Sandy McAlpine - Lake Norman Blog: December 2010

~ I'm Sorry Mr. & Mrs. Seller, Your Home is Only Worth... ~

This post was inspired by a newer agent in my office.

First of all Mr. & Mrs. Seller, a market analysis is not an appraisal.  It is a picture of the current market conditions based on sold properties in a designated area.  Sold properties are used in an analysis because homes do not necessarily sell for their list price.  The value of a home is what it actually sells for, notfor what it lists.  I will do a CMA (comparable market analysis), before listing your home to find the proper pricing for it.  (We don't just make up a number off the top of our heads, at least I don't.)  And a home is not worth what you, Mr. & Mrs. Seller, need to pay off your bills.

My search criteria for a CMA, preferably, is in the same subdivision, same style of home, sold within the last 6 months (or if there are too many properties to use, then I narrow this down to 4 months), within 100 sq ft smaller or larger than your home and approximately the same age.  This is my starting point.  I will then tweak my criteria from there.  Yes, I do use bank owned and short sales in the mix, but I will adjust for pricing since they usually sell for up to 30% lower than a straight sale.  In my report for you, I will also include active listings since they will be your competition.  And I will also include a list all of the homes currently under contract/pending, since these will most likely be some of the comparisons that the appraiser will be using to aprraise your home.  So you see, what you owe on your bills does not factor into the pricing of your home.  I'm sure this makes absolute sense to you.  You are intelligent folks, so I am certain you will not mix the two.

The way I come up with a price range to sell your home, I use a CMA program.  Active Reality Solutions is the program I use.  It was written by a local REALTOR here in Denver.  It allows me to make adjustments to the comparable homes for condition, upgrades, views, age, sq ft, garage spaces and more.  I am also able to 'correct' the incorrect information that the listing agent may have missed or incorrectly entered into the MLS system.  I make the adjustments to the comparable homes by assigning a dollar value for the differences, to make those homes more similar to your home with the same options and upgrades.

Now that I have explained this to you, you can see why your home's value is only between $245,000 and $252,000, not $280,000.  If you were to list your home at $280,000, you will only be helping the competition sell their home first.  If you were a buyer and I showed you this information, would you buy your home, or would you buy one of these other homes for $30,000 less?  I'm sorry Mr. & Mrs. Seller, your home is only  worth....

If you live in the Denver metro area and need a professional REALTOR to properly price your home to sell, I am available to help you.  I am in the busness to sell your home, not just list it.

 

 

Keller Williams Real Estate, LLC

Broker Associate, CNE, CRS, GRI, SFR

Servicing buyers and sellers in the Denver metro area since 1993

Three easy ways to contact me:

email me directly Dawn@downhomeindenver.com

visit my website to search for homes or find the value of what your home is currently worth visit: www.DownHomeInDenver.com

call or text me directly on my cell: 303-332-8025

The choice is yours.  Let my expertise work for you!  Servicing the Denver Metro area/ Aurora, Centennial, Denver, Englewood, Greenwood Village, Littleton, Lonetree and Parker

 

                                              

 

 

Hi folks. Here are a few things to help you get your buyer's offer accepted? As, primarily a listing Broker, I can assure you it's not always about the price. So what do I look for in an offer? What can a REALTOR® do to ensure that their Buyer's offer is taken seriously? A purchase offer, just like most things, is all about the presentation. If you want it to be taken seriously then present it seriously. So here are some tips:

• It must be in writing. Now folks to me this is a big one. My standard response, to
• a verbal offer, is: "Is the offer so bad you won't even take the time to put it in writing? My Seller will NOT negotiate a verbal offer, it is a condition of my listing agreement." NEXT!

• Send me the ENTIRE purchase offer with ALL addenda. Also, I need a copy of the escrow check and a LENDER letter. 

• Make sure the offer is legible with NO blank spaces. If your handwriting is bad then type it. If I can't read it, I can't present it. I do not get paid to decipher offers.

• After you have faxed or E-mailed the offer. Pick up the phone and make sure I received it. I had this happen last week. A REALTOR® called me on Friday to ask if I had a response on the offer she sent over on Wednesday. "Nope, never got it" She had faxed it to the wrong number.

• Please, please, please put a cover letter with your offer. And please, please, please make sure your contact information can be read. It may be your only Buyer and your only offer but I can assure you it's not my only offer. I can't respond if I don't know where it came from.

• Make sure the figures add up correctly and the dates for contingencies are correct i.e. A 100% financing deal with a pre-approval for 95% financing. Huh? A 21 day closing date with 30 days for mortgage approval. What? An inspection period longer than the closing period. Hello?

Now folks, this is pretty basic stuff but it happens ALL the time. These offers will rarely be accepted. If you don't take your offers serious neither will my Sellers.

OK, now lets assume you have the basics down. Here are some things you can show me, to really get me excited.

• A pre-approval letter from a known Lender. Not ABC we loan money cheap.

• A letter from the Buyer telling my Sellers how much they love the house and how much they are looking forward to their new home. This is an excellent tool to give Sellers that have lived in their home for a long time. They want someone that will enjoy and take care of "their" home.

• The Buyer's credit score. I will love you for this one. If they have great credit, then prove it to me. I won't even show the Sellers. But it sure does make me warm and fuzzy.

• Proof of funds. Paying cash? Have a 20% down payment? Prove it to me. I'm going to ask anyway, so you might as well beat me to the punch. By the way, cash does not mean, "when we sell our house." Cash means AVAILABLE funds in the bank.

Oh, one more thing, communicate with me. Return your phone calls promptly. If it takes me three days to reach you, while we are negotiating, I will have zero motivation to want to do a 30-45 day transaction process with you. I will tell my Sellers this AND they will agree with me.

So there you go, I  hope this helps. Any other suggestions from listing Brokers?

***I am NOT an Attorney nor do I play one on TV. Click the button below for my Bio.

Copyright © 2010 http://www.brokerbryant.com/ | All Rights Reserved

 

 

Almost all of my Buyers have struggled with making a purchase decision.  Around and around we would go, looking for houses in their price range but none of them suited because the locations were too far from the centre of the city and the commute too long.  So we moved in closer but the older homes in the price range were not in good condition.  In Ottawa, even little shacks near the center of the city in the right neighbourhoods go for well over $300,000 - and they need work.  So we take another look at the location and move the search boundaries a little further out - voila now we are seeing homes in better condition, still a bit pricey and a little longer to get to work but...... Now the Buyer wants a detached home.  We are getting in the car and driving to find that one because in the price range the Buyer has we are setting out on a road trip to the far reached suburbs.  Are you getting the picture of the triangle yet?

Every Buyer, including me, wants to find the house that has the magic power to make us want to purchase it - at the right price, in excellent condition and in the perfect location.  Normally, unless the Good Housing Fairy Maisonhas sprinkled us with fairy dust, this perfect house will not be found.  What we will find is trade-offs and a process of prioritization.  Parents chip in with some money to help increase the ability to pay more, the house is in not bad condition and can be changed over time, the location is not absolutely ideal but the neighbourhood is good and public transit will help get you to work.

The Buying Decision may require the door to your new home to be at different points of the triangle.

Valerie Zinger  email: vzinger@royallepage.com  (613-723-5300)

Royal LePage Gale Real Estate,  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  

MR. AND MRS. BUYER.  WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?  TO GET A GOOD HOME AT A GOOD PRICE? OR ARE YOU TRYING TO PLAY INVESTOR?  Buying real estate is not a board game.

• FACT:  BANKS DON'T KNOW HOW TO SELL REAL ESTATE. 
• FACT:  CONSUMERS DON'T KNOW HOW TO BUY REAL ESTATE. 

When it comes to short sales, some things have to be understood from the outset.  For one, banks are not perfect in their analysis of various buyer offers.  However, neither are buyers when designing their offers.

WHO HAS THE EXPERIENCE TO PRICE SHORT SALES?  Banks have access to pricing experts.

• the listing agent's pricing advice
• more than one price opinion from objective brokers
• appraisals. 

SHORT SALES ARE USUALLY PRICED BELOW MARKET.  Sure, banks often consider what they have in the property and the amount of their loss, etc.  However, in the end, the prices for short sales are generally quite advantageous for home buyers when compared with home owner listings and even bank owned properties for sale.  Buyer's agents can usually provide the buyers with solid pricing examples that support a short sale listing. 

HOW SERIOUS IS THE BUYER?  When weighing the pricing information, location, house design and condition and all of the evidence shows that the house is priced fairly, if the prospective buyer then makes an offer that is unrealistically low and stubbornly sticks to their original offer and refuses to negotiate price or terms, etc., then it must be accepted that individual making the offer is NOT A SERIOUS HOME BUYER! 

THE BIGGEST CLUE THAT A CONSUMER IS NOT A SERIOUS HOME BUYER??

When the prospective home buyer says:

• "We don't have to buy now"
• "The bank has to come down to my price"
• "The bank needs to sell more than I need to buy"
• "It's a buyer's market"
• "I'm looking for a real deal"

BUYING REAL ESTATE IS NOT A BOARD GAME!

When a prospective home buyer makes unrealististically low offers, they have simply made sure that they will NOT HAVE TO BUY THAT HOUSE.  When the consumer ignores pricing documentation and logic and insists that everyone involved reward them for their superior real estate buying skills, they simply are giving themselves a guarantee that they will NOT have to buy a house. 

THEY WERE NOT SERIOUS HOME BUYERS.  In 2009, I dropped two prospective home buyers.  Both were in the market for new construction.  One made an offer of $300,000 on a $400,000 home.  I knew that the builder had closed that model for no less than a net of $390,000.  The other prospective buyer made an offer of $790,000 on new construction that priced out with their upgrades and options at $1,190,000.  the builder countered to $900,000.  BOTH BUYERS WERE PLAYING CHICKEN WITH THE BUILDERS.  BOTH OFFERS WERE RIDICULOUS and, IMO, designed to fail! 

FACT:  As of today, neither of those buyers have purchased a property.  They were never serious home buyers.

FACT:  Once a buyer makes a low offer and receives a reasonable and workable counter-offer and does not proceed to buy the house, they were probably NOT SERIOUS HOME BUYERS.

REAL ESTATE AGENTS make a significant investment of their resources when they accept a buyer-client.  We use our skills and experience for: 

• financial analysis
• property research
• previewing
• showings
• preparing offers 

Working with buyers requires a huge investment of time and gasoline. 

FACT:  Agents can lose a lot of valuable time by not know the maximum qualified price range for a prospective buyer.  If the buyer is making low offers, perhaps that's all they're qualified to buy.   I have spoken with buyers who were qualified for a certain amount but insisted on looking at properties that were 25% or more in price.  If you get a buyer who wants to look way over their qualified range. . . . . . .  be careful.  Save your time.

WHEN WE SPEND TIME WITH CONSUMERS WHO ARE NOT SERIOUS HOME BUYERS, we may be missing the opportunity to work with serious home buyers.  It's your business, invest your time wisely and learn to identify consumers who are merely playing a REAL ESTATE BOARD GAME.

Courtesy, Lenn Harley, Broker, Homefinders.com, 800-711-7988.

Courtesy, Lenn Harley, Broker, Homefinders.com, 800-711-7988.

For a tour of homes in Vienna, VA, contact Lenn Harley, Broker, Homefinders.com, 800-711-7988.  Experienced REALTORS helping home buyers in the wonderful planned community of Reston, Virginia real estate.

To search homes for sale in Vienna on the full database of ACTIVE homes listed for sale in Fairfax County, use our convenient Home Search in Fairfax County web site.  

Fairfax County Real Estate 

• Homefinders.com
• Reston Virginia Homes and Real Estate
• New Homes in Fairfax County VA
• Luxury Homes in McLean Virginia
• Search for Homes for sale in Fairfax County VA 

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Every first of the month Ronnie, our administrative assistant, arrives at the office and begins the daunting task of addressing letters to several hundred homeowners whose listing expired at the end of the previous month. One of the good people who came off the market on November 30th called me and we met just this evening to see how I could help them sell. The details of why homes do not sell are not unfamiliar to me; price is certainly a big reason, but there are often other fatal mistakes the prior agent made that punctuate the home's failure to sell. In this case, the home's MLS data indicated as the size of the yard as "0 acres." In other words, anyone who put the yard size in their search criteria would not find the house. Not good. 

In discussing the options facing the home owners and what could be done to get the house sold, I was impressed with one of the seller's concerns about the feelings of their prior agent. They didn't get the job done, and they didn't have my record in sales, but all the same she felt bad about letting them go after they tried so hard and were so nice. 

I have to say, I wish more people cared about my feelings the way she cared for theirs. This is a woman with a good heart. I told her that this is business, not personal, but she was still kind of bummed about her old agent. 

I wish there were more people like her. We spoke about it more, and the thing she acknowledged in our discussion was that it doesn't take a cold and calculating person to make a smart business decision. You can still be a good person and do what is right in a business sense without being mercenary. Being good to people is important. That does not mean, however, that you subordinate your financial health and well being to appearing nice. If the right thing for her is to get a new, better broker, she owes it to herself to do so. 

Selling a home is serious business. And it is not a vehicle for relationships. It is something some people do but once in their lives, and they owe it to themselves to have the best representation, even if their prior agents were cordial and nice. Huge money is involved, and there are no do-overs once a closing is over. I would say that all people should have a good agent, but good people especially deserve a good agent. I know of no other Westchester agent that sells more homes that previously expired with other brokers than myself. It is what we do, what we excel at, and how we grow the company in these rough times. When we do get started with this particular family, we'll get them the results they very richly deserve. 

 

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Dear Mr. and Mrs. Buyer.

We've been together for quite a while now.  We've sweated in un-air-conditioned homes, we've sweated in over-heated homes, we've shivered in "unheated" homes, we've looked at foreclosures and short-sales, we've even written offers on a couple of properties, to no avail.

So I feel as though I know you pretty well, I feel as though I know which homes you'll like, and which homes will bring that "disappointed" look.  I'm not hiding homes from you, so your needlessly sending me e-mails saying "how about THIS one?", or "how about THAT one?" is confusing.  I then explain why I haven't bothered you with those.  (too small, too large, too near the train tracks, too much work to be done, no master suite, no garage... there are a myriad of reasons).

But when we go and view a home that fits your every need.  It's in your price range, it's got the right room count, the right school district, doesn't need you to throw more money into it, master suite, extra room for an office, dry basement, 2.5 car garage... when we go to view that house... don't even try to hide your enthusiasm from me.  I'm your buyer's agent.  I work for you.  Regardless of the 'lust' I can see in your eyes, even though, for some reason, you're trying to hide it from me, I will work tirelessly to get you the best deal possible.

The best price, the best terms... all of it.  I will NOT telegraph your 'lust' to the listing agent... I work for YOU... I am not a sub-agent of the seller... I am a buyer's agent, working only in your interests.

I take a perverse sense of pride in just how good a deal I can help you get.  Have I mentioned that I work for YOU!?

So, try as you might, you can't hide from me that you "L-O-V-E" this house.  You know it, I know it... now let's sit down and work out a plan on how much you want to pay for it (and how much you DON'T want to pay for it).  Include me in your strategy... cause (here it comes again) I work for you, and I can't do my best work when you're "holding me at arms' length".

ALAN MAY, Realtor®
Specializing in Evanston Real Estate and North Shore Real Estate
Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, 2929 Central Street, Evanston, IL 60201
847.425.3779      Cell: 847.924.3313      Email: Almay@aol.com

Evanston Real Estate & North Shore Real Estate

Top 5 Reasons to Commit to Your Real Estate Agent Now

1)      They can do a better job for you.  With commitment and loyalty comes trust.  I can do ten times more for a client if they are committed and they trust me.  If you are working with an agent that you don't trust, you need to move on, because there really is no point.  Last year, I saved a client $195,000 on a foreclosure he was purchasing.  I convinced the bank to lower the price by almost one third.  How was that possible?  My client trusted me.  Not blindly, but I definitely asked him to do some things he didn't think were necessary.  In the end, I was able to save him almost two hundred thousand dollars simply because he trusted that I knew what I was talking about.  Could I have done that with an uncommitted client that didn't trust me?  Absolutely not.

2)      They will stop being a salesperson and start being an advisor.  Hate all that sales-talk?  Want your real estate agent to stop selling you?  Look them straight in the eye and say "I'm buying a house with you, period, you are my agent," or "I am listing my house with you, period, you are my agent."  And mean it.  What will happen next?  Most agents will morph right before your eyes from a salesperson into an advisor.  Now that you've gotten that out of the way, they can start to do their job.  Want to get some of the worst real estate advice?  Keep every real estate agent you talk to on a string and make them dance for your business. Sales-talk is a little like dating-talk, it's a necessary skill to have, and not exactly fake, but not exactly real either.   

3)      They'll make sure you know when you're wrong.  Imagine you are wrong about something.  Not a little wrong, but very wrong and extremely convinced.  You would want your real estate agent to tell you, right?  Well there is telling and there is telling.  I always give my clients my honest opinion no matter what - the inability to contain my actual opinion is a burden I've carried my whole life.  However, if I am dealing with an uncommitted client, I say my opinion a couple times and I move on.  Not that long ago, I had a client who was about to overpay by $70,000 for a piece of property.  I told him he was wrong over and over again and frankly, we argued about it.  He called me months later not only to tell me I was right, but also to thank me for saving him $70,000 as he would have already been underwater on that property.  Would I have spent all the hours and hours pouring over market data to prove my case, showing him that property (and its defects) multiple times, and chatting in the street, if didn't KNOW I was his agent?  Not a chance.

4)      They come across great deals all the time and they only call their best clients.  I know you think you are gaming the system by emailing 15 different agents or calling them from a blocked number and telling them to bring you a "deal."   However, as a real estate agent, I come across great deals all the time, and I won't be emailing them to anybody.  First of all, I have no idea who I am emailing.  I could be emailing my competition or someone who is working with my competition.  If you don't trust me enough to give me your phone number, why would I email you the best deal I came across in the last 3 months?  If I don't have a pre-approval, a proof of funds and a phone number, you won't be getting notified when the best thing since sliced bread hits the market.  I'll be calling my committed client that has their ducks in a row, whose motivation and tastes I understand because we've talked about it, and who bothered to give me their unlisted phone number. 

5)      The best real estate agents have their choice of clients.   Sure you might catch a good REALTOR® in a bad market and they go against their gut and work with you even though they know you are not fully committed to them.  But, usually the best real estate agents can pick and choose who they work with based on whether your listing fits their business plan, whether you have saved a down payment, whether you are truly motivated, and also whether you are committed to them.  The truth is there are plenty of loyal clients out there, and a loyal and committed client is worth 10 times more than a disloyal one regardless of price range or almost any other factor, and every successful real estate agent knows that.  Remain uncommitted and you are lowering the chances of getting an experienced agent to work with you.  You are, in effect, limiting your prospective agent pool to those that simply don't know or can't do better.

Tni LeBlanc, Mint Properties
Broker/Owner, Attorney
CA DRE License #01871795
http://SantaMariaRealEstateBlog.com
(805) 878-9879 - cell

Copyright © Tni LeBlanc 2010 * Top 5 Reasons to Commit to Your Real Estate Agent Now*

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