Does the Cleanliness Of Your Home Help Your Home Sell Faster?

Being in the spring market I am very busy with listings and buyers both locally and out of the area looking at homes and me previewing homes for listings. One thing came up this past weekend when i was showing homes that made me sit down last night and think and reflect back and realize something.....The cleanliness of a home tells more about the value of the home than some homeowners think..... Because Charlotte, NC. is more a sellers market right now, I have noticed a trend that was not there last year or the past couple of years. One of the things I noticed in the trend is that homeowners are not all keeping their homes spotless for showings. I am not saying that if you have two to three or more kids and you get a showing request in the next hour that it is realistic to think that the house is going to be perfect on a Saturday....But if you get one a day or two in advance I would expect it to be clean and presentable for the showing the next day. I showed homes in the $300,000 range on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. Most of the homes were extremely clean and well kept up. Something I would expect since I booked the showings a couple of days in advance. However; there were a couple of homes that were not. One home was empty and I was very shocked at the lack of cleanliness of the house. Especially since no one was living there currently. The other one someone was living in and you could see the dirt in the carpet and the fresh stains in the carpet and cobwebs blowing from the corners of the rooms when you looked up at the ceilings. It was so bad my buyers told their children NOT to touch anything in the house and Dad even picked up one of them and carried them throughout the house for fear of what she might touch and put in her mouth. Now both homes have been on the market in excess of six months. They were both priced well below the market value for the neighborhoods they were in. In fact, for this blog post I did the actual market analysis and found the empty house to be 18% less than the average asking price in the neighborhood and the other one to be 13% below the average market value of the asking prices in that neighborhood. Yet neither one has sold...... My buyers ruled both homes out. They both said that as soon as they walked in and so the filth (as they worded it) in the house they were concerned about the way the sellers maintained the house itself. If someone is that lazy to not clean a house; what might be wrong with the house? Maybe nothing but the perception and first impression is there once they walked through that front door of the house..... Spend a little extra money and hire a cleaning service to come in and give your house a thorough cleaning before putting it on the market. Then maintain the house and run a vacuum and broom regularly through the house. It can make the difference between selling your home today and not selling your home for months. As well as the how much you will actually get for your house based on the cleanliness of it. As an FYI, my buyers selected a comparable house in one of the neighborhoods and we have agreed to a price that is still 6% above what the other home was asking for theirs. The homes had similar floor plan and a few differences....but ultimately it was the overall cleanliness of the home that kept them away from it...... Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker Coldwell Banker United Cell:704-519-7895 ddicecco@cbunited.com www.davedicecco.com

is Due Diligence Fee Taking The Place Of Earnest Money In Charlotte, NC.?

A trend seems to be coming up in transactions in the Charlotte, NC. market. Sellers are asking for more money on due diligence and less or nothing on earnest money. Which bodes the question as to why? Due diligence was supposed to be the dollar amount the buyer pays the seller directly to take the house off the market and allow the buyer to perform the necessary inspections, get the home appraised and finalize the loan documentation. At the end of the due diligence period if the buyer did not say they were not going forward with the transaction they would be able to recoup their earnest money but would only have lost their due diligence fee. because the way the system was set up last year the average fee ranged from $100.00 to a couple of hundred dollars and earnest money was from $1000.00 and up depending on the price point of the house and type of loan you were doing. But a trend seems to be happening and I am one that has for the past few months been doing the same thing..... Selling agents are asking for a larger due diligence fee and less or no earnest money. I am noticing (and am doing it myself), that fi the buyer is putting $1000.00 down I am asking for half in due diligence fee and the other half in earnest money. I just had an offer negotiated where the seller asked for no earnest money and all the money in due diligence fee.... So why is the trend heading that way? The main reason I think is that too many transactions recently are not closing and sellers are left with $100 or $200 and lost time off the market for the house. It is becoming more common in the agent comments "back on market buyer financing fell through". Or because buyers do not have a lot at stake in the transaction and they see another house they like they are walking away during the due diligence period..... As mortgage underwriting has tightened their standards, more and more loans are not getting approved near the end or the requirements they are asking is driving some buyers out of the market in the last hours of the deal. Sellers are getting upset because they have taken the house off the market in the prime selling season and want some type of restitution. I have been advising my sellers to ask for almost all the money in due diligence fee. They ask me what if the buyer balks at it. My answer is then they are not 100% totally sold on your house a still shopping around or settling and may walk anyway. With inventory levels so low this has become the time where sellers can dictate stronger terms on the negotiating table and good listing agents are doing that for their clients right now... Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker Coldwell Banker United Cell:704-519-7895 ddicecco@cbunited.com www.davedicecco.com

Charlotte, NC. Housing Stats And trends For March 2013

There is a lot of talk about the housing market in Charlotte, NC. and whether it is improving or if this is a smoke screen. Being one of the largest metro areas in the United States and one of the fastest growing this trend plays a vital impact on home sellers and home buyers alike. So I decided to do a monthly analysis versus the previous year and two years ago during the same month and see where the trends are and how they are impacting the housing market in Charlotte, NC. here are the stats for march 2013: First, let's look at inventory of available homes buyers have to choose from in the Charlotte, NC. region. In 2011 there were 23781 homes for sale in March. In 2012 there were 19473 homes for sale in March. Last month there were 13746 homes for sale. That is a decline of 58% in two years of available homes buyers have to choose from. Second, the average sale price of homes in the Charlotte, NC. region for March 2011 was $195,336. In 2012 the average sale price was $196,214 and last month the average sale price was $216435. That is an increase of 10.7% in the average sale price in the Charlotte, NC. market. Third, let’s look at days in inventory. How long are houses sitting on the market? In 2011 the average home sat on the market for 13.2 months before being sold. In 2012 the number improved to 9.7 months and last month it improved to 5.0 months. That is a dramatic drop in inventory of over 75% in two years. What the trends are showing is that the housing market is out of the recession and available homes for sale have decreased to the lowest levels we have seen in over 5 years coupled with prices slowly creeping back up and more buyers out there than homes available and you have signs of a robust market in Charlotte, NC. If all three factors were trending equally it could be the market fixing itself. But the fact that inventory has declined 25% less than average days on market means we are getting more buyers out there than homes right now and it is starting to cause prices to go up. This is a good thing for the housing industry and the economy. Coupled with the fact, home prices are not skyrocketing to adjust for decrease of inventory shows a stable growth in the Charlotte, NC. market. Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker Coldwell Banker United Cell: 704-519-7895 ddicecco@cbunited.com www.davedicecco.com