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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
