Perspective: the Empire State Building is 1,250’ tall, Chicago’s Willis Tower is 1,451’, and NYC’s upcoming One World Trade Center (tallest building in the Western Hemisphere upon completion) is 1,776’. But Thornton Tomasetti is no stranger to mega skyscrapers—it was the structural engineer for three of the world’s highest buildings: Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, Taiwan’s Taipei 101 (which Bisnow visited last year), and China’s Shanghai Tower, under construction. (Maybe next time y'all can mix things up a bit and build a tunnel.)

Setbacks on Short Sales

If you happen to be one of the distressed home owners who found themselves upside down on their mortgage or were forced to sale; please do not beat yourself up. Thousands of homeowners across the US are experiencing your same setbacks-you are not alone.

So what to do?? I suspect your credit may have been dinged a bit or alot -depending on who held your bank note or how you negotiated your deficiency with your lender. Some lenders will not report to the credit bureaus, but that depends on a number of factors and each institution is different. I wish I had a crystall ball, to tell you when the market will bottom out and home prices will start to rise, but I don't. And I don't know anybody that has that ability. Like any good investor or potential buyer, there are a few key elements to stay focussed on to watch the rise and fall of real estate. That is another article to come later.

If your mortgage company does agree to not report- please, please, please get it in writing no matter what!! Every mortgage bank is different, so it doesn't hurt to ask, beg or plead-that is part of the negotiations. Right now, everybody wants a quick fix and it doesn't happen over night.

So once you have your home sold or have been foreclosed on; you most likely will be renting until your credit score has been built up to qualify for a mortgage. Or you may think the correction of the housing prices has not bottomed out and you want to wait some more. In either case, you are a much more wiser consumer and will have a second chance if you play your cards right.

Home

TIME ON MARKET?

There is no easy way to say this, "Pick the wrong price and you will be doomed to languish on the market." All the marketing and advertising will be wasted along with a lot of time.

Time, as in "time on market", is one of the most important Real Estate statistics. This is the one piece of data that every buyer asks for when viewing a home. In fact, I can't ever remember a buyer not asking me "How long has this home been on the market?" Every buyer wants to know this because if the home has been on the market for a long time, the buyer feels like there will be more room to negotiate. It is just human nature. Buyers also may feel there could be something wrong with the home when it has been on the market for an extended period of time.

The way the MLS system works is: it prevents a Realtor from re-listing a home to set the days on market back to zero. In order for a homes days on market to be reset to zero it now must be off the market for 91 days. But even, then a savvy agent knows to lookup the history of the property to pass on the information to his/her clients.

In 2011, it is extremely important to price your home to sell. Right now, are fierciest competitiors are the distressed properties for sale. It is almost impossible to compete with some short sales or REO's unless the seller is in tune with the market and economy.

Yes, there are still sellers who seem to dig their hills in and perhaps have an emotional attachment to their home and seem to forget that if they want to sell; they need to be in alighnment with what the market will bear. Not with what the seller thinks his/her house is worth, but what the potential buyers will offer based on the data and recent comparable sales.

Another tactic to determine a listing price would be to hire a certified real estate appraiser to conduct an appraisal on your property. That will give the seller some confidence as to what the lending instiutions will be analyzing if indeed the buyer requires a mortgage.

Chesapeake Bay Waterfront

SAVVY ONLINE REALTORS

Look for A Realtor that is Internet savvy and has a social media marketing strategy. The majority of all buyers find their home online. You need an agent that knows how to make your home the center of attention online.

When looking for an internet savvy Realtor you should do a few things....Google the agents name, an address of a property they are marketing, and a very competitive term like the town, state and Real Estate as keywords.

An Internet savvy Realtor will have pages and pages of results for their name. You may also learn things that could be important about this agent.

If you Google the address of a home they are marketing you will see all the places on line where your home will be found.

There should be a mix of websites, blogs, and videos. Searching for a term like "Hopkinton MA Real Estate" for example, which buyers will do by the way, will show which agents have a real strong website.