A decision about whether or not a buyer is interested in a home is not unlike a decision about whether a certain wedding dress would look pretty on a bride-to-be or food is worth buying based on its box design.  Driving up to a house with a shaggy yard or paint chipping off cold be a deal-breaker before anyone even steps out of the car (if the buyer even pulls in the driveway!!).

You have eight seconds to impress a potential buyer, according to real estate whiz Barbara Corcoran. LaNita Cates of Joliet, Illinois agrees with her,

I always tell my buyers that they will know when they walk in if this is their home or not. If they aren’t feeling it within the first 10 seconds, let’s move on. They never believe me… AT FIRST. But usually by the 4th house they agree that they know pretty much immediately if they are interested or not when walking in the door.

So buyers pretty much know.

Make sure the house is parade ready before you sell!  The weeks of work to get ready to list could be worth that 8 seconds.

I am getting ready to help list a magnificent house in the country. The seller has done extraordinary work in getting it ready to sell including new paint, tearing down wallpaper, new carpet, and – perhaps most importantly – decluttered. Removing clutter is perhaps one of the top things a seller can do to increase the value of a home for sale.  From the National Association of Realtors, there are several suggestions,

Lighten and brighten

What to do: “Open windows; clean windows and skylights inside and outside; replace old curtains or removing curtains; remove other obstacles from windows blocking light; repair lighting fixtures; make sure window open easily.”

Estimated cost: $424

Potential ROI: 299% or $1,690

There are several other extremely helpful suggestions on how to get a home ready to sell on the NAR site, so take  a gander over there and look around!

Effective June 15, houses with a current short sale offer that have loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will get an anww4e much more quickly. They now have 30 to 60 days to reply thanks to a new regulation place on government sponsored enterprises by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to DS News.com.

If more than 30 days are needed, servicers must provide the borrower with weekly status updates and come to a decision no later than 60 days from the date the BRP or offer was received.

According to the GSEs, this 30-day add-on will provide some leeway for servicers who may need more time to obtain a broker price opinion (BPO) or a private mortgage insurer’s approval for a short sale. All decisions must be made within 60 days.

This should be a huge boost for real estate agents, buyers and sellers.  Selling or buying through short sale already has a huge stigma attached, so by removing the wait more people may be more willing to buy a house that is a short sales.

When you get a lowball offer, at least it’s a starting point!  While no seller wants to hear that an offer came in $50,000 under the list price, someone was interested enough to go to the trouble of writing a contract.  Of course, $50,000 below really is ridiculous, but if you’re $10,000 or $20,000 off then perhaps a strong negotiator can get you where you need to be to sell.

Brenda Mullen of San Antonio, Texas offers great advice to sellers faced with addressing a low offer,

The buyer may be just looking for a deal and being a time waster, but we won’t truly know that until we do a reasonable counter and do some actual negotiating for our clients.  Additionally, just as a buyer won’t know what a seller will accept or how low they will go, a seller won’t know how high a buyer will go unless we try.  

One thing is for sure, if we take offense at the lowball offer and then get the seller to take offense..there will be no offer, no sold home…sad/mad seller, sad/mad buyer and sad/mad agents…(Trust me, I don’t write this post because I am the agent that has never had the above experience…I am one who has learned from her mistakes that taking offense at the lowball offer and then infecting my seller with said same attitude results in no sale).

Do not take offense if you’re selling. Just counter-offer to improve where you want to be.

Did your agent suggest that you can “try” to list at a higher price to test the market but if there is no interest after a couple of weeks, you’ll need to consider lowering the sale price? Did they initially suggest the listing price be significantly lower than what you think it’s actually worth?

What your agent is really telling you is that your house is overpriced and won’t sell and they are too desperate for the listing to say, “No!”

When you are ready to sell your house, be realistic.  If you really do doubt what an agent asks you to consider for the list price, get a second opinion. Get a third opinion.  But if you get two out of three who are telling you te price is high, believe them!

A friend of mine closes on her new house on Friday. She used a real estate agent to buy the new one, but sold her existing home without an agent.  In fact, she had her house listed for over a year and with only three showings during that time she decided to strike out on her own.  Successfully so, in this case.

Oftentimes the exact opposite happens.  A home owner will try to sell on their own but runs into challenges that seem insurmountable without the experience of a real estate professional.  Doug Rogers of Pineville, Louisiana tells when a for sale by owner should change to a real estate agent,

1) Security– This is often overlooked. Most “buyers” will find a FSBO from the signs. You would be surprised what sort of people will show up on your door step. Some of them even want to buy a house. Are you prepared to speak with the person on the other end of the peep hole?

2) Thick Skin– Let’s face it, getting a home loan if FAR more difficult today than a few years back. Are you prepared to ask tough financial questions to a stranger? Or even worse, a family member? Over time, agents learn how to ask qualifying questions without being abrasive or pushy. Frankly such wisdom comes from trial and error.

Click through to read the rest of why someone should consider using an agent.

The very idea of writing a contract for a lease-purchase makes me shudder!  Yes my clients have successfully bought homes through this unusual purchasing option, but it’s stressful, time-consuming, and doesn’t always work out.  When it fails, the buyer is out of luck in getting their down payment back. And that down payment is key to a lease purchase contract,

Let’s also get the elephant out of the room, a lease purchase is a contract to purchase a property with real money down (called a down payment in traditional purchases).  The money down locks in a purchase option.  There’s several ways to do this lease purchase, but usually it keeps the price from escalating and the current owner from selling the home to other parties.  This is what we are talking about.

A lease purchase without down payment or option money is called… RENTING.

The challenge in the past several years has been that if a lease-purchase contract price was locked in before the housing market crash, by contractual obligation, the buyer was obligated to buy at the purchase price from months or a year before. When the appraisal is done and the purchase is above appraised value, that leaves the buyer in a pickle if the seller won’t adjust the price.

In all, lease purchases can work but I’d stay away from them as much as possible.

Zillow and its “zestimate” that tries to pinpoint the value of a home is a very helpful tool to get almost in the ballpark. As you are deciding to sell or buy, it might give you a general idea of where you might be if all things were equal.  However, not all things are equal in any part of life, including on Zillow.

My colleague John Turner describes how uneven the playing field really is,

The major flaw in the Zestimate is that it assumes all the properties in a particular area have the same amenities and should be considered “comparable” properties.

The condition from home to home can vary in a normal market. In a market riddled with foreclosures and short sales, much like today’s market, the condition from home to home can vary greatly. A home in pristine condition with upgraded flooring, new paint, immaculate landscaping, etc, should not be priced per square foot the same as a foreclosure that needs new paint, carpet, landscaping, etc. This is a scenario that the Zestimate does not allow for.

The condition of a home is vital when considering a sales price because appraisers also look at this. Good luck getting $50,000 more for your run-down home when the one up the street is pristine. When your realtor tells you, “That’s close, but not really accurate,” believe them!

The house was once cracked in half, but the seller had it professionally repaired. The chimney is leaning.  The electrical system is ancient.  The house adjoins land that is swampy.  Whatever is wrong with a house, it’s always best to disclose.  Disclosure is invaluable both for a seller and a buyer

The seller prevents potential litigation in the future if there is a problem about the house that they told the buyer about prior to the purchase.  The buyer also knows what they’re getting into.

Are there exceptions?  Perhaps the only one I’ve seen is when property is bank-owned and they make the buyer sign a gazillion times that they are accepting the home in as-is condition, no exceptions.  In these cases, buyers are strongly advised to have an experienced professional do a careful inspection.  Spend the money to get an A/C inspection, a roof inspection, and any other component vital to the operation and functioning of the home checked out.

Whether a counter top is granite or Formica or the appliances are stainless steel or off-white could well determine whether you can an offer or not.  Many memories are made in the kitchen – from a strong sense of smell when cookies come out of the oven to learning how to prepare chicken & dumplings – so it can make or break a home sale.

This is true no matter what part of the country you’re in, no matter if you’re a house flipper or first-time home buyer. From Realty Times,

Kitchens, however, can be one of the most expensive rooms to renovate. These projects can also be the most labor and time intensive of all home renovations. It’s not just a new layer of paint.  

Instead you find a complicated array of flooring, tiling, cabinets, and counters. This means buyers may want a home with an up-to-date kitchen but they aren’t willing to tackle this problem themselves. Most buyers want a kitchen that is ready to use the day they move in.

If you’re ready to sell, pay careful attention to the kitchen!