Marysville, OH

Submitted by Vicki Owens, ABR, CRS, GRI, Andy & Associates, Realtors, Marysville, Ohio branch office

With the recent move up tax incentive offered through the spring, it may have you thinking and doing a little research about making your move to your next home. That can cause a bit of anxiety. Especially if you have not sold a home in a long time, or, are in your first home anticipating getting ready to go to your second. You may be doing research online about recent sales in your neighborhood and watching some HGTV on the important improvements that make your home appealing. There are some other nuts and bolts things you need to know about the details that may help you a great deal with your decisions.

The details of a home sale can be pretty extensive, let alone selling one, but buying another too. Whether you are moving up or downsizing, you have to decide what to do first. Do you put your home on the market and then look for a home? Do you find the perfect home and make an offer contingent on your home selling? Will a seller of a home accept a contingent offer? What if your home sells and you do not find the perfect home right away? Where do you go for financing to take advantage of the best rates and programs available for you? What if you find you have little equity coming back to you due to the market decline? Can you still qualify for a no money or low money down payment program?

What you need is a trusted coach. A real estate professional who has been active even in the challenged market of the last several years. You may opt to use one local agent to list your home, and if you are moving out of your immediate area, another agent who specializes in the area you want to move to. If you are moving fairly locally (within a 30 mile radius), you may want to pick an agent who can negotiate and arrange for you to close your transactions with the same title company to make the final details much smoother.

You might opt for a pre-sale home inspection of your current home when you are budgeting improvements to make sure the important aspects are taken care of. It is no fun to have surprises after home inspection are done by the person buying your home to find out that there are any major repairs to be done. Call an HVAC technician to have your furnace cleaned and serviced, generally this is less than $100 and may make your system more energy efficient. Chimney's are another inspection item that if you have not had yours serviced or have not used your fireplace in a long time, it cannot hurt to have an expert in to inspect. If you have an old looking or leaky faucet or the pipes around your water tank look a bit corroded, you might have a plumber come in and replace a few items for maintenance. Do you have a septic system? How long since the tank was pumped? If you have a basement where mechanicals are located, spend some time looking around down there and cleaning up a bit. Remember, a buyer will look at all of those details even if you never go down there. You may even consider purchasing a home Radon test kit to see if your basement has a high level of Radon. Maybe that is not an important factor for you, but it can matter a great deal to a home buyer. If you are meticulous about the care of your home, you should have all of the important papers about your mechanical systems and maintenance together to easily be reviewed.

Not only can an agent provide you with comparable sales data in a market analysis, but can also provide you an estimated proceeds list. This will give you a list of all of the your costs to sell. There are more than just agent success fees. Title insurance, pro-rated taxes, title service, conveyance taxes, warranties and closing fees, or the buyer may even ask that you assist them with closing costs. You should know the bottom line number of what you can expect if your home sells at a specific price. This will provide you with an educated estimate of what you can expect after your mortgage loan (if you have one) is paid off. You may even want to consider a professional appraisal to be sure you are pricing your home correctly. Doing your homework ahead of time can save a lot of heartache and stress later.

When shopping for your next home, find out the costs on your inspections and closing. What additional inspections are necessary if you are moving say from the city out to acreage property? How much will those be? How will the taxes and insurance on the next home affect your monthly payment? What type of warranties will be included? All of these details for your home sale and your next buy should be addressed for you by your agent and a loan officer that you can trust. You should compare the prices on mortgage loans by asking for a truth in lending statement from a few different loan officers. This will tell you exactly how much the loan costs you including closing costs and application fees.

The bottom line is, the more you know and are prepared for, the smoother your transaction will go. Only you can decide how to go forward. Today, a standard purchase contract is 9 pages long. You should always know what you are agreeing to. Putting an experienced professional to work to assist you through the process can truly be headaches saved & money well spent.

Vicki Owens is a Certified Residential Specialist, Accredited Buyers Representative as well as a Graduate of the Realtor institute participating in over $15 million in home sales and more than 200 transactions serving central Ohio since 2004. Highly recommended in the Marysville and Central Ohio area. See her website www.vickihelpsu.com or www.movetomarysville.com for more information or call her cell at 614-440-5174 for a personal assessment of your real estate planning.

Submitted by Vicki Owens, ABR, CRS, GRI, Andy & Associates, Realtors Marysville

Here it is, another holiday season. If your home is or has been on the market this year without an offer, you are not alone. So what does it take to win over that buyer in today's challenging market?

· See Your Home from the Buyer's Eyes by asking yourself one of the toughest questions that you can. If you were on the market to buy, what would you pay for the home today? Forget your memories there and the money you've spent to maintain or update. What would you honestly pay? Look at it as your product to market, not your home.

· Do Your Homework by looking at what homes comparable to yours, in your neighborhood or vicinity and what they have sold for in the last 90 days. Not last year, not the last appraisal, but what buyers are truly spending now for a home reasonably comparable to yours. (And yes, bank, corporate owned and short sales DO make a difference on where yours will be priced to win)

· Make It Sparkle by doing the hard things that no one wants to do. Wash the windows, pull the weeds, clean the basement, get rid of the clutter and junk. Buyers want a home that they can move right into. You may have to remove the wallpaper, paint, clean carpets, and store away some of your furniture. It needs to show like a model home that the owners have taken great care of.

· Get Quotes if your home needs repair. Take a good look at the roof. If it needs replaced, call a roofer and get a quote. If it needs windows, carpet or flooring, get a quote. Have in writing and face what needs to be done head on.

· Know Your Competition by looking at what is currently out there on the market that buyers will be touring when they come to see yours. Look at how long those homes have been on the market and keep in mind that you want yours to be the one they pick to offer on.

· Face Reality On the State of the Market and know that the prices have declined by as much as 20% in the last 3 years. If you purchased your home in 2004 or 2005, you may have paid more then than the market will bare today. You may only be able to get what you paid for the home or even less. If you have little equity and are not in a position to sell now you may want to wait longer with plans to move on if you can. Pricing your home too high by just a few thousand in this market can lead to disappointment. In fact, if you are ready to move fast, you may want to price a few thousand lower than your competition and showcase your home beautifully. Again, what would you buy??

· Call Some Professionals, have the home inspected by a home inspector for condition, termites or gas leaks. Call an appraiser to have the home appraised at today's fair market value. An appraisal by a qualified home appraiser who does work for the banks should be able to provide an unbiased assessment of your home's value. The appraisal you had done for a refinance or second mortgage a few years ago is not one that would be accurate for resale of your home and is only good for up to maybe 180 days.

· Talk to Several Agents to see what their strategies, track record and experience has been in servicing your area. Find agents that know the area, have experience with today's market, know the pricing, market aggressively and are currently selling homes.

Regardless of the peppered opinions of the press, the American Dream is still alive and being a homeowner is still desirable. Yes, many potential home buyers have been on the fence for quite awhile waiting to see what is happening with the market. They fear paying too much for a home, or worse, facing foreclosure. There are still many able folks out there who want to be the owner of a home but have been jaded by the media.

Keep the faith that this will change. Home prices are low and so are interest rates and they will find when they start their research that this is a great time to be buying. Homes are still selling, banks ARE still lending and buyers are buying, just at a slower pace. Patience is a virtue, but your home can be positioned correctly to sell and win in today's market. Your commitment to be a winner is essential to captivate the right buyer, unfortunately, that may mean some sacrifice for you to succeed in this market.

Vicki Owens is a top selling, full time real estate agent with advanced education, successful track record in our local market that comes highly recommended by clients. For a positioning analysis of your home call her at 937-644-3385. For more information, visit her website at www.movetomarysville.com Listed before and considering trying again? See www.listitagain.com

Copyright 2008, Andy & Associates, Realtors

Above shows a report and breakdown of all the markets activity in the last 15 months in Marysville, Ohio. This is straight from a Trendgraphix report. For April of 2007 the market in Marysville had 43 more homes than April of 2008 this shows me that the market in Marysville is starting to equal itself out from being a dominant Buyer's market. There are a lot of valuable statistics within this chart. I can also research particular price points to see what going on with that particular market. If you would like for me to do a personal search for a particular market please email me at Jamie.Collins@RealLiving.com. I will continue to offer Sellers and Buyers valuable information to help better info the community. Have a great day.