Home Seller Information:
Everyone’s situation is a little different and we have a very diverse group of sellers in the current housing market today. We have some that have found themselves owing more on their homes than they are currently worth due to purchasing in the height of the 2005-2007 housing boom (please visit our section on short sales if you fall into this category). Then we have some that purchased in the 2009-2016 era who likely to have earned a sizable amount of equity as the housing market began it’s recovery. Finally you have others that paid cash or put large down-payments on their homes (or purchased prior to the housing boom) that also have equity.
So with all of these variations of home sellers in the current market we need to be able to take a deeper look at the home values to gauge exactly whats motivating your competition. Since Short Sale sellers generally cannot receive any money from the sale of their home and the listing agents typically set the listing price; you will often see those listings far below market value in most cases. These below market value listings can drastically hurt your value if you’re a traditional home seller because most home buyers do not understand the difference between short sale asking prices vs what the bank will actually take on a short sale transaction (short sale offer prices must be approved by the bank before the owner can actually sell the property, but that doesn’t stop the owner or agent from pricing the home at a very low amount to generate multiple offers). Therefore you want to be aware of your competition so that you can quickly diffuse a prospective buyer who asks why the short sale down the street is so much cheaper than your non-short sale home is listed for. This scenario can also apply to some foreclosures on occasion too. This is why it’s extremely important to be aware of your competition throughout the entire listing to closing process. It’s wise to have tools in place that alert you to market changes in your area (new listings, price changes, closings, etc). Luckily we offer all of these tools and we take care of all the monitoring for you so that you’re always up to date on changes in your immediate market. This will allow you to adjust to the market conditions much faster than your competition and provide you the best possible opportunity to obtain top dollar for your home.
Another extremely important factor is the proper marketing of your home. No longer is it acceptable to place a sign, flyer, newspaper ad, and a few online posting services to sell your home. Those are all tools that we still offer to our clients, but to reach the modern day buyer you have to revolutionize your marketing to adapt to the ever-changing home search process. Most buyers want information immediately, they do their research online, most of the time from their mobile devices via real estate apps, and only go to physically view a home after they’ve thoroughly checked it out online. Therefore we’ve had to raise the bar and develop our own app, mobile site, 3D virtual reality tours, custom floor plan designs, social media postings, and a vast amount of online marketing to assure we meet the current needs of today’s home buyers. This is what is needed to sell your home in today’s real estate market. I’ve found it pays to have a diverse mix of modern technology while maintaining certain traditional tools. I still mail out half page postcards to the surrounding area with full color photos & information. However these postcards have links to videos & photos online, as well as places to find your home via social media. Depending on the property & homeowners situation we still hold open houses, but again we offer digital sign-in sheets where they will receive a full set of photos & video of the home after leaving the open house. We utilize magazine ads on occasion as well, where we direct them back to the website for more digital information, videos, photos. I feel it’s extremely important to offer a mix of these types of marketing services in order to reach the greatest possible number of potential home buyers. I also stress the importance of high quality and carefully positioned photos on every property. We’ve began utilizing drones for aerial photos for certain listings and we’ve always created full videos of every listing for many years now. Home buyers like photos & videos so we take as many as we can possibly justify (usually over 30 photos per listing in most cases) to help provide the home buyers the information they need to evaluate your home. Many home buyers these days feel they have enough access to information that they often purchase homes sight-unseen as well. This is why we provide as much detailed information as possible and high quality professional content in everything we produce. Quality matters and your home will stand above the rest when you make sure to keep your focus on quality at all times.
I take great pride in marketing homes at the highest possible level and making sure you are protected by knowing all the ins & outs of how to sell your home in today’s market. We also strive to help you prevent legal pitfalls by staying on top of disclosure laws, contract changes, community/HOA/building litigation, and all other highly important aspects when selling a home. Finding a home buyer can sometimes be the easy part. You must know how to navigate through the real estate closing process, coordinate with all the various parties involved in a transaction from lenders, title companies, home inspectors, appraisers, insurance companies, warranty providers, contractors, etc. Every transaction is a little different and even after 20 years in this business I still find myself learning something new on a regular basis. That is why it’s crucial to find and expert that you can trust to help you through the process every step of the way.
I look forward to the opportunity to work together and I hope that I can become your trusted real estate adviser for the long term. I truly love helping people and I honestly can’t wait to guide you through the process. Real estate is my pleasure & my passion.
Short Sale Sellers: I’ve created a detailed section for Short Sales, so you will be able to find more detailed information about the process, what you need, what the ramifications are, tax implications, short sale vs. foreclosure, HAFA, etc. I hope the information is helpful. Since the short sale process is constantly evolving some of the information may change minutes after I write this however I work very hard to stay on top of the current changes so I can provide you more up to date information when we meet.