Buyers and Sellers
Think you are READY to take the plunge?
Think you’re ready to take the plunge? 4 reasons why “Buying a Home NOW Makes Sense!”
1. Holy bell bottoms Batman! Homes are more affordable today then they have been since 1970!
2. Bargain basement rates! Interest rates continue to trend down, hitting 60 Yr lows.
3. No matter what you’ve heard, financing is still available.
4. Your market has an abundance of homes “on sale” right now. There’s no time like the present. Contact me today for you to take advantage of the great opportunities in the greater Charlottesville Real Estate market!!
Should you have an Open House?
Since MLS* listings began being featured online around 1996, the transparency of homes for sale has improved exponentially. Through the use of multiple photos, 360-degree virtual tours, and video, home buyers can go inside each home virtually with all the convenience of choosing a car or a pair of jeans.
So why have an open house? If you’re trying to sell your home, you want to employ all the ways home buyers choose a home. An open house may help, or you may decide it’s not for you.
Here are a few ideas to consider.
Where and how do home buyers shop for a home?
The Internet is the first place home buyers shop for a home. One-third of home buyers start their search for a home online. In 2007, only 4% of first-time home buyers and 5% of repeat home buyers began their search by visiting open houses, according the 2008 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
However, as buyers get deeper into the home buying process, open houses become more important. Of all home buyers who purchased a home in 2007, 48% used open houses as a source of information, and 40% of all home buyers found open houses to be “very useful,” said the study.
But you’re not here to educate buyers, you want to sell your home. How can an open house be right for your marketing plan? The study found the answer in buyer follow-up behavior.
In 2007, 15% of home buyers found the home they purchased from a yard sign or open house sign, unchanged from 2001. Meanwhile, 32% of buyers found their home on the Internet, up from 8% in 2001. But when they picked their home online, 77% of them drove by the home, and 63% of them walked through the home.
While the information doesn’t explain how they walked through the home – either by appointment or at an open house, it does make clear that home buyers use the Internet as a selection tool, but they usually make their choice in person.
Risks and rewards of open houses
An open house is an invitation to neighbors and strangers to walk through your home. You might not like your privacy invaded, and sometimes you might find small items missing after an open house, like drugs from the medicine cabinet, or small collectibles.
The upside is that it’s a chance to showcase your home to potential home buyers who may have seen your home online and want to take the next step. An open house could seal the deal.
Open house do’s and don’ts
1. Clean the home thoroughly, so that the home looks and smells terrific.
2. Clear out clutter. Clean tabletops and neat bookcases makes the home appear roomier.
3. Empty medicine cabinets. Lock away jewelry, collectibles, and your personal papers, including credit card and utility bills to prevent identity theft.
4. Depersonalize. Don’t leave out mementoes. Home buyers want to imagine themselves as the occupants.
5. Don’t leave pets on the premises. Make sure their beds, bowls and boxes are put away for the open house.
6. Make sure your listing agent doesn’t conduct your open house alone. Having two people, one to show the house and one to take information from open house visitors, which discourages “lookie-loos” and petty thieves.
7. Don’t hang around the open house. Owners discourage buyers from making honest comments.
8. Make sure your listing agent collects contact information from people who have visited your home for feedback.
9. Be willing to act upon the feedback you receive. If some number of potential home buyers said they hated the paint colors, prepare to repaint.
10. Use the Internet and open houses together. If you make a change to the home, such as a lower price and new improvements, announce the changes online, and those previous open house attendees may come back with an offer. Your listing agent can also email the attendees with any new information.
Is your home worth the asking price?
Is your home worth your asking price? The best way to answer that question is to separate what’s relevant to home buyers from what’s not relevant.
Starting with the bare basics, home buyers choose homes based on:
Price – their lenders tell them what they can afford
Location – they know where they want to live and why
Condition – they want homes that are well-maintained and move-in ready
They look at the available inventory – your home and its competition. The greater the inventory, the more room they have to negotiate terms.
They narrow their choices to a short list, based on what they perceive to be the best value.
They buy according to what’s most important to them – price, neighborhood, and/or condition. For example, a buyer who wants a certain neighborhood may choose a home in less than perfect condition, but only if the price is right.
What you should consider before you price your home
Your market
When home sales volumes increase, prices go up, and inventories of homes for sale fall below about six months on hand, (meaning it would take six months or less to sell all the homes for sale on the market to zero on hand) the market is said to be a “seller’s market,” because the market’s conditions favor sellers.
When sales volumes decrease, prices decline, and inventories of homes rise above about six months on hand, conditions favor the buyer, making it a “buyer’s market.”
To sell your home in the current market, you have to consider the market’s conditions.
You may adjust your price and terms accordingly.
Your competition
Your competition is not only other similar homes in your area, but what buyers can get if they buy brand-new. Your buyer is comparing size, number of bedrooms and baths, amenities, updates, views, landscaping, and décor. You can’t put a price on many features, but some qualities, such as fine workmanship, room flow, and convenient storage are simply worth more money to buyers.
Your urgency
If you’re relocating or have another reason to be in a hurry, you don’t have time to test the market. You have to price your home to get immediate and serious offers to buy.
What’s not relevant to home buyers
Your emotions
If you’re sentimental about your home, remember your buyer hasn’t formed the same attachments. Your buyer may appreciate your home, but will still compare it to other available homes in terms of price, location, and condition before weighing emotion.
What you paid for the house
Many area home prices have receded as much as five to ten years. Sellers who paid high prices for their homes, purchased too recently to build equity, or took out second liens or equity loans may find that what they paid is not what the home is worth in today’s market. Buyers are only concerned with what they can afford.
What you paid for improvements beyond ordinary maintenance
Your swimming pool may be beautiful and add some value to your home, but some buyers may not want the upkeep or the insurance liability, so they’ll tend to offer less for the home than a buyer who really wants a pool.
What buyers expect is for homes to be properly maintained. Even if a home is in the most desirable of neighborhoods, it will never sell for as much as similar homes if it is in poor condition or lacking updates comparable to newer homes in the area.
Easy DIY: Installing a vanity
In the coming month look for easy “do it yourself” videos on simple home improvements that can make a big difference! Enjoy this video on installing a vanity. Updating a bathroom vanity isn’t as hard as you think. Learn how you can update yours for a more stylish look!
TV Home Shows Turn to Foreclosures – WSJ.com
Where are the hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes in the U.S. ending up? On reality television.
This summer and fall, several TV networks are unveiling reality shows about buying foreclosed houses as a way to reinvent the popular “house flipping” formula, which proliferated in cable programming alongside the real-estate boom.
‘Spike TV’s ‘Flip Men,’ top, is among the new shows about buying foreclosed homes.
In September, Viacom Inc.’s Spike TV will premiere a new show called “Flip Men” about an entrepreneurial duo living in Salt Lake City who try to make big bucks in the foreclosure market. Later this summer, Bravo’s hit reality show about house-flipper-turned-designer Jeff Lewis, called “Flipping Out,” takes a personal turn in its fifth season when it shows Mr. Lewis wrangling with lenders in a quest to buy a foreclosed house to live in. A&E Television Networks, a joint venture among Walt Disney Co., Hearst Corp. and Comcast Corp.’s NBC Universal, recently tapped a former “Survivor” contestant to star in a new show later this year about flipping houses—some foreclosed—in Houston. And DIY Network, a division of Scripps Networks Interactive Inc., has a show in development about flipping foreclosed houses that could air in 2012.
The foreclosure trend comes after years when shows about house flipping—where homes are bought, renovated and quickly sold—dominated cable programming amid the housing boom, eventually giving way to shows focusing more on home decoration, design and improvement as the real-estate market softened.
Reality shows about buying homes, such as HGTV’s “House Hunters,” first became popular more than a decade ago and then exploded with the real-estate boom from 2005 to 2007, when cable channels such as A&E and NBC Universal’s Bravo launched programs about entrepreneurs profiting off the surging market, including “Flip This House,” “Flip That House” and “Flipping Out.”
When the financial crisis hit Wall Street in 2008 and the housing market began to unravel, many of these networks chose to retool those shows or take them off the air to keep current. New episodes of A&E’s “Flip This House” haven’t aired since 2009, and networks such as Scripps Networks’ HGTV introduced programs such as “The Unsellables” about making over homes to help owners who can’t sell their properties. The shows that weathered the storm and stayed on the air had to change their focus: Mr. Lewis, the star of Bravo’s “Flipping Out,” stopped flipping houses and changed professions after the economy slumped. To earn a living, he now designs homes for clients, and recent seasons of the show have focused on his new career.
Continue Reading the full article here: TV Home Shows Turn to Foreclosures – WSJ.com.
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