Havasu City, AZ

Friday, October 8, 2010, the Women's Council of Realtors® is hosting Lake Havasu City's Girl's Night Out. There will be a fashion show, silent auction and a free raffle full of fabulous prizes for those who attend. Also on tap for the evening is a screening of the new Katherine Heigel/Josh Duhamel romantic comedy "Life As We Know It".

Everyone will be meeting at the London Bridge Resort's Martini Bay at 4:30 pm. The mini fashion show and silent auction takes place from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Then, at 7:00 pm, we make our way to Movies Havasu to watch the movie "Life As We Know It". Prizes will be raffled off throughout the evening.

Tickets must be purchased in advance. So, contact Sharone Jerzy at 928-486-2123 or Jeff Okamura at 928-486-5404 right away to make sure you have a spot at Lake Havasu City's Girl's Night Out!

Cheryl Westwood, your Lake Havasu City real estate specialist

When it comes to selling your home, you want to get all that your home is worth.  Therefore, I have some essential tips for selling your Lake Havasu City home, or any home for that matter, to help you get all that it's worth.

Essential Home Selling Tips:

Curb Appeal

Trim any overgrown bushes, rake the leaves and pull up those pesky weeds.  You want to give potential buyers a fresh, clean feel even on the outside of your home.

Paint

The important part about painting your home is making it as generic as possible.  Using neutral paint makes a home appear brighter, larger and more appealing to buyers.

Rearrange

Rearranging your furniture for easy traffic flow will help show the purpose of each room.  If you have too much furniture for a room, you may want to consider renting a storage unit to hold your things until you're ready to move.  If you don't have enough furniture, you can always rent or borrow some.  Staging a home goes a long way when selling for maximum price.

Organize

An organized home will help buyers envision themselves living happily there.  So, go through each room and closet and pack up all your nick-knacks and family photos.  The less you personalize your home, the better off you will be.

Make Repairs

Fix or replace anything that is broken, such as old screens, leaky faucets, door handles, etc.  Many repairs may seem insignificant, but they could end up taking away from your home's value in the end.

Cleanup

Give your home a good cleaning.  Clean every corner of your home from your windows to your ceilings to your floors.  If you have old stained carpet, you should consider replacing it.

Lighten it up

Wherever there is natural light, let it shine through.  Also, turn on the lights.  A well lit home is a bright home and one that buyers will like much better.

Keep it presentable

In many cases, it can be a little inconvenient to keep you home in tip-top-show condition, but this is the most important step.

Buyers should be able to picture themselves living in your home with their own things at any given time.  Therefore, taking this last step will help ensure that.

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During my first year in Real Estate I put most of my marketing efforts into getting listings. I loved working with sellers. I loved the challenge of finding new ways to help my sellers understand the process. I am also an Accredited Staging Professional with Staged Homes and I loved helping my sellers show the home as the best it could be.

Then we got into a down market and sellers were for the most part financially strapped. The idea of staging was just plain scary to them. They saw dollar signs and worried that because they had little to no equity in their homes they could not afford to do anything else. They did not understand staging.

This year I have a new resolution to help more sellers through this new Real Estate Market. My goal is to teach my sellers that staging a home is not a $5,000 event. It can be free and it can be easy. I am changing my marketing plan to show them how. I write a column monthly for my newsletter that is called staging for life. It provides fresh ideas each month about how to live by the staging rules in everyday life and avoid the rush when life changes and selling becomes a part of the plan.

Most Realtors stage their listings. They just don't call it that. With over 80% of our buyers finding the home that they buy on the internet first it is now more important than ever to stage a home. Again it can be free and it can be easy. It makes the difference sometimes in a prospective buyer looking at your listing or passing it by. We all know that sellers are happy when we can get traffic in the door.

Won't you make it your resolution too this year to do more for the sellers and show them the free and easy ways they can stage to sell? If you don't do it now practice ways to show your sellers the importance of this. Find your own nice ways to train them to rid the place of odor, move the clutter, clean up the yard or whatever is needed. If you avoid the subject your listings will suffer and stay on the market longer.

Together we can raise the bar for how a home should look when it is listed. How do you feel about this? Can we all do better?

Thanks to the Federal Reserve's effots to reduce inner-bank lending rates to almost 0%, mortgage rates have gone down from 5.5% for a 30-year fixed rate loan in early December to 5.2% and even, in some cases, into the high 4% range (the lowest rates in 50 years). Many banks, including Wells Fargo and Wachovia, cut their prime rates as well. This translated to a 3/4% drop in interest on home equity loans and credit cards through these banks (from 4% to 3 1/4%). What does this mean for the housing market? Well, according to experts, a 1% drop in mortgage rates can easily increase resales by a half a million homes across the country. Even in a recession, many parts of the country are experiencing a huge demand for home buying, especially among first time homebuyers who are seeing lower interest rates and home prices that rival those in from four or five years ago. Buyers know that this is definitely the best time to buy. Even Detroit, one of the hardest hit areas economically speaking in recent years, has experienced a 47% increase in home sales compared with the same time period last year. The sales of REOs, bank-owned and foreclosed properties on the market have helped create a slow but steady turnaround in the real estate market in the past few months. To find out more about the Lake Havasu real estate market, please contact me. I'm always happy to help.

The new condominium development, Bella Lago, in Mohave County has finally been given the green light to proceed. During the Mohave County Board of Supervisors meeting, the board voted 2-1 to rezone the area and give the project the go-ahead. This is a great opportunity for anyone looking to buy a home, to get on the band wagon and buy a new condo.

Condominiums have become the latest trend in home buying. They have their pros and cons just as single family homes do. Yard maintenance and upkeep on the outside of the condo is the biggest pro. Many condominium developments have associations with association fees. These fees pay for your yard to be maintained and the outside of the condo to be kept up. This includes painting and replacing anything that is broken.

The Bella Lago will be built on the old KOA campground by London Bridge Road, close to the Refuge. When complete, the Bella Lago will consist of 240 units. The units will be spread out with four two-story buildings and four four-story buildings. There will also be great recreational amenities, such as a 30-foot tall watercraft parking area fronting London Bridge Road and a clubhouse.

Some residents are worried that the project will impact the wonderful views of the area. One building is expected to top out at 65 feet. But, when complete, the Bella Lago is expected to bring in $415,000 in property taxes; $91,000 of that will be given to the Desert Hills Fire District.

This can be a great opportunity for many people looking to buy a new home in Mohave County, Arizona.