Archive for June, 2007

The Value of Professionally Staging Your Home When You Sell

June 28th, 2007 categories: Amador County Real Estate Market, El Dorado County Real Estate, Real Estate Marketing Tips

Part 2 in a 3 part series on preparing your home to sell in a buyer’s market:

Today I am going to “trek” down a path heavily traveled in the Real Estate blogesphere: Staging Your Home… You may be asking yourself, “why inHome-staging the world are you covering a topic that every Realtor® in the country who owns a blog has already wrote about?” and “what in the world does this have to do with selling my home in El Dorado County?”

I will answer the first question with a question. What kind of Real Estate Professional (who owns a blog) would I be if I did not cover this topic at least once. Also, since “The Real Estate Trekker” is just getting off the ground, I might as well cover a popular topic like this early on…

As far as the second question is concerned, there are two reasons why you would want to have your El Dorado County home professionally staged…

Home Staging is a Return on Your Investment

Hmmm… Really?

Really! At least according to Rebecca Matteson, ASP™ owner of CenterStageDesignsInc.com. On her website, Rebecca states that “The investment of ASP™ Home Staging costs less than the FIRST price reduction.” Over the last few months, we have seen homes in Shingle Springs, Placerville, Pollock Pines and all the surrounding areas reduce price two or three times in most cases. The investment of having your home professionally staged could potentially reduce the amount of times you have to drop your price.

Staging is about showing off your home’s best features

Home staging is not the same as having personal interior decoration done. Interior decoration is focused on the personal taste of the home owner. Home_Staging_InvestmentPersonal taste is not always the taste of potential buyers. The primary focus of home staging is to highlight the most desirable elements of the house itself.

Most buyers can only see what is right in front of them. Very few can actually see the potential in the home. A good ASP™ can identify and highlight those “most desirable elements” and make the home appear even more inviting than it already is.

In today’s buyer’s market, where it has become increasingly difficult to maximize your profit, it is more crucial than before to give an outstanding first impression when your home goes on the market.

Obviously, the emphasis of this article is more on the benefits of hiring a staging professional over offering tips and tricks on how to do it yourself. If cash flow is an issue in your situation, keep in mind that some staging professionals will come in and do an evaluation of your home and tell you what needs to be done for a very reasonable fee.

As for those of you who are “do-it-yourselfers”, stay-tuned. We will have an article that highlights tips and tricks on how to make your home presentable for that ever-so-crucial first impression.

For a list of certified ASP™ or other home staging professionals, please feel free to email me at edde@realestatetrekker.com.

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Authored by Edde Anderson | Discussion: 3 Comments »

Should MLS Brokers Be Allowed To Blog About Other MLS Broker’s Listings?

June 28th, 2007 categories: Real Estate News

Wow! Let’s all give a hand for the question of the year. Pandoras_box

A recent article posted by Inman News on June 12, 2007 reported that the controversial discount real estate brokerage Redfin revived its Sweet Digs blogs after having to shut it down due to an MLS rule violation. The rule basically prohibits brokers from advertising other broker’s listings.

So that leads me to heart of the question: Should MLS brokers be allowed to blog about other MLS broker’s listings?  In order to answer the question, we should probably explore the why’s.

Why Would I Want to Blog about the Competition’s Listings?

Click here to check out the rest of the article at: The Real Estate Tomato

Authored by Edde Anderson | Discussion: No Comments »

Get a Home Inspection Before You List Your Home

June 7th, 2007 categories: Disclosures & Inspections, El Dorado County Real Estate

Part 1 in a 3 part series on preparing your home to sell in a buyer’s market:

If selling real estate in El Dorado County over the last 3 years has taught me anything, it has taught me that Buyers can change their tune on a dime when the market turns in their favor. Because of the lack of homes on the market two years ago, it seemed that I could not get an offer in fast enough for the buyers I was working with. Home_pre-inpection

Buyers were forced to accept the home “as-is”.

I would call the listing agent to let them know I had an offer for them and before I could press send on the fax machine, I would get a call back telling me that 2 more offers had come in and that my buyers would have to compete for the home. 

That was a different real estate market.

Today, El Dorado and Amador County homes and real estate have entered a more “Buyer Friendly” market. Inventory is higher and quite simply, there are a lot more homes to choose from for the avarage buyer. Because of this, most buyers have found that it is much easier today to ask for repairs and credits than it was two years ago. Sadly, many deals that would have stayed together two years ago have fallen apart due to small problems that could have been corrected ahead of time if the seller had a pre-inspection performed before the house went on the market.

What is a Home Pre-Inspection?

In short, a Home Pre-Inspection is a home inspection performed by a knowledgeable, experienced home inspector before the property is listed for sale. The goal is to find and correct all of the potential problems that may arise during a buyer’s investigation period.Home_inspection

I have found when most buyers discover problems in the disclosures or when performing their inspections during their 17 day investigation period, buyer’s remorse tends to set in. The idea that they are purchasing the perfect house at the time they submitted the offer starts to be replaced by insecurity and doubt. Especially if they are not experienced home buyers.

No matter what condition the real estate market is in, most sellers tend to feel resentment toward a buyer when the buyer makes any kind of request for repairs or asks for a credit or reduction in the sales price. Also, having to perform the repairs during the last half the of escrow period always seems to put an unecessary amount stress on the homeowner who is usually trying to close their own purchase and pack to move.

Having your home pre-inspected and correcting the issues before you place it on the market will not only eliminate the last minute stress of multiple repairs, it may also potentially save you thousands of dollars in credits and price reductions.   This has been a common practice in the Bay Area for years.

When I purchased and sold a house as an investment last year in Oakland, I was suprised to find that most agents wanted copies of all the inspections and disclosures before they even wrote the offer. My experience with this showed me that it would make a much more efficient escrow period, with very little hassle toward the end. Even in a buyer’s market.

If you are looking to sell you home in the near future, please feel free to email at edde@realestatetrekker.com or call me at (530) 644–2687 anytime for a list of very qualified home inspectors.

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Authored by Edde Anderson | Discussion: 2 Comments »