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