Colleen Lang Woodward

Obviously, pricing a home is 90% of the marketing of a home because there is no amount of full color fliers, open houses, marketing, shmoozing, persuading that will sell an overpriced home.

The first key is to price right at the outset, looking not only at the Sold and pending homes, but also seeing what the current market temperature is. If there are several homes in the area currently priced lower than the solds, well, even if you price well according to the most recent sold properties, the market is constantly changing and you can't fair well against the current homes if priced lower than yours if they are comparable to your home.

If the home is not getting showings, that would be the first indicator that a price reduction is in order. If the home is getting a lot of showings and NO OFFERS, well that would be another sign that the buyers aren't seeing the value.

In this market, if you want to sell fast and still for top dollar(and I know this is a hard concept to understand) getting the home to the right price through price reductions, which I realize seems counter intuitive, but the longer you are on the market the less value the buyer thinks you have...You'll end up with a lower offer and likely end up taking it. The longer you are hassled with showing your house, keeping it clean all the time, and having to accommodate showings, the moral and motivation always starts waning, even to the most hard core sellers. It is a taxing experience.

Pricing is the most important thing to do when pricing your home. In this market, we are seeing buyers are more price conscious than ever before. Buckle up because it's a bumpy ride.

Colleen Woodward

www.colleenwoodward.com

"Selling Real Estate for the Cure" (in support of the Susan G. Komen foundation)

Often I am asked what to look for in an agent when people are going out of town. Obviously, I will choose the perfect person for them if they allow me to do so, but it is always good to have a basis of what makes an agent a 'good agent'.

1. Trust:

If you cannot trust that the agent is telling you the truth about everything from the contract, to what other people are saying about the home, to being sure you trust they have your best interest at heart. Trust is the number one thing you have to have with the agent you choose to work with.

2. Like- ability:

I have seen many people choose jerky, slimy, sleazes for their agent and all I can ever think is, why in the world would anyone want to work with that person? Then if you ask how it's going, the appalling part is that they tell you they know the agent is slimy, but they appear to be successful with lots of listings... If you the client doesn't like your agent, there is a pretty good chance other agents don't like your agent, thus don't want to work with them and don't want to show their house if they don't have to. (Plus, some appear to have a lot of listings and I am shocked to find who sells a lot and who lists many or puts their name everywhere...Apparently, the more you spend marketing that your successful, people think you are)

3. Diligence/ Has TIME for You

Finding an agent that will devote their time, energy, and care about finding the right home or buyer just for you by listening to your wants and needs is crucial. Do you need to sell fast, regardless of price OR have the time, but need the money?

Someone that will do their best to serve your needs you would think goes without saying, but many agents have other jobs (therefore, have limited time, energy, and experience to work for you) AND some take on too many clients, so asking an agent if they will have the time for you at the outset AND finding out if real estate is their full time job is important. Plus, some are strict on when they take/ return calls and the hours they work. It is important to ask or you will never know if the agent you choose works this way.

4. Be Sure They Have Experience OR At Least Experienced Support

Having a new agent isn't all that bad, as long as they have someone that they run their contracts by so that you as the buyer or seller is covered. Real Estate contracts, technology is always changing so having someone who stays up on the changes is going to be best able to serve you. Real Estate school, the test, the classes to get licensed tell you nothing about how to write a contract or sell real estate, so experience is everything in Real Estate. Even people 20 years in the business are learning something new everyday. They haven't even experienced every scenario because everything changes constantly. Its a dynamic industry.

5. Be Sure They Spend Time/ Money on Marketing on the Web (...if your a seller)

The difference between an average and great agent is all in the marketing. If the agent does not spend money marketing on the web (the number one place people find homes) to add extra pictures, content, enhance and spotlight your listing, your listing is going to be passed over.

Pictures are the number one thing people want to see when they are looking at homes to go see in person. Realtor.com is the number one real estate website and feed over 70+ searches that come from other sites, such as the New York Times, when you click on their search, really its Realtor.com. Be sure they have good pictures in their other listings or their portfolio. You never know what your getting unless you ask and a great agent will show you step by step their marketing plan and what they will do for you.

6. Constant Communication

A great agent will let you know when to expect to hear from them, how often and by what means. Text, phone calls, email, fax; all of these are great, easy ways to stay connected. Be sure the agent is up to speed on all these technologies and has a plan of how they will keep in contact with you regularly.

Colleen Woodward

www.colleenwoodward.com

"Selling Real Estate for the Cure" (in partnership with the Susan G. Komen foundation)

Renting does have its place in the world, but only used in the right way:

First, renting a place that is fancy and expensive so that you can show off your fancy rental has to be the most ridiculous way to rent. If your renting, it best be a way to save money for owning. Don't even think about trying to look cool renting because after all, its a rental. It does not define you and it will not make you richer. You might look cool in your expensive rental, but really you just look silly throwing your money away and making your landlord richer every payment.

Second, rent only if you won't be staying in one place long enough to make sense to buy. On average 5-7 years stay in one place means buy, buy, buy.

There may be some short term advantages to renting, but if time starts to creep up on you and your finding yourself renting the same place year after year, let's do some fun math real quick.

If your rent were $1500/ month. That is $18,000 a year your paying down your landlord's mortgage. That is $54,000 if your in that rental for 3 years. That is $180,000 if you rent for 10 years and $540,000 if you stay for 30 years! Ouch and YIKES!

Let's pour just a little more salt in the open wound. Rent will be increased every year on that $1500 payment, so let's use 5% to be modest, so in 30 years that rent will be $6,174/ month...If that amount was in a mortgage payment, in 30 years with a fixed rate mortgage, your payments would still be $1500 per month AND it would be your final year of payments : )

What makes rich people rich is because rich people use Other People's Money to do it. Owning real estate is one of the few ways all of us ordinary folk are given this amazing opportunity to use the banks money to make money and here is a brief scenario to consider:

Let's say you buy a home for $200,000. Let's be conservative and say the bank will lend you 80% of the purchase price $160,000. You put up $40,000 and yippeee your a homeowner. A few years down the road you go to sell it and the home has appreciated by 10%. So you sell it for $220,000. What is your return on the property? 10% you say? I hope not. Remember you only invested $40,000...This means you made $20,000 on a $40,000 investment which amounts to a 50% return.

Real estate also has that amazing little caveat in the tax code where you can sell your home every 24 months of living in it and not get taxed on it up to $250,000 for single and $500,000 for a couple. Where else are you going to get away with making that much money and not paying any taxes on it?!

In 2003, the average renter was worth $5,000 and the average homeowner worth $172,000! If that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what will!

If your looking to make the best investment of your life I'm ready to help you along that journey.

www.ColleenWoodward.com

RE/MAX The Producers

Selling Real Estate for the Cure (partnered with the Susan G. Komen Foundation)

... in the Omaha, NE area and surrounding communities

Does that really make sense to buy when the real estate market is HIGH? When it is a sellers market as it was for so long, everyone was happy, jolly, making out like bandits on the sale of their homes to keep moving on up, but of course, paying high on the Buying side, but woohooo who cared, they made money on the sale of their home...

But let's run the numbers here...

In a Sellers Market: If you buy a $100,000, then sell for $120000: You make $20,000

So you go and roll that into your new home purchase of a $300,000: so you had that $20,000 gain-yahoo
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In a Buyer's Market: If you sell at $80,000 (you bought for $100,000 remember) which is where the market has dropped to: You lose $20,000- waaahh

You got a promotion and now make more so you can still afford to upgrade to that same $300,000 house you saw earlier, except it has also dropped in price the 20% and now you can snatch it up for $240,000! SO you end up ahead $40,000 AFTER you minus out your $20,000 loss on your house!

If you are buying at a significantly higher purchase price you would much rather buy in a Buyer's Market even when that means losing money on your house because you will make it up on the Buying end!

When the market, real estate or stock market is "HOT" and prices are shooting up because everyone wants in, the prices get pushed even higher. If you note: Warren Buffett had been sitting on a bucket of cash because he knew there were no good deals out there...But lately he has been eating up bargains because he saved his cash for when you should really buy, which is right NOW when everyone's getting out and selling for ridiculously low prices. That is how you get instant equity and gain wealth. The real estate market works off that same premise!

The wandering herd of the world follows the crowd in and out of the markets when there is buzz and then pull out at the worst time from FEAR...Stop following the crowd and see the opportunities all around.

Now is the BEST time to be buying real estate. Prices have plummeted AND interest rates are ridiculously LOW! It is a perfect storm for buying....What else is there to wait for? This is not going to last forever and if you sit, wait, out of fear to see where it goes...It will be too late.

The time is now to buy real estate in Omaha, NE. If you have questions, comments, please email, call, or ask away. I am here for you as your area professional!

www.ColleenWoodward.com

There are many sites you can go to when purchasing a home. There are two that I recommend, as a frequently asked question is, "Is this a good area?"

The problem of course is that agents cannot steer you or use their biased opinion of areas to tell you where to buy. It is against our Code of Ethics. All we can do is try to get you the information you need to make an informed decision. I recommend in particular to see the crime statistics as well as the registered sex offender list, of an area. :

You can go on to this website: http://www.spotcrime.com/ne/omaha to view where crime is most prevalent.

You can also go to this website to see a list of all registered sex offenders: http://www.nsp.state.ne.us/SOR/find.cfm

For More Information on Omaha, Elkhorn, Gretna, Bennington, Papillion, Bellevue Homes for Sale, Don't Hesitate to Call, Email, or Ask a Question:

www.ColleenWoodward.com

RE/MAX The Producers

"Selling Real Estate for the Cure & with Heart"