Homes will sell in 2008 as they do every year and in every market. Whether you are marketing a castle perched on a cliff or a cardboard box under the freeway, there are things that you can control to improve your chances of getting a better price for your home.
1. Pick a strong agent. This is no time for being without a full time, well qualified agent. So even if your sister's first husband's best friend has his real estate license, be careful about giving him the listing. Or, maybe your co-worker has a cousin that has a co-worker who will do a discount listing--- Please proceed with caution. Right now, most part time, and a record number of full time agents, are letting their memberships lapse, leaving our ranks, and moving back into the businesses that suited them before they tried real estate. So, pick an agent with a comprehensive skill set, and a strong budget of time and money for marketing your home.
2. Prepare the home for sale. For most buyers, the decision to buy is made on the gut level response they have of your home. Little things like loose door knobs or burnt out light bulbs can have an extremely negative impact on how quickly your home will sell and for how much your home will sell for. Right now, we have a record number of foreclosures which are creating two tiers in the market; homes that are ready to move into and therefore fetching relatively strong prices, and homes that are beat up, distressed and doing nobody's property values any favors. Be in the first tier or you will be relegated to the second by default.
3. Stage your home. Whether you stage it because you are so inclined, or you pay to have it staged, or your agent has the knowledge or people to help you stage the home, don't take a chance, do it. Even little touches like matching towels in the bathroom, an appealing coffee table book in the family room, or a well placed chair on the patio, can be enough to make a potential buyer slow down and relax in the space you are trying to sell them. As I wrote previously, the buyer's decision is often made in a Blink, (see Malcolm Gladwell's best seller about the way people make decisions) with the argument for why the home works or not to be developed in the buyer's brain later. Staging works.
4. Price it well. Almost everyone thinks that their home should sell for more than the comparable homes. It is a natural tendency and nearly universal. I suppose it is healthy, having something to do with self worth or something but let's not bother with that now. Guess what? Homes usually sell for what they are worth, based very closely on comparable homes. A home doesn't sell for what you owe on it, or what you want for it, or what your cousin said it should sell for, or even the cost of what you paid for it a few years back plus the money you spent remodeling the kitchen. Very simply, your home will sell for what a competent and informed buyer will pay in the current market. There are specific pricing strategies one can follow to help insure that you get the best price you can, and that refers you back to Tip One, above.
5. Don't skimp on advertising and exposure. If a home is on the market in a gigantic forest of other similar homes on the market, does anyone see it? A few years ago, you could poke a sign in the yard and go for a bike ride and your home would sell, maybe with competitive bids. Consequently, new agents poured into the business, and sellers went ‘For Sale By Owner,' and well, those days are gone. Make sure your agent has a plan and an advertising budget (both time and money). Now I am getting redundant.
6. Surrender. Now that you have done everything in your power to increase your chances of selling, let it go. Meditate, hope, pray, whatever works for you. I think the serenity prayer applies well here. You cannot control interest rates, the economy, the weather, your teenager, your spouse, toddler or neighbor. Take a deep breath, it will sell if you have taken care of what you can control.
Movie Pics of the month
Movie Out- The Kite Runner
The best part about movies based on novels is that you know you are going to get a good story. The acting and cinematography are fabulous in this movie adaption of Marc Foster’s novel, but it is the story that keeps you riveted. We go back to pre-Soviet invasion Afghanistan where two young boys spend their childhood together as near brothers, despite their difference in station (Amir is the son of a very powerful local gentleman while Hassan is the son of the longtime family servant). Life happens, and human weakness punctures their innocent little bubble, separating them forever as Amir’s father moves him to America. (More detail would spoil it.) Beam to the future (late 1990’s), where Amir has finished college and had his first novel published. Yes, this is a story within a story/autobiographical fiction in the first person. Anyway, Amir gets a call from his now dead father’s old confidant, opening up his opportunity for redemption. “There is a way to be good again.” Powerful stuff. So begins his odyssey back to the Middle East and the Taliban controlled Afghanistan. No more details, gotta see it, before or after you read the book. This movie is why you like movies. Bring some kleenex, prepare for catharsis.
Movie in- The Painted Veil
So, if you are a aristocratic gentle lady who marries down in 1920’s England just to get out of your god foresaken mother’s home, you might not want to cheat on your little biologist of a husband, who, just for giggles and spite, might take you off to fight a cholera epidemic with him in rural China. Here again, we have fiction, based in real history, with all the good stuff that makes you want to go to and rent movies, and maybe even crack a book. Is anybody noticing that cinematography is getting better and better? It’s truly its own art form. It makes sense, with all the digital technology available, that this would be the case. And this film is, like the Kite Runner, another example of the scenery and sound, coupled with a strong story, simply propelling you somewhere else. Edward Norton and the very fetching Naomi Watts act out this very British movie. You know, the just-can’t-express-our-feelings of love, hate, jealousy, thing that we’ve come to expect from them. But far from being formulaic, this movie tells an interesting and ironic story of redemption that is well worth your time. Rent it.
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