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Category Archives: client protection

5 steps to get YOUR offer to be the one that WINS

exterior

Be the winner…

A couple of years ago all of the strategies revolved around finding ways to get the lowest price out of a seller.  Then, it morphed to finding the line where the bank would sell.  Over the last few months, the next evolution has come

Winning the bid.

Often we see good houses come on the market and go under contract in less than a day.  These homes are often pulling in multiple offers, some considerably above the asking price.  Yet, many buyers are still convinced that we are in a market that favors them.  We aren’t… except for a few less desirable neighborhoods or some very high price points.

master_bedroom_2

master_bedroom_2 (Photo credit: lane.bailey)

In order to actually buy a house, instead of just making offers, there are a few steps you can follow to “win the bid”.

  • Get a serious pre-approval.  If your mortgage person isn’t pulling your credit and spending some time getting it, it probably isn’t worth getting.  Sellers see an offer with a pre-approval as being MUCH more serious than one without.
  • Have a down payment.  The larger the down payment, the more stable to buyer.  Of course, this is going to vary depending on the buyer segment (1st time buyers usually don’t have 20% to put down… I understand that).
  • Cash is King and FHA is the Stable Boy.  FHA loans are the toughest on sellers.  Not only does the property need to appraise on value, but it has to meet specific criteria for condition.  Most houses meet everything, but an old roof or a missing handrail can turn into anything from a headache to a nightmare for the seller (and the buyer).  A cash sale, on the other hand, is pretty assured.  Conventional loans fall somewhere in the middle… and VA are more rare, but slightly tougher than FHA on the seller.
  • Be ready to close ASAP.  The longer the seller has to wait between an agreement and a closing date, the more that can go wrong and the more expenses that can get racked up.  Aside from the seller’s house payments and utilities, there is lawn upkeep and maintenance on the house.  Not only that, but if you are waiting 2 or 3 or 4 months to close, the seller may think you could develop a case of “cold feet” and change your mind.
  • Price heals all.  We used to tell this to sellers… poor condition can be corrected with price.  Much to their dismay, that “correction” was usually an over-correction.  Now, the shoe is on the other foot.  Buyers that have issues with some of the above conditions can “heal” their offers with price.  But that “healing” is likely to involve a larger bump in the offer than one might think…  Of course, in the end, it comes down to the seller and what is most important to them.

In next week’s post, we’ll look at 3 sample offers and compare them…

 

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Phoning In Home Improvements…

Interior design

Interior design (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I ran across an article recently with 5 apps for Android phones that can with your next DiY project…  Here is the source article.

Houzz Interior Design Ideas

Looks kind of like a self-contained Pinterest for Home Improvement… They have almost 1,000,000 photos of various style home interior designs.

My Measures & Dimensions

Now this looks REALLY cool, especially for a free app.  Shoot a “before” picture and then add measurements along with arrows and notes…  It can really help get everything together to communicate a project’s goals to your vendor.

DIY Remodel Cost Calculator

This is my kind of calculator… first, it’s free and second, it can be used to get a good idea of the cost of a project.

 

There are a couple of others on the source article, but these are the ones I thought were the coolest.  Also, below, there are a few links for other articles that might be of interest.

interior design oxford rogue designs

interior design oxford rogue designs (Photo credit: rogue-designs)

One thing to ALWAYS keep in mind, though, is that you shouldn’t undertake these improvements if the goal is resale value.  It is VERY rare to find an improvement that actually adds to resale value.  Some may actually hurt resale.  The one exception to that would be painting… or replacing worn out things like carpeting.

And maintenance isn’t “improving”.  Too many times people tell me that they replaced the roof and A/C when asked what improvements have been made.  Unless they were dramatically upgraded during replacement, it likely wouldn’t qualify… although they can still add value (although, lack of proper maintenance really detracts from value more than proper maintenance add to it).

 

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Global Power… LOCAL DOMINANCE

Recently, I posted about how Century21.com is crushing the other major brokerage websites for unique visitors.  Well… that isn’t the whole story.

C21 Local and GlobalWhat is going on in the world at large is good to know, when you list YOUR house, you need to know what is going to happen with YOUR house.

  • Will an agent that gets an inquiry on it know anything about it?
  • Will an agent that gets an inquiry on it be motivated to sell it?
  • How will it appear online?
  • Will buyers even see it?

That is the basis of our Lock Down/Lift Up strategy.

C21 signFirst, we lock down the listings, meaning that every listing we have has OUR contact information next to it.  Each of MY listings has MY phone number next to it.  It has MY email next to it.  If they fill out the contact form, it gets sent to ME.  Obviously that is great for me… but it is pretty good for you, too.  I will know more about your home that some random agent that paid to be on any unrepresented listings, and I want it to sell as quickly as possible.

That is the Lock Down portion of the strategy.

The next thing we do is get premium locations for all of our listings.  When people search, OUR listings are the ones at the top of the results.  As buyers search, instead of going through pages and pages of homes, people generally only look at the first page.  We want OUR listings to be there… and if you are selling YOUR home, you want it there, too.

That is the Lift Up part.

And it isn’t just one or two places…  It’s

  • Zillow.com
  • Realtor.com
  • Trulia.com
  • Homefinder.com
  • Homes.com
  • RealEstateBook.com

The last post was about Global Power… but Local Dominance is where we are today.

When it’s time to sell, what do you want for YOUR house?

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Foreclosure Wave Broken on the Shore?

For years I have been hearing (and talking about it here) the “wave of foreclosures that are just around the corner”.  For years the wave has been just around the corner, over the horizon and getting ready to hit.  We did have a tsunami of foreclosures, and Gwinnett County has been one of the worst hit in Georgia, but the second wave has been a phantom…

Foreclosures fall behind retail sales in Gwinnett

Foreclosures fall behind retail sales in Gwinnett

And I am about ready to say that it will remain a phantom.  That isn’t to say that there won’t be more, but I would like to lay to rest the idea that the banks have a pile of foreclosures that they are “about the release” or that “will hit the streets in the next few months”.

If there was a time, it would be NOW.  There is little inventory, prices are starting to strengthen… the time would be ripe.

Instead… we see the first chart.

The green line represents wholesale (foreclosures, short sales, pre-foreclosure sales, etc.).  It has dropped over the last few months… as retail (that would be regular sellers) have surged.  One not to include here… the red line (new homes) only represents a portion of new home sales.  Builders only report “inventory sales” to the MLS.  And many of their sales are “pre-sales” (houses purchased before they are built).  Some builders are selling 3 or 4 pre-sales for each inventory home.  Expect that the red line might actually be 50% higher than it shows…

Prices rebounding in Gwinnett County, GA

Prices rebounding in Gwinnett County, GA

To be sure, everything isn’t all wonderful… but it is a load better than a year ago.  Right now, actual people that want (or need) to sell their homes have a shot.

The next issue that will start to right itself over the next couple of years regards the people that have been through this wave of foreclosures…

It takes most people 3 years to recover from a foreclosure, short sale, pre-foreclosure, deed-in-lieu or other mortgage shortfall.  So, over the last three years, as Gwinnett County has been ravaged by foreclosures and similar issues, thousands of homeowners have been locked out of the market… instead, largely joining the ranks of renters.

That won’t last…

And as they come back into the home market, with the reduced inventories we’re seeing, expect to see continued price strength.

Like I said, it isn’t all wonderful, but we are looking at the beginnings of a Gwinnett recovery.  If it follows the Forsyth recovery (they weren’t hit as hard) you can expect to see the market heat up quite a bit through the end of the year as the pent-up demand is released.

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Mortgage Flowchart…

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