Beverly, MA

Think Twice before taking your home off for the Holidays!

Believe it or not, this can be a great time to sell your home and maximize your bottom line. I have already seen the number of new listings shrinking every day and expiring contracts ready to give up until the "spring market".

Last year in my home town of Beverly, 46 residential homes went under agreement between Dec. 1st and Jan. 31st. That's pretty good and the market has picked up since that point in time. With the extension and expansion of the tax credit, there is no reason to believe that these numbers won't go up this year.

The tire kickers take the Holiday's off too! This means that although there are fewer buyers out there looking, they are serious and in some cases need to be in a home sooner rather than later. Motivated Buyers with less inventory to look at usually will give you a little bit more leverage when negotiating the Sale Price.

I understand that it can be difficult to accommodate showings and open houses around this time of the year and weather can play a factor, but people that need to buy will be more willing to work with you to see a home that meets their needs.

I hope you all have a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season!

To keep your eye on your neighborhood activity please use my free market watch service at http://www.pinpointmarketwatch.info

Stay in control and overcome the fear!

I have heard this question too many times in the past 12 months. "We want to upgrade, but we owe more than we can get for our home. What are our options?"

The truth of the matter is that you will need to absorb the difference between what you owe and what you can realistically get for your home and have at least a 3 1/2% down payment on the new home. You can make any offers contingent upon the seller paying you closing costs and escrows to avoid those upfront costs.

If you have lived in your current home for at least 5 years you can count on the expanded tax credit of up to $6500.

How do you stay in control? By overcoming the Fears and taking the right steps!

You need to consult with a Realtor that is active in your community to have a market analysis done. You can get on line estimatesfrom Zillow and Cyberhomes by simply typing in your address. Depending on where you live these figures can differ greatly as you will see by using the above link. You may also use my Free Market Survey System which will show you what is and isn't selling in your neighborhood and for how much.
A Realtor will take more of an appraisal approach and will be much more accurate than these systems.

Once you have an idea of what your home may sell at, you need to sit down with a Mortgage Professional to go over exactly what it will take to accomplish your goals. At this point you should have a pretty clear idea of whether or not you can proceed with the process.

If you decide to go forward, you need to get your home ready and on the market. You should make it clear that any offer will be contingent upon you finding suitable housing. You now have the numbers needed to know what you would be willing to accept and have control over the process.

Staying alert to what is on the market and being ready to make an offer once you receive an offer will take the stress away when you get to this point.

The FEAR usually is not getting what you want in order to be able to make the move. The only thing you can be sure of is that if you do nothing, you will definitely be in your same home next summer.

How is the Beverly Market doing? This is a question that I hear often. Here are the numbers over the last 3 months. http://pdf.mlspin.com/results/2009100313052268285850.pdf This information is directly from the MLS and is the most current. If you have specific questions about the data, please contact me and I will help in any way that I can.

If you would like to know what is selling and not selling in your immediate neighborhood you can get a market snapshot with this link.

I hope you find this information to be helpful!

Everyone that needs to sell in order to buy wants to have their next house picked out before they put theirs on the market. Unfortunately, even in this market it is nearly impossible to get a seller to take an offer with a sale contingency. While it may give you a comfort level to have your next dream home chosen, the odds of being disappointed are high.

The best way to approach this is to meet with a few local Realtors and choose one that you have confidence in. Set up a meeting at their office initially to go over the entire process. Have all questions ready and bring anyone along that is going to have influence in the decision making (spouse, mom, dad, rich uncle louie!) This will insure that everyone is on the same page before the process starts.

Have the Realtor set up a time to view the property that you want to list. This will give them a better idea of how your home compares to comparable homes that have sold recently. Having the correct listing price should get you an offer quickly which will allow you to know at what price point you should be looking at for your upgrade or downsize.

You will be looking at potential homes and may have a short list of desirable properties but it is best to have a pre-planned living arrangement in the event of a quick sale. If this can't be arranged you need to make sure that your offer is contingent upon you finding suitable housing. Most buyers want to get in quickly but you can try to push the closing date off a week or two in order to get you more time to find the right home.

I try to encourage my buyers not to have the closings on the same day. ideally you want to close on your sale on one day and your purchase the next. This allows any last minute problems to be taken care of and will make for a less stressful transaction.

While the whole industry seems to be focused on the first time home buyers, there are many of you out there that are ready to downsize or have outgrown you first time purchase and want to take advantage of the lower market prices on an upgrade. Obviously a lot depends on when you bought and how much equity you have in your current home. If you can swing it, now is a great time to be purchasing a home!