Things to do now if you want to buy or sell in 2013

Holiday desserts devoured- check  Christmas decorations put away- check Family packed up and sent home- check Resolutions made and ready to be fullfilled...Now what?
Well, if you are thinking of buying or selling in 2013, here are a few tips to get you on the right track.
           

 

1. Get your credit in check.  Maybe you don’t have any credit horrors - kudos to you! But let’s get real, this year will be a year in which many post-foreclosure, post-bankruptcy, post-layoff Americans will find themselves sufficiently recovered, post-recession, to get back into the real estate market and buy a home. If you count yourself among the number of 2013 wanna-be buyers who experienced a financial glitch of any degree during the recession, now is the time to start pulling your credit reports and doing a damage assessement and control campaign.
 

Visit AnnualCreditReport.com (the only website through which you can access your government-mandated free reports) and order your own credit reports from all three reporting bureaus.  

Review your report for any discrepancies or anything you can remedy quickly.  If possible, go over your report with your mortgage lender.  He can lend some insight to what needs to be taken care of now and what can wait.

2.  Donate.  It’s time.  Time to get rid of all that things you know qualify as clutter - all of the stuff you know buyers won’t want to see when they tour your home, and all the stuff that you won’t want to move to your next place. If you donate your junk before the end of the year, you might be able to get a receipt and deduction for the taxes you file in 2013.  And tax break or not, getting all that stuff out of your attic, your closets, your shelves and your rooms will clear up loads of mental space and energy, minimize some of the overwhelm latent in the prospect of moving - and might even surface a few things you can sell to boost your down payment savings or your home staging budget.

3. Prepare!  Talk with your agent; they can help you make good decisions which projects to do (and which to forego), as well as choosing finish materials and colors that will appeal to the broadest segment of buyers - to boot, they often can refer you to the most cost-effective contractors in your area for any sort of pre-listing projects.

4.  Collect your gift money.  Buyers who get gift money from a relative to apply toward their down payments are often subject to seemingly strange and definitely invasive documentation requirements - the most onerous of which is to produce copies of the gift GIVER’s bank accounts proving the source of the funds. If you know Mom, Dad, Granny or Aunt Bernie is going to chip in some cash toward your down payment in the Spring, consider asking them to go ahead and give it to you now, so you can put it in your own accounts and begin “seasoning” it as yours, which will help you avoid all those documentation demands.  

5.  Connect with an agent and a mortgage broker - stat.  Don’t wait until the month before you want to buy or sell to ring up your trusty agent and initiate the conversation. Ask around for referrals. Get a mortgage broker (or 3) on the phone, and ask them to help brief you long-lead topics like:

• Whether your market is a buyer’s market or seller’s market, and how that translates into what you can and should expect when you plan to buy or sell next year
• Whether there are any area-specific timing issues you should factor in as you map out your timeline
• What - given the specifics of your financials, your savings, any past credit or other issues you have - you should be doing now in terms of paying bills down, setting savings targets, and such
• What changes, if any, you should plan on making to your property before listing it
• What sort of property you can get for your money in the areas you’re targeting as a buyer, and what kind of money you can expect to command for your property in your local market (this, obviously, will change over time - even over the few months or so between now and the time you list your home, but it still helps to have a general ides of the current market values).

Looks like you have some tasks to do, so I will wish you a fabulous 2013.  May all your goals be kept and resolutions made (at least until February 2013!)

Best,

Kimmie DelAndrae

Realtor

Why hesitaing can cost you thousands when buying or selling a home

Uncertain, indecisive, dither, falter, pause, dilly dally, delay...... However you say it hesitaing to write or accept an offer can potentially cost you thousands of dollars.

In my experience, though, the average real estate consumer’s biggest potential enemy is him or herself. Buyers and sellers routinely take approaches, make moves and make omissions that cost themselves much more than anything the other side could ever do 

The first step of any cure is diagnosis. Here are some clues to detecting the costliest case of real estate self-sabotage so you can stop it in their tracks, get out of your own way and get back to the business of buying or selling your home:
Hesitating  
 I’m a big proponent of buying or selling - making any real estate move, really - on whatever time frame makes sense for your life, your family and your finances, rather than trying to time the market. That said, once you’ve done the math, saved your pennies, prepped your property and otherwise decided to move forward on your home buying or selling plan of action, hesitation can cost you.  

• Buyers who hesitate to make an offer can lose out on a home entirely - or can wait so long another offer comes in, forcing them to offer more to beat the other folks out.
• Sellers who hesitate to take an offer can lose out on a buyer, when a new listing comes on the market that catches their eye or better meets their needs.

And here’s one more for buyers: hesitating to move forward after you get into contract can also cost you untold stress and deal complications if it snowballs into a situation where you run late removing contingencies - having to ask the seller repeatedly for extensions can cost you negotiation goodwill that you could otherwise have leveraged into repairs or closing cost credits.

I’d say 90% of hesitation is a result of fear, and fear most often arises when

• we second-guess our life decisions connected to the real estate transaction,
• we don’t understand or are intimidated by a subject, or
• we feel powerless to make a wise decision because we don’t know our options all the factors we should be taking into account.

Accordingly, you can eliminate hesitation-related self-sabotage by:

• Working through the life and financial decisions that are intertwined with your real estate matters completely and on paper before you start the process, so you can revisit them if and when you’re tempted to hesitate

• Getting as educated as possible in advance about your local market dynamics and neighborhood home values, as well as the home buying or selling process in general, and

• Diving head first into the discomfort and uncertainty that everyone experiences when they make these major decisions, sitting down with your agent and other pros involved to get every question you have answered in a timely manner so you can move forward, rather than putting decisions off and “sleeping on it” night after night.

Be proactive, don't sabotage yourself for what may be your dream home! 
Kimmie DelAndrae
Realtor Surpreme

Tips for receiving multiple offers

As you might have heard by now, multiple offers are the new black. Well - kind of; if your own home is on the market or soon to be, it can seem like you break your back to prepare your home and it lags and lags on the market while all the cool kids....um, houses and their sellers sit idly by, making champagne toasts while they are inundated with more offers than they can shake a stick at.   

Let’s bust one myth: getting multiple offers rarely happens by luck alone. That’s good news for you, as it means that generating multiple offers is more of a science than an art. And that, in turn, means there’s a whole lot you can do to replicate these results with your own home’s listing.

Here are five elements I nearly always see in listings that get multiple offers:

#1. Listed low.   Homes that get multiple offers are often sold in what industry insiders call an auction atmosphere. If you think back to the last auction you saw on TV or participated in online, you’ll remember this basic element of Auctions 101: the starting price is lower - sometimes quite a bit lower - than the final sale price.

In fact, it’s the low list or starting price that gets people excited about the possibility of scoring a great value, whether they’re bidding on an antique Chinese pug figurine on eBay or on your home.  And when it comes to your home, it’s that same, low-price-seeking excitement that will cause many more buyers to show up and view your home than would have come at a higher price point.

In real estate, more showings are an inescapable prerequisite to more offers.    

Now - I’m not at all suggesting you give away the farm, just that you price your home from a retailer or auctioneer’s perspective, rather than the all-too-common backwards reasoning to which home sellers so often fall prey. Work with your agent through the comparable sales data - as recent and as comparable as possible - and then do your best to list your home as a slight discount, not at a slight premium, compared to the recent neighborhood sales.  That will get buyers’ attention.

#2.  Easy to show.  Walk a mile with me, if you will, in the shoes of the average home buyer or their agent. Let’s say there are 50 homes on the market which meet your rough specifications in terms of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, price range and location. You can narrow it down to your 30 top priorities to see. But you only have time to see 8 today. Now, of those 30 top priority properties, about 15 are short sales or foreclosures and you can get into them anytime you want. And the other 15 are split down the middle - half of them are available to be seen with nothing more than a single phone call.  The other half require you to hurdle an arcane obstacle course of phone calls, 24 hour notice requirements, strange hours of availability and more phone calls to get an appointment to see the place.

Which would you go see, and which would get ruled out?

I am not exaggerating one iota when I tell you that your home could be priced well and marketed well, but if you make it too difficult for buyers to get in to see it, the statistical probability is that they will (a) find and choose another home from those that are more easily accessible to view, and/or (b) assume you are not motivated to sell, get irritated and pass on your home as a result.

Want multiple offers?  Make sure your home is available to be shown on demand, or as close as possible to that. Inconvenient?  Yes.  Frustrating?  Sometimes.  A challenge to keep the place clean at all times? Assuredly.  But, my dear reader, no one ever promised you a rose garden; decide what your priorities are and, if you decide that getting top dollar for your home is at the top of that priority list, then also decide to be willing to deal with the inconvenience involved in churning up multiple offers and getting your home sold.

#3:  Immaculate look and function.The homes that get multiple offers (outside of the foreclosure arena, anyway), are those with look, feel and function that can be described in one word: Desirable! You’re not trying to create a situation in which your home barely edges out the listing down the street in the hearts and minds of your target buyer. If you want multiple offers, what needs to happen is for multiple buyers to fall deeply in love with your home - enough to brave the competition and put their best foot (and top dollar) forward.

Today’s buyers are no dummies. They’ve just lived through the worst real estate recession anyone can remember, and they’re much more frugal that buyers were at the last peak of the market. To boot, mortgage and appraisal guidelines and their own smart sense of frugality prevents them from just hurling dollars at any old place. Accordingly, they are not easily tricked into competing for a home by a slipshod paint job and a few pieces of Pottery Barn furniture.

To generate multiple offers, prepare your home by ensuring it is:
*Immaculate from the inside out - basements, garages, closets and crawl spaces included
*Decluttered and staged to the nines - including fresh paint, carpet and other things that need replacing...if you want to make money, you are going to need to spend a little money.
*Fix it or Replace it - make sure things like doors, windows and systems buyers test (e.g., stoves, faucets, heating and air conditioning) are not creaky, wonky, leaky or otherwise dysfunctional - and if you’ve done any major home improvements or replaced any appliances or systems lately, market that fact to show off the move-in readiness of the place.

#4: Market exposure.  If you’re home is so lucky as to get an offer the first day or so on the market, count your blessings. But also calculate your opportunity costs: many buyers can’t get out to see homes that quickly - some are unable to house hunt except on the weekends!  I’ve seen time and time again that listing agents who are skilled in cultivating multiple offers, often plan from the jump to allow the home to be exposed to the market long enough for all qualified and interested buyers to see it and get their offers on the table.

And what’s more, they expressly message the calendar for market exposure, Open Houses and even the offer date and review timeline in the listing, from the very beginning. Here, it’s very common to see a listing come on the market with a calendar of 1-2 Open Houses and an offer date sometime early in the week following the second one. Ask your agent to brief you on the standard practices for market exposure in your local area.

Allowing for ample market exposure - and including the timeline in the listing - lets buyers know that they will be able to get to the property and get their offers considered, and creates some urgency, as well.  Smart buyers interested in properties like this will take care to have their agents contact the listing agent as soon as they think they may want to submit an offer, though; this way, if someone makes a so-called ‘pre-emptive’ offer, you’ll get a call from the listing agent and a chance to compete.

#5:  Sellers who are willing to revise. If you think most of the tips here are not for you because you’ve already blown your chance to sell for more than asking - think again! A number of times, I’ve witnessed what I call the Sweet Spot Phenomenon, where an overpriced home sits on the market for months with no bites, sometimes even through multiple price reductions. Finally, the seller lowers the price to the ‘sweet spot,’ and it generates multiple offers and sells for more than the final list price.

There are definitely homes whose sellers net more than they expected because they were willing to revise the list price downward in response to market feedback (i.e., no showings, no offers or lowball offers).

If your home’s been lagging on the market, talk with your listing agent about what sort of price reduction strategy is likely to maximize your net sale price. Hint: many more buyers are attracted by chunky reductions or reductions below a common online search price point limit than by tiny, incremental reductions. For example, you might draw more flies....um, buyers, and ultimately more money, with the honey of a price reduction from $499,000 to $474,000 than with a series of small reductions from $499,000  to $479,000, because there is a set of buyers who may be cutting their search off at $475,000 - so a price cut below that point will expose your home to a whole new group of prospects.
Happy Selling!

Tips For Selling your Home in the Winter

So, you are one of the lucky ones that bought at the right time and has equity in your home. You're ready to sell...now what?  Here are three tips that will get you on the right track.... 

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1. Get out!  Nothing turns a buyer off more than you hanging out inside your home while it’s being shown. As soon as a buyer sees you in the house, it instantly becomes much more difficult for them to (a) envision themselves living there (it’s your house, after all), (b) be comfortable opening up drawers, closet doors, etc., and (c) express their thoughts about how this house might be exactly what they’re looking for, if they can remove that wallpaper you so loved 10 years ago and replaced your beloved blue shag carpet. If you want to sell your home, it’s best to not be around when buyers are looking. Give them some breathing space and a chance to truly walk around and consider what they like and/or dislike about your home without you lurking and looming (and, let’s be real - eavesdropping) nearby.
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2. Clean it up! Life gets hectic, and it’s easy for things like laundry, dishes and other house cleaning tasks to fall by the wayside. It’s also difficult to keep the home in which you and your 4 kids, 3 cats and 2 dogs live perfectly spotless for months at a time, while you’re waiting for an offer. But when you decide that you’re going to sell your home, it’s imperative that you make a pact and a plan with yourself and your family that the place will be in tip-top shape when buyers come knocking. Remember: your home is competing with dozens of others, as well as with buyer’s HGTV-infused visions of what their next home should look like, so first impressions really count. Sellers: Stuffing the closet is not the answer. (Buyers will be opening that closet door,after all.) Pack up your personals like you were moving (best case: you are), and put all but the essentials in storage, if needed. Get the carpets cleaned, do the dishes, make the beds, mow the lawn, dust, sweep and mop. Ask your agent to give you a gut check on whether your idea of clean is clean enough (better yet - ask them for the number of a house cleaner who you can engage to get the job done to show able standards). This might all seem obvious, but I can tell you stories of the things I've seen that would rival "Nightmare on 13th Street"
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3. Don't overpricing your home: Buyers already have lots to do before making the largest purchase of their lives. They have to wrangle their finances into order, jump through hoops to qualify for a loan, collect the cash for down payment and closing costs, and invest sometimes hundreds of hours into market research and house hunting. With all of this already on their plates, the prospect of trying to negotiate down a crazily high asking price is just too much work, plus with the abundance of homes currently on the market right now, why would they. The average buyer won’t even bother looking at your home if the asking price is clearly high and off base compared with other similar, nearby homes for sale. Sellers: Price to sell from the beginning.Work with your agent to determine a price that is supported by the data on how much nearby homes have recently sold for. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and anguish and get a lot more legitimate bites from serious, qualified buyers. Usually your first offer is your best offer!

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Good luck and Happy Selling - Kimmie
Kimme DelAndrae
Keller Williams 
801.209.8787
kimmiedelandrae@yahoo.com

Tips for selling your home!

1. Declutter/Depersonalize/accessorize. First things first: Remove all clutter! Yes, 214 baby toys are clutter, as are cat and or dog toys, books, magazines, papers, refrigerator magnets, unfolded laundry. You get my point. You want your house in the best shape to sell it fast, so make it look organized and clean. Remove the personal pictures in your home and clean out your closets to make them appear larger. If you need to, start packing away your seasonal clothes. Now is the perfect time to clean out those closets and donate unwanted items to those who really need them. Once you have removed all the clutter you may think your house looks empty. A few well placed accessories (Odd numbers are preferable) will do wonders. When decorating, imagine a triangle and place objects at each point.

2. Create curb appeal- the outside of your home is the first thing a potential buyer will see, so make sure it's in tip top shape. Mow the lawn, hose down the walk ways, remove any cobwebs, clean the front door. To add a little wow factor, plant some flowers and purchase a new welcome mat.

3. Fix it up and Clean it up- make any repairs you have been putting off, as well as recaulking the shower areas and replacing any burnt out light bulbs (for the best lighting effect replace bulbs with at least 60 watt bulbs) don't forget to fill in any nail holes, wipe down the windowsills, clean the over (yes, they will look), bleach sinks and bathtubs, dust the blinds, clean the windows and last, but one never to forget...always make the beds before you leave.

4. Fresh up- let some air in. Open the windows for at least 10 minutes to eliminate any stuffiness. Cut up a lemon and run it through the garbage disposal to freshen up the kitchen, and add bleach to all the toilets. Invest in a scent burner and chose a scent like chocolate chip cookies or fresh apples, it will entice buyers.

5. Let there be light! Open the drapes and blinds and let the sun shine in. If you have a particularly dark room, purchase a floor lamp that will bounce light off the ceiling.

6. Bring the outside in- grab your garden sheers and go to town. Clip fresh cut flowers, twigs, fern stems, dried leaves, hand picked fruit, you name it. You will be amazed at how fresh and clean your house looks (and smells) by utilizing what you have in your own backyard.

7. Play that funky music- playing soft jazz can help create a soothing environment and camouflage neighbor and traffic noise.

8. Create groupies- a common misconception is that a room looks bigger if all the furniture is pushed up against the walls. To create a more inviting space, float the furniture away from the walls and create a cozy conversation area.

9. Be Switzerland- keep it neutral. Painting a room a fresh neutral color will help tone down any dated features in the space. Bold walls have a way of reducing offers and price, so it's best to go with neutrals. If you have any rooms with questionable colors, invest in a gallon of Roasted Sesame Seed or Oklahoma Wheat paint and get painting!

10. Color me beautiful - purchase some new throw pillows for couches and beds to freshen up the area. Get creative with art work: frame Campbell soup labels for kitchen art work, frame pretty wallpaper for art work in the living room, put some toothbrushes in a shadowbox for fun bathroom artwork.

Remember you can only make one first impression on buyers...make it your best! For any questions, feel free to contact Kimmie at 801-209-8787 or Kimmie@holmeshomes.com

Thing to consider about short sales…

1.    Sold “as is”:  Good luck try to find a short sale home that is move-in ready.  Since they are sold “as is” you have to have to money to spare for all the fixing up you will be doing.

   2. Response time is slow:  There is an unusual amount of paper work involved in a short sale that could delay the response times of any offers you put on the house.  Some buyers are lucky and can receive a response in a couple of weeks.  More often than not, buyers will have to wait months before hearing back from a lender regarding their offer.

3.    Lenders can change conditions of the contract:  Contracts can be changed at the last minute with short sales.  Be prepared for more negotiations as new laws get passed or as the market fluctuates if you work with certain lenders. 

4.    Closing costs are higher:  It is standard practice for buyer and seller to spilt certain fees, but when it comes to banks, not so much.  They will most likely not pay any closing costs, inspections or for a home warranty.

5.    If you have a home to sell:  Selling your existing home needs to coordinate with the purchase of your new home, if not, you could be out on the street.  It is next to impossible to coordinate the close of your existing home with that of a short sale.

6.    Banks need to approve the sale:  The banks would rather take a loss by letting the house sit,  than selling it less at a loss.

7.    Stringent Qualifications:  Inexperienced or unethical agents often talk sellers into listing their home as a short sell when the home owners don’t even qualify for a short sale!  Sellers must have a hardship and provide the bank with tons of evidence of the hardship to the lender before they will even consider if it will be approved for a short sale.  Some agent list homes as short sales without even talking with the lenders.

8.    Lenders aren’t naïve at the value of the home.  They will request a (CMA) Comparable Market Analysis and/or  a (BPO) Broker Price Opinions.  If the lender believes a better price can be obtained by taking the property back in foreclosure over a short sale, the lender may hold out for a higher price.  Lenders accept short sales when the home is worth the short sale price, which is market value!

9.    Some lenders won’t fund on short sales….simple as that

10.    Length of time to close: After months of waiting for your offer to be reviewed and more months of counter offers, (If your offer actually gets accepted) you are looking at waiting again.  You are on the lenders clock, not yours.

11.    Banks that hold the note on the short sale can be bought out by another bank, sell their current loans (short sales included) , go out of business…Then, where are you and more importantly where is your earnest money deposit?

12.    The banks don’t have to respond.  If they do respond by rejecting your offer, don’t bother increasing your offer $1,000.  Increase it to market value or forget it.