Posts Tagged with buyers
Three Important Aspects to Buying a Home
By Megan Gates
Buying a home is an important decision and that step should not be taken without doing your research. An educated buyer is in the best position to make the right decision about this major purchase. If you are knowledgeable about the housing market and procedures your transaction will go much smoother.
The best advice for prospective homebuyers is to hire a real estatebroker. Again, research the brokers in your area. Talk to several and go with one you feel has a grasp of what you are really looking for in a home. Three items to look for are; an understanding of the market, knowing their client’s needs and finding properties that are great investments. A good broker will take the guesswork out of purchasing a home.
One item your broker can do for you is to help you understand property evaluation. A recent broadcast of “Eye on Real Estate with Dottie Herman” discussed the three most important aspects to buying a home. Herman is the CEO and President of Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Value
The value of a home is different for each buyer based on how they are planning to use it. Herman states that lifestyle, transportation needs and schools. This value will be different for a family with children or a family with no children. The value in their eyes will be different.
Cost
Herman states that many sellers believe the cost of the house is what they paid for it plus improvements and renovations made during their tenure. By improving the home they are increasing the value of the home even though the cost of the home may remain the same. Herman emphasizes, “Cost and value are not what the price of the home should be or shouldn’t be.”
Price/Fair Market Value
The fair market value price is what the property is worth at today’s financial level.
Tight Inventories almost Bypass Luxury Market
By Steve Cook
It’s still a buyer’s market for properties selling for more than half a million. Tight inventories driven by negative equity and slow foreclosure processing and rising prices are having much less impact on luxury homes than on less expensive homes.
According to the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing’s weekly market report, the average days on market were 186 for luxury homes. Inventories for the luxury segment are about the same as they were in November. Median prices in the 31 markets that ILHM tracks have stayed fairly stable. Days on market range from a low of 111 days in Silicon Valley to 268 in New York.
By contrast, the national median age of all homes in the June REALTOR.com® inventory dropped to 84 days in June, down -9.67 percent on an annual basis. The size of REALTOR.com’s ® inventory of homes for sale was 19.35 percent below a year ago. Prices are up 2.68 percent on a year-over-year basis, according to the Realtor.com Trend Data released today. List prices increased in 101 markets of the 146 markets covered by REALTOR.com®, held steady in 26 markets, and declined in just 19 markets.
Several factors are causing the inventory drawn down among lower price properties. Negative equity is keeping many potential sellers out of the market, which keeps a lid on inventory and complied with the reduced flow of REO properties has led to much tighter market conditions for lower priced properties, particularly in the hardest hit markets, according to CoreLogic Economist Sam Khater. Khater estimates that lower tier properties are appreciating three times faster than expensive homes as a result of tighter inventories.
Luxury brokers around the nation report little change in their markets in recent months, unlike the tight inventories and rising prices among entry-level homes found in almost market in the country.
Hey Guys, Tenisha here with another article from friends over at Trulia, about home improvements. Nowadays, people want to make the best decisions that will get them the best returns on their investments. Read on to get the latest info and myths debunked! :)
Top 10 Home Improvement Myths
Not all home improvements are created equal. Even in a seller’s market, it’s important that homeowners make the right investments that will yield higher returns. As you guide your clients toward a profitable sale, make sure you’re an expert on the top 10 home improvement myths so you can prevent your clients from believing them.
Father’s Day is next week, and Dad is sure to get a few tools or gift certificates to a home improvement store that he’ll be itching to use, so make sure your clients are in-the-know before then!
Top 10 Home Improvement Myths
1. Any remodeling project will add value to your home.
While many remodeling projects will add value to a home, some can be seen as a negative by future buyers. For instance, combining two smaller bedrooms to create one larger bedroom may better fit one homeowner’s lifestyle today, but it may cause the home to lose value in the eyes of a future buyer who needs the two separate rooms.
2. Buying the highest-quality materials attracts more buyers.
Installing high-end materials may seem like a wise decision, but it can backfire. For instance, using the most expensive tile in a bathroom may create an impressive appearance, but value-conscious buyers may opt for a more affordable home if the seller has over-improved compared to others in the neighborhood.
3. Adding square footage always adds value.
A better way to think about this statement is to insert the word useable into the sentence. Finished attics and basements – even if considered liveable by local standards – may not be attractive to a buyer if they are not finished to the same standards as the rest of the home.
Hey guys, is there a buyer out there that you know of that likes to play the "real estate game" and make really low offers? Or are you the "culprit"? This article may help you rethink that strategy when it comes to putting in bids for homes. Check it out:
A housing transaction, at the most fundamental level, includes one person who wants to sell and one person who wants to buy. Once the terms are agreed upon, voilà! . . . win-win.
However, if the seller is miserable with the final terms or feels like they had to settle for a lowball offer, the deal is likely to unravel or turn ugly. And if it does fall through, that causes aggravation and costs valuable time and money for everyone involved.
As a smart agent, you have valuable tools and skills to help prevent deals from falling through at the negotiating table.
Here are five facts and data points you can use to prevent lowball offers:
1. Market temperature matters.
The temperature of the market affects everything, from how buyers shop to what the “right price” is for a home. Most buyers think they know the temperature, but it’s your job to show them their local reality. To give buyers a valid idea of pricing, focus on what has recently sold in the last 60 days, rather than what is currently for sale in your market.
One way to do this is to show the percentage difference between the actual list and sale prices for the properties in your neighborhood. It speaks volumes about the current market’s activity. Comparing list vs. sale prices also provides a strong indicator of which direction the market is moving and how much less, or maybe even more, than the asking price a buyer should offer.
Check out my recent post on Trulia, “Pricing Matters: Using List vs.
Your home is the largest purchase you’ll ever make. So it might seem that emotional side effects like panic and fear are inevitable. But they’re not. You do have the power to manage your emotions and have a relatively blissed-out homebuying experience. And you should seize that power; doing so will not only minimize the discomfort, it will also keep panic and fear from fouling up your decision-making.
Let me hand you some keys - the keys to having a Zen home buying experience:
1. We fear what we don’t understand. Buying a computer, a TV, even a car – these things aren’t super scary, in part, because we do them repeatedly. But we buy homes much less frequently, and the transactions are much more complex and filled with jargon that is essentially unintelligible to all but those who practice real estate for a living. On top of all that, the mistakes we stand to make when buying a home, from buying a lemon to taking the wrong mortgage, hold the potential to devastate our lives and our finances for years to come.
