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How much is my property worth?
There are many elements that affect the value of your home...From the age to the condition to the way the neighbors take care of their front yard...
Some are under your control, but sadly, most are not.
The condition is certainly under your control: What does it look like from the curb? Is the landscaping attractive? How is the paint?Are there maintenance issues? How is the roof, the plumbing, carpets, floors?
The furnishings? While people are not buying your furnishings, they do make a big impression! What do the draperies look like? The kitchen counters? What about the bathrooms? Need to clean the carpets?
Is the house clean, neat and sparsely decorated?
The paint job. Neutral colors are easier to sell than vibrant or busy patterns. WHAT SEASON during the year you decide to sell may, or may not, be under your control.
Other factors are completly out of your control:
Your few blocks that make up your neighborhood:
Do they demonstrate pride of ownership? Are the neighbors improving their homes? Are your near distractions, like a freeway or an attraction, like a park or shopping?
Your city or community: Are jobs moving in or out? Is it a well-run government? A highly desirable location? The general economy: How is consumer confidence? How is the stock market? Is it an election year? What are interest rates?
Your competition:
It is more than just your direct neighbors. You competition is every house on the market in a fairly large area in your price range. What other choices do buyers have when spending their housing dollars?
Do the best you can with what you can control. Carefully consider everything. Try not to judge the information, or take it personally. Just use it to make the best choice your can about price. Go for a price that is just over what other, similar homes have sold for and just under what your competition is asking. Then, keep integrating any new information that the MARKET gives you along the way.
How to get the best possible price and terms?
First you must know the brutal truth. It does not matter at all if you are delighted or disappointed with the news. If you are to maximize your results, you must know.
Second, you must have a pricing strategy that gets you the most attention from buyers interested in your price range.
Then you must have a marketing plan that:
* Creates excitement and urgency regarding your home
* Brings your home to the attention of every possible buyer in your home's price range.
You are in charge of the second issue.
You hire a real estate agent to handle the first and the last.
Many people think that they hire a real estate agent and the real estate agent "sells" the home. Many real estate agents would like you to believe that.
?It's a fairy tale. Your house will sell itself?When prospective buyers come to see it, they will either choose it or reject it. They may get useful information from the Realtor, but the home either works for them or it doesn't.
What then is the Realtor's job?
First, she is an Information Manager. She collects information and keeps it in front of you. She keeps your focus on what the MARKET is trying to tell you.
Second, she is your Marketing Manager. Her job is to get as many prospective buyers as possible to see your house. If they don't see it, they can't love it.
For instance, she will do many things to get your home looked at both by other Realtors and prospective buyers?that's the Marketing Manager. Then she will help you interpret and understand what the MARKET is saying?that is the Information manager.
What does it mean when lots of Realtors have seen your home, but no showings, or lots of prospective buyers have seen your home, but no offers are written, when houses around similar to yours are selling, but not yours?that's the Information Manager.
What is the value of advertising and marketing?
One of the two major jobs that we do for you is Marketing Manager. It is of primary importance. A marketing plan is really a strategy for getting the most people and the right people into your home as quickly as possible.
Let's consider where buyers come from:
A really good Marketing Plan also has a strategy for creating excitement and a sense of urgency in the prospective buyers.
Getting a hundred people through your home to evaluate it, is good marketing, but getting them there all at once is great marketing!
If a buyer thinks he is the only person interested in the house, he will act one way, but if there are many people interested, he may act another way. It is this sense of urgency and scarcity that we work towards.
Advertising and Marketing come in many forms:
Sign in the yard
Newspaper advertising
Internet Marketing
Email to other realtors
Open House events
Mailing directly to existing prospects
General Direct mail
Multiple Listing Service
Week day Open House for Brokers
All are an integral part of any worthwhile marketing strategy.
Dealing with the changing housing inventory
What is a Buyer's Market? How does it differ from a Seller's Market?
?So what?
Buyer's Market
When there are lots of properties on the market at the same time, the buyer has lots of choices and therefore often has the upper hand in negotiations. He can always go buy another house if any particular house doesn't pan out. The seller needs to be sure his property is priced and staged to its best advantage.
Seller's Market
When there are very few properties for sale at any one time, the buyer often has to settle for terms that are not what he really wanted. There just are not many choices. In this case the seller often has the advantage, because there are more buyers than properties, so he may ask for and get a higher price and better terms than otherwise.
Balanced Market
Most of the time, there enough homes on the market and buyers looking for homes that neither has much of an advantage.
The nature of the real estate market is that the pendulum swings. During the "recession" of the early nineties, it was a Buyer's Market. The economy was poor and consumer confidence was low. During the late nineties, the economy and consumer confidence turned quickly and it fast became a Seller's Market. As soon as the pent-up demand (actually stored indecision) was satisfied, it became a Balanced Market.
When you are a seller, you must consider what kind of market you are operating in, and change your strategy accordingly.
A Seller negotiates a contract...
Negotiating has been described as a dance.
Two parties each with its own issues and desires?Some of these are clear and obvious and others are hidden or obscure. The business of a negotiation is to satisfy the issues of both parties at the same time?thus the dance.
The Basic steps are:
Buyer writes his desires in an offer.
Realtor presents that offer to the seller.
Seller writes his desires in a counter-offer.
Buyer writes a counter?Seller?Buyer?Seller
?Until it's done.
Just as with dancing, the skill is not in knowing the basic steps, but how you do them, embellish, follow and lead.
It takes skill to:
Learn what the hidden or obscure desires are.
Find out what makes things important.
Know the local market realities and presenting them with skill and consideration.
Find alternatives that will satisfy one person's desires without crushing the other person's.
Craft an arrangement that satisfies everyone.
What is Escrow?
In California, buyers and sellers use an third-party escrow.
It facilitates the complicated process for everyone involved. So after you have successfully negotiated a contract, We send instructions to escrow.
The escrow is a disinterested third party which collects all the paperwork, money, instructions, Deeds, loan papers, etc.
Escrow will not act without exact instructions from both the buyer and the seller. In this way, the seller can safety sign his Grant Deed to the buyer before any money changes hands. The buyer can safely deposit his down payment. The old lenders and the new lenders can sign off and put their demands and instruments into the hands of the escrow officer.
When the moment to close finally comes, the escrow makes sure the buyer gets his Grant Deed, the seller gets his money, the old lender gets theirs and the new lender gets a Trust Deed, and all the other parties and issues are handled.
During the "escrow period" things like title insurance, property insurance, termite reports and payments, and all the myriad of tasks are handled by the various people involved in the transaction.
The seller has many obligations regarding disclosure about the condition of the property. I will see to it that these obligations are properly accomplished.
It is early in this period that the buyer will want to schedule an inspection of the property by a professional property inspector.
It is not uncommon for an escrow file to be a foot thick!
Seller's Disclosure Responsibility
Things have sure changed from the days of caveat emptor, which is ancient Roman for Let the Buyer beware! These days, at least in California, the seller has statutory duties to disclose conditions and facts about the home as never before.
While you do not have a duty to thoroughly investigate, or to seek out, you do have a duty to tell all you know.
The disclosures go well beyond the condition of the home itself (those plumbing problems you were going to fix someday, and the little leak over the upstairs bedroom that you painted over.)
They extend to issues beyond the property: Barking dogs?that motorcycle gang that hangs out next door?the dumpster out your bedroom window that is emptied at 3AM.
It even extends to events?your grandmother died peacefully in her sleep? There was a murder? Disclose it all.
Additionally there are disclosure requirements about earthquake zones, fire and flood zones, military ordnance, methane gas, other state and local retrofitting requirements. All this disclosure responsibility is laid at the seller's door.
It may seem silly or even petty, but the consequences of not disclosing are considerable and far out-weigh any inconvenience.
Happily, there is a form that simplifies the job and helps jog your memory. There are companies devoted to statutory disclosure issues and we can make them available to you as well.
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