den boer homes: I am your "Listening" agent.
- 11/28/23 05:01 AM
I once posted a social media post entitled Your Listening agent. My point was almost anyone can "List" a home for sale, but how many agents really listen to their seller and abide by their wishes?
For instance, does the seller want the listing agent to be present at all showings? What if the sellers have already moved on, will the agent be able to handle small tasks like letting in a contractor or repair person?
What if the seller has a "Latch Key kid"? You remember, a preteen who gets home from school before the parents. What if a showing agent wants … (8 comments)
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den boer homes: Blessed
- 11/15/23 07:51 AM
This has been an interesting year. I have spoken to many agents that are suffering with no business. Some have left the practice and others have taken up "Real" jobs. Many come to me and ask for advice on how to get their business going again. I am always happy to talk, but I find so few listen.
For me, I have had my best year ever in the 18 years I have been in the business, by at least 30%. I have been blessed with terrific clients. So, when agents ask me for help they want to know what my silver … (3 comments)
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den boer homes: So Pull the Trigger!
- 07/24/23 06:22 AM
If you were a gun fighter in the Wild West and hesitated to pull the trigger, you might not get another chance. Failing to pull the trigger nowadays in real estate can end your chances to fight for a home as well. Let me explain...
I have clients at the moment that have been looking for a home for multiple months and have lost out on several offer attempts. We saw a home over the weekend that the couple liked and for the past 24 hours they have been more concerned about offer strategies than actually putting in an offer.
It's OK to … (8 comments)
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den boer homes: What if I can't be there?
- 03/13/23 07:13 AM
Exciting times! The home is under contract and you as the buyer/Seller just found out you can't be there at the closing. What do you do?
This comes up fairly often. One way to solve this challenge is for the seller/Buyer to enlist a friend or relative to "Stand in" for them at the closing table. This will require an official document called a limited Power of Attorney. It legally allows someone other than you to sign documents in your absence.
The closing attorney will need to see the Power of Attorney paperwork before the closing to ensure that it covers everything necessary … (1 comments)
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den boer homes: Check under the hood...
- 02/24/23 02:19 AM
Many times buyers walk into a home to find it the one. It meets all their requirements, checks all the boxes. They are in love! The offer is sent and accepted. Can it get any better? Maybe, but it can certainly get worse.
I have a listing that is the best maintained, cutest house in the neighborhood. Not a single showing has happened where the agent did not call or text,"Great House!" So what's the problem? It's what's under the hood, or in this case the roof.
An inspection turned up a possible leak in the roof. I brought in my roof contractor … (8 comments)
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den boer homes: Is it really?
- 02/15/23 04:27 AM
I have been speaking with quite a few agents recently about the market. It has definitely slowed, they all said. We can see in the office stats that unit sales have fallen since the interest rates started rising. Another indicator is the volume of calls agents are receiving from loan officers, desperate for business themselves. This is just one side of the story.
I listed a home yesterday at $385,000. Locally, this is just under the average home price of around $406,000. The home is in very good condition and the listing photos showed this. By the end of yesterday we had … (5 comments)
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den boer homes: Hi Ellis!
- 01/17/23 12:02 PM
I was out photographing downtown Woodstock the other day for Rezide Properties, a local custom builder, when I ran across this crazy contraption. It is a 4 wheeled vehicle, powered by people pedaling from the chairs on either side of the trolly.
The vehicle is run by a fellow named Ellis. He and I spoke for a bit and he allowed me to take his picture. The reason I liked this picture and Ellis is that it underscores the type of downtown we have in Woodstock. I told someone the other day that the town walkability index ranks in the OMG level!
Selfless … (3 comments)
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den boer homes: Has it sold yet?
- 12/05/22 06:34 AM
For several years homes have been selling within minutes of hitting the market. The low inventory of homes and low interest rates drove buyers into a near frenzy, competing with one another and pushing up home prices. Home sellers got used to homes selling the day their homes hit the market. How times have changed.
I was asked several months ago buy another agent what was wrong with a listing of mine. Why had it been on the market so long? At the time the home had "Languished on the market" for 7 days. 7 days. A week. The home was in … (2 comments)
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den boer homes: It was 13.25%
- 11/21/22 12:20 PM
I read today that prognosticators are indicating interest rates may exceed 10% next year. I also read where those same folks are saying home values could decline 15% next year. The former is not great, but the latter could be very good for buyers. Not bad for sellers either since home values are up way over this 15% over the past 2 years.
As to the rates, I know, not great. Who wants to pay 10% on a mortgage? Well, my first mortgage was at 13.25%. If I wanted to buy a house, and I did, then that was the going rate. … (0 comments)
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den boer homes: How do you rate?
- 07/14/22 05:34 AM
Interest rates are going up. On the news this morning the talking heads were saying the Fed might raise interest rates again this month by a full percentage point to combat the 9.1% inflation rate. This will translate into higher rates for mortgages among many other things.
This will dampen the demand for homes temporarily as consumers figure out what they can afford with the new higher rates. Some buyers will be priced out of the market. The slowing demand for homes will also slow the rise of home values, stabilizing the home prices for homes on the market. We will also … (5 comments)
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den boer homes: Frustrations easing?
- 06/21/22 06:05 AM
For 2 or 3 years the real estate market has been a frustrating one of buyers and their agents alike. Too few homes being chased by too many buyers. Perhaps the balance in the market is about to change.
Rising interest rates are likely to force some potential buyers out of the market, with them not being able to afford the mortgages required to purchase a home. With few Byers chasing the inventory on the market, homes will stay on the market longer. This may force sellers to rethink their pricing strategies. We are already seeing this in increased price reductions.
rWith fewer … (3 comments)
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den boer homes: Slowly slowing
- 06/13/22 05:14 AM
Like a driver lightly tapping the brakes on a car, we are starting to see signs of a slowdown in the real estate market. The overheated frenzy of home buying is not over, only becoming less crazy.
Homes on the market are selling in a few days now instead of a few hours. We are starting to see sellers reducing their asking price in order to get their home sold.
What is causing this change? There are several processes at work here. Inventory of homes for sale has been extremely tight for several years now. Slowly, more homes are coming onto the market … (6 comments)
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den boer homes: Things to do in Atlanta
- 06/07/22 06:35 AM
There are so many things that are interesting to do in the Atlanta area. We have professional baseball, soccer, basketball teams to root for. We have arts and crafts shows going on all the time. There is the renaissance Fair just south of town. The ocean is 4-5 hours away. The mountains are an hour away. We have museums and puppetry arts. There are walking and biking trails. You name it and we probably have it.
The one place I have been wanting to go to forever is the Delta Flight Museum and I got to go this past weekend. This museum … (4 comments)
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den boer homes: You are in good hands!
- 04/05/22 06:05 AM
The picture above is one of my favorites. It was taken at my brother-in-laws home while I was holding newborn chick. It always reminds me of the phrase, you are in good hands. It could also say something about being chicken. Both of these ideas were with me yesterday as I underwent some dental surgery.
I needed to have a cracked tooth taken out and two implants started. The doctor doing the work was one I had used before and found to be very good. Even knowing I would be in "Good hands" I was still "Chicken".
I was not looking forward to … (5 comments)
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den boer homes: It's still a bizarre Real Estate market
- 03/11/22 06:27 AM
I was just thinking of a past movie title, It's a mad, mad, mad world! While the movie was funny, the current real estate market is not. I have never seen so many obstacles in the way of someone buying a home.
Low housing inventory levels have been with us for a while now. Well before the pandemic hit. There just have not been enough homes available on the market to satisfy the buyers looking to purchase a home. This imbalance helps push home prices up.
Then we get rates rising. Sure, they are not at the levels we saw back in the … (5 comments)
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den boer homes: What's your story February Challenge - Professional
- 02/25/22 06:30 AM
Wow. Taking on this months challenge has been a...challenge. Reliving the past is hard. So, in this post I will talk about my professional life and how I ended up where I am today.
So, as a senior in high school, I knew I was going to be an engineer. Probably a mechanical engineer. I loved to take things apart and see what made them tick. Putting them back together correctly was sometimes a bit of a chore.
One day as I was walking between classes, I saw a guy at a card table. He was a recruiter for North Carolina State, school … (8 comments)
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den boer homes: February Challenge Part 1 - What's your story?
- 02/24/22 08:18 AM
I guess everyone does have an individual story that is important to who we are today. We are the sum of all our experiences.
Mine began in Greensboro NC where I was born, in a snowstorm. I think it snowed more back then. Greensboro was a nice place to grow up. Maybe it was the times, but I spent many Summers on my bike. I would leave the house early and be gone all day. I wish we still had those days.
My father worked at an insurance company that was close enough for him to walk to work. And he did on … (21 comments)
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den boer homes: Interest rates are arising
- 01/26/22 08:30 AM
I was looking at this mailer from 2017 and noticed that I mentioned rates going up. Well, we are back to that again. After enjoying historically low rates for the past years, they look to be on the rise again.
Rates are still low, but everytime they tick up, mortgages get just a bit more expensive. The year I purchased my first home rates were at 13.75 percent. If you wanted a home that's just what you had to deal with.
While we aren't anywhere close to those high rates, if you are looking to buy in the near future, get with a … (4 comments)
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den boer homes: Slip Sliding Away.
- 01/11/22 08:26 AM
Another example of a mailer program I used in 2017. It essentially says that you should use a calm and cool agent to help with your real estate needs. Why, you might ask? Real Estate Agents are typically the calm between seller and buyer. We try to take the stress out of the process by taking sometime tough negotiation requests and presenting them to our clients without all the drama.
I also like using this mailer card during the Winter months even though here in the South will rarely have enough snow to sled on. When we do, it gets really slippery!
If … (5 comments)
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den boer homes: We can help keep your boat afloat!
- 01/04/22 10:57 AM
I ran across some mailers I did back in 2017 and decided that the messages on them were still strong, so I thought I would recycle these in the social media.
The card show above references home owners who have out-grown their home. I found these images and paid to license them for a series of mailers.
I had quite a few calls from these, many from other agents in the area telling me how much they liked them.
The message for homeowners is that den Boer Homes can help them navigate through the processes of selling their current home and finding the next. … (3 comments)
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I once posted a social media post entitled Your Listening agent. My point was almost anyone can "List" a home for sale, but how many agents really listen to their seller and abide by their wishes?
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