Staging Your Home to Sell

Many factors are combined for a successful home sale: competitive sale price, well-kept home, marketing, excellent property photos, curb appeal, desirable location and lastly, good staging.

Good staging consists of the following (for additional tips, go to http://www.hgtv.com/ and search "staging"):

1. Remove clutter
   You may love your salt and pepper collection, but buyers won't. Make your home look like a model home and be sure to have at least 50% of space on everything. This includes closets, shelves, the garage. If buyers see stuff crammed everywhere they will unconsciously think there's not enough room for their stuff. Rent a storage unit or two.
2. Take down your family photos
   All those photos of junior are adorable, but it will distract buyers and take their focus off of your home.
3. Clean inside and out
   I know this seems obvious, but I can't tell you how many homes I show where there are dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs on the floor, yucky litter boxes, Fido "droppings" on the lawn...you get the picture.
4. Hide the toys
   Get a toy box and use it. Whatever doesn't fit in the toy box, goes in storage. Make it look like the adults own the home, not the kids.
5. Remove unnecessary furniture
   Although it may be useful for your family to have a couch, love seat and Dad's favorite recliner, it is probably making your living room small. The less furniture, the bigger your house looks. This goes ditto for huge bedroom furniture -- unless, of course, you have a 1200 square foot master suite. Be sure there is ample space for a family to tour your home and not have to squeeze between furniture pieces to move around.
6. Put away the exercise equipment
   You're probably not using it anyway, except to hang clothing, so for the sale of your home, put it away. The only time this is okay, is when you have a room that is specifically being used as a workout room.
7. Hire a professional home stager
   Professional staging has become a booming business and can really help in the quick and profitable sale of a home, particularly in a challenging home selling market. To find a home stager in your area, visit www.stagedhomes.com/

2008 is the Year to Get Off the Fence

Since the day after Christmas, my phone has been ringing off the hook with clients -- both new and long-time fence sitters -- who are getting ready to purchase a home. It looks like buyers are starting to figure out that we may be close to rock bottom. Of course, no one really knows we've hit rock bottom until about six months afterwards.

Our well-priced listings are getting lots of showings and I can just feel the offers coming in. This is the year to buy a home. If you're a buyer waiting for the right moment, this is it. Get out there, shop and make offers. In my opinion, we won't see a year like this for a long time.

Boycott Companies that Advertise Christmas Before Thanksgiving

Okay, so this has nothing to do with real estate, but I must vent. I have started keeping a list of all retailers I'm boycotting that have started advertising Christmas before Thanksgiving. It's gotten so out of control.

So as not to find myself in a lawsuit, I will not mention the companies, but you know who you are. Of course, at this rate, I will be left shopping at gas stations for Christmas presents, as the list of these retailers is getting quite long.

In a couple years, we will start seeing Christmas stuff in the stores at the Fourth of July. Then ultimately, Christmas stuff will be around all year long just so we don't forget the biggest shopping season and keep the retailers in their profit margins.

Mercury Retrograde's Effect on Real Estate

What the heck is Mercury retrograde and what could it possibly have to do with real estate? A lot!

Mercury Retrograde is when the planet Mercury starts to go in a backward motion. This happens approximately three times a year for a 3 to 4 week period. We are currently in one of these periods and the havoc wreaked is real -- even if you don't believe in astrology. This retrograde started on October 12 and ends November 1. The planet Mercury rules communication and transportation. Therefore, it is not a good time to start anything new, such as a contract, job, etc. It is also a bad time for travel and buying anything expensive, especially electronics.

During this time, real estate transactions will fall out of escrow, communications will break down, and people will have disagreements. If you happen to have homes in contract, be especially diligent about communication with all parties and expect delays.

Despite Mercury Retrograde's negative aspects, there are some positive ones too. This period is a great time to "re" do anything. Reconnect with old friends, redo your closet, restart your workout routine, etc.

For more information on this subject, visit Susan Miller's Astrology Zone website:
http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/mercury.html

Pricing a Home to Sell

In this current market of craziness, the proper pricing of a home has become an insurmountable challenge with Sellers. Our boom market gave home owners a mentality of what their home was worth at the height of the market in 2005 and Sellers just can't get whatever that price was out of their heads. The price of what a home would sell for is easy when looking at the facts, but convincing a Seller of that price is quite difficult.

An article in Inman news by Bernice Ross, which is directed at agents, but is also great advice for home Sellers outlines pricing strategies. See http://www.inman.com/content/story.aspx?ID=64177. The four points the article makes include the following:
1) Price a home below what recent comparable homes sold for to be competitive; no buyer wants to pay more for a home than is necessary
2) Don't try to test the market; test the market and you're just looking at wasted time and a price reduction in the near future
3) When reducing your home price, make a serious price reduction that will make a difference in the potential pool of buyers looking for a home; buyers search for homes based on price ranges, so if your home is listed for $475K and you reduce it to $470K, you haven't added a single new buyer to see your home -- however, if you lower your price to $450K, you just increased your pool of buyers for all those whose price maximum is $450K
4) What's your motivation to sell your home; do you "need" to sell or do you "want" to sell -- the longer your home sits on the market when priced improperly the more money you lose as homes values decline

Overpricing a Home for Negotiating

There is a thought among home sellers that if they price their home a little high, it will leave room to negotiate down. Now while this strategy makes sense on paper, it completely backfires in our current buyer's market. Right now, if a home is priced too high, it's impossible to even get buyers in your home to negotiate.

A properly priced home will get buyers in the door and potential offers coming in. Homes are still selling in this market, obviously. However, what is selling is priced at market or below, in excellent condition or has some other outstanding feature such as location, school district, etc.

If you look at the statistics of homes selling, once a home is properly priced and sells, they majority are selling between 95% and 100%* or more of their asking price. So a seller doesn't necessarily have to come down much from a proper list price.

*A sale price of a home may include seller concessions for closing costs, which brings the actual purchase price down, usually at 3% of the purchase price.

Take a Picture, Sell a Home

With the invention of the Internet, the process of buying a home went from the hands of the Realtor to the hands of the consumer. According the the National Association of Realtors, nearly 80% of homebuyers start their home search on the Internet. The Internet search is where pictures of a home for sale are so important. It's the photos -- and good photos -- that gets a potential buyer in your home.

When I'm researching homes for a buyer, if I come across a listing without pictures or just a single photo of the front of the home, I typically bypass that home for others with multiple pictures that give me a good sense of what that home has to offer. However, sometimes a home's photos do not do the home justice, and sometimes the opposite also occurs.

In our multiple listing service here in Sacramento, we are allowed to post 12 photos of a home. We always post 12 photos. Posting any less than 12 photos is not giving a Seller the full potential of marketing their home to other Realtors as well as the consumer.

So, if we list your home, get ready for your house to say "cheese" and pose for our camera!

For info on taking good property photos visit, http://realestate.msn.com/Selling/Article_wsj.aspx?cp-documentid=5414351