Friday, May 18, 2012

Home Sellers: Is Your Listing Agent the Reason Your Home’s Not Selling?

I recently read this article from Jeanette J. Fisher that is quite enlightening:

 

 

Many home sellers sign a listing agreement with an agent who makes big promises and then their home languishes on the market.

Do you know if your agent may be causing your home to go unsold? Some reasons why listing agents hold up home sales:

1. Lack of cooperation from other sales agents who dislike your listing agent. Some agents get a reputation of being difficult to work with. Ask another agent about the popularity of your listing agent.

2. Lopsided commission split. Check to see if other agents get their fair share of the sales commission. Some agents only offer discounted commissions to the selling agent who won’t show the home if they make more selling another house.

3. Busy agents neglect to hold open houses for other real estate offices. Have you had other agents preview your home? If not, ask your agent why he or she hasn’t held an open house for brokers.

4. Lack of exposure. Is your home listed correctly on the Internet? Check to see if you can find it online. Do a search for your city and home for sale to see if your listing or agent’s website pops up. Most of today’s home buyers begin their property search on the Internet. You should be able to find local multiple listings.

5. Poor advertising methods. Did your agent create a sales flyer that showcases your property or a sales flyer that showcases your agent? Does your agent advertise your particular property every week or just rely on generic office ads? Did your property get a photo ad in the local home buyer magazine? Another great sales tool used by aggressive listing agents, mailings to your neighborhood homeowners, generates interest from neighbors’ friends and family.

If you feel that you’re wasting your valuable time with an agent who doesn’t perform, ask for a cancellation. If your agent won’t allow a cancellation without receiving compensation for a job not done, insist daily that he or she start performing. If you become the disliked, difficult home seller, your agent will cancel you.

 

Posted via email from Angstadt Real Estate Group

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Curb Appeal Matters When Selling Real Estate

First impressions matter most. This is one concept that many homeowners trying to sell their homes and first time property investors trying to sell or rent property fail to understand. Curb appeal is the first impression when it comes to a house. This is the place that you as an investor or seller want those driving buy to think of as home. For this reason you should pay careful attention and spend some degree of time and effort making the outside of the home inviting and appealing to potential buyers or renters.

One of the first things that people will notice is crumbling paint and bland or tired and faded colors on the exterior. Vinyl siding is often inviting because it is easily cleaned and reinvigorated. It also happens to be fairly low maintenance, which often appeals to buyers and renters alike. There are those however who will argue that siding detracts from the potential personality of a home. To each his or her own in this as it is a personal decision on behalf of the buyer and the seller. Regardless a clean and crisp paint job or siding makes a much better impression than an apparent state of disrepair.

Remember those first impressions are important. If the outside of the home is rather unimpressive potential buyers are quite likely to discover the diamond that is the inside of your home. Another thing you can do to add curb appeal is to plant low maintenance flowers and plants around the exterior of your home. You do not want to invest in plants that require constant care nor do you want to seriously invest in plants that are going to grow out of control and look unwieldy. At least you do not want to plant these around the exterior of your home that is facing the road. Bushes and climbing vines do well in many cases along fences that surround the property however or as a dividing privacy line between your property and neighboring properties.

If you live in an area that isn’t conducive to green grass you may want to consider some sort of hybrid that can thrive with less water or choose some form of landscaping that doesn’t rely on large open patches of grass in order to be beautiful such as xeriscaping then that is quite probably a wise idea. The point is to make the house as attractive on the outside as you hope those viewing the property will find the inside.

Another thing to keep in mind when making the upgrades is to clean the sidewalks and driveway if it is concrete. It is amazing what a high power pressure washer can do to your sidewalks, driveway, and/or front porch. Don’t stop there however; take the time to make sure your doors and windows are clean as well. These little things often make the biggest impression. If you care properly for the exterior of your home and keep it nice and shiny chances are (in the buyer’s mind) that you will have taken the same care of the inside of the home that they are quite possibly now considering.

Taking the extra time to insure that the outside of your home is attractive to buyers can translate into higher and quicker offers than neglecting the essential real estate between the front door and the curb. Do not overlook this powerful piece of advice and you should enjoy a little more success in your efforts to sell your home or investment property.

Posted via email from Angstadt Real Estate Group

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

How Can A Short Sale Benefit The Seller?

How would it feel to lose your dream home for no fault of your own? Financial problems characterize each of our lives and none of us really know what will affect us when. However, we cherish our dreams and make enormous efforts towards realizing them, oh which some of us come true, some do not, while some we lose reaching almost the threshold of acquiring. A breathing reality that is so much common in all of our lives is the threat of facing foreclosure and eventually losing home to some unwanted agency. Mortgages do have their benefits, but the slightest folly on your part can transform mortgages into deadly nightmares.

There are several turns and twist that characterize our career. Moreover, we have regular needs to meet in terms of ourselves as well as our loved ones, which is why the added worry regarding losing your property due to the inability to repay your mortgage is what none of us would want. However, your mortgage company is after all a business entity and would not want to empathize with you at any given instance. And what is the result? Your property, your own dream home, is under threats of property foreclosure or forfeiture by the lender company.

However, things are still not beyond your control only if you know how to take good care of your property. A short sale comes by as an assured relief here, whereby you can sell your home to someone at a price lower than the mortgage balance (or, less than the loan balance). So how do you profit from such a transaction as a seller? You are the one who wins in the run by being able to avoid foreclosure of your property by selling it of before the actual real estate foreclosure auction takes place. However, this possibility would have never existed if you would have lost the home to the mortgage company.

It is immaterial what you owe to the bank or if your property is less than that value. As a homeowner, you can save yourself all the trouble related to foreclosure sale and also save a lot of money on conducting such an event. If you would have tried selling your house following a normal procedure through a realtor, it would also have cost you a lot of bucks. However, by a short sale of your property, you can actually save some thousands of dollars. At times, it is also possible for you as the homeowner to make some money from this deal and keep it for your personal use. Evidently, you are out of money and this cash is going to be of some relief to you and your family.

Your mortgage company will readily accept the cash you provide them because through short sale of a property they can save themselves from a lot of trouble in dealing with the sale of the property under question. They will save a lot of time, labor and some thousands bucks by allowing you to short sale your property and repaying them their balance mortgage amount.

Posted via email from Angstadt Real Estate Group