These are some great points about selling condos and homes in gated communities. Here on Maui we have a lot of vacation condos and exclusive neighborhoods, and they have distressed properties too. Let's see if we can make things easier to get those listings sold!
This is an open letter to all the folks who sit on HOA Boards or live in a community that has an HOA. This is written by a person who is on the front lines to sell your homes as quickly as possible because it is common knowledge that the longer a house is on the market the lower the resulting sale price will be.
WE ARE IN A DECLINING MARKET. YOUR MANY RULES TO PROMOTE EXCLUSIVITY IS REDUCING THE VALUE OF EVERY HOME IN YOUR COMMUNITY!
Here are the top items you need to address so that we can sell your homes.
1. THE GATE: First of all we need to have access. It should not take an act of Congress when we represent the seller, who might be a bank, to get authorization to come into the community. If you need to have us register fine, then give us a temporary pass code, that would go very far to give us access quickly to begin marketing the property.
2. THE GATE PERSONNEL: Need to be friendly and cooperative to outsiders coming to view the property for open houses. Sending people from gate to gate is not acceptable and it is a tactic that leaves a first impression of being an unfriendly place.
3. SIGNAGE: 28% of sales are due to signage. Not allowing signage on a property, condo, etc. only reduces the market of potential buyers by 28%. People driving a community respond to the signs and this is a given. Not allowing any "unsightly signs" only blocks out about a third of your potential buyers.
4. COORDINATING SIGNAGE: When you do allow signs that must be of the same style, fon'ts, colors that has been approved by your board....do you realize that they BLEND IN to all your other signage and defeat the point of having the house for sale get noticed. I have to look for house numbers when I'm in your communities because I'll drive right past my own listing because these types signs do not ATTRACT NOTICE.
5. YOUR HOA'S DOCS AND REGULATIONS- Why not put these online and keep them updated? Do you really need to charge $50 for poorly printed, blurry papers that look like they were done on a mimeograph machine from 1960? How about scanning them and making them available, online, with your community website?
6. YOUR OFFICE PERSONNEL- We Realtors are not your enemy. We are here to sell your homes quickly and professionally. So often, finding out the community's requirements regarding procedures for: a. approving a new owner b. giving the current owners the first right of refusal is like playing a game of "GO FISH". If you could prepare a package of information that is given to us upon first contact that explains your process, we wouldn't have delays in closings, or NO CLOSINGS AT ALL.
7. LOCKBOXES- Not allowing a lockbox on the property means that agents have to go out of their way to show your communities listings. They must make an additional trip to the listing agent's office to sign out the key, then they show the property...then they must return the key. This is an amazing inconvenience and expenditure of time that we don't have in a non-productive way. Many agents will just remove this kind of listing from their list in showing properties. Do you realize how stiff competition is today? For every listing there are probably 30 more that will be easier to show and be located in a REALTOR FRIENDLY ZONE. In our business, time is money.
8. THE VOTE: Waiting till next month's meeting means that you are delaying potential closings by up to 30 days. In a declining market this means that the property's value will have declined by (in our area) 1.5-2%. That means that your vote just cost the seller 1.5-2% of the sale price in value. It also means that IF AND WHEN THE PROPERTY SELLS....IT SETS THE NEW LOW SALES COMP FOR YOUR COMMUNITY! ALL THE HOMES IN THAT COMMUNITY ARE NOW DEVALUED.
Do you see what is going on here? You are shooting yourselves in BOTH FEET!
We are in a tough market and that is no secret. We need everyone to do everything they can to make it easier to sell homes instead of maintaining the status quo.
There are no exceptions- I have a listing that is $1,200,000 that is a bank foreclosure. Three houses north of this home is another foreclosure. All sectors of our society are affected.
NO ONE AND NO COMMUNITY IS IMMUNE FROM THIS FINANCIAL CRISIS.
So let me be the first to suggest that at the next meeting, that you take this list and read it to your members. Please evaluate your procedures and put in a contingency plan that will make showing your properties easier for the troops in the trenches- THE REALTORS- to sell these homes.
If you have questions or need a consultation I would be more than happy to speak to your HOA. If you are a REALTOR reading this, I suggest that you take this post and forward it to every HOA member you know. If you have more points to add, please share them here on Active Rain.
We are in a war here and everyone loses as they see their home's value decline. We must do everything in our power to fight the decline.
Janet Fetterman, Broker Associate/Owner
Veteran REO Agent, CDPE
Concord Real Estate-Sellstate Concord Realty
132 Canal Street, New Smyrna Beach FL
386-299-6393
To see our real time bank owned inventory go to:
i like these points. These condo complexes are all suffering; you'd think they would want to increase the buyer activity rather than work to eliminate perfectly good buyers!
Thanks for the re-blog, Georgina.
We're typically charge $300 here for a set of HOA docs, and then they arrive printed on both sides. I need to scan and upload them for disclosure packets. A time-consuming job. They could charge the seller less, allow us to download them from their site, so we could be up and running in a day instead of waiting about 10 days.
And that's my rant for tonight--I'm heading to bed.
Thanks for the comments! I hear you loud and clear!
What we could do is speak to the local city council member for that area and ask them to introduce a city ordinance that would require all HOA's to submit their current rules and regs to the city and require them to be updated them regularly. AND have a link on the city's website where a Realtor could go and view the latest.
I recently sold a condo with HOA and it was an ordeal. They never answered my phone calls nor my emails.... well they finally did after 3 days. It cost $375 for the document and plus $150 to get the doc to the title company within 3 days.....oh and how did they do that? They emailed it! How long does that take? Yeah...all of two seconds!
Coming to you from Texas...
I agree! We often think of Maui as a dream when selling RE but you face many of the same problems as we do on the other side of the pond...
So true that it is in the HOA's best interest to have properties "move" faster and the rules should surely be designed to promote the community and foster sales rather than put up blockades at every turn. Great blog!