Archive for the ‘Real Estate Articles’ Category

How low can we go?  Buyers new negotiating strategy

Almost no one is making an offer at the asking price these days for homes that have been on the market a while, but making an insulting low offer is not usually the best way to get a home you are interested in.  The real estate market is dynamic, but perceptions are slow to change and the news media isn’t helping.  Read the rest of this entry »

Sellers often ask: Should I do a pre-inspection on my home before I put it on the market? 
Like many questions, the answer is “it depends.” There are two schools of thought and in the end, it is up to the seller, but we do have a recommendation.
A pre-inspection is done by a professional inspector, hired by the seller and in theory, that inspector will look at and find everything the buyer’s inspector will look for and comment on.   The seller would then fix everything that the inspector points out and a copy of the report would be left for the buyer so that they can see what the seller has fixed, showing that the seller is conscientious about maintaining the home. That’s the idea, but the reality is sometimes very different.
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Zillow and their automated evaluations, Zestimates, were big news on Tuesday, February 8, 2011, after the front page article in the Seattle Times that said that one-third of the homes in the Seattle area were valued less than the mortgage amount.  

The news media covered the story all day and into the night. One big problem, the statement was WRONG!  A correction (one-third of the homes with mortgages are valued less than the mortgage amount) was published the next day in the very small correction area, but no news channels covered the correction and we don’t believe that the correction is still accurate. Read the rest of this entry »

If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t….

This year has been crazy year in real estate, what could go wrong went wrong at one end of the year or the other. Never before have we been called upon to manage so many little and big emergencies before, during and after homes are purchased.

I want to tell you about Tracy and her nerve racking adventure to buy a new home. Like most buyers, she had to sell her home first. Once she made the decision to sell, Tracy was determined to find her next home. House hunting commenced quickly and Tracy found a couple of houses that would fit the bill. Unfortunately, her home didn’t sell, and didn’t sell, and didn’t sell. Read the rest of this entry »

Every November we get asked the same questions: “Should I put my house on the market now or just wait until February?”

Every November we have the same answer: “ November can be a great time to sell because the buyers in the market are motivated and the inventory is limited.”

Under normal circumstances, selling your home is inconvenient. You must keep it show ready every time you leave in the morning and you must be ready to take a walk when a buyer wants to view your home at night or on the weekends. When the holidays arrive, many sellers don’t want to be inconvenienced with these pressures, so off the market it comes. That leaves the desperate sellers and the vacant houses for buyers to choose from. Not too appealing for the buyer that is being transferred and needs to start a new job at the beginning of the year. Remember, buyers that are out looking at this time of the year are motivated. Who wants to go out in cold, rain, snow and the dark to look at houses, if they don’t have to.

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