Greg Snow - Southwest Florida Real Estate Expert provides real estate services to Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Sanibel and Captiva Islands

 You have gotton pre-qualified or pre-approved (sellers love this), have interviewed and determined a local skilled realtor will best help you find your home, and the agent has scheduled several properties to show you. Having just read the national and local papers(www.usatoday.com and www.newspress.com) you feel great having discovered the President signed in law a bill on Tuesday that will give you an $8000 tax credit (or 10% of the value, which ever is less) for a first time buyer on their 2008 or 2009 income taxes. Gotta live there for at least three years and there are some income restrictions, but this is a refundable credit.

 The Final Frontier, is not always space, but fighting to delay or prevent or foreclosure of your home. An Associated Press (www.ap.org) article today referencing a small town in central Florida, a woman had lost her job and was going to lose her home. She managed to halt the foreclosure proceedings by asking the siting judge to have the lien holder  produce the originaal note, mortgage, and other documents she signed when she closed on her home. In Lee County, Florida, with our large distressed homes inventory (www.swflrealtors.com), and (www.swflreia.com), the homestead property owners amy want to consider this approach.

 Since the real estate buying and selling insanity of the last five years has generated volumes of mortgages and notes, and these securities have been packaged, grouped and resold, and resold again, the original documents signed could very well be in Iraq today, if they exist at all. It is far from being unreasonable to use free court documents provided by some attorneys like Chris Hoyer of Tampa with his www.consumerwarningnetwork.com to fight the foreclosure proceedings of " show me the money" with retort of " show me the note".

Continued..... Your paperwork has been sent to the asset manager and after a period of time (always a fun time), you get a response. We are in Cape Coral, Florida, one of the leading fore-closure markets in the U.S, and the response is......"we are going to let you and the other multiple offerers give us "your highest" bid. This is a counter offer to as many people as offered on this property. At this point, you may feel violated, or worst and may already feel what you originally offered was fair. So avoid a major adjustment the price, but increase your escrow, maybe in increments after number of days, shorten closing date or inspection period, and remove any unnecessary obstacles to get the property(sometimes referred to as path of LEAST resistance). Remember, there are nearly 600 similar homes in Lee County, Florida(www.swflrealtors.com), so there are still many candidates for you here.

Our southwest Florida marketplace just had a large foreclosure sale at Harborside this week-end(www.fmharborside.com) and many good deals were struck. Mostly for homes in Lee County, Florida's hardest affected cities of Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres. Our inventory is beginning to stabilize and  soon many of these "good deals" will be a memory.

 Let's say you missed the auction and action at Harborside. There will be two more this week in Miami, and West Palm Beach. If you are seriously looking for bargain real estate, the REO market is alive and kicking here. Success is working with a savy real estate agent, flexible in the terms offered, patience, and also getting used to being ignored. Unless you are a "cash" buyer, Asset mangers love the unambiquity cash bring to the equation. They may also shudder at thoughts of working with "whacked" out buyers and/or "whacked out " real estate agents for 30-60 days until closing.

Now, being "armed and dangerous" , you venture into Cape Coral or Lehigh Acres, looking for a three bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car gagrage with about 1400-1800 square feet under air. Your savy real estate agent pulled up only 594 current active listings (www.swflrealtors.com) between $30,000 and $70,000 in these two locations. You suggest that Cape Coral may be a better place to start, only because there are only 123 choices there.

If you have only a small down payment and maybe you are a first time home buyer, begin with the homes which have been on the market the longest. If you are pre-approved for a mortgage, or better yet have the King (cash), then the whole area is in play. If you can find a house in a fairly mature neighborhood with all utilites in place, and signs of neighbors exhibiting "pride of ownership", this should be a top candidate.

Should I use a real estate broker?

 In our Lee County, Florida area, we saw some rapid acceleration in real estate values, then a precipitous water slide to where we are today. Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres have surplus inventory of REO's and foreclosures. South Fort Myers, Sanibel and Captiva, and Fort Myers Beach homes have fared better. Today, the value of a savy real estate agent is very important in successfully acquiring title and ownership to local properties. Below is an excerpt from HUD, www.hud.gov/buying    Should I use a real estate broker? How do I find one?