Share Let’s face facts, if you want to be successful in real estate, you need to meet people who want to either buy or sell a home. Some people might refer to that as “lead generation” but I don’t like to think of the people that I meet as “leads“. When you search for Charleston…
Category Archives: Helpful Hints
[How to] Eliminate finding homes under contract when you search
Share It’s frustrating to find that perfect home when searching Charleston homes for sale only to find out that it is already under contract. The reason that might happen is that the default when you search is to show both active and contingent listings and despite reports from the National Association of Realtors that 1 in 3…
LED lighting, let there be light!
Share The light over the sink in our home is probably turned on more often than it is off. And as you might expect, that bulb (a halogen flood light) burns out about every year or so. A few years ago, I thought I would try a CFL bulb to save on energy and get…
The perils of being an accidental landlord
Share An accidental landlord can best be described as someone who couldn’t sell their home and decided to rent it. And while many Charleston real estate investors have made a lot of money by buying investment property to rent, renting your home because you can’t sell it doesn’t always make good financial sense. I think that…
Before you buy, check the neighborhood covenants and restrictions
Share A few homes in my neighborhood owned by investors or accidental landlords (homeowners who couldn’t sell their home and were forced to rent it) are occupied by tenants. So it was very surprising to see a renter who moved in about 2 months ago pack up and move out the other day. Now I can’t…
[Good news] Another uneventful hurricane season in Charleston ends
Share Many people considering moving to Charleston are understandably concerned about hurricanes. It’s been 22 years since Hurricane Hugo devastated the Lowcountry and I first visited Charleston a couple of years after that and saw not just the devastation but the massive rebuilding and believe it or not, Charleston is actually a better place as…
Selling your home in Charleston during the “offseason”
Share Conventional wisdom says that most home sellers should get ready to sell their home in the spring. After all, that’s peak season in real estate. But an equally good strategy is to list your home for sale during the “offseason”. Here’s why. Even though there are far fewer potential buyers during the late fall…
[Pine straw] A Charleston garden fixture
Share Just as important as the plants you’ll find in Charleston gardens including azaleas, camellias, tea olives, crepe myrtles and many others is the bedding material and more often than not, Charleston gardeners choose pine straw. Southern pines are rather plentiful and you may or may not be lucky enough to have pine trees on…
2011 JD Power mortgage origination satisfaction survey
Share I had a client last year who joked that it was more painful to obtain a mortgage to buy a vacation home in Charleston than going to the dentist and it was funny only because she was a dentist. JD Power has released its mortgage origination satisfaction survey and the winner for the second year in…
How NOT to sell your home in Charleston
Share The short answer would be to price it too high but even worse would be to price it too high 3 times in a row with 3 different real estate agents. Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. The other day I noticed a new listing of a home for sale in my neighborhood and curious…
