Pocono Real Estate Blog

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Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC ~ Real Estate Advertisement in the Pocono Record

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With the affordable Value of homeownership, consider buying instead of renting.

At Commonwealth Real Estate  Your Way we will review the complete process with you.   Is it best for you to Rent or can we guide you into home ownership.

  Give us at call  @ 888-333-0464

5 Reasons Homeownership Trumps Renting
The seemingly endless run of bad housing news is discouraging some potential home buyers from considering a purchase. But the truth is that the advantages of homeownership have very little to do with investment gains. The best things about owning a home have a lot more to do with personal comfort and satisfaction.

Here are five of them:

· Be your own landlord. The bank can only kick you out if you don’t pay; a landlord can be much less dependable – deciding to sell the property or choosing to live there themselves.
· Paying the principal is forced savings. Yes, it’s possible that home prices will fall further. It is also possible that your 401(k) will lose value. But over the long haul, both are likely to enjoy modest gains in value.
· Fixed-rate mortgages never rise – and eventually you pay them off. With mortgage rates at record lows, people who buy now are locking in real bargains.
· Good schools. Family-sized rentals are harder to come by in areas with excellent public schools.
· Spacious properties in pleasant neighborhoods. Sizable homes in attractive communities are almost always owned – not rented.

Source: The New York Times, Ron Lieber (08/27/2010)

Pocono Record Recipes

Recipes in the Pocono Record sponsored by Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC ~ Click ad once to open and click again to view larger

Pocono Realtor Sees Light at the End of the Tunnel

Light at end of tunnel for local real estate
By WAYNE WITOWSKI
For the Pocono Record
July 25, 2010

When Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way LLC announced recently its third office opening in 16 months, in Brodheadsville, it might seem surprising, coming in the midst of a recession whose recovery appears to be slowing.

Washington is extending unemployment benefits to those long out of work, although unemployment nationwide dropped slightly to 9.5 percent in the latest statistics, its lowest point in a year. Mortgage rates early in July dropped to their lowest point in five years, when the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 4.57 percent, according to Freddie Mac.

But with the Homebuyer Tax Credit extension expired April 30, giving a first-time buyer an $8,000 credit and a current homeowner a $6,500 credit, the market was expected to slip heading into the peak season in the Poconos.

But Commonwealth broker/owner Vickie Brockelman and officers at other real estate agencies agree they feel the free fall is slowing, an indicator of a healing economy.

“In July of last year, we had 11 agents, and now we have 23 agents and three offices,” said Brockelman, who has added a Stroudsburg office to her Mount Pocono headquarters.

“If I didn’t have confidence in my agents and the market, I would not go from one location to three. I believe the market is stable. Realtors are willing to work at it and are willing to be successful and work extremely hard.”

Brockelman said she feels the market “is steady and has stabilized, and I think it will continue.”

“From 2009 to now, we actually have a 10 percent increase in sales,” said Brockelman, who added that her listed homes have had a $138,900 average sale price, mostly as primary homes. “June to July has been our best month since 2006.”

And Brockelman feels the tax credits helped.

“Tax incentives had an impact. It brought home-buying back into people’s minds, to look, and some are still looking because this is the market to buy.”

Brockelman showed a graphic survey of the Poconos real estate market where the average time from listing to sale has gone down from a high of 33.5 months in February this year to 16.5 months in June.

Maggie Flartey, oversees 12 offices for Century 21 Select in Monroe, Pike, Wayne and Luzerne counties, with a headquarters in Blakeslee, said she is “cautiously optimistic” looking at the recovery. “It’s better than last year. “» There’s a lot of catchup to do, but it’s starting to turn around.”

“Overall, our closed units are up 3 percent from last year,” Flartey said. “Last year was dramatic, down 35 percent from the year before. We had a lot of catching up to do, but we’re starting to turn around.” Last year, closed units was 35 percent lower than the previous year.

Dominick Sacci, vice president of Wilkins and Associates Better Homes and Gardens, said his closed sales are up 21 percent from the previous year, when they plunged deeply.

“Pendings sales were up 20 percent in April, 5 percent in May, and are down 7 percent in June,” said Sacci. “This answers the question: Was the Homebuyer Tax Credit stimulating the real estate market? The answer is, yes.”

Flartey disagreed, because she said that nearly 70 percent of her buying market is for second homes and said other competing agencies in the area have a similar ratio, “so were not able to generate a lot of business from first-time home buyers. The few who did were enthralled with the (Homebuyer Tax Credit) program ,but it did not dramatically affect us, unfortunately. I wish it would have.”

But she did agree that, “We definitely did not see in the first half of this year the activity it sparked in the last quarter of last year, and then a clear dropoff when it ended. It’s exactly what we envisioned.”

Flartey said her office set up buyer seminars and sent postcards to renters to stimulate her market with little results. But she said she is glad that her company did not need to close any offices.

“When I saw (other companies’) offices close, it was difficult, but we’ve managed to maintain 12 offices and stay viable. It was tough,” said Flartey. “But when there is a turnaround, we’re in a key spot, there’s not a lot of competition.”

Sacci had anticipated a stabilization last fall and saw things actually worsen early this year.

“In January, I said property values stabilized and plummeted to $131,413. I was scared. It looked like there was no bottom, and then you worry about the free fall, but since February, it’s trickled up to an average price of $158,043; last year it was $158,422. If that continues, and it’s my gut feeling is it will, price values will be stabilized in the Poconos.”

Brockelman shared his enthusiasm and said, “perhaps some increase in sale price will come in 2011 and 2012.”

Flartey said her listings are down only 1 percent and said the average sale price has dropped from $156,000 to about $140,000, but the median average listing price has risen from $180,000 to $204,000.

“That’s surprising,” she said. “Maybe it’s higher-end properties, but people are getting more realistic competing with foreclosures on the market if they want to sell.”

All three see a slow recovery in the economy starting in 2011, which will set the tone for a slow rebound in real estate as well.

“We should definitely see an increase in property values by next year,” Sacci said. “Our prediction from here is, now that we have gotten through July 4 weekend, when buyers start to come up to visit family, we would hope to see buyer activity increase. But for the rest of this year, it’s a wait and see. Nobody knows.”

Vickie M. Brockelman, GRI, Epro
Broker/Owner RB#066680
Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC
26 C Pocono Blvd.
Mt. Pocono, PA
570-839-0411 (office number)
570-839-0415 (fax number)
570-972-0141 (direct line)

Learn more about Vickie Brockelman

How I Sold It: The Nationwide Open House

Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC has done it again, using brilliant marketing and sales techniques to sell a challenging property.  This time featured in the August 2010 issue of Realtor Magazine, Commonwealth Real Estate got the online exclusive in Realtor Magazine’s Special Series “How I Sold It”:

How I Sold It: The Nationwide Open House

A Pennsylvania practitioner used a national open house initiative devised by executives at state and local REALTOR® associations to promote a property in a unique way for her market.
By Michelle Hofmann | August 2010

Location: Effort, Pa.
Square footage: 3,750
Lot size: 1 acre
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3 1/2
Year built: 2003
Extras: Heated in-ground pool, great condition, cook’s kitchen, oversized two-car garage, two master suites with private bathrooms.

The owners didn’t anticipate a problem when they put the Effort, Pa., house on the market and relocated to the home they built in Lehigh Valley, Pa.

With a cook’s kitchen and four bedrooms, including two master suites with private baths, and an in-ground pool on more than an acre of land, the Effort home was the perfect retreat from the Big Apple.

But with a shift in the local high end, the sellers’ hopes faded as the months rolled by and the two-year listing anniversary loomed.

When the listing expired with the former real estate company, Vickie Brockelman, e-pro, gri, broker-owner for Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way LLC in Brodheadsville, Stroudsburg, and Mount Pocono, Pa., got the listing and got to work.

First, Brockelman suggested the couple reduce the asking price to $349,000, about $100,000 less than the original 2008 list price.

The sellers took Brockelman’s advice. But even with the steep price adjustment, the property had trouble competing for attention among a sea of lower-priced area homes and garnered only one showing in two months.

“There is a ton of real estate out there. Anything under $200,000 is selling. Any over that is taking longer to sell. But with an average sales price of about $150,000, anything over $300,000 is sitting for a very long time,” explains Brockelman.

Market challenges weren’t the only issue. The area is favored by New York and New Jersey buyers, but Brockelman says this particular location (about 30 minutes from favored routes to New York and New Jersey) was inconvenient for commuters.

“The home was not easy to get to,” she says.

How did you overcome the challenge?

BROCKELMAN: I found out about the REALTOR® Nationwide Open House Weekend (April 10–11, 2010) event and decided to hold an open house. Historically, open houses are not done often or with much success in our market area because we have a lot of secured and gated communities and five- and 10-acre farmettes with long distances between the houses. So holding an open house in our area is challenging. Sometimes when sellers come from other areas, they request an open house as part of the marketing. But it is not common in our area.

However, I felt that with the REALTOR® Nationwide Open House Weekend, if we pushed it and did a real marketing extravaganza with this listing, we could get a lot of attention and generate real interest.

Our local real estate association made an arrangement with the local newspaper to provide discounted pricing to real estate practitioners and firms that were participating in the nationwide open house. We ended up with a two-page spread in the local newspaper. We started advertising on Friday and ran the ad through Sunday, the day of the open house.

I hoped that if we got some traffic during the open house, we could show people how they could purchase the home. So on the day of the open house, I had a sales associate and a mortgage officer on site to answer any questions. I was hoping that if a prospect came to the open house and fell in love with the home, we could show them on the spot how to buy the home. And that’s exactly what happened.

On the day of the open house, the sales associate, the loan officer, and I arrived at the house to find a woman waiting for the door to open. She fell in love with the home, but said it was out of her price range. Nancy Craig, the sales associate, ended up working directly with the buyer on the sale. And the loan officer helped the buyer find a way to get her dream house by suggesting a reverse mortgage.

There are so many myths about reverse mortgages: A reverse mortgage sells the home to the bank, the heirs will not inherit the home, the home owner could get forced out of the home, someone can outlive a reverse mortgage, the home owner pays taxes on a reverse mortgage, a reverse mortgage comes with large out-of-pocket expenses, and the idea that reverse mortgage is similar to a home equity loan. Many people have these and other false assumptions about reverse mortgages.

We had just done a seminar on reverse mortgages at our company, and this loan officer specialized in this type of mortgage and spoke with the buyer about it. Because the reverse mortgage is calculated with a formula based on age and the equitable interest in the home and not on credit score and income, the buyer was a good candidate. With the assistance of the loan officer who understood the program, we were able to show the buyer how to purchase the home with a reverse mortgage and use her current home as equity for the transaction. We closed this property with a very joyful buyer and a thankful seller.

How long did the sale take? What was the selling price?

BROCKELMAN: We listed the home in February 2010 for $349,000 and closed at the end of May for $305,000. The seller wasn’t lowballing. This was her maximum affordability based on all the numbers.

How did you find a buyer?

BROCKELMAN: The buyer was an older single woman who lived within the area. She had always wanted a large home with a pool but never thought it was attainable. She wasn’t coming to buy. She saw the two-page advertisement for the open house in the newspaper and decided to take a Sunday drive and have a look at the house.

How did you market the listing and how much did you spend?

BROCKELMAN: We probably spent about $4,000. We did the print ads in the newspaper, but we also used our Web presence. We have a pretty dynamic Web site, and each listing has a virtual tour. We have our own channel on YouTube. The channel has two videos about the company and features videos of all our virtual tours. In addition, most of my 24 salespeople have Facebook and Twitter accounts.

When we get a new listing, we send a link to the entire company, and each associate shares that information with their center of influence. We started uploading our files to YouTube and other social media sites about 10 months ago. It is new, I know, but we have generated some good leads from it. In fact, I would say about 80 percent of our buyer leads are directly related to our Web site and social media.

What’s the biggest factor you attribute to closing the deal?

BROCKELMAN: The Nationwide Open House event was the key to this sale. We secured two additional contracts during the event, both on homes over $250,000. The advertising in the paper drew this buyer in and skills of the people on site helped the buyer make an informed decision.

Nancy Craig, the associate in my office, greeted the client, recognized the interest, and started asking questions. And the loan officer, being educated in reverse mortgages, was able to communicate with the buyer, who was a little hesitant at first because of all the fallacies about reverse mortgages. In the past, you could take money out of a home with a reverse mortgage. But now, you can purchase a home with a reverse mortgage. So the reverse mortgage really gives seniors a great opportunity.

How did you get started in real estate?

BROCKELMAN: I have been in real estate since 1987. I worked for a building contractor. I loved the sales part and the industry in general. One of our salespeople said I should look at getting into real estate sales. This was when women were just getting into the industry, and I was looking to build a career. So I got my license and went to work for a small company. After that, I took my first GRI class and went to work for a franchise.

My goal was to have my broker’s license within three years and eventually own my own company. So I worked toward that goal. I managed a company. About five years in, I got the opportunity to buy a large franchise. I owned that company for 15 years and sold. I was going to retire, but I decided to come back and put together a company that could customize solutions for homebuying and homeselling needs.

Do you have a specialty or niche?

BROCKELMAN: Marketing. There isn’t any one thing that works in real estate. You have to look at every listing and find the best way to market that individual property. That is what I love to do.

What lessons did you learn from this transaction?

BROCKELMAN: You have to move beyond the negativity of whatever is happening in the market and look at how you make the transaction work for the buyer or seller. When I started, the interest rates were 18 percent to 19 percent. I have seen it all — good markets, bad markets.

But at the end of the day, it’s not about what the market it is doing. It is about what you are doing as a sales professional. You can sit and wait for people to come to you, or you can get out there and find them. A lot of real estate professionals are fishing in the same pond. I fish in that pond, too. But I also look for other opportunities.

Click here to see the Story at Realtor Magazine website.

Vickie M. Brockelman, GRI, Epro
Broker/Owner RB#066680
Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC
26 C Pocono Blvd.
Mt. Pocono, PA
570-839-0411 (office number)
570-839-0415 (fax number)
570-972-0141 (direct line)

Learn more about Vickie Brockelman

July 25th Open Houses

July 25th Open Houses ~ Click ad once to open and click again to view larger, you can also Click here to View Ad as a PDF

Yes, We are condifient that the real estate market has stabilized!

COMMONWEALTH REAL ESTATE YOUR WAY, LLC, OPENS LOCATION IN BRODHEADSVILLE

(Third location closes coverage triangle for green, boutique agency)
Mt. Pocono, Pa., — (June 28, 2010) – Vickie Brockelman, broker/owner of Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC., announces the opening of the Brodheadsville, Pa., office, the third opening in 16 months for the company.

“As the company continues to grow and new agents come on board regularly, it was important to provide our customers with a third location in a place that made sense and provided additional availability for them,” said Brockelman. “While we often visit with customers virtually, a location in Brodheadsville does provide a completed regional triangle in the Pocono Mountains along with our Mt. Pocono and Stroudsburg locations for customer convenience when we do business on site.”

The office is a 2,300 square foot location on Rt. 209 in Brodheadsville and is outfitted similarly to other CRE locations. Technology includes flat screen monitors for working with customers inside the office so everyone only travels to one location, webcams to conduct tours and meetings and scanning equipment to load documents into a central computer system.

“Just like our other offices, Brodheadsville will be 99 percent paperless and we’ve invested in lots of technology and created systems to save not only paper, but time and fuel as well,” added Brockelman.

Six CRE Your Way agents will operate out of the new locaton. They are REALTORS: Jeff Peterson, CRS; Sue McShane, GRI, associate broker and certified broker appraiser; Libbie David, ABR, AHS, CSP, CRS;  Paulette Smith, ABR; Leslie VanHorn; and Lorrie Nothstein.

For more information, visit www.creYourWay.com or call any of our 22 agents at our three locations by using their direct numbers noted on the web site or call our general number at 1-888-333-0464.

Stuff to do in and around the Poconos

Amusement Parks – Nothing like a day of rides and summertime food!! Visit any of these relatively nearby places — Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos (website) to Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom (website) in the Lehigh Valley, Bushkill Park (website), Easton, Pa., Knoebels Amusement Park (website), or come make a splash at Camelbeach Mountain Waterpark (website).Visit Web sites for details and directions.

Pocono Premier Casinos – Visit Mount Airy Casino Resort (website) to beat the heat, and come play in the great indoors at the Pocono’s premier casino resort. Go wild with over 2,500 of the hottest slots including your favorite reel-spinning slots and electronic table games like poker, roulette and blackjack.  Check out Pennsylvania’s first casino, Mohegan Sun  at Pocono Downs (website) – with 55,000 square feet of new gaming space holding 2,500 slot and electronic virtual table games, there are countless opportunities for gaming fun and success.

Outdoor Exploring – Pack a picnic basket or backpack, take a hike or a romantic stroll, listen to birds chirping or take pictures of waterfalls. You can do that and so much more at any of the regions most beautiful locations like Hawk Mountain (website) in Kempton, Pa.; Child’s Park in Dingman’s Creek; Hickory Run State Park, (website); or Ringing Rocks in Upper Black Eddy, Pa., (website). Bring along a book about bugs, birds, animals or trees to turn the day into a learning adventure.

Check Your Local Newspaper – The Pocono Record and The Morning Call list lots of summer activities like local carnivals, music festivals, car nights and ice cream festivals.

Pick Fruit – visit places like Strawberry Acres in Coplay, Pa., (www.strawberryacres.com) or local farms to pick cherries in June, strawberries in July, peaches in August and apples in September. Check out their website for more Family Fun Activities.

Walk with the Animals and Talk with the Animals – Be your very own Dr. Doolittle and enjoy a day at the zoo. Nearby locations include Lehigh Valley Zoo (lvzoo.org); Claws n Paws Wild Animal Park, (website) and the Philadelphia Zoo (website)

July Ads

Keep a look out for our new ad in this month’s issue of Sage.  Also running on 7/11/10 in the Pocono Record.

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Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from Commonwealth Real Estate Your Way, LLC ~ Your Mount Pocono, Stroudsburg, and Brodheadsville Realtors!

http://www.realestateshows.com/show.php?id=0000508359&code=4c37d4a4

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