Small steps can be the difference between renting and owning your own home in 2015.

It seems homeownership is still a critical component of the American Dream. According to a Trulia survey, even in 2011 — when the market was volatile and uncertain — 65 percent of young adult consumers said they still considered owning a home a part of their life goals. In a more recent study, that number rose to 78 percent.

And yet, while it remains important for the vast majority of Americans to own a home, there are some major obstacles. According to the survey, renters looking to buy a home in the near future cited the following barriers:

·      Saving enough for a down payment                              

·      Having a poor credit history

·      Qualifying for a mortgage

·      Rising home prices

·      Unable to pay off existing debt

·      Not having a stable job

·      Rising mortgage rates

·      Limited inventory

So how can prospective homebuyers overcome these obstacles?

Save — and then save some more

The majority of homeownership obstacles stem from one source: money. Cash is king and this is never more true than in real estate. Having a hefty down payment in your pocket when home shopping means wielding considerable power — winning the contract in a bidding war, qualifying for a mortgage, and securing a better rate on your loan. Sounds like a no-brainer, but we all know that saving money for a down payment is much easier said than done.

Try setting up an automated direct deposit of funds into an earmarked savings account to help accumulate the down payment over the course of a year.                                                         

While a 20 percent down payment is ideal, it may also be worth checking into an FHA loan program that requires only 3.5 percent of the purchase price as a down payment.  Here in Utah, there is a number of 0% down options.

 Visit  http://utahhousingcorp.org/HTML/rbDownPaymentAssistance.shtml to see what the criteria is for these types of loans.

Clean up your credit

That credit card you signed up for on a whim and missed some payments on in your 20s may make all the difference in qualifying for a mortgage in your 30s. The first and most critical step in dealing with your credit woes is to be informed. You can order one FREE credit report a year from https://www.annualcreditreport.com (it’s the only one authorized by Federal law)  Start cleaning up, and repairs and errors on your credit report.  You may need to engage the help of a good mortgage lender.  Some even offer credit repair. 

Now is the time to buy, intersest rates are still at an all time low and home prices are still reasonable.  The tax benefits and the peace of mind that comes with home ownership is two huge perks….Why wait?!

HaPpY HuNtInG!!!

Kimmie Del'Andrae

Keller Williams South Valley RE

801.209.8787

kimmiedelandrae@gmail.com

Mudrooms... Making the most of them

Given the harsh winter we experience here in Utah, more home buyers may have added a mudroom to their wish-lists. Could staging one in your home win over more buyers’ hearts?   

The home owner may already have the perfect space carved out for one. If that’s the case, all you may need to do is bring in a bench and add some hooks or cubbies for extra storage.

The mudroom is a place to transition from the outside to the inside. The idea is to create an organized place for hanging coats and bags, and removing those muddy shoes or organizing the children’s items as soon as you step in the door — and so they’ll be easy to grab when you’re ready to step back out the door.

As such, the location of the mudroom needs to make sense if you stage one. Mudrooms need to be close to an exterior door or the garage. Otherwise, the purpose is defeated if you have to track your rain boots and wet umbrellas across the house.

Here are some easy ways to add characteristics of a mudroom to your home:

CUBBY SPACE

Add some cubbies for extra storage. This can be a perfect spot to store shoes, kids’ toys, or all of that ever-growing winter garb.  You can purchase them at most Target stores.

BENCH SEATING

Offer up a bench where potential buyers can sit down and remove those dirty shoes, instead of trying to balance on one foot to do it.

SHOE TRAY

Offer up an easy wipe-off mat or dress it up a bit by trying out this idea of using a tray filled of rocks to store those muddy boots near a door.   

HOOKS

Add some hooks for hanging coats or book bags. If the home doesn't have an entryway closet, your buyers may never miss it.  I LOVE hooks!  They have some great, reasonably priced ones at TJ Maxx!

ORGANIZED SPACE

A mudroom can get dirty with all those outdoor items heading in, but that doesn’t mean it should be coated in mud. Keep it clean, organized, and functional for quick drop-offs as you head into the house.

Remember, The mudroom needs staged too. Don’t leave it completely empty or too cluttered that it doesn’t show off its function. Offer just enough touches to paint the picture and make buyers go “wow, that would be a nice space to have!”  

Happy Decorating!

Kimmie 

801-209-8787

11 Reasons Why You Should Sell During the Holidays:

11. By selling now, you may have an opportunity to be a non-contingent buyer. During the Spring, more houses were on the market for less money! If you sell now, you have the opportunity to sell high and buy low.
10. You can most likely sell now for more money and I may be able to provide a delayed closing or extended occupancy.
9. Even though your house will be on the market, you still have the option to restrict showings during the six or seven days around the Holidays.
8. January is traditionally the month for employees to begin new jobs. Since transfer buyers can't wait until Spring to buy, you need to be on the market during the Holidays to capture those buyers.

7. Some people must buy before the end of the year for tax reasons.
6. Buyers have more time to look for a home during the Holidays than they do during a work week.
5. Buyers are more emotional during the Holidays, so they are more likely to pay your price.
4. Houses show better when decorated for the Holidays.
3. Since the supply of listings will dramatically increase in January, there will be less demand for your particular home. Less competition, could means more money for you.
2. Serious buyers have fewer houses to choose from during the Holidays and less competition means more money for you.
And the number one reason you should sell during the Holidays …
1. People who look for homes during the Holidays are more serious buyers!

10 Ways to Prepare for Homeownership

1. Decide what you can afford, or what you want to spend! Generally speaking, you can afford a home equal in value to between 2 & 3 times your gross income.
2. Develop your home wish list. Then, prioritize the features on your list. This will keep you focused.  Watch an episode of Property Virgins on HGTV and get a laugh!
3. Select where you want to live. Compile a list of three or four neighborhoods you’d like to live in, taking into account items such as schools, recreational facilities, area expansion plans, and safety.
4. Start saving, not starving!  Do you have enough money saved to qualify for a mortgage and cover your down payment? Ideally, you should have 20 percent of the purchase price saved as a down payment. Also, don’t forget to factor in closing costs. Closing costs — including taxes, attorney’s fee, and transfer fees — average between 2 and 7 percent of the home price.  But not to worry, a lot of times you can ask the sellers to pay closing costs.
5. Get your credit in order. Obtain a copy of your credit report to make sure it is accurate and to correct any errors immediately. A credit report provides a history of your credit, bad debts, and any late payments. You can obtain a free credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com                                                                                     
6. Determine your mortgage qualifications. How large of mortgage do you qualify for? Also, explore different loan options — such as 30-year or 15-year fixed mortgages or ARMs — and decide what’s best for you.
7. Get pre-approved. Organize all the documentation a lender will need to pre-approve you for a loan. You might need W-2 forms, copies of at least one pay stub, account numbers, and copies of two to four months of bank or credit union statements.
8. Weigh other sources of help with a down payment. Do you qualify for any special mortgage or down payment assistance programs? Check with your state and local government on down payment assistance programs for first-time buyers. Or, if you have an IRA account, you can use the money you've saved to buy your fist home without paying a penalty for early withdrawal.
9. Calculate the costs of home ownership. This should include property taxes, insurance, maintenance and utilities, and association fees, if applicable.
10. Contact a REALTOR®. Find an experienced REALTOR® who can help guide you through the process......p.s.  that would be me!

5 mistakes sellers make that cost them $$$

Sometimes, the real estate market can play games with our minds. At the top of the market, home buyers imagine that sellers frolic through fields of cash, rubbing their hands together mello-dramatically as they flip through hundreds of offers, concocting a "no brown M&M"-type contract clauses to put the screws to buyers-in-waiting.

At the bottom of the market, the tables turned, and sellers might have visualized buyers sitting on top of truckloads of cash, while deigning to offer them only a paltry few pennies for their Most Precious Asset.

Reality check: neither of these images are anywhere near reality. At the bottom of the market, even the most bargain-hungry buyers are riddled with grave concerns about whether and when to buy, as well as how to get through the maze of tight mortgage and appraisal guidelines. And the opposite is true, too. Even on today’s market - which is much more active than it has been in years - sellers fear making missteps and mistakes that will cause their home to lag or will result in them leaving money on the table, so to speak.
                                              
Here are five of the mistakes I see sellers make when the market heats up and buyers start biting - and some tips for avoiding them.

1.  Overconfidence.  Overconfidence is super serious, because it’s not a single mistake. Rather, it’s a mindset that can spawn a pervasive pattern of errors in judgment. No matter how hot or how cold the market is, as a seller, your task is to get a single home sold: yours. Until you have done that, you should take care not to make assumptions like:
·    any buyer would be grateful to have your house
·    you can now charge a premium for your home
·    if that house got multiple offers, yours will definitely get more, higher offers, or that
·    because relatively few homes are listed for sale in your neighborhood, you can get away with little or no staging or other property preparation.

Okay - so these might be (slight) exaggerations, but they’re not far off from the thoughts that can run through a hot market seller’s head, especially if you’ve been waiting for the market to thaw for a long time.  Keep overconfidence from fouling up your home sale experience by keeping in mind that:
(a)  Market dynamics are intensely local, down to the neighborhood, so even if your cousin across town sold her home in 10 minutes, that doesn’t mean you’ll automatically have the same fate.
(b) Markets change quickly, and the annual summer home buying uptick might be set to slow down a bit as the kids go back to school and the weather cools.
(c ) Most homes that sell fast or for more than asking are carefully prepared to do so, with above-average staging and very strategic pricing. If you want to create the same situation for your home, you’ll need to work with your local agent to put that same level of strategy and work into your listing.
                               

                                                                            

2.  Overpricing.  Do prices go up when buyer demand goes up?  Yes, over time. That does not mean, though, that a few months’ (or even a couple of quarters’) uptick in the market gives you the power to overprice your home without expecting to see the pricing reduce buyer interest in your home, the number of buyers who come to see the place and, ultimately, the number of offers you receive.

Again, the listings that perform well in hot markets are listings that are competitively priced. The homes that appear to present a solid value for the list price are the homes that buyers will be most excited to go see and make offers on.

To boot, what makes for a “hot” market at any given time is different from state to state, city to city - even neighborhood to neighborhood. The hard, cold truth is, in your area, demand might not have increased all that much. Or, increased demand might simply give you a better chance at getting your home sold - period - than you would have had a year ago.  Don’t automatically assume that a recovering national real estate market justifies cranking up the list price on your home.

Overpricing is one of most costly strategic errors sellers make in any market.  Avoid making this mistake by working through the data on what similar homes have been selling for in your area with your agent.

                                                    
3.  Insufficiently reviewing the offer before accepting it. An offer that will never close is a bad offer, no matter what price it has on the front page. And, unfortunately, the occasional ‘bad apple’ buyer is out there making extraordinarily high offers, beyond what the home will ever appraise for, with the intentional plan of demanding a price reduction when the appraisal (predictably) comes in low. There are a number of other offer flaws that are highly likely to get in the way of closing which agents can detect fairly easily, but which hot-market sellers are sometimes tempted to overlook when the offer price is sky high.

Savvy sellers take a pause, no matter how frenzied their offer process is, to work with their agents to vet offers before accepting one, taking care to:
·    assess whether the offer price is within the realm of reality as an appraisal value of their home by reviewing the comps - unless the offer is an all-cash offer or waives the appraisal contingency;
·    review the buyer’s offer to ensure that a reputable lender has checked their credit, income and assets, and approved them for a home loan (again, unless it’s a cash offer); and finally
·    where the buyer’s offer is all-cash or waives the appraisal contingency, reviewing account statements to ensure that the cash truly exists to close the deal (including the cash to make up the difference between the list price and the agreed-upon purchase price, if the buyer is trying to waive the appraisal contingency on a way over-asking offer).

                                          

4.  Prematurely accepting an offer.  Listen - if the first attendee that walks in the door to your Open House throws a stack of cash on the kitchen table on the condition that you take their offer RIGHT THIS SECOND, far be it from me to suggest that you should hold out. But I’ve never seen that happen. What I have seen happen a number of times is for a seller to list a home one day and take an offer the next day, not realizing that a large pool of other buyers who would have offered even more had simply not had a chance to physically get to the home.

In order to get top dollar for your home, you want buyers to compete with each other on price, not on sheer speed.

Sellers, you should definitely have a sense of urgency in responding to offers as they come in - especially if you get one (or more) that passes muster in terms of being highly close-able (see #3, above) and also comes in at or above the price you want. As well, some buyers do have an urgent need to know whether you’re planning to take their offer or not, and will disappear if you stall on their offer too long.

That said, I believe it’s premature to accept an offer before the property has been fully exposed to the market, meaning at any time before the average target buyer who would be qualified and interested in the property has had the opportunity to actually see it. So, if you had 200 people show up to the Open House and got 4 offers the next day, accepting one of the four might not be premature - the exposure to the market is clear from the facts that so many people saw it and that multiple offers were received.

Similarly, if your agent enters a note in the MLS that you would be taking offers at a certain time and date, that puts interested buyers in a position to see it and make an offer before the cutoff.

However, if you have had your home on the market for a very short period of time (less than a couple of days) and you get an offer that you’re inclined to take, best practice is to first ask your agent to ring the other agents who have shown or have expressed an interest in showing the place to let them know that you have an offer in hand and find out if any of them are serious about making an offer. (If so, give them a firm deadline for receiving offers.) If you do this, make sure you respond to the offer you have in hand before its expiration deadline, or get an extension, if you feel you’ll run late.

5. Failing to course-correct before it's too late. It's essential to know what milestones you should be expecting to hit at various points in your listing's timeline, based on how well-priced, well-staged listings move in your current market. And it's just as essential to have a plan of action for what you'll do to course-correct things if they don't move along as planned. Your agent can brief you on such data points as the average number of days a home in your neighborhood stays on the market before it goes pending (days on market, or DOM). From there, you can work together to put a plan in place around what you'll do, as a team, if:

·    no one comes to see the place,
·    tons of buyers come to see the place and no one makes an offer,
·    buyers and agents all unanimously say they like the place, but it's priced too high, or
·    your home otherwise lingers on the market much longer than average with no bites.
Sellers who fail to make an advance plan of action for auditing the agents who have shown it to get their feedback, revisiting the idea of professional staging, lowering the price or otherwise responding to market feedback at a certain point in time tend to course-correct too late - after the place has been on so long that buyers have started to catch a whiff of desperation.

 And yes - this can happen, even on a market like today's.

Kimmie Del'Andrae

Keller Williams Real Estate

801.209.8787

kimmiedelandrae@yahoo.com

How to get mulitple 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 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 Clown 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 offer$.
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 (We’re lucky if we can find 3 in this market)  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 a ridiculous 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 think you know the answer!
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: covetable (aka “I want that“!). 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. (although I do love Pottery Barn)
To generate multiple offers, prepare your home by ensuring it is:
* Immaculate from the inside out - basements, garages and crawl spaces included
* Decluttered and staged to the nines - including fresh paint, carpet and other things that     need replacing- (see my staging Blog)
* In fine mettle - make sure things like doors, windows and systems buyers test (e.g., stoves, faucets, heating and air conditioning) are not creaky, wonky, ( yes that is a word!) 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: Just enough 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! In my local markets, 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. f 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 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
Kimmie DelAndrae
Keller Williams
801.209.8787

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