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Even though the weather outside is truly frightful, I’m still here and ready to work! I can still help you, answer your real estate questions, and take care of business!! So, don’t be afraid to call, email, text or send me a tweet or facebook message as we wait out the ice storm.
We used to say in real estate that your home must be priced competitively. Well, in today’s market, that just isn’t good enough anymore, especially if you need to get your home sold NOW. You need to go beyond just “competing” with other listings (who aren’t getting offers either) and price your home to COMPEL buyers to want to make an offer on your property.
If you want to sell your house, you need to get it on the market as soon as possible and price it right to compel buyers to want to buy it. “They” say that another wave of foreclosures are coming and that means a lot more competition to deal with.
I know them. Learned them yesterday at my Sales Rally/ 2011 Kickoff.
Are you ready? You think you can handle this?
Step 1. Get Out of Bed
Step 2. Get Dressed
Step 3. Go to Work
Step 4. Do Work
There you go, now you know!
I usually word it this way when talking to clients: “I would not and could not discriminate against anyone, so don’t bother asking me to”. Now it is official though, the Code of Ethics has been amended to include Sexual Orientation.
®, in their real estate employment practices, shall not discriminate against any person or persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or sexual orientation. (Amended 1/11)
This recent article, highlighted in REALTOR®Mag, discusses some of the horrible things we agents get to see when a house is foreclosed on. I recently had the pleasure of showing several bank-owned homes and got to see a few of these things all in the same day!
I often see bank-owned homes with stains on the carpet, but I’m not just talking about normal stains. Sometimes it looks as if the upset home owner has literally emptied the contants of their refrigerator onto the floor! Either that, or they “forgot” to let the dog outside for several days or let the children paint the floor with nail polish.
Of the 5 houses I showed this weekend, 2 of them had no kitchen sink. It is very common that people take their appliances with them, or sell them, when they are about to lose their house. One of those took it a step further… they had no KITCHEN at all! All of the cabinets had been removed, along with the appliances and sink.
One of the houses looked as if it had been broken into, there were 2 windows on the back of the house that were broken and covered with wood. This is another risk with vacant houses, squatters or people who think it would make a fun party palace. Another had spraypaint on the cabinets (hey- at least it had cabinets!) but the rest of the main level had been repainted… made me wonder what else had been spraypainted?
The worst I think I have ever seen was a home that had fleas. It was a few months ago, and despite the 4 bug bombs we found in the dining and living room, we still saw fleas everywhere! The house smelled horrible of pet “odors”, and had holes punched in the drywall by some angry homeowner. I wouldn’t leave the front entryway and I was still horribly disgusted by the house!
On more than one occasion I found that the house had no more copper pipes in it, they had ripped the copper right out of the walls (or crawl space in one home). It’s kind of a downer when the listing agent calls you to say that they suspect that the copper plumbing has been removed from the crawl space of the house your buyer likes.
When you are looking at foreclosures, or bank-owned homes, they come in all varieties. Some are actually quite nice or just need a little bit of paint. Others are in very sad shape, and you never quite know what you’re going to get. (Oh hey- foreclosures are like a box of chocolates– maybe I should re-title this post?)
Imagine this, you go on vacation and return to find that your home has been demolished!?
This happened to a Pittsburgh man when he returned from his holiday vacation this year! He bought a foreclosed home in November and was working on remodeling it when he returned to find that the city had accidently hired a contractor to demolish the house.
“Hall told the paper that upon his return he was shocked to find heavy machinery parked on the site of his former home when he returned on Monday to continue rehabbing it.”
I hope that the new year is going well for you so far! I turned 34 on New Year’s Eve, and I’m ready to make 2011 rock! Of course, just like everyone else I say that every year. Of course I have several personal New Year’s Resolutions, which are the popular ones, you know, excercise more, eat better, save more.
My Real Estate Resolutions:
If one of your resolutions includes finding a new home, you should call me! I look forward to exceeding your expectations.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,400 times in 2010. That’s about 18 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 58 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 288 posts. There were 22 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was February 9th with 180 views. The most popular post that day was Buyer sues because the neighbor smokes?.
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, twitter.com, en.wordpress.com, alphainventions.com, and search.aol.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for hilbert mansion, mansions in indianapolis, indianapolis mansions, best indianapolis suburbs, and michelle morris.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Buyer sues because the neighbor smokes? February 2010
5 comments
Other Mansions in Indianapolis February 2008
4 comments
Hilbert Mansion Sale Pending (With Carpenter Realtors, Of Course!!) November 2007
1 comment
Different cultures, different ideas on how homes should be built December 2007
3 comments
Most Affordable Suburbs January 2008
30% of your credit score is attributed to the amount of debt you owe. This is a biggie!
It is best to keep your revolving credit lines (AKA Credit Cards) as low as possible. They really like to see your balances at less than 30% of your limit. There is no penalty to your credit score at all if they are kept below the 30% threshhold. Let’s say your credit limit is $10,000, you need to try to keep your balance at or below $3,000. If you get up to 50%, they start to penalize you a little, and over 50% the punishent gets even worse!
What can you do to fix this? I’ve got some ideas!
Pretend you have 3 cards. One is nearly maxed out (let’s say $8,000 out of $10,000), 2 have lower balances (a couple hundred dollars). You’re thinking you’re doing good to get those 2 nearly paid off, and you’ll get to that last one eventually. But, the credit scoring people look at that credit card that has a high balance and they don’t like it at all. It might be a better idea for you to spread out that $8,000 over the 3 cards more evenly. Now they see that you have 3 cards with balances under 30% each, no big deal.
Remember back in Credit Tip #2, I talked about closing your newest accounts? There is one way they can help you: If you transfer part of your larger balances onto them. If it is a store credit card, it is still better to close it, but if you can transfer some debt from your high blanace cards, they aren’t all that bad. Confused yet?
Another thing that will help with your ratio is if you ask for a higher credit limit. If you have that card with an $8,000 balance and a $10,000 limit, you can ask the credit card company to raise your limit. If you get them to raise your limit to $16,000, you just lowered your ratio from 80% to 50%. Obviously, it would defeat the purpose if you go run up that card though, so don’t be tempted!!
One last tip here, and this is a good one!!!
When your credit is checked, it is like a snapshot, one moment in time, not an overall impression. Let’s say you are the type of person who runs up your credit card balance every month but then pays it off every month. Maybe you’re a businessman who puts his travel and hotels on the card, then pays it off each month. Maybe you get cash back from your card or college savings for your kids, but you pay off that balance every month.
Now, imagine that your credit is reported to the agencies on the 10th of the month, but your bill is due on the 15th. You pay it all off, on time, but when it was reported, you were close to exceeding your limit! Let’s say this happens every month. Do you see where this is leading??
What can you do about it? Call your credit card and find out what day of the month they report to the credit bureau. Then, be sure you make that big payment BEFORE they report! Now, they are reporting that you carry a low balance on your card— instant improvement without really doing anything different.
Questions??? Just ask! I was confused about this one for a while.
There have been reports lately of thefts or attempted thefts at open houses in the Metropolitan Indy area. The suspects are described as two males who come into the house and then split up.
Open houses are an important sales technique in this market, but it is so important for you as a seller to safeguard your valuables. You need to remember that I WILL NOT RISK MY OWN SAFETY FOR YOUR STUFF. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
If I am doing an open house and two guys come in, I am not about to follow them around the house to watch and make sure they don’t steal anything. Actually, when anyone comes in, it is best for my safety to stay on the main level of the home and mainly with a clear path to the door. Sometimes, if I feel very comfortable I will go around the house with the people who visit, but it is hard to greet newcomers if I do that.
When you have your home on the market, you really have no idea who is going to view your house, and some of those people may be veiwing it as a target. Be sure to remove valuables when you list. Your Realtor will try their best to protect your home, but ultimately, he/she is not responsible for your belongings.
