Month: August 2020

For Sale By Owner

Selling a house can be a stressful event in your life. Are you really ready to do it? Of course, you want to make as much money as you can from the sale and you might be thinking your best plan to accomplish that is selling your home yourself – FSBO –  to avoid paying a real estate agent, which is understandable. But, it’s quite a big undertaking. Here are a few reasons why hiring an experienced Realtor is a better idea.

Pricing: You may think it’s as simple as pricing your home by the size and the location of it and what your neighbors are selling, or have recently sold theirs for. Add in a few amenities and boom! You have your price! No. Realtors list homes every day and watch the housing market conditions. They will be able to get all the comps for your neighborhod and find the fair market value of yours.

Marketing a home is not easy:  Listing your home online doesn’t take much effort. Anyone can do that, which is why you must make your stand out and be noticed. A Realtor will create an entire marketing plan for your home and will figure out just the audience you need to have, then use many different avenues to get the word out. The Realtor’s own website, Facebook & Instagram account will attract prospects that you simply won’t have the access to.

Qualifying a buyer is not easy:  There is a big difference between pre-approved for a mortgage and pre-qualified. A skilled Realtor will be able to find out whether the person that wants to see your house is qualified or just curious. Having to prepare your home to show takes a lot of work and you surely don’t want to put your life on hold while you ready your house for show – just for a curious neighbor. Realtors are trained to ask qualifying questions to determine the seriousness, qualification, and motivation of a person calling to see your home.

Staying unemotional about your home is not easy:  Selling your home and preparing to move is never easy and always an emotional process. A good Realtor will be there to buffer any situations that might occur because you might be letting your emotions take over. Most buyers know that an FSBO home has been priced by the seller and is quite often overpriced because they can’t detach themselves emotionally from their home. Savvy shoppers realize that after a while, sellers who can’t sell their home will finally hire a Realtor and the home will be on the market at the right price.  If they have the time to wait? They do. If not? They move on to another home.

Being home during the showing is not easy: Or smart. Nothing makes the buyers more uncomfortable than having the seller present when looking at a home. With FSBO you will have to be there touring your home with the potential buyer. More times than not, the showing will be rushed and some of your best selling points will be overlooked.

Negotiating is not easy: Especially if it’s your own home that you love and have emotional ties to. Negotiating is a complex matter and all transactions are unique.   Skilled Realtors know the laws, the contracts, the comparable sales, the closed sales that the banks usually look at when they decide to lend the money for the purchase, and the appraisal. There are plenty of points to negotiate on before the actual sale takes place. Repairs to the house, lawn upkeep, and even additions can be negotiated in the contract that may ultimately affect the price but can be negotiated almost entirely outside of the price discussion.  For every negotiating point, there’s a tactic to handle it best.

The bottom line:  Working without an agent requires a huge investment of time, knowledge, and effort. Besides separating your emotions from the home you love and possibly raised your family in, you should know how to stage it to sell, market it, negotiate and be able to accept a negative response from potential buyers. You can try to do it alone to save money, but hiring an agent has many advantages.  Interview and find the best Realtor in the area. Expect that they will be able to get the most exposure for your home, help you negotiate a better deal, and dedicate more time to your sale.  The right Realtor will bring expertise to the transaction, financially and legally.with many financial and legal

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Pre-Inspection

A pre-inspection gives the seller of a home a heads-up if there are any problems that a potential buyer will probably want to have repaired. Once you know what is wrong, you can have the issues fixed before you even put your home on the market. Too often, a home inspection is where the deal falls apart because buyers will make their offer contingent on approval of the results. Hidden defects or problems can turn any negotiating into the buyer’s favor. Even if you offer to fix a problem that arises on the buyer’s inspection report, skittish buyers may be hesitant to close the deal. Knowing before you list your home gives you the opportunity to fix the problem or price accordingly.

Most Realtors will tell you to make major repairs before you list your home. The buyer’s inspection will uncover significant defects, and you will be expected to repair them if you want to get the full price for your home. The problem is that you will only have until closing to get the repairs done after the buyer’s inspection.

The limited time frame leaves sellers scrambling to get everything fixed in time. With a pre-listing inspection, you set your own schedule for repairs. There is no rush to list the property until you have made sure the home is in good shape.

You’ll be putting your home on the market with the confidence you’ve corrected any large problems.

Sellers can justify listing price through a pre-inspection. You can feel confident in the price you are asking with the results available to buyers. In a hot market, some buyers will make an offer on a home without the home inspection contingency.

According to Forbes: …”pre-inspection is a goodwill gesture. It demonstrates a willingness to go beyond what’s expected, and that sets you apart from other sellers. You’re sending a signal that your house is an ‘open book,’ and that you’re being upfront about the property. All of this can give potential buyers peace of mind and confidence.”

Once you have the pre-inspection report in your hand you can’t ignore any issues that came up. You’ll be required to disclose that information as a known defect or fix it before anyone makes an offer.  There may be some issues that you aren’t able to take on and it will be reflected in the price. You and your Realtor will be able to establish the right sale price including what you can or can not fix before putting your house on the market.

The bottom line: As a seller, getting a home inspection before listing your home gives you more time to make the repairs that you can and to shop around and control the costs for the work.  Be sure to hire an experienced Realtor that will know how to interpret inspection reports, and to let you know which issues are vital to address before listing your home.

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Pricing Your Home Right The First Time

No matter what anyone tells you, the very first thing that buyers look at in their home search is the price. Does not matter how perfect your home is, if the price isn’t in the budget, they won’t even consider it. In order to sell your home for the most money possible, you must price it right. So, when it is time to sell your home, find the best Realtor that will price your home properly – in fact, this might be the most important thing a skilled Realtor can do. Too many Realtors will tell sellers what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear to sell their home.

Realtors see this every day. Homeowners have a price in their mind that they want even though it doesn’t align with the market. Pricing a home is a skill that takes training, understanding of the market and the comparable sales (comps). When a home is listed too high, buyers pass on even looking at it. It will end up being on the market for a long period of time and the price will eventually be forced to be lowered to be competitive. But, by that time buyers assume there must be something wrong with the home and it will gain a bad reputation and continue to be bypassed. Even the buyers who do look at it will lowball the new price and the home will end up being sold for less than what it would have had you priced it correctly to being with. Homes sell for the most money when they are on the market for less than 30 days in almost all markets.

You don’t want your home priced lower than it is worth, but you want it low enough to create excitement among buyers and possibly even multiple offers coming in. This is an excellent option if you want to sell a home fast.

A good Realtor will make sure that the seller’s home shows up in online searches. To make sure this happens, a proper price is paramount. If the neighborhood comps are lower, the house may not show up if it’s even slightly higher! For instance, if the comps top out at $300,000, and the buyer wants a 4 bedroom home in that neighborhood under $300,000, the house listed at $325,000 won’t even show up in the search.

Pricing a home to sell properly is a skill that the best Realtors have. It is the most critical piece to selling your home. The right price is 75% of the marketing for any home on the market. It’s what will attract buyers. So, when you are interviewing Realtors to sell your home, ask the question “what’s my home worth” and know they can’t tell you what it will sell for but expect comparable sales, pending sales, and active sales. Finally, ask to see a track record of their previous listings – the original price and the final sale number. And, don’t be afraid to ask for a personal guarantee from them.

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What is Title Insurance?

Whether you are buying or refinancing a home, there’s an optional insurance policy you should buy: title insurance. Title insurance is a policy on the deed of your home. Some people just don’t want the extra expense. However, going without it could end up being awful for your finances. Title insurance can protect owners of events and matters that can be brought up from the past. Can you imagine if one day someone comes along and contests your ownership of the property? What happens if an old title issue surfaces and a claim is made on a policy? Imagine buying your new home only to find out that back taxes are owed on the property and remain unpaid. If you didn’t have this protection, you would be responsible for payments on those back taxes. If the payments aren’t made, you could lose the home to the party that the taxes are owed. Title insurance was created to protect homeowners from unknown claims against their property that can show up years down the road.

Title Insurance can protect the homeowner from:

  • Mistakes on titles, especially lately, that are transferred through a sale of foreclosure without certain rulings met, thus making the transfer of the title invalid.
  • Mistakes within all the paperwork brought to a closing, somewhere along the line there may be a forged signature or recorded documents signed by people without legal authority.
  • Mistakes made during the probate process for the previous owner that overlooked someone else’s rightful claim (undisclosed heirs) to the property or someone else’s interest in the property. Misinterpretation of wills and deeds.
  • Mistakes made in the description of the property.
  • Mistakes missed where claims, tax information or easements have not been recorded properly in the public record.
  • Mistakes missed of liens on the property or judgments against the previous owner.
  • Mistakes in unpaid taxes or mortgages and unpaid debts.

Be sure to use a licensed and reputable title company, such as Title First Agency, to review the title and ensure the property you want to buy has no disputes or defects attached to it that could hurt you financially. Buying a home is probably the largest single investment most of us make, we need to protect it.

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