Why Should Sellers Be Absent During Showings?
November 30, 2008
If only there were a way to sell your home without letting all those people come through. Unfortunately, the reality is that homes must be shown in order to be sold. Also, few buyers commit to purchasing a home without first spending some time there. Some buyers need to spend a lot of time in a home before they decide to buy it.
Most experienced agents recommend that sellers vacate their home when it’s shown to prospective buyers. This is usually inconvenient for sellers, but there are reasons why it’s best for sellers to be gone when their home is shown.
Ambivalence, or the approach-avoidance syndrome, is a major theme in many home buying sagas. Here’s how the scenario often plays out: A great listing comes on the market. A buyer sees it, falls in love with it and seriously considers buying it. Then the buyer get nervous about making a commitment, has second thoughts, decides against it and moves on to other listings.
Before deciding to buy a home, buyers often must go through the process of picking the place apart. They need to look in every closet, nook and cranny. They need to discover everything they don’t like about a home before they can make a decision to go ahead and buy it.
What Are the Pitfalls of Marketing a Property Before Its Ready?
November 30, 2008
Selling quickly is a high priority for some home sellers. A job transfer can prompt the need to relocate on short notice. When trade-up buyers find their dream home, they often need to sell their current home quickly in order to complete the purchase of the new one.
Regardless of the motivating factor, when sellers decide to sell they often want to get the process started as soon as possible. But putting a home on the market prematurely can be a mistake.
Some sellers insist on marketing their home before it’s ready. Rather than complete the work that will make their home more salable, they offer to reduce the sale price to compensate buyers for shoddy conditions. Or they credit money to the buyers at closing. This generates fix-up money for the buyers who take responsibility for completing repairs after closing.
These approaches work with some buyers. But most buyers lack the vision to imagine how a home will look in its fixed-up condition. Many buyers, particularly first-time buyers, don’t have any experience fixing up homes. The entire process intimidates them. Repeat buyers may have had too much experience with the process and vow to never buy another home that needs work.
Does Staging Work?
November 29, 2008
Staging can involve minimal effort on the part of a seller. Merely rearranging furniture can show a house off to advantage. For some sellers, however, staging a home for sale is a major production. It might include hiring a fix-up-for-sale decorator and renting a house full of furniture, complete with house plants and decorative art work.
Homes that are staged for sale tend to sell faster, and for a higher price, compared to listings that have not been staged. Staged homes are more appealing. You may find more demand and possibly multiple buyers for a well-staged home.
A homeowner in Oakland, California learned the hard way what a difference staging a home for sale can make. She listed her home for sale last year with an agent who told her to do nothing to get her home ready for sale. The agent insisted that it was a waste of time to fix a house up for sale because the buyers would surely want to redecorate to suit their own tastes.
After months on the market without even a nibble from an interested buyer, the home was withdrawn from the market. The owner then consulted a different agent. This agent detailed all the cosmetic improvements that needed to be done in order to sell the home.
Do Open Houses Work?
November 28, 2008
What are the odds that you’ll find your dream at a Sunday open house? What is the likelihood that your home will sell at an open house? Open houses are an integral part of the home sale business. But, do they work?
There are two types of open houses. One is for real estate agents. The purpose of the broker’s open house is to introduce a new listing to local agents. The chance that a home will sell as a result of a broker’s open house is relatively high. Serious buyers usually work closely with agents in order to find a home. By exposing a listing to more agents, you increase the number of showings to bone fide buyers.
Sunday open houses are more of a hit-and-miss proposition. When a home is open to the public, it is open to anyone who wants to take a look. Not everyone who walks through will be a legitimate buyer.
Some open house visitors will be neighbors. This is not all bad. Some neighbors have friends or relatives who may want to relocate into the area.
Home Sellers Warning for Young Families
November 27, 2008
If you’re thinking about selling your home and moving up, do your homework before offering your home for sale. Read the following story to see what can happen to home sellers who don’t do their math.
A young family sold their home in California, before they determined how to buy their next house. All they thought about was moving into a larger home for their growing family.
Two years before, after this young couple purchased their first home, they bought a minivan with payments and increased their credit card debt with home furnishings purchases. Then, the wife quit working to stay home with their baby. The family still had sufficient money to make all payments on time. They fell in love with a larger new model home in a nearby tract home development. The sales agent convinced them the new home would only cost them another $200 per month.
The family had no trouble selling their home. To qualify for the new home mortgage payment, they had to pay off the minivan, student loans, and the credit card debt. Out of their home sale proceeds, these payoffs left less than a 10% down payment for their new home.
Flipping or Fixing Houses for Profit
November 26, 2008
Many real estate investors make $5,000 to $10,000 or more by flipping houses. These investors buy a home from a distressed seller and resell it quickly for a profit. Just because a seller has serious problems like a pending foreclosure or divorce doesn’t mean the house is a fixer. Many distressed sellers offer prime houses in perfect condition discounted for a quick sale.
Distressed sellers jump at the chance to get out from under their overwhelming problems with an offer to close in ten days. To purchase a home quickly, you need to be prepared to offer cash or a have secure loan in place with a reliable mortgage lender.
Other real estate investors prefer to buy fixers from distressed sellers. Distressed fixers tender the best bargains to make the highest return on your money. For instance, if you put 5% down on a $200,000 home, spend $5,000 fixing the house up, and another $3,000 in payments, your cash investment totals $18,000. If you sell the home for a $70,000 profit like many rehabbers, you can see that your return on your investment of $18,000 for two months exceeds most other types of investments.
Home Loans ? Identity Theft Protection Could Hurt Home Sales
November 25, 2008
Identity theft has been a hot topic in the news during the last few years. Just a month or so ago, forty million credit card numbers were compromised due to a computer attack on a credit card processor. Consumers are rightly concerned, as it can take years to unravel the problems created when someone’s identity is stolen. New legislation in Texas and California, also proposed elsewhere, is designed to protect consumers by letting them put a "freeze" on their credit reports. Those in the real estate industry are worried, however, that doing so may make it difficult for some people to buy homes.
The concept of freezing credit reports is a simple one. Every time someone applies for credit, the lender contacts on of the three main credit bureaus and requests a copy of his or her credit report, which contains the applicant’s FICO score. The score, a number ranging from 300 to 850, indicates how worthy the applicant is to qualify for the loan or credit. The new laws allow consumers to "freeze" their credit reports, effectively blocking any attempts by anyone to view his or her credit score. If the score can’t be viewed, then credit can’t be issued, thus protecting the consumer from fraudulent activity.
Sell Your Home Without Paying Any Commissions
November 25, 2008
All of us know that real estate commissions can work out to quite a bit of money ? anything from a few thousand dollars with discount brokers to 6% in commissions with full-service agents. That’s a substantial sum of money to be paying for something you could very well do on your own.
Real estate agents are important and most home sales are still done through them. However, with the growing use of the Internet among home seekers, home selling has become a lot easier. These days when one has to look for a home, the first thing they do is connect to the internet and try searching online. The internet has made the task of searching for a home easy and convenient. In contrast to newspaper classifieds, online home listings provide more details (and also pictures) which help the buyer make an informed decision on whether to see the home. This saves the time of both home buyers and home sellers.
If You are Hiring a Neighborhood Specialist to Sell Your Home, there are Some Things You Absolutely
November 24, 2008
My husband and I were eating breakfast at the Good Egg the other morning and couldn’t help but over hear a fellow talking to his elderly parents about their home. It was fairly obvious that his father had a hard time hearing and the louder he talked the more I was tuning in to what he was saying.
"Dad, the real estate market in Arizona is going crazy right now!" He said.
"Huh?" His father grunted
"THE HOMES ARE SELLING IN A MATTER OF HOURS." He said louder.
"HOURS?" His father yelled almost in half a question, half disbelief.
"Yes," He continued, "What you need to do is look for the signs in your neighborhood with the same real estate agent’s name on them. These agents are the neighborhood specialists. They sell all the homes in the neighborhood and they know what is going on in that particular neighborhood. That is what you should do. That is how you find the best agents."
I nearly choked on my toast! I sort of heavy sighed and my ears were getting hot by this time. It was all I could do to compose myself. I continued listening, all the time in disagreement with much of what the well intentioned son said to his parents.
Don?t Just be a Real Estate Agent, be a Professional!
November 23, 2008
Buyer Broker Agreement? What’s that? Most agents don’t ask their potential buyers to sign anything. It is too?well?you know?uncomfortable. Hmmmmmmm.
A professional is viewed as a professional for a reason. They value their own time and energy as well as their clients. Of all the paperwork required, I often wonder why the Buyer Broker Agreement isn’t required.
Personally, I take anywhere from 40 to 50 phone calls per day from my listing signs. Most of these individuals do not have an agent or they are not happy with their agent’s performance. When someone calls without representation, I also extend an offer of my services, but there is a catch, they must be willing to sign a buyer broker agreement. Why? It is the right thing to do. I often hear agents griping about how people run them ragged and use them up and then go and buy from someone else from a sign or perhaps a for sale by owner. In my opinion, this is the agents lack of educating their clients on the value, they, the agent, bring to the deal.
