Okay. you are ready to get your home on the market for the spring selling season. Kids will be out of school shortly and you like to move during the summer so as to have as little disruption as possible with school. What do I do with all my things?
First, you need to take down all your personal items from the house and begin to box them up. After you have boxed up your items and are getting your home ready to sell staging it is vital today. But where do you put all the things you have boxed up? rent a storage unit. the cost is minimal when you factor in the time it will sell versus how long it may sit on the market because you have too many things in your home.
I always preach to my sellers about staging a home and making it look larger and cozy at the same time. too many times I will show homes or have sellers who have had their home on the market for six months or longer and no offers. One recently I had this situation with. The problem was not the price or the staging of the house. In fact, I was perplexed as to why they had no offers and quite a bit of showings. When I arrived at the house and did a walk through with the seller I understood immediately why this house never received an offer.
They took all there personal stuff and extra furniture and placed it in the spare bedroom they were not using. Well you could barely walk in the room and could not get any idea of the space in the room with all the items in there. I was completely turned off by the amount of items in the room. I could not gauge the size of the room and had no idea there was even a closet in the room.
I advised them to rent a storage unit and place all the items in there plus any unneccessary items and toys they had around the hosue and yard. I told them that is probably the reason they are not receiving any offers on the house.
Well, what a difference it made when they did that. The house looked more spacious, and the room was significantly larger than I even had anticipated. The house was on the market for less than a month and a previous family that looked at it came back and reviewed it again. This time they made an offer....
So, if you are trying to sell your home and have to box up items and have no place to put them. rent a storage unit. The minimal cost will save you over the long run in getting your home sold today.
Dave diCecco
Realotr/Agent
www.davedicecco.com
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Home Staging..Crucial To Sell Your Home Today
If you are considering selling your house now as the spring market comes upon us there are some things you can do to help get an offer. In today's market it is not uncommon to see homes on the market for six months or longer. Not to long ago you would have to make a snap decision for fear of losing that home to someone else. Well the market conditions have changed dramatically. So what can you do to help ensure your home sells?
Stage your home properly. That probably can be the number one reason to help a home sell. With homes on the market for an average of 145 days in the Charlotte market you need something to give you an edge. To many times you are going to be competing against your neighbor for that sale.
One thing I tell ALL of my sellers. Let's go preview the other comparable homes on the market that you will be competing against. This will give you an idea of what that buyer is looking at. A lot of people think there home is ready for sale when it really may not be. It is easy for us to say you need to do this or that. However; it is much better to show them.
I recently did this for a listing I had. After previewing four other homes in the subdivision that were comparable to theirs; they agreed on what they needed to do to help make their home more marketable. I delayed putting the listing on the market to give them ample time to get the home ready. When they were done I brought my professional home stager in with me to preview the home and agreed it was time.
The home was on the market a total of 3 days and we had a showing. The agent told me they were about to make an offer on one of the other homes in the neighborhood but when she went to pull comparables up saw this was on the market.The buyers wanted to see this first.
Three hours later we had an offer.....My sellers not only got the money they wanted for the home but are closing more quickly than they anticipated. Both the sellers and the buyers are very happy with the deal.
Now, will this happen every time. Probably not. But in a market that right now swings in the buyers favor with all the available homes out there; why would you not try to give yourself every advantage?
Dave diCecco
Realtor/Agent
www.davedicecco.com
Stage your home properly. That probably can be the number one reason to help a home sell. With homes on the market for an average of 145 days in the Charlotte market you need something to give you an edge. To many times you are going to be competing against your neighbor for that sale.
One thing I tell ALL of my sellers. Let's go preview the other comparable homes on the market that you will be competing against. This will give you an idea of what that buyer is looking at. A lot of people think there home is ready for sale when it really may not be. It is easy for us to say you need to do this or that. However; it is much better to show them.
I recently did this for a listing I had. After previewing four other homes in the subdivision that were comparable to theirs; they agreed on what they needed to do to help make their home more marketable. I delayed putting the listing on the market to give them ample time to get the home ready. When they were done I brought my professional home stager in with me to preview the home and agreed it was time.
The home was on the market a total of 3 days and we had a showing. The agent told me they were about to make an offer on one of the other homes in the neighborhood but when she went to pull comparables up saw this was on the market.The buyers wanted to see this first.
Three hours later we had an offer.....My sellers not only got the money they wanted for the home but are closing more quickly than they anticipated. Both the sellers and the buyers are very happy with the deal.
Now, will this happen every time. Probably not. But in a market that right now swings in the buyers favor with all the available homes out there; why would you not try to give yourself every advantage?
Dave diCecco
Realtor/Agent
www.davedicecco.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Home Inspection Options In North Carolina...Which One Do I Choose?
In North Carolina on the offer to purchase contract the buyer has two options in regards to home inspections. But which one is the best alternative for me? That question was posed to me last evening on an offer I was writing. I have given a lot of thought to this in the past and weighed in on both the pros and cons of each one.
Currently, a buyer can choose between option one or option two for a home inspection clause. Option one says that they will have the home inspection done in X amount of days and that they can request the seller to do "necessary repairs" as outlined in the small paragraph. If it is outside of the scope of those repairs and the seller refuses to do the repairs or offer any compensation for such repairs the buyer is bound to purchase the home.
Now, there is one other contingency clause to that which is the cost of repairs. If the necessary repairs exceed a set dollar amount (negotiated in the offer to purchase) the buyer can still walk away even if the seller agrees to fix them. However; if it is out of the scope of those necessary repairs regardless of the cost the buyer is bound by the contract.
On option two the buyer pays the seller a flat fee. Generally, I have done from $50.00 to $100.00 fee (depending on the price of the home). This is a non refundable fee that the buyer gives the seller in order to have the right to have a home inspection and any other inspection they wish. The seller agrees to take the home off the market during that time frame. If the buyer does not like what the home inspection reports read he can walk away no questions asked. They can also request that the seller make the repairs to the home. If the seller refuses to make the repairs or make and contingency for the repairs the buyer still has the option of walking away.. They just lose their option fee deposit.
If the buyer and seller agree on repairs or buyer accepts property in current condition the option fee is applied to the purchase price. Thus if the buyer goes forward with the contract he does not lose that money.
So, which one is better? I have been advocating for Option two with all my buyers. You have such a narrow scope of "necessary repairs" on option one. With all the hidden things that we can not notice the cost to repair could be to dramatic for the buyer to repair. In addition you may have some issues that are not in need of immediate repair but in the near future will need repairing...These are things that the seller in not required to do on option one and could be more than you could afford to do with the new home.
As I tell my buyers, "is $50 to $100 worth the peace of mind of knowing you can walk away if the unexpected repairs seem to be too costly for you?" Generally speaking it is. With over half of the buyers ut there right now (according to a recent study I read) being first time home buyers they may not have the extra money needed to do the repairs or maintenance to the home.
Dave diCecco
Realtor/Agent
www.davedicecco.com
Currently, a buyer can choose between option one or option two for a home inspection clause. Option one says that they will have the home inspection done in X amount of days and that they can request the seller to do "necessary repairs" as outlined in the small paragraph. If it is outside of the scope of those repairs and the seller refuses to do the repairs or offer any compensation for such repairs the buyer is bound to purchase the home.
Now, there is one other contingency clause to that which is the cost of repairs. If the necessary repairs exceed a set dollar amount (negotiated in the offer to purchase) the buyer can still walk away even if the seller agrees to fix them. However; if it is out of the scope of those necessary repairs regardless of the cost the buyer is bound by the contract.
On option two the buyer pays the seller a flat fee. Generally, I have done from $50.00 to $100.00 fee (depending on the price of the home). This is a non refundable fee that the buyer gives the seller in order to have the right to have a home inspection and any other inspection they wish. The seller agrees to take the home off the market during that time frame. If the buyer does not like what the home inspection reports read he can walk away no questions asked. They can also request that the seller make the repairs to the home. If the seller refuses to make the repairs or make and contingency for the repairs the buyer still has the option of walking away.. They just lose their option fee deposit.
If the buyer and seller agree on repairs or buyer accepts property in current condition the option fee is applied to the purchase price. Thus if the buyer goes forward with the contract he does not lose that money.
So, which one is better? I have been advocating for Option two with all my buyers. You have such a narrow scope of "necessary repairs" on option one. With all the hidden things that we can not notice the cost to repair could be to dramatic for the buyer to repair. In addition you may have some issues that are not in need of immediate repair but in the near future will need repairing...These are things that the seller in not required to do on option one and could be more than you could afford to do with the new home.
As I tell my buyers, "is $50 to $100 worth the peace of mind of knowing you can walk away if the unexpected repairs seem to be too costly for you?" Generally speaking it is. With over half of the buyers ut there right now (according to a recent study I read) being first time home buyers they may not have the extra money needed to do the repairs or maintenance to the home.
Dave diCecco
Realtor/Agent
www.davedicecco.com
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