About Chelan County, WA

According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, yes! Particularly if your home is a higher priced home. This is not a local phenomenon, as home buyers all over the country aren't touching homes for sale unless they are perceived as a bargain.

A new report Friday shows that some sellers are getting that memo, albeit belatedly. Nearly one in four home sellers has dropped the asking price on their home, with an average price chop of 10% in July, according to real-estate Web site Trulia.com. More than one third of sellers reduced their asking prices in the top three cities: Jacksonville, Fla.; Portland, Ore.; and Milwaukee, Wisc.

The advice to offer buyers a "bargain" is particularly relevant for the luxury home market, where sellers have to be aggressive because inventories are piling up in many markets. Homes listed at $2 million and up offered an average 14% price reduction last month. - WSJ

Pricing homes in the Lake Chelan market is even more difficult because there have been so few Lake Chelan home sales this year that finding comparable homes for sale is pretty much fruitless.

However, that doesn't mean that your home can't be made to stand out in the market. By looking at competitive homes for sale and the number of homes sold in your price range, your Lake Chelan home can be positioned to sell.

Proper pricing and preparation of your home for sale can get your home sold, even in this market. Call me when you're ready.

Wow, things are picking up now! July sales were well above last year. This is the first time I can say that in awhile. Check out my Lake Chelan Residential Real Estate Sales Report through July 2009 and including historical data for the whole sales story.

Rather that show all the homes that sold in July (please call me if you want to see them all) since there are so many now, I'll show the waterfront homes that sold in July! The first one, because of the way our wacky multiple works around here, isn't really a home at all and really brings down the average sale price:

1240 W Woodin Ave A-6, Harris Marina Slip A-6, Chelan, WA 98816
Original Price: $62,500| Sold Price: $58,000
Days on MLS: 267
0 bedrooms | 0 bath | 0 s.f. | 0.0 acre

230 South Lakeshore, Chelan, WA 98816
Original Price: $1,999,000| Sold Price: $1,600,000
Days on MLS: 109
6 bedrooms | 3.5 bath | 2461 s.f. | 1.43 acre

3124 A SR 150, Manson, WA 98831
Original Price: $2,399,000| Sold Price: $1,950,000
Days on MLS: 112
5 bedrooms | 3.0 bath | 3150 s.f. | 0.35 acre

Want to search for nearby listings from your smart phone in the Chelan area? That wish just may come true. I'm working on it with SmarterAgent.

To see how it works, in Phoenix and sometime soon in Lake Chelan, have a look at this post from a real estate agent in Phoenix, Greg Swann:

We signed up for our own version of the SmarterAgent smart-phone MLS client. We've been live since Monday, but it proved its value and then some yesterday afternoon.

Cathy was out with buyers, and they asked the most dreaded question of all: "What about that one?" Not every house with a sign is for sale, and, even then, most homes for sale don't meet your search criteria. That's why we don't have that listing with us. But Cathy whipped out her iPhone and did a GPS-based search on her own location. Voile! Three bedrooms. Too small.

That's not in the SmarterAgent marketing patois, but it doesn't have to be. The software rocks in anyone's hands. We had been looking at pure iPhone solutions, but the SmarterAgent tool is simultaneously more robust and more broad-based: It provides a GPS-aware MLS search from virtually any smart-phone. You can also search by map, by address, by MLS number, by neighborhood or subdivision, etc. The user interface is easy to navigate, and the level of detail on the listings exceeds many desktop-based IDX systems. - Check out Bloodhound Realty's hassle free GPs based Phoenix MLS search

Wondering how the real estate market is doing in resort like Lake Chelan? After July, it is doing a bunch better.

Maybe the media do know that the housing decline is over. Last month saw Lake Chelan residential sales at 207% of July 2008 by dollar volume! June had already show the first month over month improvement but when July is considered this is the first strong year to year improvement since 2007. By sales transaction, July 2009 is 212.5% of 2008! Average sale price in 2009 was down a bit at $452,488 compared to $463,500 last year.

Sales prices are still seeing active discounting with the Sale Price/List Price ratio being 91.82% this July compared to 95.85% last July. Sales volumes are still well below 2007 levels, but the direction of change is towards higher sales. Check out the complete Lake Chelan Residential Sales Report, with historical data.

There is still a bunch of inventory out there, but if you're buying the best deals are the ones that are going fast. If you want someone who really keeps up with the deals, I'll help you find that deal on a Lake Chelan home!

There are new and better tools available all the time! One way your real estate agent earns your commission payment is to be familiar with and utilize these tools to help you get your home SOLD! This tool, with my geeky engineering side, tickles me.

Have a home to sell that needs the right furniture to be shown off better? There is a solution to generate great photos of your home for sale. Virtual Staging, or electronic staging, lets your home have much of the look of a professionally staged home without having to have a warehouse full of art, or a furniture design center.

You have to have your home, or at least the rooms you photograph vacant and get some great photographs. Then, you send off the photos to Virtually Staging Properties and they transform them into attractive, attention-getting pictures. The cost is three staged photos for $225, four for $280 or five for $325. Additional photos are $60 each.

The results on their web site are phenomenal. They create the warm, inviting look you want to have in your home for sale.

Virtual staging consists of scaling pictures of home furnishings to fit into the photo you provide; sofas, bedroom sets, drapes, artwork, dining tables, etc are re-sized to fit into the room. Potential buyers can envision themselves living in the furnished, decorated space, before they even enter it. Have a look at the before and after photos from Virtually Staging Properties.

So, Virtual Staging does cost a bunch less than actually staging the property. It is certainly better than having stark, empty rooms in your photographs. I would still want to stage your home to sell it so that the person who saw these great, inviting photos actually experiences the full wattage of the warmth your home can deliver when they are inside of it. Staging helps to sell your home for sale. If virtual staging can increase the traffic to your home's web site, actually staging it will increase the offers coming from the prospects who view it. So, I would still likely use this tool, but as an additional tool to virtually stage some of the less important rooms that our staging budget wouldn't stretch to accomodate. Check it out!