Motivated sellers
August 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
If you are selling your home in today’s Charleston real estate market, you had better be a motivated seller.
Or you shouldn’t be selling.
There are a whopping 464 active listings within a $50,000 price range that your home is competing with in just Summerville. If you aren’t motivated, another seller most likely is.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Summerville homes for sale
Charleston homes [not] for sale
July 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It’s a good idea when selling your home in today’s Charleston real estate market to make sure that your home is as available for buyers to see as possible. There is a lot of choices for buyers today and if they can’t view the home when they would like to see it, in many cases, it’s on to the next.
There are situations when the dogs might have to be put away or taken for a walk or you might want to straighten up your home from the mess the kids generally make. But the more available your home is to view, the better your chances of selling your home.
Recently, an amazing 3 homes out of 12 selected for viewings (out of 95 available meeting my clients’ criteria) could not be seen when calling for appointments.
In general, if a buyer can’t view your home, they generally are not going to want to buy it. Make sure your home doesn’t have a DO NOT ENTER sign, if it does, replace it with a traditional FOR SALE sign, it works much better.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston homes for sale
The current state of real estate
July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Charleston real estate agents are trending towards sending lots of emails to all real estate agents on the Charleston MLS roster. They are touting their listings and I am noticing lots of price reductions, offers of bonuses to other agents and indications that the home is priced below a recent appraisal.
My personal opinion, this stuff doesn’t work to sell a house. After all, in my case, they are winding up in the spam folder of my inbox (and I had to dig them out to write this post). And wouldn’t it be better to just price the home for sale in the first place. Statistics show that homes priced properly from the start will sell for more money than a home that is overpriced and eventually reduced.
As to agent bonuses, I would prefer to see the price lowered by that amount to benefit the buyer. Much as I would like to make a little more commission when selling a home, I won’t be “bribed” by an offer of a bonus.
And finally, an appraisal has no value in resales, what a property might have been worth as a basis for a loan does not mean that a qualified buyer values it the same.
Bottom line, if you want to sell your home in Charleston, price it right from the start. Ask me how I’ll market your home for the best possible price in the shortest possible time and with the least inconvenience to you.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, marketing
Pricing your Charleston home to sell
July 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I probably overuse the phrase, “pricing to sell” when talking about proper pricing of Charleston homes for sale. So let me explain a little further about what I mean and how I go about the process of pricing to sell.
If you understand buyer psychology, you know that buyers searching for homes for sale have a price range in mind that they will concentrate their search for homes in.
Let’s use 2 ranges for this example, $300k to $350k and $350k to $400k. If you’ll go along with me for the moment that if every home for sale is priced right, it makes sense that a $345k home will be nicer than a $305k home and a $395k home will be nicer than a $355k home.
The next assumption that I’ll make is based on helping so many buyers purchase homes. Years of real estate experience has proven to me that buyers will generally buy at the higher end of their range rather than the lower end of their range. It isn’t that a buyer wants to spend more than necessary, it simply is that when comparing homes, the buyer will generally want the nicest possible home rather than the least expensive possible home.
While it’s only natural to want to sell your home for the highest possible price, you have to price your home with an understanding of how buyers search in order for your home to be seen and to give your home the best chance of being selected by a buyer.
Use the search ranges as your guide when pricing your Charleston home for sale. Rather than price your house at $305k, price it at $299,900 and it will be at the top of the range from $250k to $300k, not at the bottom of the range from $300k to $350k. The same is true for why you shouldn’t price at $355k but rather $349,900. And don’t forget the $25k and $75k price points in between so use $324,900 and $374,900 as well.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
Sell cheap, buy cheaper
July 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I had the occasion to show some buyers from out of town who were considering relocation to the Charleston area several homes in my neighborhood.
White Gables is located in Summerville, a very popular Charleston suburb. White Gables is a traditional neighborhood with sidewalks, front porches and alleys behind the home to access the garage. It’s very old fashioned and very cute and it was the only neighborhood they were interested in seeing after viewing lots of homes online for the past few months.
But they have to sell their home in order to buy.
A few years ago, they started thinking about moving and did get a contract on their home but they backed out of the sale because they just didn’t feel right about selling and moving at the time. As is the case in many areas around the country, their home isn’t worth what it once was. But as I suggested to them, if you sell high, you’re going to buy high and that’s how it was several years ago. And if you sell for a little less, you’ll certainly be able to buy for a lot less.
They looked at several preowned homes but as I mentioned to them, if you write a contract contingent on the sale of your home, it won’t mean anything to the seller because the home will effectively be off the market awaiting the sale of your home. Think about how you would deal with an offer on your home that is contingent on the sale of your buyers home. And you can’t really make a really advantageous purchase when you are writing an offer contingent on the sale of your home.
As to new homes, the builder had several in inventory that had nice discounts because construction was complete and they were sitting unsold. But you can’t take advantage of that either because you might not want to have 2 mortgage payments.
So go home and sell. Price it right. Sell it cheap. Buy cheaper.
By the way, the home pictured above is the new Andover floor plan, one story living and a little larger than the popular Georgetown plan.
This one is a steal! If you are an unencumbered buyer.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Summerville, White Gables
Simple selling tips
June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
There is a lot of homes for sale in today’s Charleston real estate market so buyers have lots of choices. A quick search in a very narrow parameter shows there are 311 homes for sale priced between $200,000 and $250,000 in Summerville.
Most buyers (hopefully) won’t want to see all of them so when your home is chosen to be viewed, make the most of the opportunity.
A few simple tips:
- Make your home available to easily be shown.
Most sellers don’t require 24 hour notice to show their homes by appointment only. If you have a tenant in a rental home that you are selling, then your tenant has rights but discussing the sale of your home with your tenant might allow your home to be shown easier. If your tenant will be uncooperative, you might want to consider waiting until the lease is up before putting your home on the market.
If you have small children and need to tidy up before a showing, anticipate that by keeping everything as straight as possible and make your home available for showing within an hour or two of the call. The same goes for your pets, keep them in a crate or behind a small gate or in the yard (make sure they can be cool and have plenty to drink during the hot summer) or be available to take them off the property.
The best situation is to leave your home every day in no apology, mint condition ready for a showing that might happen on the spot. Quite often, as I drive around with a client, they see a home and wonder if they can see it now. A quick call to Centralized Showing Service to find out the showing instructions might possibly result in a sale.
- Straighten up.
Keeping your home clutter free with dishes out of the sink, toys picked up, beds made and ready to show at all times is an inconvenience … but, the buyers will like your home more than many others they will be viewing. I’ve seen it time and time again, a reasonably nice home with good bones, nice floor plan, well priced, etc., be ruled out by buyers because they just couldn’t see past the mess. And don’t forget, if your home doesn’t appear to be clean, the buyers might assume that you haven’t been taking care of the important maintenance items either.
- Don’t hang around.
Just about the worst thing you can do is not leave your house when a real estate agent rings the bell and opens the lockbox. You should not be there and if you are, you shouldn’t say anything more than, “hi, how are you, I’m just leaving.”
I once was showing homes to a client and the homeowner answered the door and said, “well, I was just leaving but as long as I’m here, let me tell you a few special things about my house.” She went on to tour the home with us for about 5 excruciating minutes. After she left, my buyer looked at me and said, “let’s go, I don’t like the house and I sure don’t like the seller.” The home might not have worked for the buyer but if it had, the seller may have ruined her chance to get an offer. To me, it just shows desperation on the part of the homeowner to think they have to “tout” what’s special.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, selling your Charleston home
5 signs it might be time to reduce your price
June 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
If you want to sell your home and you haven’t sold it, here are 5 signs it might be time to reduce the price on your home.
Inventory levels in the Charleston real estate market are very high currently so buyers have lots of choice. Plus, there are fewer buyers in the market to buy a home in Charleston right now for various reasons.
You should reduce the price:
- If your home hasn’t sold.
- If your home hasn’t sold.
- If your home hasn’t sold.
- If your home hasn’t sold.
- If your home hasn’t sold.
I know, I know, I’m not a very good comedian but … if you really want to sell your home and you haven’t, then you should consider reducing the price on your home because nothing matters more than price.
Amy Hoak at MarketWatch put a real list together of 5 signs that it’s time to trim the asking price on your house.
- Not enough showings.
- Some showings but no contract.
- Similar homes are now selling for less.
- Repeated negative feedback.
- You’ve cut the price, but not by enough.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate
List (asking) price vs sales price May 2008
May 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
With almost 12,000 homes currently available for sale in the Charleston real estate market which is almost a 16 month inventory if no additional homes come on the market.
If you really want to sell your home, you must price it to sell.
As you can see, the asking price is significantly higher than the prices paid by buyers in all classifications with the only exception being luxury condos and townhomes.
The current sales price to list price according to Charleston MLS statistics shows that homes are selling at a 5.23% discount to list.
That is the highest rate I’ve seen yet asking prices are even higher per the chart above. Something has to give and my best guess is that it won’t be the buyer.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
Top Ten reasons your home isn’t selling
May 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade doesn’t pull any punches on why your home isn’t selling. Sure, he’s got some of the usual suspects: schools, clutter and condition.
He placed price second and your choice of an agent first. As an added bonus, he suggested homeowner attitude, that the owner does not really want to sell.
I think that ties into the price, if a homeowner doesn’t really want to sell, they generally will not price their home to market. With today’s Charleston real estate market conditions, if you don’t really want to sell, you should not be listing your home for sale. It will languish unsold and it isn’t worth the inconvenience.
Read all the reasons your home isn’t selling.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, selling your home
Charleston home prices
April 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I’ve been reporting on Charleston real estate prices on my other blog for the past 18 months and here for the past few months. When you review the Charleston real estate statistics, despite rising inventory and declining unit sales, prices still held steady.
I think the law of supply and demand has finally taken hold and prices seem to be down somewhat. I’ll be gathering all the data in a few days to present the monthly market report but anecdotal data from looking at the price history of homes that might be interesting to various clients seems to be pointing in that direction – prices are coming down.
Now I’m not sure yet whether several of these listings that I noticed were totally overpriced when they were first listed and have finally taken serious price reductions or whether the homeowner totally overpaid when they bought the property, especially if they bought during the peak of late 2005 and early 2006. But I’ve seen some really attractive Charleston home prices in the past few days. It will be interesting when I compute the statistics, stay tuned for more.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
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