Amy Downs

Selling a home in a down economy can be a painstaking decision. Use the following 10 tips when selling a home to get the most out of your investment.

Home Selling Tip #1: Hire a reputable real estate agent.

Selling a home can be stressful, and you want a reliable real estate agent you can trust to take some of the burden of selling a home off your hands.

Home Selling Tip #2: Give your home curb appeal.

When selling a home, you need to keep your home looking its best. If a buyer is turned off by what your home looks like from the street, you will never get him or her inside to look around. Clean up your lawn, patch brown spots in the grass, clear sidewalks, and keep leaves and other debris picked up. Potential home buyers also notice things like chipped paint and dirty siding, so pressure-wash your home and repaint before putting it on the market if needed. Do whatever you need to do to show buyers that you're serious about your home's maintenance. Finally, let color help you when selling a home. Yellow evokes the emotion of buying, so plant yellow flowers near the entrance.

Home Selling Tip #3: Make minor repairs to your home.

Don't give potential home buyers an opportunity to start nitpicking at the value of your home by leaving minor repairs unfixed. Replace cracked floor or counter tiles. Patch holes in walls. Fix leaky faucets. Fix doors that don't close properly and kitchen drawers that jam. Consider painting your walls neutral colors, especially if you have grown accustomed to purple or pink walls. Replace burned-out light bulbs.

Home Selling Tip #4: Stage your home.

Once you have a potential home buyer inside, it's important that your home has been spruced up and has been staged for the market. Think of your home as a product for sale, and imagine walking through it from the buyer's perspective. Depersonalize it by packing up family heirlooms and photos. You want buyers to imagine themselves living in the home and they won't do that if they can't see past your stuff. Rent a storage unit and clear out the junk. De-clutter. Remove unused pieces of furniture and window coverings and light fixtures you are going to take with you. Each room should be left with just enough furniture to showcase it as the perfect room for its purpose. Remove books, knickknacks, and anything that seems deeply personal. Clear out closets and neatly arrange your dishes in the kitchen cupboards.

Home Selling Tip #5: Clean your home!

Wash windows inside and out. Clean out cobwebs from corners, ceiling fan blades and light fixtures. Re-caulk tubs, showers and sinks. Polish chrome faucets and mirrors. Clean out the refrigerator. Vacuum daily. Wax floors. Dust furniture with an oil-based furniture polish that leaves a ôcleanö scent behind. Bleach dingy grout. Remove or replace worn rugs. Hang up fresh towels in the bathroom. Eliminate any musty odors.

Home Selling Tip #6: Price your home right.

Of all of the 10 tips for selling a home, this one is the most important. You need to price your home competitively, perhaps slightly lower than comparable homes in your neighborhood. Unfortunately, many sellers choose the real estate agent who suggests the highest listing price, but this can come back to haunt you. Pricing your home to sell involves looking at similar properties, making adjustments for the differences between them, tracking market movements and considering present inventory to arrive at a realistic value for the price of your home. Setting your listing price just right could lead to a bidding war, resulting in a higher sales price for you. Work with your listing agent to price your home correctly.

Home Selling Tip #7: Capture initial excitement.

Don't put your home on the market before your home and you are completely ready. Make sure you have taken all of the steps above before placing your home on the market. When selling a home, you need to get the most out of the initial excitement that a new home listing creates in potential home buyers. Home buyers will feel like they have discovered a great find if they snatch up a home just as it comes on the market. Once it's been listed for a few weeks, however, home buyers will conclude that it's not such a great value. Therefore, when selling a home, make sure you've done everything you can to make your home attractive to potential home buyers.

Home Selling Tip #8: Don't get in over your head.

Put your home on the market well in advance of looking for a new home. Don't place an offer on your next home until you have solid offers on the one you have to sell now. The last thing you want to do is juggle two mortgage payments.

Home Selling Tip #9: Only divulge information on a need-to-know basis.

Don't do anything to create a perception that you will lower your potential selling price. For example, if you are moving due to job relocation, don't offer up that information. Don't let the potential home buyers think there is any urgency on your part in selling the home. If you are asked why you're selling, simply say that you're ready to trade up. You have a legal obligation to disclose information about the condition of the home and property, but you are not obligated to disclose your personal situation.

Home Selling Tip #10: Be flexible.

Be willing to work with potential home buyers to help your chances of making a quick sale. Offer to pay for closing costs or repairs, and be adaptable when it comes to showing your home and holding open houses. If you really need to sell, you need to accommodate buyers' busy schedules. This might mean opening your home to strangers on weeknights and weekends.

Using these 10 tips when selling a home can help you sell your home fast and for a good price. Do you have any additional home selling tips you'd like to share? Please comment and let's make this top 10 list even stronger.

Courtesy of Market Leader

Guess who’s coming to the closing table? Survey says more 18-34 year-olds than you’d think. And there were a few other surprises…

Amidst reports of economic woes, fluctuating job growth, and America’s changing housing market research shows the American dream is still very much in tact. This morning we released results from Trulia’s American Dream Survey, which bi-annually measures the attitudes of Americans on home ownership. The results show the majority of American adults, no matter what age, view home ownership as a part of the personal dream. But the real delight for agents is in the details.

80 percent see a house on the horizon…

Research showed that 80 percent of respondents surveyed where planning at least one additional home purchase in their lifetime. While all of these buyers aren’t actively searching, this is some much-needed positive news for agents looking to for ways to build their business.

It’s great news for professionals like Sarah Stelmok, Associate Broker with Champion Homes Realty in Fredericksburg, Va. who believes, “It’s inevitable that people will purchase. Real estate will always be one of the best investments there is.” Stelmok started her real estate business in 2004 and has been building it during one of the most dynamic real estate seasons ever.

Gen Next dreams of surviving the slump

Shaped by tragedies like September 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina, and one of the most dramatic housing and economic slumps in history, many questioned: would the “American dream” survive for the Generations the Pew Research Institute calls “Millenials,” “Y,” and “Nexters?”

Research shows the answer is yes. Around 65 percent of respondents from age 18 to 34 said home ownership is still part of their American dream. While the group echoed the larger sentiment of concerns over down payment, qualifying for a mortgage, and job stability, the homeowner hopefuls still outnumber the unsure and ownership naysayers by almost 2:1.

Where does the next buyer want to live?

Survey results showed, across the board the suburban McMansion trend of the housing boom is dying a quick death. Only 6 percent of those surveyed said their ideal home size is more than 3,200 square feet – a 36.6 percent decrease from 9 percent in 2010. In addition, both Baby Boomers (55+) and responders in the 18 – 34 age category expressed their primary interest in urban environments for different reasons. The older group wanting to be closer to shops and restaurants and the younger generation being interested in shorter commutes.

The Looming Question: What’s will happen to suburbia?

According to Jed Kolko, Trulia’s Chief Economist, “The homes that people will want in the future will look different than today’s housing stock.” With research showing the next influx of owners (who still have to overcome some important hurdles like questionable credit and drumming up down payments) showing interest in urban environments, what happens to the many McMansion villages across the U.S.? Tell us what you think.

Courtesy of Trulia

On today’s market, it’s pretty easy for a seller to find themselves in a serious state of stuck: home stuck on the market with no bites from buyers, and family stuck in the home until the home sells. And that doesn’t even account for the feeling of stuck that comes from having gone just about as low as you can go on price without turning your transaction into a short sale. If you’re trying to sell, and you’ve lowered the price but still find your home struggling to compete against a bunch of other, similiarly priced homes with similar features, selling can seem difficult at best, impossible at worst.

Seller-paid rate buy-downs also save buyers money on their monthly payment over the entire lifetime of their loan, and the seller-paid points are usually tax deductible, to the buyer, the next time they file taxes. You can see why these incentives are so powerful at attracting buyers!

1. Closing cost credit. Many buyers trying to break into the market while prices are low are already scraping the bottom of their savings account barrels to come up with their down payment money. With most home loans, the buyer will have to come with anywhere from 3 to 6 percent of the loan amount, in cash, on top of their down payment, to cover closing costs like loan fees, escrow services and title or mortgage insurance. (And strangely enough, the buyers putting the 3.5 percent minimum down payment on an FHA loan are likely to have to come up with the higher end of the closing cost range, 6 percent, to cover their mortgage insurance.)

Some smart sellers (and their agents) include in their home’s listing and marketing materials the offer to pay a credit of 3, 4, 5 or even 6 percent of the home’s sale price at closing, to defray the buyer’s closing costs. A closing cost credit is a great financial help to buyers and a strong differentiator that can make your home much more attractive than nearby listings. Your listing agent can help you run the numbers on how much of a credit you can afford to offer, and how to make an overall package - listing price and credit - that will be maximally magnetic to prospective buyers.

1. HOA dues credit. If you are selling a home that is in a homeowners’ association (HOA) that charges monthly or even annual dues, then surely you recall buying that home and being overwhelmed at the prospect of going from rent being your sole monthly housing expense, to having a laundry list of expenses starting with your mortgage, including property taxes and insurance and then having HOA dues as the unpleasant cherry on top.

One way to overcome that concern in the minds of buyers and to differentiate your unit from all the other, similar units for sale in your complex is to offer a credit at closing that covers the buyer’s HOA dues for 6 months, a year, or even longer. Talk with your agent about how to do this strategically, in a way that will offer the maximum lure for buyers but will not run afoul of any guidelines for seller credits imposed by the buyer’s lender.

1. Broker incentives. Some savvy sellers who can’t afford to offer buyers several percentage points’ worth of the proceeds of sale toward closing costs take a different route, offering to pay a bonus percentage point (or more) in incentives to the eventual buyer’s broker or agent - on top of the commission, rather than to the buyer themselves. Over 90 percent of buyers who are ready, willing and able to buy a home on today’s market are represented by a broker. And brokers have to sort through sometimes hundreds of pretty similar listings to decide which ones to show a buyer any given Sunday.

Offering a broker’s incentive makes your home stand out among all those listings to the brokers and agents who put buyer’s property tours together. While these aren’t “buyer incentives,” strictly speaking, but they do operate to boost the number of buyers that come view your home - in turn, boosting your home’s likelihood of getting an offer.

Information courtesy of Trulia.

This is a great article, and in my opinion, these items may become necessary to sell a home in any market.

This is by far the BEST loan program for investor buyers.

· Only a 10% down payment vs. a traditional 20% down payment

· No appraisal required

· No monthly PMI despite less than 20% down

Most experts would advise that the best way to increase your odds of a successful sale is to price your home at fair market value. But, as logical as this advice sounds, for many sellers it is still tempting to tack a few percentage points onto the price to "leave room to negotiate". To avoid this temptation, let's take a look at the seven deadly sins of overpricing:

1. Appraisal Problems

Even if you do find a buyer willing to pay an inflated price, the fact is over 90% of buyers use some kind of financing to pay for their home purchase. If your home won't appraise for the purchase price the sale will likely fail.

2. No Showings

Today's sophisticated home buyers are well educated about the real state market. If your home is overpriced they won't bother looking at it, let alone make you an offer.

3. Branding Problems

When a new listing hits the market, every agent quickly checks the property out to see if it's a good fit for their clients. If your home is branded as "overpriced", reigniting interest may take drastic measures.

4. Selling the Competition

Overpricing helps your competition. How? You make their lower prices seem like bargains. Nothing is worse than watching your neighbors put up a sold sign.

5. Stagnation

The longer your home sits on the market, the more likely it is to become stigmatized or stale. Have you ever seen a property that seems to be perpetually for sale? Do you ever wonder - What's wrong with that house?

6. Tougher Negotiations

Buyers who do view your home may negotiate harder because the home has been on the market for a longer period of time and because it is overpriced compared to the competition.

7. Lost Opportunities

You will lose a percentage of buyers who are outside of your price point. These are buyers who are looking in the price range that the home will eventually sell for but don't see the home because the price is above their pre-set budget.

Most buyers look at 10-15 homes before making a buying decision. Because of this, setting a competitive price relative to the competition is an essential component to a successful marketing strategy.

from trulia.com