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Tag Archives: business of real estate

Wayback Wednesday… The Price IS Right (or it should be)…

"FOR SALE" - a classified ad in a ne...
Image via Wikipedia

Do you want to actually SELL your house, or just put it up for sale?  I talk with sellers pretty regularly that seem to just want to have their home up for sale…

  • “We want to test the market.”
  • “If we can got our price…”
  • “We aren’t going to give it away.”
  • You get the idea, right?

And this isn’t the market to play around in.  With foreclosures and short sales and unemployment being what they are, this is a bargain hunter’s market.  This isn’t a test market.

Along the same lines are some of the “strategies” I hear regarding pricing.  I wrote this post two years ago, and there are some warnings for buyers, too.

Sellers, price right and don’t play around.

Buyers, when you find one priced right, don’t play around.

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Wayback Wednesday… Keeping the Mystery Alive…

Old Bishop Estate Building, 71 Merchant Street...
Image via Wikipedia

Mystery attracts, right?  That mysterious woman or man has an allure because of the unknown qualities they may possess.  You don’t know their background or their motivation.  And so, the coolest possibilities are projected upon them.

But is that the case in real estate?

Two years ago I wrote a post with my take. There are a lot of agents that think that they can “build the mystery” and attract more buyers to a property by withholding information… things like price, address, amenities… even pictures.  Their reasoning is that consumers (buyers) will be curious and call.

Is that really the case?

I will tell you that a lot of the “gurus” in real estate tell us that we shouldn’t EVER answer a question, but instead, we should ask another question.  The goal is to get as much information as possible before actually giving anything away.

I’ll tell you right now that I don’t subscribe to that… often to my detriment.  If you call me about one of MY listings, I will tell you about the property.  Even if it isn’t the particular property you want to buy, I would love to work with you… but not because I tricked you into giving me information, but because I was helpful and forthright.

Take a look at the post and let me know what you think.

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Lane’s Prognostications for 2011…

Real Estate = Big Money
Image by thinkpanama via Flickr

We’ll see how well I peg this.

Lane’s Predictions for 2011…

Looking back over the last year or two in real estate market reports, there are a few things that have been jumping out at me.

  • For over two years I have been hearing about the millions of homes in “Shadow Inventory”.  These are properties in the foreclosure process, or already foreclosed, that the banks are basically sitting on, waiting until “the market improves” before releasing them into the market.  I predict that next year there will STILL be people talking about the coming giant wave of Shadow Inventory. It isn’t that there isn’t a shadow inventory, but that we have dropped from over 10,000 homes on the market in Gwinnett County, GA to around 6,000.  Even for the overall Atlanta Metro area, we have gone from 120,000 homes to under 70,000.
  • The federal government has been borrowing unheard of amounts of money for the last few years.  Much of it has come from China and other foreign investors… but the deficit spending is not coming to an end, while the depth of the investment pool is…  Despite the best attempts of the Fed, Interest Rates ARE going to rise. Currently we are seeing rates under 5%.  I expect that we will be looking at closer to 7% by the end of the year.
  • Looking at the market reports, there are a few things that are VERY obvious.
    • Government Stimulus for the Housing Market only provides a temporary bump… and then it is worse than it was before, but there will be another wave of government intervention I hope I am wrong on this one).
    • The entry level market (under $200k) is well on the way to recovery… and that will continue. We won’t really know it until around September or October because it will be masked by the tax credits in 2010.
    • Meanwhile, it has been a rough ride for the luxury market.  And I don’t think we will see a meaningful recovery in prices for the Luxury Market (above $600k). There is a lot of downward pressure on this segment, and while there are some signs of strength, the best that segment can hope for is stagnation.
    • The “Near Luxury” segment (from $200k-$600k) will be mixed. It is also the market to watch for signs of permanent recovery.  I know that I will be watching the $200k-$400k and $400k-$600k segments to try to glean the health of the overall market.
  • I fully believe that unemployment (or rather employment) is at the center of the struggle in the Housing Market, and not the other way around.  Until the Unemployment rate drops, housing cannot really recover.  I don’t see Unemployment going under 9% during 2011. In fact, unless something changes radically, I don’t think it will even get that close (maybe 9.3%).

I’ll probably have a few more predictions before long…

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Wayback Wednesday… Looking at the Mechanics of Listings

This  post was to appear yesterday, but was pre-empted. I am presenting it today. Sorry for the delay.

Pictures Not Yet Available
Image via Wikipedia

Two years ago I got a bug in my bonnet because it didn’t seem like I was seeing enough pictures for new listings.  A couple of months prior, one of our local Multiple Listings Services, FMLS, had raised the number of pictures that could be attached to the listing from 8 to 12.  Now it is 24…

It was shocking to look at the numbers…  I went back and looked at all of the listings that had posted in the prior 30 days to see how many had pictures and virtual tours.  It was stunning.

The VAST majority of buyers start their search online, and they want pictures.  They don’t want one picture… they want as many as they can get.  They want virtual tours with 50 pictures.

To post a listing without pictures is bordering on derelict… even if the property is ugly.  That’s right… even if the property is ugly.  There are some buyers that WANT ugly properties (at the right price)… and the ones that don’t aren’t going to forget that the property is scary/ugly.  And they aren’t going to be thrilled that they wasted their time looking at it.

I think I need to pull out these posts a little more often…  Survey of New Listings, January 2009

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Wayback Wednesday… Looking Ahead to 2009…

Fiat 500 (2007)
Image via Wikipedia

Two years ago this week, I posted up my predictions for the next year.  That year would be 2009.  I got a few right, and got a few wrong.  I was just looking back and I was surprised by them… some were pretty bold.

Here is the original post

Here is a quick rundown of how I did…

  1. Right
  2. Rightish
  3. Hit that one
  4. Kind of right…
  5. Not so good on that one
  6. That one was good
  7. Nailed that one
  8. Not so much
  9. Got that one pretty right
  10. Hit that one out of the park…
Rundown Shack OF
Image via Wikipedia

On my “bonus predictions”…

  • Red Wings, yes.  Bruins, no.
  • Islanders, yes.  Thrashers… pretty close.
  • Chrysler… bought by Fiat.
  • Saturn, closed.  Hummer, sold.
  • Toyota had a loss for the year.
  • How’s that Global Warming working out?
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