sale in a reasonable amount of time. Another important factor is staging your home. Getting rid of clutter throughout the property is also important. You should make your home anonymous. It should not have personal effects throughout because they only serve to distract buyers from the important features of the home. Another thing to consider is having neutral tones on the walls. I often hear buyers complain how horrible the walls looked, and this can easily be avoided.

James Cook
Carolina One Real Estate
http://www.askforjames.com

Getting Your Home Ready To Sell

2008-07-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Many homeowners forget about the importance of getting their home ready to sell. One of the most important things to remember is that you must make your property anonymous. While nick-nacks, pictures of loved ones, and other personal items may be important to you, they can hurt the chances of selling your home. In Charleston, SC I often see houses where people leave too much clutter, and too many personal items in the home. It distracts buyers from seeing what they really need to look at, the property itself.
Having an empty house is not necessesarily your best bet. Staging can be an important part of selling a house, condo, or townhouse. Staging gives buyers an idea of what a property will look like with furniture in it.

James Cook
http://www.askforjames.com

Chareleston SC Real Estate News - Carolina One

2008-07-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Compared to national sales and statistics Charleston SC real estate is holding strong. The summer months bring tourism to this coastal area. Charleston has a wide range of prices, areas to choose from, and types of housing available. To find out what works best for you, it is first necessesary to determine which area of Charleston interests you the most. James Island, downtown, Mt. Pleasant, Sullivans Island, Folly Beach, Kiawah, and Seabrook are all great options. Each has a very different pace of life, and different advantages and disadvantages. I am very knowledgeable about every area, and I would be happy to help you find a place that works best for you. Whether it is historic Charleston that intersts you, or the laid back atmosphere at Folly, there is something for everyone here in Charleston. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any quesitons about real estate or the area in general. www.askforjames.com 843-475-3527

Charleston SC Real Estate

2008-07-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

The summer months bring warm weather, tourism, and savvy buyers to the Charleston SC real estate market. There are a lot of great deals to be found here. Having a qualified real estate agent is even more important in todays buyers market.
Using my website can help you in your home search. The first step is deciding where you want to be in Charleston. Downtown, James Island, Sullivans Island, Kiawah, West Ashley, Folly Beach, Isle of Palms, John's Island and Mt. Pleasant are all popular options in the Charleston area. You can find more information about any of these areas on my website.
I hope my website was helpful for you starting a home search in Charleston. If you would like more information about any type of property then please send me your criteria (price range, location, number of bedrooms). If you have any questions about Charleston real estate or would like to go out and look at property, don't hesitate to contact me at 843-475-3527 or jcook@carolinaone.com . Have a great day! James www.askforjames.com Carolina One Real Estate
My services are free for buyers!

Charleston SC Real Estate News

2008-06-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Charleston SC real estate market is holding steadier than many markets nationwide. Because of current economic factors and media misrepresentation of the real estate market, some buyers are still hesitant to buy. The media plays an enormous role in the public's perception of the economy. While the housing market is not what it was two years ago, it is still an ideal time to buy for many people. It is important to ask yourself several key questions when you are making the decision of whether or not to buy a house in Charleston. One of the first questions you should ask yourself is how long do I plan on keeping this house? This is not a marketplace where one can expect to buy a house and have it significantly appreciate in value over the next six months. While the real estate market is correcting itself and readjusting to the new economic factors, it could take longer for prices to recover significantly. I predict that when the media announces that real estate prices have hit rock bottom, this will give investors and personal homeowners the green light to start buying which will driving prices even higher. One of the reasons that the market is in its current state is that there were not enough people buying houses to live in. People were buying houses as a tool to get rich quick from the appreciating marketplace. This is the ideal marketplace to buy a house that you plan on living in. As long as you are going to stay in a house for a number of years, it will be a huge financial advantage to own a house rather than rent one. When you rent a house you are essentially throwing away hard earned money that could go towards paying a mortgage. There are two ways that you make money by owning a house. You are paying down the mortgage instead of wasting money on rent, and over time your house will become more valuable and you will make money that way.
Investors usually try to focus their efforts on one of these two strategies, but generally hope that they can get both. Cash flowing a house refers to buying a house and renting it out where the rents cover the expenses that come with owning a house (mortage payment, insurance, and taxes). This is usually easier with houses that cost less money. Low income housing often cash flows, but you generally have more tenant problems due to socioeconomic factors like poverty. In this method you are paying off the mortgage of the house and making money in that way. The second strategy for making money by investment is through appreciation. If you buy a nice house in a nice location, it should appreciate over time. This method can cost more initially, but pay out more over time. www.askforjames.com

How is Real Estate Nationwide?

2008-05-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

CNN Money suggests that roughly sixty five of the countries largest real estate markets are still overpriced and will have to correct their prices. Naples Florida is listed as the most overvalued of the real estate markets that were examined. This data is provided by National City Corporation which looks at each towns economic factors, interest rates, population densities, and levels of income. Merced, California, Salinas, California, and Port St Lucie, Florida are also listed as being very overpriced. Texas showed the most undervalued markets.
The difficult thing to grasp is that most of these studies are done purely based on number crunching. One must take into account natural factors that make a place desirable. Does it have mountains, lakes, ocean, history? These are all factors that influence people's home buying and selling decisions. Three of Charleston's most desirable attributes are the ocean, the historical nature of the area, world class golf, and that it is a good decent sized city with a small town feel.

Charleston Real Estate

2008-05-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

As the weather warms up here in Charleston, so is the real estate market. My office is having one of its biggest months in about a year. Becoming independent and changing over to Carolina One Real Estate has been a really great change for everyone in the company. Because we are still the biggest company in Charleston all of the signs have changed over to the new yellow and blue logo.
If you have any questions about Charleston real estate or would like to schedule an appointment to see some property, then please give me a call at 843-475-3527. Have a great day! James

Prudential Becomes Carolina One

2008-04-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

The real estate company that I am associated with here in Charleston SC, Prudential, is becoming Carolina One Real Estate. This is exciting news for all of the agents involved. Carolina One is affiliated with the leading real estate companies of the world. This will give us a fresh marketing strategy and give us a new approach to real estate. We will have more national exposure for our listings. We will still be the largest real estate company in Charleston. This gives us more resources to buy and sell homes for our clients here in Charleston. My email will change to jcook@carolinaone.com All of my other contact information will stay the same.

One agent at Prudential writes, "Exciting business news for my company here. Prudential Carolina Real Estate -- the leader in the Charleston tri-county area by far -- is one of the top 50 (largest) real estate companies in the nation. It is about 1100 total people, with about 1000 agents. As with all Prudential franchises, it is independently owned and operated. The company is, at its heart and soul, a family business with rock solid leadership and core values. Effective 1 May, we are changing or name to Carolina One Real Estate and becoming a true independent, with an affiliation with a sort of "consortium" called The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE). All the company's leadership remains, and in fact they are bringing up another corporate level manager from within to bolster the company's ability to support the 16 sales offices of Carolina One spread across our area. It is still the same good agents doing the same quality relationships-based work on behalf of their clients. We are quite excited about this pending change, and it is already making quite a buzz in the business community here. The "Big Dog" in town making a name change in the middle of what most see as a "challenging" market might seem a bit odd, but in fact the company leadership has been carefully studying whether or not to renew their Prudential franchise for about a year. They've really launched us forward with a well developed plan. In 2008 we have already picked up a few points of market share in the local real estate market, and the excitement this is creating, plus more of the corporate's overhead being able to get poured back into local marketing and advertising, should in all likelihood help us do even more for our clients, thereby giving the company an additional bump upward, as well. The Prudential franchise relationship was good for this company for the past several years. As the renewal timeframe with Prudential loomed, the company was apparently courted a good bit by most of the known real estate franchises (as you'd expect of one of the top 50 real estate companies in the nation). We think the new independent status with the affiliation with LeadingRE will be even better, though. Kind fun being involved in this kind of very positive change to an already dynamic organization."

Real Estate Market- A Self Fulfilling Prophesy

2008-04-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

The media plays a large role in what Americans think, how they act, and what they do with their money. There are a variety of shows on television about investment, as well as a vast amount of written literature including newspapers, magazines, and online reading material. One of the current trends in the information age is the ability to independently learn about investment opportunities.
The recent problems in the mortgage industry have become a focal point for the media. Many Americans purchased homes without understanding the terms of their mortgage. Subprime mortgages are those where the borrower has less than good credit. Mortgage companies were essentially lending money to people that they knew would not be able to pay it back when rates adjusted. This has led to an enormous amount of foreclosures. California, Nevada, and Florida are the states that have been hit with the most amount of foreclosures. Charleston real estate has not been experiencing as many foreclosures, but they are having some.
The medias dramatic response to the mortgage industry has scared people who do have good credit out of purchasing a home. This becomes a self fullfilling prophesy for the market. People think that it is a, "bad Market," or a ,"bad time to buy a home," and the entire real estate market suffers. In fact, a buyers market means that it is a good time to buy. It is not a good time to sell a house for a high price, so it is a good time to find cheap deals.
This month in my office on James Island in Charleston, SC has been one of the highest volumes of sales in a year. The market activity is picking back up, so perhaps the public's perception of real estate will as well.

THE EXTRA MILE

2008-04-02T08:56:00.001-07:00

That 6% Is Getting Harder to Earn

By HOPE REEVES
Published: March 30, 2008
IN any real estate market, the question is asked, in voices both low and loud: What exactly do those brokers do for their 6 percent commission?
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Related
Nailing Down the Loose Ends and Asking the Hard Questions (March 30, 2008)
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Michael Falco for The New York Times
Ms. Goldberg painted the house numbers on some new trash cans outside a brownstone she is selling in Brooklyn Heights.
The wondering seems especially relevant now, when both buyers and sellers are tense, not knowing if prices will continue their upward move or if they are headed down.
On a typical sale, the broker gets 6 percent of the sales price, with 50 to 75 percent of this amount going to the broker or being shared with the broker and the company representing the buyer. The remaining 25 to 50 percent goes to the company representing the seller.
The broker’s part of the commission isn’t just gravy; it is used to cover some of the selling expenses. “Our agents pay for things a lot,” said Pamela Liebman, president of the Corcoran Group. “Being an agent is really running your own business, and if you’re not willing to invest money yourself, you’re probably in the wrong business.”
Brokers say that the current market is requiring them to be more creative, to spend not only more money but also more time and effort to make a sale.
Joan Goldberg, a broker at Brown Harris Stevens in Brooklyn Heights, sees herself as a sort of broker-contractor. She has a team of people — painters, contractors, gardeners, stagers, house cleaners, handymen, haulers — at the ready to whip her listings into shape.
“People are often overwhelmed by the prospect of selling, and it’s my job to get them to see that their home will show better and sell for more if we can just take away some of the layers and layers of personal items and grime they’ve accumulated,” Ms. Goldberg said.
For the most part, she does the hiring and scheduling, and she said that she tries to get each client as fair and economical a deal as possible. Sometimes, she winds up paying for some work herself or simply doing it herself.
“I like to plant flower boxes, and I change them weekly and water them if the owner forgets to,” she said. “I often go to the flower district early in the mornings or out to the big nurseries on Long Island to get just the right thing to put in a pot on a brownstone stoop. But, then, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.”
Ms. Goldman also routinely buys new trash cans and paints the street address on them in an effort to make the best impression when prospective buyers arrive to see a listing. “Some people carry plastic bags for dogs,” she said. “I carry them so I can pass by my listings and pick up trash.”
Other brokers emphasize luxury services.
Karen Heyman, a broker in the SoHo office of Sotheby’s International Realty, always hires car services to ferry potential buyers to see her Brooklyn listings. She says it’s worth it to her, in the end, to cover this expense herself.
“The bottom line is that we’re all independent contractors,” she said. “Our offices have certain budget formulas, but I find those restrictive. If I think there’s something I can do to increase the likelihood of a sale, I’ll do it, no matter what.”
Agents also use their commissions as leverage in making deals happen.
“Say a seller’s at $900,000, and a buyer won’t go higher than $895,000,” said Michael Signet, director of sales at Bond New York, which has five offices in Manhattan. “Our broker might call the other broker and say, ‘You pick up $2,500, and we’ll pick up $2,500.’ That way we don’t lose the deal.”
Because the New York City market is growing increasingly stressful — sellers worry the peak has been reached and potential buyers are reluctant to commit for fear of paying too much — more is being asked of brokers.
Juliana Brown, the managing director of Corcoran’s office in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, said she’s starting to see a pattern, with sellers asking for more as the economy weakens. At a sales meeting late last month, she said, one agent after another raised an example of being pressured to pay for something that he or she felt was unreasonable.
“In one case a seller asked the broker to pay off a tenant who didn’t want to move,” Ms. Brown said. “The owner said: ‘Hey, you’re making all this money off me. You should contribute.’ In other cases sellers have been asking us to pay for staging, cleaning, removing clutter, things that are a little outrageous. I mean, these are things we recommend doing, but sellers are the ones who are going to ultimately benefit.”
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THE United States may have already entered a recession set off by the upheaval in the subprime mortgage market and sharp declines in house prices nati

2008-03-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

By PAUL SULLIVAN
Published: March 18, 2008
THE United States may have already entered a recession set off by the upheaval in the subprime mortgage market and sharp declines in house prices nationwide. For the rich, however, the mortgage crisis and housing slump have created opportunities to leverage their real estate holdings for other investments.

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Chip Litherland for The New York Times
Ruth Trettis, a broker in Naples, stands in a multimillion-dollar home for sale in Naples, Fla.
“There’s a lot of talk about a credit crisis, but the fact is there’s plenty of available capital for wealthy clients,” said Michael J. McPartland, a managing director at Citigroup and head of residential real estate at Citigroup Global Wealth Management, where the average mortgage size in 2007 was $1.7 million on homes worth $2 million to $3 million.
From a wealth management perspective, the crisis is about house values and not about subprime mortgages, said Erin M. Gorman, national sales manager for mortgage products at the Bank of New York Mellon. “The wealthier borrower is going to ride the storm out,” she said.
For many rich people, that means repositioning their investment portfolios, and a big part of that is being accomplished by borrowing against homes, some bankers say. The Federal Reserve’s lowering of interest rates to try to keep the economy from sliding into recession has had the effect of making mortgages on seven- and eight-figure homes attractive. “Money is cheap right now,” Ms. Gorman said.
Such highly leveraged mortgages and refinancings, which have landed many so-called prime borrowers in difficult straits when the value of their houses sank, are now a flow of money that can be put into higher-yielding investments.
“They’re not looking at this as a mortgage, but as a way to accomplish some other goal they have in mind,” said Jan Reuter, a residential real estate executive at U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management. “Most of them have the ability to pay off the loan if it doesn’t make sense anymore.”
She cited the example of a client who recently took out a $15 million mortgage on an apartment in New York City, something he would not have done with higher interest rates. The loan allowed the borrower to buy the property without liquidating other investments that would have meant paying capital gains taxes.
There are three popular options that the very rich have been using to get cash out of real estate they own:
¶ Interest-only mortgages, the bane of so many less affluent borrowers, are well suited for the wealthy. With them, wealthier borrowers can reap the full tax benefits of a mortgage while reducing the principal only when it suits them. “It’s a cash flow management tool,” Mr. McPartland said.
¶ Adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMS, are a second popular tool. Ms. Gorman says clients can get one-month ARMs with rates in the high 3 percent range. “ARMs historically have not been a bad play for wealthy clients,” she said. “If the market moves against them, they can pay down or pay off their mortgages.”
Jeff Kauffman, president and chief executive of Northern Trust’s Personal Financial Services Business in the Northeast, takes a slightly longer view, recommending adjustable-rate mortgages that lock in a lower rate for up to 7 or 10 years — as long as there are no prepayment penalties.
With these clients, financing the full value of a home, or even several homes together, is always an option. Since the start of the year, Ms. Gorman said, she has seen a rise in the number of borrowers taking out $10 million to $20 million mortgages and has gone as high as $50 million for a group of properties.
¶ But a third, simpler strategy for people in the highest tax bracket is a $1 million mortgage and a $100,000 home equity loan on a property that did not have a mortgage before. This amount hits the limit for federal mortgage interest deduction, Ms. Gorman pointed out.
One place where these strategies have been put to work is Naples, an affluent beach town in southwestern Florida.
From 2003 to 2006, speculator-driven price increases on high-end homes rose to 20 percent or more a year, compared with 7 percent to 10 percent in a normal real estate cycle, said Michael J. Timmerman, a senior associate at Fishkind & Associates, a financial consulting company based in Orlando, who has been tracking the real estate market in the southeastern United States for 25 years. Last year, by contrast, prices fell 5 to 8 percent, a slide that has continued at the same pace into 2008.
While the midrange market is trying to regain its footing, the wealthy are using the flat market to their advantage. Ms. Gorman said she had a client in the Naples area who took out a $1 million loan on a $2 million condominium he owned outright. What made this attractive was a 10-year interest-only adjustable-rate mortgage with a rate in the low 5 percent range, which is locked in for the first five years.
“Typically our clients do something different every three to four years, so that five-year window is a good window to lock in an interest rate,” she said.
Given the easy credit available to the rich for the homes they own, those who are looking to buy property are equally well positioned when it comes to getting second or third mortgages.
“It’s a good time to be an opportunistic buyer,” said Mr. Kauffman of Northern Trust. “I believe that applies to whether it’s a unique real estate opportunity, a third home or land. There are fewer strong buyers out there.”
Ruth Trettis, a broker at Premier Properties in Naples who has watched the market for 30 years, agreed. “When the market was really on fire, we would have multiple offers on properties,” she said, adding that right now the adage about location being paramount is more relevant than ever. “We had a home in the beach block come on the market recently for around $4 million, and it sold very quickly.”
Mr. Timmerman said he expected that the market would stabilize in the first quarter of 2009 as election-cycle uncertainty waned, and that prices would start to rise by the end of 2009.
There are plenty who have done nothing with their homes and have weathered the worst of the storm without problems. Richard Cacciagrani, an owner of Toscano, a popular Boston restaurant, watched the value of his home four blocks from the beach in Naples climb so rapidly — tripling in value from 2002 to 2005 — that he couldn’t imagine selling. “My house appreciated so much that I was wondering if it was going to keep booming,” he said.
It didn’t. But now, instead of fretting over a lost opportunity of cashing in during the boom, he looks at the property more as another asset in his portfolio, and eventually, he will realize its value. “They built two $1.2 million houses across the street and they sold,” he said optimistically.

Clear Channel gets favorable deal ruling

2008-03-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 27, 2008
Filed at 4:24 p.m. ET
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A Texas judge issued a restraining order that effectively bars the banks that promised to finance the $19.5 billion buyout of Clear Channel Communications Inc. from backing out yet.
Bexar County Judge John D. Gabriel issued a temporary restraining order just four hours after Clear Channel and the private equity buyers, led by Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners LLC, filed suit Wednesday in Texas and New York.
The firms argued that the lenders were trying to avoid honoring the financing commitment they made 18 months ago by turning a long-term loan into a short-term one with restrictions.
The judge found there was enough evidence that the plaintiffs could prevail and would be irrevocably harmed unless he issued to justify an immediate restraining order.
He barred the six banks from ''engaging in any other conduct that would operate to modify, compromise, jeopardize, sabotage, undermine, nullify, void, eliminate, hinder, or obstruct consummation of the merger agreement.''
The banks, which include Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank AG and Wachovia Corp., declined to comment on the order through a Citigroup spokeswoman Thursday.
The restraining order doesn't necessarily mean the deal will close, said RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank, but it does keep the banks from just leaving the deal for dead.
''It's possible that the court scares all the sides into settling,'' he said.
The financing commitment letter that Clear Channel and the equity firms are trying to legally enforce doesn't offer the banks many outs even though they stand to lose $3 billion to $4 billion when they loan the funds. Only a major adverse change to the business really lets them off the hook, and because Clear Channel has been performing better than the industry, that argument is going to be a tough sell.
Gabriel ordered a hearing on an expedited trial April 8.
If the deal closes, the banks are likely looking at $3 billion to $4 billion in write-downs, something they're loath to suffer when they're already worried about other investments related to the struggling real estate market. The lenders are likely to have trouble reselling the debt in a credit market that has slowed dramatically since borrowers began widely defaulting on subprime mortgages last year.
The equity firms have agreed to pay $39.20 per share for San Antonio-based Clear Channel, far more than recent share prices as investors have fretted about whether the deal would close.
The stock was hard hit Wednesday after a report that the deal was near the brink of collapse, but on Thursday, it partially rebounded -- up $2.68, 10 percent, to end at $29.60.
The buyers have insisted they still want to own the company. If they walk away, they face $500 million to $600 million in fees, and the financing negotiated 18 months ago allowed them to put up less capital than would likely be available in the current credit market.
Clear Channel, which owns 900 radio stations nationwide and 800,000 billboards worldwide, has had success before in forcing a deal through legal action.
The $1.1 billion sale of its television group closed after the company lowered the price by $100 million and sued Providence Equity Partners, which had been having difficulty getting Wachovia to make good on its earlier financing commitment.
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On the Net:
Clear Channel Communications Inc.: www.clearchannel.com

Charleston Real Estate News

2008-02-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

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