FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS SEMINAR IN KEYPORT

Make your dreams of owning a home a reality!  Thursday May 10th, Better Homes Realty in Keyport will be hosting a FREE First Time Home Buyers Seminar here in town at a local coffee house called Esspresso Joe's. There will be a variety of speakers and Real Estate professionals on hand to answer all of your questions and concerns in todays very challenging market.  Information on Monmouth County Grant Funds and Short Sale advice will be available! Preview available properties for Keyport, Hazlet, Aberdeen and Middletown. The meeting will start at 6pm and for more information please contact the Keyport office directly at 732-264-9593!!!

National Open House Weekend Tips!

ATTENTION BUYERS!! The time has come to get your comfortable shoes on, grab a water bottle and get the car keys, it's National Association of Realtor's Open House Weekend and in Monmouth County the balloons will be everywhere!!! Here are some handy tips that you may want to keep you from getting overwhelmed by it all. First, make it an occasion to spend some quality time with your significant other by getting a babysitter so you can see as many as possible and look forward to lunch or dinner after 4pm when most of them end. Second, have a plan! Know which areas you are most interested in based on school systems, access to work or family members, Hazlet, Middletown and Holmdel are among the most popular. Try to determine the exact style of house that you like such as a Colonial, Ranch, Split, Bi-Level or Cape. Research these different styles so you have an idea of what they look like from the street and try to resist the temptation to look at any that you know will not be your dream house so will have time to preview the right one.  Establish if you definitely want a garage, this will cut down on the amount of homes you would be tempted to preview on your drive by. Bring a pen and make notes on the print outs offered by the Realtors so you will be able to refresh your memory at the end of the day. And finally, remember to have fun and get excited about the prospect of buying your next home! Joanne Schiffres, http://joannes.betterhomesus.com Better Homes Realty, Hazlet 732-757-5013    

Your Realtor Is A Valuable Resource

Realtors are more than just "door openers".  An experienced full time agent has established and maintained great industry relationships over the years in order to serve his or her clients when it comes to the largest purchase they will ever make. Your Realtor's sole purpose should be to make your transaction as seemless as possible. That is why they should be the first person you go to when you need an important referral such as an attorney, home inspector or most importantly, a mortgage representative. Real Estate transactions are only as good as the people involved in order to move things along in a timely fashion and open communication between those related industries are most important when difficulties arise. Why wouldn't you, the buyer or seller, want all parties involved in your transaction to have your best interests in mind and make this experience one of excitement and joy rather than something else entirely! Joanne Schiffres  http://joannes.betterhomesus.com Better Homes Realty 732-757-5013

Waterfront Condos Point Pleasant NJ

2201 River Rd, Point Pleasant NJ Water's Edge  Point Pleasant's Premier Condominium Community Three units remain at Water's Edge, each with 2 bedrooms and 2.5  baths. Select condos offer furniture included in the sale, fireplace, butler's pantry, full kitchen with granite island, and state-of-the-art appliances. These beautiful mid-rise condominiums include units between 2,200 and 2,400 square feet. Balcony views with the Manasquan River or Point Pleasant Canal within eyeshot complete the beach-accessible dream this complex provides. For those just starting out, or those whose children are grown and are looking for a smaller home to retire to, or even those looking for a second home to enjoy, Water's Edge is a perfect location for all walks and stages of life. Come see why Money Magazine named Point Pleasant Borough one of the best places to live on the Jersey Shore, why not enjoy it with waterway views and ocean breezes? Three units remain and are available for a quick closing. Water/sewer fees are included in the association fee. Contact Anita Kazmierczak to schedule an appointment:  Email Anita@BetterHomesUS.com or call (732) 547-2710.

Networking Wine Social

Join the OCBR housing opportunities committee on April 12th at the Bacchus Winery in Toms River from 530-7:00 p.m. for an evening of great food, wine and fun. Enjoy Hors D'oeuvres and fresh Panini's from Buccio's Gourmet Bistro!   click on the link to print out your invitation... Click here for the Invitation

Help for Seniors

Click here for more info from my colleague Sandra RostekFebruary 29, 2012 by Wendy Trager Email: wendytrager@optonline.net.   It comes as no surprise that some of the hardest hit in this economy are seniors.  Homes seniors have been living in their whole adult life may now burdensome to pay for and upkeep.  Many seniors feel they have nowhere else to go.  Reverse Mortgages can be the solution for a variety of problems:

• To help seniors looking to downsize and finance the purchase of a smaller home.
• To help seniors facing foreclosure
• To help seniors suffering from job loss and unable to pay their mortgage
• To help with home repairs
• To help with sale of home
• To help a senior stay in their current home and pay for home healthcare

• The homeowners must 62 years old
• The home must be their principal residence (must live in the home more than half a year)
• The home must be a single family home, a 2-4 unit building or a federally approved condominium or planned unit development
• If there are debts against the home, then the homeowner must use the reverse mortgage to pay it off
• There are NO credit/income requirements

• Traditional mortgage or home equity loans require proof of sufficient income and credit history to qualify, and you will have to repay beginning within 30 days of closing.  With a reverse mortgage, there are no monthly payments to be made at any time during the loan for as long as you continue to occupy the home as a primary residence.  Since there is no monthly payment, the FHA does not require verification of your income and does not require a good credit rating. 

Real Estate Social Media

There’s a URL for That

By JILL P. CAPUZZO

LARRY VECCHIO, a Monmouth County real estate broker, was ahead of the curve in the late 1990s when he started buying up a number of generic-sounding Internet domain names that he thought might come in handy one day. The URLs he first went after were “Homesin(fill in the blank).com,” the blank being the names of the 20 towns his agency, based in Hazlet, served. Once he saw how easy and cheap it was to make these purchases — for a one-time flat fee or annual rentals — Mr. Vecchio started buying up every similar-sounding URL (Uniform Resource Locator) he could get his hands on. “I just thought, if you were going to look for a house, what would you type in?” he recalled. “So I looked up ‘homesin...’ and nobody had them.” Among those he learned were available were HomesintheUnitedStates, HomesinNorthAmerica and HomesinNewYork. (One that had already been spoken for was HomesinNewJersey, which was owned by someone in the Canadian town of New Jersey, from whom he was able to buy it for $1,500.) Today he owns 1,300 URLs, including “Homesin...” and “Condosin...” for just about every municipality in New Jersey, as well as towns throughout the country. He also owns the domain names, meaning that by adding a backslash and the name of any town in the United States, he has a network of some 35,000 URLs. As the vast majority of house hunts happen over the Internet, Mr. Vecchio’s URLs have a colossal resale value — far exceeding what he paid for them. For instance, he said he had been offered $100,000 for “HomesinForeclosure.com.” But this 54-year-old Web visionary has bigger plans for his holdings. Until recently, most of the Homesin... pages have had little or no content. But Phase 2 of Mr. Vecchio’s plans for HomesinYourTown.com envisions the URLs as the go-to real estate search-and-information site for anyone looking to buy a home in New Jersey and beyond. He has recently bought access to real estate listings nationwide, at a cost of $4,000 a month; he plans to populate his Web sites with these by the end of February. This will put him on similar footing with many other national real estate search sites, like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, the Multiple Listing Service, Realtor.com and Homes.com. But what he is hoping will make his sites more valuable are the “town leaders” he is trying to get to host each site: local agents or mortgage officers who will blog about area homes, schools, businesses and other community news in exchange for being the featured real estate professional on the site. By combining this hyperlocal reporting with real estate listing information, Mr. Vecchio said, he has developed “the first social media real estate site.” At the 2011 Tri-State Realtors Convention in Atlantic City in November, agents were competing for blogging rights on the URLs of some towns, said Christopher Sheridan, a real estate marketer who is signing up the local bloggers for Mr. Vecchio’s sites. “If you snooze, you lose,” said Mr. Sheridan, who has thus far signed up 180 town leaders, most of whom are paying the company $50 a month for that privilege. “If somebody wanted a town, I told them they better take it, or at least put something down.” Judith Weiniger, a Somerset County agent, recently signed on to be the featured broker on the HomesinWarren.com and HomesinWatchung.com sites. She described her venture as part of her overall commitment this year to embracing social media as a selling tool. “I’m a big believer in this hyperlocal social media strategy,” said Ms. Weiniger, an agent with Re/Max Premier in Warren Township. “People are more apt to trust a person or a business if they know someone else trusts them. I’m looking to build continued good will.” National Web-based real estate sites, too, are adding social media elements to their offerings, with blogs, links to Facebook and Twitter, and user apps. Patty McNease, the marketing director for Homes.com, said her company’s site was now posting a blog almost every day on some general-interest real estate topic. As far as localizing the information goes, Ms. McNease said, the site offers a question-and-answer section allowing readers to post queries about a given market, and “they’ll be bombarded with answers from local realtors within a few hours.” The goal at Homes.com — the country’s fourth-largest Web-based real estate site, according to comScore.com, a digital data analyst — is to “try to capture and keep visitors at our site as long as possible,” Ms. McNease said. Ian Lazarus, a broker with the Landis Company in Sea Isle City, signed on to host the Homesin... sites in Sea Isle City, Cape May and Avalon. He said he had been slow to embrace the blogging component of real estate sites, which in recent months had provided him with 50 to 60 leads, the majority of them people living outside of New Jersey. “He’s got 1,300 URLs, and every one is linked to the others,” Mr. Lazarus said of Mr. Vecchio. “That’s a lot of juice. And for me it’s important, because it’s something I can never build.” [caption id="attachment_4389" align="alignnone" width="190" caption="Real Estate Social Media"][/caption]

Let's Buy Something Together...

Buying A Home With Past Credit Problems Buying a home can be both exciting and stressful but, for those with past credit problems, the process may also seem intimidating.  The good news is that many lenders have adapted to the idea that many hopeful homeowners simply need a second chance, which means that past credit problems no longer have to define your future. Credit Blemishes When life unexpectedly takes a turn for the worst, it’s not always possible to come out without a few bumps and bruises. Every day, people are faced with late or missed credit card payments, mortgage foreclosures, bankruptcy proceedings, auto repossessions and even civil judgments that will affect their credit reports for years to come.  Whether it’s from a job loss, injury or just a simple case of temporary hardship, credit blemishes are often a part of life.  The good news is that they no longer have to prevent you from becoming a homeowner. Give Yourself A Little Credit After experiencing a credit problem, most lenders will want to see an attempt to rebuild your credit through a steady payment history with a new account.  This can be accomplished by applying for a credit card and maintaining a responsible use of the account.  If you aren’t approved for an unsecured card, you can always apply for a secured credit card. Either will rebuild your credit over time and will help to show lenders that your past credit problems are just that - in the past. Clean Up Your Credit Report Before applying for a home loan, make sure that you check your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. Every 12 months, consumers can request a free copy of their credit report from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. If anything is incorrect or found to be inaccurate, filing a dispute with the credit reporting agency can help to get the information corrected before speaking with a lender. When you apply for a home loan, the lender will access your credit report for the purpose of determining your creditworthiness. In an effort to ensure that you have the best possible chance at being approved for the loan at the best possible interest rates, making sure that your credit report is accurate is a must. Save Up For A Down Payment Some homebuyers often qualify for a mortgage with down payments as low as five percent (three and one half percent for FHA loans), but those with past credit problems may be required to shell out up to 35 percent or more for a down payment on their new home.  A buyer who pays a larger down payment obviously has more vested interest in the home and may, thereby, be less likely to default on a loan.  If you have past credit problems, check with your lender about specific down payment requirements and start saving! Creative Financing Options If you’ve exhausted all of your conventional efforts and are still turning up empty, don’t give up just yet. Alternative financing is an option that many homebuyers use to purchase a home.  Your REALTOR® can provide you with details regarding any lease purchase and/or owner financing properties, which may require no credit check, no bank qualifying, a low down payment and competitive interest rate options.

Luxury Waterfront Properties Offer Discounted Closing Prices!

Mark the Date!!! Your Residential Real Estate Questions Answered.

Live Chat on Ustream.tv  by Lisa Alaimo of Better Homes Realty.  Present will be Michael J. Weber of Weber Law Offices in Howell, NJ.  Chat live and ask you real estate questions.  All Residential real estate questions and RE Legal Quesions. Re-sale, short sales, bank owned, foreclosure, condo's, town homes & rentals. Mark the date... March 1, 2012 at 7:PM You can email your request prior, we will respond on live chat and email you back with answers. Email to : LAlaimo@BetterHomesUS.com See you there... Channel Name:  BHRLisaalaimo or search on ustream.tv  NJrealestateagent   or just click the link below and save to your favorites. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/njrealestateagent Lisa Alaimo.. . .www.SearchHomesinNJ.com     for Michael Weber of Weber Law offices...  www.WeberLawOffices.com

Open House March 1st-4th—Luxury Condominiums in Point Pleasant Offer Discounted Closing Prices!

[gallery]   Open House March 1st - 4th   10am to 6pm - Luxury Waterfront Condominiums in Point Pleasant Offer Discounted Closing Prices! Water's Edge condominiums by Pulte Homes NJ in Point Pleasant not only offer the ideal seashore niche, but embody all that prospective buyers strive for in choosing their new home-affordability, location, and that feeling of home. Do not miss the chance to tour these beautiful homes at our open house: March 1st-March 4th from 10am-6pm. For those just starting out, or those whose children are grown and are looking for a smaller home to retire to, or even those looking for a second home to enjoy, Water's Edge is a perfect location for all walks and stages of life. This month there is a reduced closing price when purchased through Pulte Mortgage or cash purchase. Discounted prices for the value of water front homes make this an open house not to be missed! See first hand the unparalleled location Water's Edge offers-the true Jersey Shore experience with beach access, water views, famous boardwalk amusements and delicious local restaurants within walking distance. Six units are left, each with 2 bedrooms and 2 ? baths. Select condos offer furniture included in the sale, fireplace, butler's pantry, full kitchen with granite island, and state-of-the-art appliances. These beautiful mid-rise condominiums include units between 2,200 and 2,400 square feet. Balcony views with the Manasquan River or Point Pleasant Canal within eyeshot complete the beach-accessible dream this complex provides. Money Magazine named Point Pleasant Borough one of the best places to live on the Jersey Shore, why not enjoy it with waterway views and ocean breezes? Six units remain and are available for a quick closing. Water/sewer fees are included in the association fee. Brokers are encouraged to stop by as well. Contact Anita Kazmierczak for more information about Water's Edge or other new properties: Email Anita@BetterHomesUS.com or call (732) 547-2710.

Avoiding Foreclosure (Government information)

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/avoiding_foreclosure Call me with any questions. 800-531-2885 x 451 or email me at:  LAlaimo@BetterHomesUS.com  Better Homes Realty   Lisa Alaimo

Point Pleasant newest community!

Money Magazine named Point Pleasant Borough one of the best places to live on the Jersey Shore. You'll understand why when you tour this prestigious community with its sparkling shoreline and parade of pleasure boats. Water's Edge is the area's premier condominium community, with spectacular views of both the Manasquan River and the Point Pleasant Canal inland waterway. These spectacular mid-rise condominiums offer scenic balconies and expansive interiorsranging from 2,200 square feet on the lower levels, to more than 4,400 square feet in the penthouses. Each home features two or three bedrooms-all with master suites-and up to four and one-half baths. Elegant appointments include gleaming hardwood floors, gourmet island kitchens, lavish baths, and generous touches of granite, ceramic, and marble. Designed to optimize this waterfront setting, many of the homes offer view through floor plans-maximizing outdoor scenery and natural lighting. Water's Edge is a place like no other. You are surrounded by tree-lined streets, charming shops, and delicious cafs. This location puts you minutes from ocean beaches, bustling downtown districts, and exciting boardwalk amusements. This is a fun place to live! Discover why Pulte Homes consistently earns awards for design innovation. Visit: www.HomesInPointPleasant.com

Builder Pulte Homes has appointed Anita Kazmierczak as the exclusive broker for Water’s Edge

[caption id="attachment_3669" align="alignnone" width="136" caption="Builder Pulte Homes has appointed Anita Kazmierczak as the exclusive broker for Water’s Edge"][/caption] Better Homes New Homes Division named Exclusive Broker for luxury condominium complex in Point Pleasant Water’s Edge Condominiums in Point Pleasant offers buyers the kinds of amenities that draw people to the New Jersey Shore, including water views, easy access to ocean beaches, and nearby entertainment such as Boardwalk amusements and charming local eateries. Builder Pulte Homes, which has consistently earned awards for innovation and design, has appointed Anita Kazmierczak as the exclusive broker for Water’s Edge. Kazmierczak is the New Construction Division Team Leader of Better Homes Realty’s innovative New Homes Division, headquartered in Marlboro. Pulte Homes’ Water’s Edge is a midrise Condominium complex. The units, measuring between 2,200 and 4,400 square feet, feature views of the Manasquan River or Point Pleasant Canal, balconies for entertaining, hardwood floors, gourmet kitchens, and floor plans that maximize outdoor scenery and natural lighting. Nine units, including two furnished model homes, are currently available for quick closing. “Water's Edge is a place like no other,” said Kazmierczak. “You are surrounded by tree-lined streets, charming shops, and delicious cafés. This location puts you minutes from ocean beaches, bustling downtown districts, and exciting boardwalk amusements.” Kazmierczak and her team have found success in a troubled real estate market by concentrating on finding the right buyers for the right property. According to Kazmierczak, the specific insight she gains into every aspect of a property for which she is exclusive broker combined with customer care, innovative marketing practices such as strategic advertising and social networking, and Better Homes celebrated online marketing system, has allowed her to link buyers and builders with increasing success, regardless of national real estate trends. For information about Water’s Edge or other new construction properties visit anita.betterhomesus.com or call Kazmierczak at (732) 547-2710.

Point Beach to refund Jenkinson's $500G, as business agrees to forgo '07 and '08 appeals

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Since 2007, there have been more than 29,000 tax appeal cases filed in Ocean County. However, there are few such cases that rank with the size and scope of the one recently settled between Point Pleasant Beach and its largest business and employer, Jenkinson’s Inc. After three years of appeals, representatives for Jenkinson’s and borough officials have finally agreed to a compromise. As part of the pending settlement, Jenkinson’s will forgo its 2007 and 2008 appeals. In exchange, the borough will refund more than $500,000 from tax payments paid the last two years. Furthermore, the town has agreed to reduce its assessment of the 23 commercial properties owned by the company by 23 percent, beginning this year. Jenkinson’s was seeking a 50 percent reduction. “We’re getting close to being a one business town,” said Mayor Vincent Barrella. “We might already be that.” Barrella has had a well-publicized, adversarial relationship with the business and its owners, the Storino family, but there can be little dispute about the impact Jenkinson’s has on the local economy, and the community in general. The Ocean County Board of Taxation assesses the value of Jenkinson’s properties at more than $108 million and its local taxes comprise about five percent of the municipality’s annual tax levy. In 2010, the town’s tax levy was $5.88 million. Among Jenkinson’s businesses is a popular aquarium, Jenkinson’s Beach Boardwalk and a trendy nightclub situated on the boardwalk that overlooks the ocean. The company employs almost 200 people at its local establishments year-round, said Marilou Halvorsen, Jenkinson’s marketing director. “During the busy time of the year, we have between 1,200 and 1,500 employees. Most of those are from the area,” she said. Beyond the tax appeal case, the Jenkinson’s situation highlights yet another negative effect of the downturn in the housing market — the effect it will have on towns that have gone through revaluations recently.

Anthony J. Gonzalez Better Homes Realty (908) 565-0457 Anthony@JerseyShore102.com http://www.JerseyShore102.com