Category: Selling

Tips and information about selling a home.

Sell That House!

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So you want to sell your house, eh? Well apart from hiring yourself a knowledgeable Realtor who knows your market, it’s time to start thinking about ways to get that marketing edge!

One of the first things you need to do is clear out that clutter!! Show off the space in your home by boxing up the junk and minimizing furniture. With more open space, you have more room to assess any repairs to walls and baseboards, you can reach those dusty corners that you couldn’t before, and you have easier access for painting.

But where to put all that stuff?? Well, fortunately for us here in the Northern Virginia area we have several companies around offering rental storage units — many of which are only short distances away from our neighborhoods. We are also fortunate to have companies who bring the storage units to our front door. These front-door-service units are great because it saves you the hassle of having to haul all those things to a remote location. You can keep the unit at your door for a period of days, which means you can take your time loading in your items, and when it’s full, the company will pick it up and take it too their climate-controlled facilities. After you’ve moved into your new home, they’ll deliver your unit there for you, too! Talk about convenient!

So don’t sell yourself short by hiding the square footage in your home. Temporary storage is a great option and with several of these delivered-to-your-front-door units around, there’s practically no excuse for a cluttered house on the market. They might cost a bit more than regular storage units, but its well worth it in the long run. Do yourself a favor and get rid of that clutter!’

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Is your swimming pool drowning out your potential buyers? (Part 3)

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In this last installment of the three-part series to preventing your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers (click here to see Part 1 or Part 2), I’ll talk about ways you and your real estate agent can minimize the apprehension some buyers may have to buying your home with a swimming pool and ways to increase the foot traffic of potential buyers to your home.

Let’s start with minimizing a buyer’s apprehension about the swimming pool.

The first thing that comes to the mind of those who have never owned a pool before is the safety factor. It’s a serious matter, to be sure, and a very valid concern, so start with looking at ways to improve, highlight and emphasize the safety features of your swimming pool. The second thing that usually comes to mind about swimming-pool ownership are the operating expenses involved. Presenting an estimated cost for running your pool can help buyers get a better idea of what to expect. Who knows, they may be pleasantly surprised! Lastly, I hear a lot of non-pool owners imagine or assume that it takes a lot of hard work to maintain a swimming pool. Outlining the steps needed to keep the pool clear would be very helpful to potential buyers. So now you know the main concerns, here are some tips that you and your real estate agent can follow to help make your pool a feature rather than a fear:

Addressing swimming pool safety concerns:

  1. Highlight any fencing that you may have that surrounds the pool. Make any repairs to fencing before showing your property.
  2. Point out the safety cover for your pool. If it’s automatic, make sure it is in good working condition. If it’s a manually installed cover, on an open pool, try to hang the cover so that potential buyers can see it’s condition. If the cover is in need of repairs, either have them fixed or provide the name of a reliable pool-cover repair shop in the area. Provide copies of the brochures or informational pamphlets regarding the safety features cover.
  3. Get a copy of the county regulations for owning a swimming pool. Emphasize what you’ve done to meet or exceed those regulations.
  4. Make sure that any door or pool alarms that you have are in working condition. Replace the batteries in these units, or better yet, upgrade to a newer model.
  5. Make sure the bolts holding diving boards, slides or ladders are in place securely.

Addressing swimming pool operating expense concerns:

  1. Outline estimated costs for opening and closing your pool.
  2. Outline estimated costs for any chemicals you use including the frequency that you use them.
  3. Have your real estate agent get estimated costs of a home warranty plan that covers swimming pools and spas. Maybe even offer to purchase the warranty for the buyers.
  4. Don’t forget to show your utility bills for the months your pool is open and running.
  5. If you have a pool that needs to be filled annually and you’re on city or public water, provide an estimated cost for that too. Some water companies offer a limited-time, discounted swimming pool fill-up-rate each Spring season. This could be huge savings to the future home owners.
  6. If you use a pool service for regular upkeep, make sure outline the service costs for the company you use and maybe even throw in estimates from other companies.

Addressing swimming pool maintenance concerns:

  1. If you do handle regular upkeep yourself, track frequency and how long it takes you for each task, like skimming the pool, vacuuming, back-washing filters, etc., and outline this information for buyers who’ve never owned a pool before — they would find this information useful. You can also emphasize the dollar savings of doing daily maintenance yourself versus hiring a company. Don’t forget to include the level of difficulty for each task.
  2. A pool surrounded by deciduous trees can scream “high maintenance cleaning”. Trim any overhanging branches to avoid the potential of having leaves fall into the pool. Doing so can minimize the amount of vacuuming that needs to be done and gives potential buyers the ability to visualize lower maintenance.
  3. Note the cost for chemicals needed for regular maintenance. Recommend vendors or suppliers, especially those that offer big discount coupons.

Once you gather all the information that a buyer would ask about owning a swimming pool, work with your real estate agent to present the information in an appealing brochure (no need to get fancy if you don’t want to). Have your agent emphasize the positives to owning a pool, i.e., if you live in a a neighborhood with no community pool, having a mini-vacation at the end of the day in the comfort of your own home, and emphasizing family time together by the pool. With the proper marketing your swimming pool could end up being a showcase feature!

So what’s a good trick to gaining more traffic to your home with a swimming pool? Pictures, pictures and more pictures. Nothing is more inviting than seeing a crystal clear swimming pool on a hot, sunny day. And if all else fails and buyers are still fine that owning a swimming pool is for them, have your real estate agent note in the multiple-listing-service description that it IS possible to fill that pool. A lot of landscaping or land developers are ready to give away fill-dirt rather than having to pay dumping fees to get rid of it.

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Is your swimming pool drowning out your potential buyers? (Part 2)

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If you’ve read Part 1 yesterday, you want to know what you and your real estate agent can do to make your home more appealing to the group of potential buyers who may be intimidated by owning a house with a pool. This is the second installment of a three-part series on ways to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers.

First, your real estate agent should have already gone through your home and pointed out ways to make it sparkle like a showcase model home. If not, read some of my older posts for ideas. Once that’s done, don’t forget the front-facing curb appeal and exterior landscaping.

Now, start beautifying that swimming pool!! (Hopefully, you followed your real estate agent’s advice a planned your home sale around Spring time. Read here to find out why.)

  • Make sure the area around the pool is clean of dirt, trash and clutter.
  • Adding live greenery and flowers can enhance the appeal.
  • Make sure any patio furniture in place is clean and arranged in an inviting manner. (If you don’t have patio furniture, consider borrowing a set from a friend or renting a set.)
  • Make sure the water is crystal clear and the vacuum up any leaves floating on the surface of the water.
  • If you have a hot tub, consider investing in spa scents for open houses.
  • Ask your agent to stage take pictures of your pool area at night with the pool lights on and any exterior lights on as well.
  • If you have any floats left out, make sure they are clean for house showings or put them away.
  • If you have pets, make sure you clean up any potty messes that may be near or around the pool area to avoid negative smells from turning off buyers.
  • Try to have the pump turned on and operational, so that buyers can see that everything is in working condition.
  • If your swimming pool is fitted with a slide or a diving board, make sure that the bolts holding them in place are clean and secure.

Now that you’ve made the swimming pool area feel welcoming and inviting, read part three tomorrow on what to do to minimize fears buyers may have on buying a home with a swimming pool, and ways your agent can get more foot traffic to your home.

(This is the second installment of a three-part series on how to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers when selling your home. Read part 3 – tomorrow)

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Is your swimming pool drowning out your potential buyers? (Part 1)

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If you own a pool and your home is on the market, chances are that you’ve already eliminated a good portion of potential buyers.

Why?

Well, not everyone sees owning a swimming pool as a good thing. First and foremost, it can be a liability. Without the proper safety measures in place, in addition to those required by your county, that pool can put one’s safety at risk. Such a liability also means more home owners insurance is needed (some insurance companies won’t even accept pools with diving boards!). And people who have never owned a swimming pool before may also see it as an high-maintenance expense: water, chemicals, heating, etc.

So what can you, as a home seller with an installed pool, do to keep from drowning out your potential buyers?

First, don’t worry. There is bound to be someone out there who has the same desire as you to own a pool — if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be companies that sell swimming pools! Secondly, with the help of your real estate agent, market the positives and minimize the negatives.

(This is the first installment of a three-part series on how to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers when selling your home. Read part 2 – tomorrow)

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Who Needs A Realtor When I’ve Got Zillow?

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You’ve got it all at your fingertips. Computers, smart phones, the iPads, and of course, the internet which is chock-full of resources on all sorts of topics. You’re surrounded by technology that brings an unimaginable amount of data in an instant.

So who needs a Realtor when you have sites like Zillow or Homes.com for all your research when you go to price your home to sell or when you go to buy your next home?

It’s true, there is a wealth of information out there — some good, some bad, but think about this one question:

How many times is the average person going to buy or sell a home in their lifetime?

Well, it’s probably safe to say that the average person isn’t buying or selling a house every month, let alone every year or every couple of years. That being said, it’s definitely not IMpossible to buy or sell a house without a Realtor, but why would you want to do such a thing? I mean we’re talking about transactions involving huge sums of money and in most jurisdictions, there are also a lot of legal aspects to consider.

Look at it this way: I play golf every so often. I love the game. Whenever I feel like it, I can go to the internet and find several articles that offer golf tips or advice — sometimes from pros who have worked with golf celebrities. All this information at the click of a few buttons, but would that prepare me for a tournament against the likes of Tiger Woods? I highly doubt it.

You see, just like everything we do in life, practice makes perfect. Repetition makes us better at what we do, and the same rule applies to buying and selling real estate. It’s highly likely that a good Realtor has bought or sold several houses in a year. They’re dealing with all aspects of real estate on a daily basis. They’re constantly keeping up-to-date with the ever-changing laws in the jurisdictions they serve. They’re forming long-lasting relationships with business entities that are part of real estate transactions. The bottom line is that their repetitious activities make them the experts when it comes to real estate.

There are plenty of sites that can be very informative and can provide a lot of insight when buying or selling a home, but please, please, please, leave the real work to the experts. Hire a Realtor!

Categories: Buying Selling

Happy 2011!!

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Happy 2011!!

It’s been a crazy year again, and I didn’t even get a chance to blog these past couple of years!

Hopefully, with me new wireless devices, it will be easier for me to post more often!

So, are there any 2011 real ester resolutions out there? Any home projects planned? If so, I hope my posts can provide insights and inspiration for you!

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Categories: Buying Selling

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Selling Your Home With A Different Kind of “Wow”

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If you’re selling your home and you’ve talked with your hired expert, an experienced real estate agent, you know that having a “Wow!” factor in your home is one of the biggest influences you can make on potential home buyers. Do you have that grand gourmet kitchen? Are you showing off that luxurious master suite and master bathroom combination? Don’t forget to dim the lights to add ambiance to that high-tech media room. What’s that you say? You don’t have any of those? You think you just have a plain-Jane cookie-cutter house and there is no “Wow” left? Well, here’s where you’re wrong! Aside from offering seller concessions for new carpet replacement or general repairs, here are a few ideas to get your creative noggin running on ways to give your home the competitive edge:

  • Throw in a car, boat or RV. If you have an older car, boat or RV that you don’t plan on keeping anyway, why not add it to the list of amenities when selling your home? Think that it’s an expensive give-away? Well, think about what kind of expenses you would incur in updating a kitchen. Most kitchen renovations average $25k to $40k. Do you have that kind of cash lying around? There are even some brand new cars on the market that cost less than the average kitchen renovation.
  • Throw in a vacation. How about giving your sellers round-trip tickets to Cancun or season passes to a local amusement park or sports franchise. Do you own a time-share? Maybe throw that in to the sale. A lot of home buyers would appreciate the added bonus of a family vacation after a stressful move.
  • How about a year’s worth of monthly dinners at local restaurants. What a great way to show off the local attractions! Buy 12 gift certificates to local stores or restaurants to get buyers motivated!

So, how’s THAT for a “Wow!” factor? Use your creativity! Use what you have available locally. By incorporating ideas like these you will definitely give those potential home buyers something to think about.

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Categories: Selling

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How Rising Oil Barrel Prices Affect Real Estate

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It’s bad enough that the mortgage crisis continues to linger, causing a negative impact on real estate market conditions. But now more than ever, the rising cost of oil is also contributing it’s share of the damage too.

Everyone knows that gas comes from refined oil, so the rising cost of oil causes rising gas prices as well. So what kind of impact is this making on real estate these days? Let’s take a look:

For Home Buyers:

  • Finding a home is a little more expensive when you have to spend a good chunk of money on gas just to look at potential homes. Talk with your real estate agent about specific details regarding your next home. Your agent can preview properties for you ahead of time, and even drive you to see them in their own car. Remember that they are able to include gas and mileage as part of their business expenses.
  • If the search for an affordable home takes you several miles away from your employment, that’s a big, additional expense you have to include in your budget. Look for homes closer to your job or ones that may be close to public transportation. It will save you gas, plus it’s good for the environment.

For Home Sellers:

  • Making improvements for a quick sale is a great idea, but do your homework and search for best prices. You might find that materials or overall cost is slightly higher from vendors passing on the gas expense to the consumer.
  • If your home is a few miles away from major cities where most people work, chances are, it takes some time and quite a bit of gas to commute. Highlighting any public transportation areas near your home is a good marketing idea. Ask your real estate agent to include a map to nearby public transportation spots in your sales brochure.

For Real Estate Investors:

  • Apart from the other buying and selling issues mentioned above, doing your due diligence on your next investment property is more important than ever before, especially if that investment property is located far away from you. Ask an agent to check the comps, every month if needed, so that you’ll get a good idea of how the market is going in particular neighborhoods.
  • Spend your money wisely when it comes to fixer-uppers. Everyone is paying the price at the pump, and construction companies may also have to pay extra for materials due to manufacturers adding a gas surcharge to the bottom line.

Take your time and make smart decisions. The high price of oil doesn’t have to have such a big impact on your home transaction, if you play your cards right. And remember to use your real estate agent’s knowledge and experience as much as possible. They’ll be able to help you make choices that benefit you.

Categories: Buying Investing Selling

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Don’t Make This Biggest DIY Home Improvement Project Mistake

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Most home owners know the value that home improvements can add to their home. Updates to kitchens and bathrooms can add thousands to your home’s worth, as can the addition of more square footage, landscaping, and various other improvements. Anything that you can do to make the space feel newer, bigger and expensive can help add lots of value to your home.

Planning and window shopping for your next improvement can be a fun and great way to organize your thoughts and ideas prior to starting your home improvement project, but one critical step is often overlooked by many do-it-yourself’ers trying to save money: failing to find out if your home improvement project requires a county or city building permit. Of course, if your DIY improvement project consists of painting a room or installing carpet, you probably won’t need a building permit, but if you’re looking to add square footage to your house by drywalling that unfinished basement, adding a new deck or replacing a deck, you should definitely check with the county or city offices in your area for any necessary building permits.

So what’s the big deal about getting a permit? DIY’ers probably plan to do a better job than any contractor coming into their homes, and most homeowners wouldn’t purposefully do anything to harm their home or the people living in it, but the fact is, there are building codes to adhere to when you live in a community of many homes. These codes can vary from state to state, or even city to city, not to mention the fact that building codes could change due to newer materials or methods.

But wait! There’s more!

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve already drywalled your basement and put in that rockin’ new media center– without getting a permit. There are two things that you could do:

  1. Check with your city to see if a building permit was needed. If so, the building inspector may require you remove some walls — yes, that’s right… REMOVE some walls, painted or not — so that they can inspect the wiring and insulation.
  2. Why bother mentioning it? What’s done is done and you promise to get a building permit the next time you do a major home improvement– if there IS a next time. Besides, you think you did a better job than any contractor would do, so your work probably exceeds any kind of building codes standards anyway.

Your first option may cause some headaches, maybe even a lot of headaches, but at least you’ll know that whether or not your work was done to code. Your second option may sound like an easy out, but you could be setting yourself up for an even worse headache than just ripping out new walls. Let’s say you went with the second option. What could go wrong, right? Well, let’s see some different scenarios:

  • Life has been good. It’s been several years after your home improvement and your family has enjoyed watching several hi-def movies in your DIY media room. But now the kids have grown and moved on so it’s time to downsize. You list your home for sale. If you listed with an experienced real estate agent, one of the first things your agent will do is generate a Comparables report to establish baseline pricing for your home. And then it happens. Questions start cropping up regarding the square footage of your home versus what is stated on the the city/county tax listing. This discrepancy could affect the value of your home or raise red flags to some potential home buyers as to whether or not the basement was finished to code. As Ricky Ricardo would say… “You got alotta ‘splaining to do, Lucy!”
  • Life has still been good, but in this scenario, you’ve decided to live out the rest of your retirement days at home. After all, you put a lot of sweat equity into it, right? By some unfortunate freak accident, your home catches on fire while you are luckily out of town on vacation, so no one was hurt. No problem, items are replaceable thanks to the home owner’s insurance you’ve been paying into all these years, you’re covered, right? Right? The insurance claim adjuster who has arrived to assess the damage and write up the claim finds out that the electrical fire started in the basement. Doing their due diligence, the adjuster does some research to find out exactly how much square footage was lost, so, they go to the county to confirm your statement of square feet lost. Uh-oh, there seems to be a problem. The county has no record of additional square footage from the finished basement. In such a case, your insurance company may only pay out for the loss based on the pre-existing square footage, so all that moola you spent on that fabulous media room could literally go up in smoke. But wait! You think you can appeal the decision, and in fact, are willing to take your insurance company to court over it. Well, let me tell you about a similar case a colleague of mine encountered, wherein the homeowner tried to sue their home insurance company for not covering the entire damage. They all went to court, each side made their claim, but ultimately, the judge ruled that because the basement was not built to code and because the electrical fire started in the basement, the home owner’s insurance company was not liable to pay out anything at all! OUCH! (Yes, that’s a true story.)
  • Let’s say that you successfully sold your house with no questions asked about the finished basement. A few years pass and an electrical fire started in the basement burns down part of the house. The new home owners file their claim with their insurance company, and their claim adjuster finds out the same thing– that the basement was not built to code and their insurance company won’t pay out. That’s a shame, but it’s not your problem anymore, right? Not so fast, Speed Racer. Who do you think the new home owner is going to blame? You may be facing legal issues over that basement, even if you don’t own the house anymore! Yikes!

The bottom line is that although it may cause some headaches in the beginning- going out of your way to obtain a building permit and schedule inspections, it could save you from an ugly legal situation and a lot of out-of-pocket expenses later on. Don’t make the biggest DIY mistake ever– get that permit!

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Categories: Investing Selling

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Flipping For The Green

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When most people think of real estate investing, one of the first things that comes to mind is flipping houses. Flipping houses means you buy an investment property and immediately sell it for quick cash. The process has worked successfully for many, especially when various improvements have been made to the property prior to selling. But the ‘green’ I’m talking about isn’t referring to the money from the profit of the sale, the “green” I’m referring to is the Earth-friendly way of renovating a home.

The trend to being “green” these days is increasing dramatically. You see so many Earth-friendly changes popping up almost everywhere you look: hybrid cars, organic foods, and recycling, just to name a few.

So what does this have to do with flipping houses?

Well, if you think about it, buying older homes to renovate and flip is, in a way, recycling. I just saw a news bit on television earlier this evening which talked about how a 1.5 brand new homes are being constructed every day in the United States alone. With the life longevity increasing, the demand for housing is always constant, if not increasing. So, buying an old, run-down fixer-upper, renovating it and then reselling it is a good thing.

An investor can go even further than that, and move towards a more Earth-friendly way of renovating property as well. In fact, here are a few “green” renovations that could be done, although, the possibilities are endless:

  • using cork flooring instead of traditional hardwood flooring
  • using recycled building materials, like reclaimed wood or insulation from recycled denim jeans
  • installing energy efficient fixtures, like shower heads and toilets
  • buying florescent light bulbs in place of incandescent ones
  • installing recycled glass counter tops or other recycled material

It may seem like some Earth-friendly options are pricey, but factor the expenses into your budget (you savvy investor, you!) and your reward will not only be a unique and extremely attractive selling point for your flip, but you’ll feel better about yourself for doing your part to save the planet too!

Go Green!!

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