Now that the seller’s market is officially history and competition is keen, how will you attract a buyer for customer’s home? The trend today is incentives. Builders, who have new homes sitting vacant on which they dare not lower the price for fear of setting off a domino effect, are already raising the bar with real-dollar incentives to attract buyers without reducing prices.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, 56 percent of builders surveyed in June said they were stepping up their amenities, 45 percent were offering to pay closing costs and 26 percent were buying down mortgage points. Overall, 71 percent of builders said they were offering at least one of those incentives.

Consumers today are very savvy. They have lots of points of comparison for neighborhood home value, some by the MLS and some free data. They are not impressed by all the extras. A lot of the people who are leading the charge for incentives have not been in real estate long enough to know you cannot do a lot of incentives anymore.

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As the housing market slows and foreclosures spike, people who have to sell quickly or lenders that need to unload properties they took back at sheriff’s auctions are turning to the fast-talking spectacle for quick sales. Even some homebuilders and condo developers are using auctions to reduce excess inventory.

These auctions differ from sheriff’s sales, trustee’s sales or courthouse sales, which conclude the foreclosure process and are conducted by the county. Often, the lender wins the property at these sales and then tries to resell it by auction. Last year, revenue from housing auctions grew 12.5 percent to $16 billion from $14.22 billion in 2005, according to the National Auctioneers Association.

Auctions represent only a sliver of the overall housing sales market, just less than 1 percent of the $1.74 trillion in existing home sales last year. But those in the real estate auction industry are hoping the current market conditions will continue to boost business. Already, states that never hosted many housing auctions are seeing demand jump as home prices plunge and more borrowers find themselves trapped in unmanageable mortgages.

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Tighter restrictions on pesticides, changing weather patterns, the emergence of treatment-resistant insects and regional epidemics have converged, creating a perfect environment for exterminators in many parts of the country to be fabulously successful.

Two issues in particular seem to be driving growth. First, recent temperature increases allow pests to thrive in an ever-extending geographical area as illustrated by fire ants as far north as Virginia. Second, there are the movements and migration of people — travelers can bring new kinds of pests into the country and population shifts have trended toward the Sun Belt states and other areas where insects thrive.

The pesticide industry has come a long way since Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” led to the 1972 ban on DDT, and the industry is creating new products all the time. Problem is, they aren’t cheap. Thanks to strict regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture, it now costs roughly $100 million to develop a new pesticide. And while most exterminators buy and use the right stuff for the job, some have been known to skimp once a contract’s been signed.

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Mortgage accelerator loans are common in other countries. It uses home equity borrowing and the borrower’s paycheck to shorten the time until a mortgage is paid off, saving tens of thousands in interest expense.

The loan program is based on an approach common in Australia and the United Kingdom, where borrowers deposit their paychecks into an account that, every month, applies every unspent dime against the mortgage loan balance. In Australia, more than one-third of homeowners use a mortgage accelerator program. In the U.K., it’s about 25 percent.

The premise is that borrowers finance a new property or refinance existing property using a home equity line of credit, or HELOC. Borrowers then begin directly depositing their entire paychecks into the HELOC. Monthly expenses, other than mortgage payments, are funded by draws against the line of credit, whether that is by using bill pay, check writing, ATM withdrawals or a credit card tied to the line of credit.

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Looking for a home in Boca Raton FL Real Estate. Visit the Boca Raton Information Guide, then call Realtor® Caesar Parisi when you are ready to buy your dream property.

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New-home sales defied expectations and stopped sliding during July, making a modest increase that gave the beleaguered housing market a little good news. Meanwhile, demand surged for expensive goods during July in a broad-based increase that topped expectations by a wide margin and included a strong climb in a key barometer of capital spending by businesses.

Sales of single-family homes increased by 2.8% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000, the Commerce Department said Friday. June new-home sales fell 4% to an annual rate to 846,000; originally, the government said June sales dropped by 6.6% to 834,000. The sickly housing sector has pulled down U.S. economic growth for six straight quarters. Groundbreakings by home builders in July fell to the lowest level in 10 years. Analysts expect the slump to continue. Lenders are tightening standards for borrowers, which sent up mortgage rates during the summer. Inventories of homes are running high.

Friday’s data showed the ratio of new houses for sale to houses sold slipped during July, falling to 7.5 from 7.7 in June. There were an estimated 533,000 homes for sale at the end of July, down from June’s 538,000. The median price of a new home increased by 0.6% to $239,500 in July from $238,100 in July 2006. The average price decreased by 3.4% to $300,800 from $311,300 a year earlier. In June this year, the median price was $230,600 and the average was $304,900.

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Real estate agent Caesar Parisi stands ready with effective advice on buying or selling a Boca Raton Luxury Home.

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For nearly three years, Leandro Javier Obenauer has been sitting in the Osceola County Jail waiting for his day in court. Obenauer, now 38, was charged with racketeering, among other offenses, in 2004 after he was accused of swindling thousands of dollars from mortgage lenders and Central Florida home buyers dating back to 1999.

Obenauer was charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, organized fraud, grand theft and unlicensed mortgage brokering. Two years before Obenauer’s 2004 arrest, then-Attorney General Charlie Crist’s office began an investigation, which resulted in the arrests of Obenauer, , who was described as the “ringleader,” and his father-in-law, Robert E. Merchant.

Prosecutors charged that Obenauer and Merchant offered houses for little or no money down to people who had bad credit or were first-time home buyers. Lawyers from the state Attorney General’s Office in Tallahassee would not comment on the case, a spokeswoman for the agency said. Scott Hutchinson, 51, of Winter Springs was arrested and charged with organized fraud of more than $50,000, according to court documents. He was a real-estate appraiser who prosecutors said inflated the values of houses in Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties. His trial is also scheduled for Monday.

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Ready to buy or sell a home in the Santa Barbara community? Consult with licensed agent Caesar Parisi. Caesar has assisted hundreds of buyers and sellers, giving sound advice on how to most effectively buy and sell property.

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