Archive for the ‘Selling Your Home’ Category
-->
Jul
03
Posted by Larry Cragun
The combination of a falling market and the new appraiser laws have created some interesting problems. I will comment on a couple of them. Hopefully it gives you some insights to be prepared for.
a. Know that many are complaining their appraisal was wrong, too low. Appraisers are now randomly chosen. Each bank has it’s own approved list. I comment on it on my national blog: Real Estate Undressed.
b. Be sure of your value if you are a seller. Value is based more on comparable sold homes, not prices of homes on the market. A surprisingly common buyer strategy you should be prepared for is what I coin as the ”Option Offer“. An Option is the right to purchase – say for example your home. Over my real estate career I have negotiated over a hundred options for buyers. Options are often a terrific solution. They also have an interesting effect on coming to the proper value.
Here is an example of what I mean by this. Near Marymoor Park in Redmond is a large apartment complex. The seller wanted too much money for the land. I was contracted to secure the land for the builder developer. The option worked perfectly. The seller believed his value was based on a certain number of build-able units on his land. We knew the zoning would limit the units to a smaller number.
When a seller gives an option, mentally the seller has sold the property. We knew that. After submitting our plan to King County we were approved for the number of units we expected. We returned to the seller that our price would have to be lowered accordingly or we would walk from the transaction. We got our price. He got a fair market price.
That can happen to you the home seller. When the home you have mentally sold doesn’t appraise for the price you got, you must either reduce the price or chance a new transaction working out. No buyers pay a higher price than the appraised value. (I have seen one acception to that many many years ago on a terrible VA Appraisal).
Take note, some buyers are intentionally making you an “Option Offer”. Yep that surprises me too, just be aware it is happening. Take the time to know what your home is really worth, versus what you are dreaming, feeling, or needing it to be worth. You must be prepared to know how to react if your home doesn’t appraise for what you sold it for.
So it didn’t appraise, now what? A. You draw a hard line and take your chances. B. You change your price.
This photo is one Kathleen took from our current Park Drive Condo listing. If you are looking for a home in Issaquah Highlands call us at 206.618.3724. There are some good buys out there and some not so good. We can help you find that treasure.
Share
-->
May
07
Posted by Issaquah Highlands Undressed
In today’s chilling Real Estate climate it helps to have an edge and a Real Estate agent who can give that to you. Plateau Real Estate has purchased the Exclusive territorial rights to use www.Miles4RealEstate.com as a Marketing Tool for Sellers and Buyers. In a market that is dominated by frequent Price Reductions, Miles 4 Real Estate allows Sellers the opportunity to offer Air Miles to Buyers in lieu of further price reductions. This will give Sellers an edge from competing Homes and also helps Bridge the gap on Low Ball offers. Buyers, if you use Plateau Real Estate to purchase your next Home they’re giving you up to 100,000 Air Miles at Closing. These Air Miles can be redeemed on numerous air carriers including but not limited to Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and others. Great example how this benefited one of our recent Sellers, similar Condo was for sale in the same complex but it was $500 lower in price. Buyer indicated that the Seller offering the Air Miles was the deciding factor in pursuing their unit over the other one. For more details you can contact Scott at 425-890-7140.
KING 5 NEWS story on How Air Miles can work for Buyers and Sellers
Share
-->
May
06
Posted by Issaquah Highlands Undressed
Great starter Home on the Park! Very Clean and ready to move into. Stainless Steel Appliances, Hardwood Floors, Title Counters. Eating area in Kitchen. Sitting Bar at Kitchen. Dining Area and Large Living area. 3 Large Bedrooms Upstairs, Utility Room Upstairs. Completely Fenced Backyard, Country Style Front Porch looks upon the Park. Garage with Built in storage.Beautiful Home, well taken cared of! Won’t Last at this price…Hurry!!
Virtual Tour of this Home
Share
-->
Mar
04
Posted by Larry Cragun
Yes, I agree, your home is awesome.
However, all too often home sellers set the price on irrelevent data. We are seeing that more now than in the past.
What you owe on the home, what the neighbors similar home sold for last spring, or what you want it to be worth is not what it is worth.
It is hard for an agent to turn down a listing. But it is senseless for an agent to try and market a home that is seriously over priced. Listing agents have a fiduciary responsibility to get you the maximum price for your home. Most Realtors take pride in building their business on satisfied clients. It is painful to work with you when you tell them you want much more from your home than it is worth. The agent doesn’t want to let you down.
So here is the new rule sellers dear. If you and your agent agree on the value of your home, or are close, give each other a hug. But if your agent kindly or directly asks you to take a tour of the competition, take the darn tour.
It is always important that you get the right price. Sometimes it is equally important to get it quickly, maybe more important.
Don’t let what you want, what you hope, what you need, what you coulda got back then, or should have got set the price.
Share
-->
Feb
16
Posted by Larry Cragun
I am probably one of the last real estate bloggers to post this video. Daniel Rothamel a Realtor in Charlottesville, Va made quite a splash, most in a positive way with this video.
I am trying out some new technology with our blog and needed a video for the test. This is my favorite. Enjoy and enjoy the very appropriate message.
Pricing your home for sale correctly has always been important. In this real estate market, not soft bud no longer strong, it is even more important.
Daniel is a most congenial person. The Real Estate Zebra handle is appropriate for Daniel as he is a basketball referee.
Tags: homes+for+sale, pricing, listing
Share
-->
Feb
12
Posted by Larry Cragun
Today there is no national MLS, there may likely never be. The reasons are complicated, political and technical. So this addresses why sellers, you need your listing all across the internet? Things are different now for listing agents, even buyers agents.
Why? Answer: Because that is where the buyers for your Issaquah home for sale are, all over the internet. They want information from sources you may not know about yet. The logic that you just list in the local MLS is out of date. Buyers are hitting these other sites for various reasons. Some just do a Google search, some have RSS feeds tied to Craigs lists. Some buyers are foreigners that have heard of Trulia. Another internet friendly we do is a single website for your listings. This provides even more search power with the focus on the search engines finding the listing.
Larry Cragun
PS: A common misconception is that Realtor.com has all of the listings. This is wrong, and in fact this MLS does not automatically send listings to Realtor .com
Share
-->
Nov
23
Posted by Larry Cragun
This spreadsheet shows homes for sale by price range, and more importantly includes the components of the current absorption rate. The absorption rate is the ability of the real estate market to sell off all of the houses that are for sale. For example, if 100 homes are sold every month and there are 1200 homes for sale then it will take 12 months to sell all of those homes. If there are 2400 homes for sale then the absorption rate will be 24 months or 2 years.
Not a buyers market in these numbers on the whole. However, there are some of these brackets that are not so good for sellers. It takes more than statistics to price right. This is an important indicator however.
There are important ways to deal with an absorption problem, only part is price. Others include marketing techniques, staging, etc.
These numbers are derived from current MLS homes for sale, homes sold, homes pending, and homes sold contingent for the last 30 days in Issaquah Highlands.
Share
-->
Oct
29
Posted by Larry Cragun
My experience is yes if you want to sell for top dollar, if you want it to sell fast. However on another blog a Chicago Broker disputes the claim. Click here for the article from Sellsius blog.
Here was my answer to this broker: Well I am dumbfounded by the challenge. Having sold numerous homes and having been in the industry for decades I just take it as a matter of fact the claim is accurate. Perhaps my problem is that my wife is both an accredited stager and a published interior designer. (interior design is not staging) I count on her work as part of my practice. I know the phrase making more money and selling quicker is real with us. I would not say all stagers are equal and especially dispute some of what I see others call staging. Larry Cragun
In other words all staging is not equal.
We sold our home in Issaquah Highlands Ravena last month. It sold in 32 days at full price. Some of our neighbors thought we would have to take less. The home sold in about 1/2 the time similar prices are taking to sell. It sold faster and it sold for top dollar than the market.
Kathleen wrote some articles on IssaquahUndressed.com you may have missed or should review. Here is the link to them all. CLick here:
This will give you a flavor:
Can you go from this:
To this: ………………………………………………………………………… In 6 days?!??????????????
Yes, I know the room isn’t the same but the concept is. My kitchen didn’t look as bad as this office (Larry’s) but I don’t recommend trying to get your home ready for sale in six days. As I preach in my staging articles Fix In, Fix Out, Clean Up, Clean Out and all that entails, is generally more than one (or two) can do in such a short time. What I wouldn’t give for Harry Potter’s magic wand! Nevertheless, our home is for sale. An opportunity arose and we had to strike.
This brought to my mind that I had promised one more staging article on “Showing Your Home”. After you have done all that stuff I suggested in my posts, http://www.issaquahundressed.com/tags/staging-your-home-for-sale/, each day your home is for sale you should set the stage.
1. Tidy up, make beds, no dishes in the sink, spic & span, no tooth brushes on the counter, most of you know the drill. Isn’t this what your mother always made you do (or wished you would do). Floof and Poof to perfection as one of my employers said.
2. Open blinds, etc, so light fills the room, unless it is summer and it would just get too hot.
3. Turn on strategic lights that make your home look its best.
Share
