Category: Uncategorized
-
After 23 years in real estate as the owner of a real estate investment company transacting over 650 deals personally, 16 years as a real estate agent, 14 years as a real estate broker, 3 months as the owner of my own brokerage, and over 2 years as a mortgage loan officer I am still learning and observing.
The good: Put in a mortgage application for a gentleman in a real bind. His lender said they could not do a mortgage in less than 30 days. Buyer only had 26 days. We took the application and as the buyer had just applied for a mortgage, they had all of their documents. Buyer uploaded all within 24 hours. Ordered the appraisal and miraculously, it came back in less than 7 days. Got the clear to close in a total of 10 days. NEVER EVER HEARD OF THIS.
The ugly: Buyer put in a contract for $450k. Gave a $3.5 million proof of funds. 3 days before closing, buyer says they are getting a mortgage. Today is Friday. Closing is Monday. Interestingly, if he is the lender too, this still may close. (I put getting a mortgage, maybe should have put doing a mortgage). Can’t wait to see how this works out. Stay tuned to this blog for updates.
THE REALITY: Had to explain to a seller that sellers are at the mercy of buyer behavior, and conditions. In this case, the buyer’s lender’s underwriter did not get the HOA documents, in time to close on time. The seller insists that we have a contract and buyer must meet the contract. Yes of course, and since they will not meet the contract, our choice is to give more time or walk away. We are too far into this contract and the seller is too motivated to sell to play hardball. This is the second time we gave them an extension. I pondered going down the list of challenges and conditions that force a seller to extend. Instead, I think we Realtors have to discuss what happens after the contract. That there are 3 dates that give an indicator of buyer’s potential to succeed with their offer. How it is likely that buyers will fail to perform and how we will be jerked around by buyers too many times.
-
After 23 years in real estate I found that between my 2 email accounts, I had 14000 email addresses. When you can only send out 500 emails a day it is hard to maximize the benefit. WHAT TO DO? Create an email that includes a great offer. Here is mine:
Rocket Mortgage is offering Down Payment Grants
Combine the 2% grant (you don’t have to pay it back) with Rockets 3% down NO PMI conventional mortgage and buy a home for 1% down, plus closing fees.
You get the idea.
Once you have the offer…and you can use mine, start putting your email addresses in folders of 50 addresses.
You can name the folders. Friends, Family, clients, etc. Or if you are like me, you have no idea who most of these people are…
Put them in folders for example 1 Not Sent, 2 Not sent, 3 Not sent, 4 not sent, 5 not sent.
(there are rules you do not want to break. Do not send more than 500 emails a day. 499. A day is 24 hours, not the calendar day. If you violate the rules you will get locked. DON’T GET LOCKED. Send out 400 a day so you can still do business from your email account). Dont send out 400 at once. The portals will see all these emails and think you are spam.
Sending 50 emails 8 times a day is a good number.
Create an email with an amazing offer. Send it to yourself. BCC the first folder. “1 not sent.” Very Cool, when you click on the BCC, it will give you a drop down menu. Click the “1 not sent folder” then click all, then insert. All 50 email addresses will populate the BCC.
Hit send. Now go back to your contacts and rename the folder “1 not sent” to todays date “July 14 sent 50.”
Send the second folder, 2 not sent. Rename it “July 14 Sent 50 A”… and so on B, C D, … for the remainder of the folders for today.
VERY IMPORTANT> I have been getting around 20% + of these emails coming back as bad emails. You should delete the email from your system. For me, I have to delete the bad emails from both email addresses. I have gone from 14000 emails down to 11,500 so far.
Once I have all of my emails in folders of 50, and have them named by the date of last contact, I will be able to send out other great offers.
Randy Jenkins Rocket Mortgage NMLS 205-3417. Florida Real Estate Partners 727-409-4663 RJ409home@Gmail.com
If you use my offer, send me the contact.
Thank you.
-
Insurers Pull Back as Climate Catastrophes Intensify
By Zack Budryk
The uptick in natural disasters has insurers wondering what else climate change might do. As a result, they’re pulling back everywhere – not just in Fla.
NEW YORK – The insurance industry is increasingly wary of the risks presented by climate and natural disasters, prompting major firms to scale back their presence in more vulnerable states.
In June, Farmers Insurance announced in a company memo it will no longer write new property insurance policies in Florida, citing “catastrophe costs … at historically high levels.” Earlier in the month, AIG stopped issuing policies along the Sunshine State’s hurricane-vulnerable coastline.
Those followed State Farm, California’s largest single homeowners’ insurer, which in May announced a moratorium on new policies in the state, blaming “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.” The decision came after years of devastating wildfires that sent insurance rates in California skyrocketing.
In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee in March, Eric Andersen, CEO of consulting firm Aon PLC, said that reinsurance companies, the firms that help insurers pay out costs, have also stepped back from high-risk areas, particularly those vulnerable to flooding and wildfires.
“Just as the U.S. economy was overexposed to mortgage risk in 2008, the economy today is overexposed to climate risk,” he said.
The industry is feeling the pinch beyond the East and West coasts, as well, according to Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications at the Insurance Information Institute. He noted that dozens of firms have reduced their presence in Louisiana, including 50 that have stopped writing new policies in the state’s hurricane-prone parishes.
“This isn’t just a story about Florida and California – all over the country there are insurers who are less willing to take risks,” from those along major rivers to areas vulnerable to tornadoes, said Benjamin Keys, an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Louisiana, in particular, has gotten less attention than California and Florida, but the state’s insurance industry has been steamrolled by recent intense storm seasons.
“Many smaller, undercapitalized insurers in Louisiana were not able to handle the volume of losses from the 2020-2021 hurricane season,” Friedlander said.
The industry, which has historically taken a more reactive approach to disasters, is shifting its strategy as such events become harder to ignore, he added.
“The industry’s taking the approach now of what’s called predict and prevent, meaning being proactive to address climate risk and make sure insurance coverage reflects that, and make sure homes and businesses take preventative action,” Friedlander told The Hill.
He noted that while Farmers made headlines, it’s the 15th insurer to stop writing new policies in Florida in the last 18 months. Although most of those companies have not pulled out of the state outright, he added, three have.
“Insurers are in many ways the first movers” in response to trends like extreme weather and natural disasters, said Keys. “They have a significant amount of money at stake, so they’re very exposed to the downside.”
Florida is in a unique position, Friedlander said, because of a combination of high fraud rates and widespread litigation, which both compound the cost of insurance on top of the climate risks. A state law enacted this year creates a backstop for property insurance in hopes of alleviating some costs, but it’s not yet clear how effectively it will counteract those factors, which have been building for years.
“The difference is in California and Louisiana, [insurance costs are] primarily climate-driven,” he said. “They don’t have the manmade factors we have here in Florida.”
Florida also has a longer history of insurers coming and going, Keys added, going back to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the most destructive hurricane in terms of property damage in the state’s history.
“What that’s meant is that the insurer of last resort in the state, Citizens Insurance, has become the largest insurer in the state,” he said, on top of the federal flood insurance program.
“There isn’t an equivalent for wildfires in California, so the risks in California are borne much more directly.”
Keys also noted that the decisions don’t mean the insurers will never write policies or operate in the state again. Rather, he said, they should be understood as a way for insurers to negotiate, both on what they can charge in premiums and what factors they can weigh.
“It’s not that [insurers] don’t want to do business in your state, it’s that [they] don’t want to do business at the current premiums [they] can charge,” he said.
In the meantime, however, none of the climate risks and natural disasters in question show any signs of letting up.
In March of this year, Florida’s state insurer said its funds were “significantly depleted” by 2022’s Hurricane Ian, and that it will be forced to collect the deficit of $14 billion from policyholders if the state sees a major hurricane in 2023.
On the West Coast, the National Interagency Fire Center said at the beginning of June that it projects “likely above normal temperatures” in the West this summer.
“Clearly insurers are looking at this predict and prevent approach and they’re also addressing risk exposure and looking at where they can profitably do business,” Friedlander said. “We’re going to see more companies making similar decisions.”
© 2023 WNCT, Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved.
✕
ADVERTISEMENT
-
Hello Pinellas County Mortgage Professionals,
Because you are listed as having an active license in Pinellas County, I am writing to let you know about the newly updated Pinellas County Flood Map Information Service! Visit floodmaps.pinellascounty.org for a library of flood map apps with data.
This service is FREE and easy to use via computer and mobile device! Here you can find valuable flood information including:
- FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) information needed to write a flood insurance policy, such as flood zone and Base Flood Elevation (BFE)
- Pinellas County Floodplains and Floodways
- Elevation Certificates submitted to Pinellas County
- Flood depth information, such as potential storm surge depths
- Evacuation zones, routes, and shelters
- If the property is in a Coastal Barrier Resource System (CBRS)
- Information about areas, such as wetlands, that are protected because of their natural floodplain functions of storing and removing pollutants from floodwaters
- And more!
Pinellas County, and most of its municipalities, participate in the National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) program, which rewards communities that implement floodplain management activities with flood insurance premium discounts. Unincorporated Pinellas County is rated a Class 3 community, which provides businesses and residents living in the unincorporated areas a 35% premium reduction. This rating will save unincorporated residents and businesses almost $9.5 million in flood insurance premiums per year. CRS ratings and associated discounts vary for each municipality with countywide total savings of more than $28.9 million per year. This important rating determination is based, in part, on the County and its municipalities providing flood information services.
Facebook Live Preparedness Event for Your Clients:
We need your help! Pinellas County is hosting a Facebook live to tackle questions and confusion about storm season preparedness for our newest arrivals to the county. We’ll bring in our directors of Emergency Management and Animal Services, as well as one of our building safety officials, to help residents understand how to protect their families, their homes and themselves. What we need from you is to share this link and invite text with any new residents you are in touch with. More information at https://www.facebook.com/events/2940477229416464.
For more information on flood map services, contact Pinellas County at 727-464-7700, visit pinellas.gov/flooding, or visit us at 440 Court Street, Clearwater, FL 33756. If you live in one of the Pinellas County municipalities, please contact your city directly for additional flood map information or elevation certificates (pinellas.gov/municipalities-and-cities/).
Lisa Foster, CFM
Floodplain Administrator
Stormwater Planning & Engineering
Stormwater & Vegetation Division
Public Works Department
14 S. Ft. Harrison, #426
Clearwater, FL 33756
ldfoster@pinellascounty.org
Phone (727) 464-8962Lisa Foster, CFM
Floodplain Administrator
Phone (727) 464-8962
www.pinellascounty.org/flooding
Please click here to tell us how we are doing!
Please do not reply to this email. Please email ldfoster@pinellascounty.org if you have any questions.
Randal Jenkins <rj409home@gmail.com> 8:28 AM (12 minutes ago) 
to ldfoster May I have permission to post this on my Realtor site?
Randy
Foster, Lisa D <ldfoster@pinellas.gov> 8:39 AM (1 minute ago) to me Absolutely!
Lisa Foster, CFM
Floodplain Administrator
Phone (727) 464-8962
www.pinellascounty.org/flooding
Please click here to tell us how we are doing!
-
In Pasco County, where I was once known as Mr. Pasco, we have over a dozen communities that are in big trouble, and the residents don’t know.
Holiday Lake Estates, Key Vista, Beacon Square, Green Key Estates, are some of the neighborhoods New Port Richey and South. I will discuss the northern neighborhoods in another post.
Many of these homes are owned by working class homeowners, many are retirees on a fixed income. If they have a mortgage, they have flood insurance. As you know if you have been reading my blog, flood insurance is going to be a curse on Florida real estate.
Regular hazard insurance and flood insurance rates are soaring. One home I manage went from $1800 a year to over $4100 a year. A $740 a month payment went up to over $1100 a month. (It also had a substantial tax increase).
Owners on a fixed income or wage earners on the lower income scale are going to find their payments unmanageable. Especially if their flood insurance goes from $200-$300 to $500-$700 a month or more.
Interestingly, Citizens Insurance, over the next 12 months is going to require all homeowners that buy hazard insurance to by flood insurance, even if the home is not in a flood zone. This will have an effect of delaying the tipping point for an insurance based real estate correction.
As flood insurance and hazard insurance costs rise, homeowners without the resources to cover the increased costs are going to be forced to sell.
When the number of homeowners reach the point where they can no longer afford the increases, we will see 100’s and then 1000’s of sellers. Who will buy all this real estate?
Now the market is tight. There are around 1880 residential properties today, June 19, 2023. 1305 are not in a flood zone.I predict that homeowners in flood zones will look back on this time and wish they had the foresight to sell.
Randy 727-409-4663 (409-home).
Randal Jenkins
Rocket Mortgage NMLS #205-3417
Florida Real Estate Partners
4823 Ebbtide Lane 206
Port Richey Fl 34668
-
Many listings do not have school zones.
Many buyers want a particular school zone.
Many Realtors are afraid if they put school zones on a listing and the school zones change, they will be subject to litigation.
So, if a buyer wants a particular school zone, the buyer’s agent will have to search each listing and then cross reference them to school zones.
Does this happen? Or does the buyer’s agent search by school zones and then send the list?
It is safe to say that most agents send the list.
So, if your listing does not have school zones on the listing, buyers that have a particular school zone in mind will not be seeing your listing.
There is a simple solution to meeting the needs of the public, making the most of the opportunity to sell the home to the right buyer and avoid the risk of the school zone changing and having the Realtor and seller getting sued.
Hire a seasoned professional, reduce the risk, mitigate, and still offer a complete listing.
(Too many Realtors read this blog, I think I will save the solution for my buyers.
Thanks for reading.
Randy 727-409-4663 (409-home).
Randal Jenkins
Rocket Mortgage NMLS #205-3417
Florida Real Estate Partners
4823 Ebbtide Lane 206
Port Richey Fl 34668
Randal Jenkins Team Blog 