A short sale does not mean that it takes less time to close, it means that the seller does not have enough money to cover the mortgage when the house sells at market price. The market price is based on what other the houses in the neighborhood or similar homes have sold for. It doesn’t matter what the owner paid for it, it doesn’t matter what they have put into it, the market activity around the home at a particular point in time is most important. Remember, it has to appraise for the value or the buyer can’t get a loan. Read the rest of this entry »

“Good fences make good neighbors” is a saying that everyone has heard for many years and is mostly true, except when it isn’t. Within the last six months, we have had two clients that have had surprising problems with neighbors for houses that they are buying .

When we represent clients, both buyers and sellers, we have clients carefully review the Seller Disclosure Form, Form 17, and we stress the Neighborhood Review that is included in our Washington contract. For buyers, we recommend they review the neighborhood for sex offenders, criminal activity, commuting times and various other issues like parties, street lights or neighborhood covenants. With sellers, we recommend that they disclose any potential problems that a buyer might encounter that wouldn’t be readily obvious. Most of these issues are covered on the Form 17, the Seller Disclosure Statement, and it must be answered truthfully and completely by the seller. According to attorney Mark Schedler, withholding information about a home could be considered fraud and expose the seller to a law suit down the road.

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Everyone thinks that their home is special and IT IS.

What makes a house a home are the special things we surround ourselves with and the memories we create there. Your home is a great sources of pride and comfort, but what you do and how you live, can help determine the value of a home, either up or down, when the home is for sale. When we evaluate a home that is unique, we have the delicate conversation about standing out and fitting in at the same time. In higher-end homes, uniqueness is very common, and usually an asset, but when it crosses over the line to eccentricity, the target market gets much smaller. That translates to a longer market time and a very narrow buyer pool. In middle-to-lower priced homes, certain upgrades will make a home worth more, but don’t over improve. If you do that, you’ll likely want to recoup the costs and that will make you more expensive than other homes in the neighborhood. Your home will likely take longer to sell and it may not appraise.
We recently viewed a home that had a pool and a lot that was much larger than any other home in the neighborhood. While the pool was lovely and the grounds were fabulous, we explained that many buyers in this part of the country don’t expect pools, because of weather. While there are folks moving into our area that like pools, the $50,000 that it took to put it in would probably not generate a full $50,000 in the sale price.

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We have touched on selling issues before, but recent experiences demonstrate that they bear repeating.

It is always stressful to put your home on the market to sell and the journey is usually longer rather than shorter. We all live the way we want to live in our homes, because after all, our home is our castle, so to speak. In the spirit of my father, if we wanted to live differently in our homes, we would. Where the problem comes is when a seller has a “highly personalized style” that doesn’t appeal to the broader market or the seller is unwilling or unable to be flexible to the parade of buyer’s and their schedules.

As see in our recent video with Dennis Conner Getting your home ready for sale, strong statements in art or furniture can distract buyers from the real features of the house. If there is too much furniture, the home looks small. If there are strong colors on the walls in the kids room, the buyer calculates the inconvenience of painting, if the rug is an outrageous color or pattern, buyers calculate the cost of new carpet and if there are visible signs of wear and tear that aren’t address, buyers wonder about the maintenance items that they can’t see and if the house has been reasonably maintained.

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Robinswood Home

Large daylight basement home by Phantom Lake features eat-in kitchen w/newer stove, fridge and microwave. Enjoy the deck and fully fenced backyard from the kitchen eating area sliding door. There are two bedrooms plus the master w/half bath on the main floor as well as a full guest bath, formal living and dining room. There is a utility room on the main where the furnace and water heater are located. Downstairs boasts two bedrooms a rec room and 3/4 bath as well as a shop/storage room.
Go to the Robinswood MLS site for more details