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 in 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. Personal 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.

Tags: home+staging, realestatelisting

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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

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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. 

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.

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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Or is it?

We have gone through quite a lot of up and down forecasts of the El Dorado County and Amador County real estate markets over the past few years. For several years, forecasters were predicting the burst of the real estate market “bubble”, as it continued to grow by leaps and bounds.

They said it would burst and insinuated that every real estate investor, as well as buyers and sellers of homes for sale would lose their shirts. While prices have deflated in most areas in the past year, there was never the doom and gloom “burst”.

Investors Will Lose Their Shirts

There are many investors of residential homes for sale, who now find themselves in foreclosure, will probably lose a lot of money, and will suffer a less-than-favorable credit rating because of it.

Many of these investors used the “no money down” and/or “get rich quick” financing schemes. For these unfortunate investors, that is the risk they took by investing in residential real estate under those financing terms. They may be forced to take a lot less money for their homes than they originally planned. They are the real victims of the market bubble, not the average homeowner. However, the market is getting better much sooner than anyone expected.

What has occurred is nothing more than the natural cycle of the real estate market. Currently it is transitioning from a “seller’s market” to a “buyer’s market”. Not the bursting bubble that many headlines claim today. Current fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages have interest rates no higher than in June 2004. They averaged 6.2 percent during the last quarter of 2006, which is well below the average ten years ago.

Homes for sale in most areas remain affordable, according to the National Association of Realtors. They report that income growth has kept up with rising prices, allowing a median income family to be able to afford median-priced homes for sale.

These facts are like rays of sunchine on a cloudy day. Hence, it is not ALL doom and gloom. In fact, it’s great news for qualified buyers! With the recent forecast of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and the tightening up on lending practices, you may be asking, “Well then, what exactly qualifies a buyer as a ‘qualified buyer’?”

Simple. There is one rule of thumb that has stood the test of time in mortgage lending regardless of the market. Credit score, credit score, credit score.

If you have a good credit score you will be viewed by lenders as being a responsible borrower. Which in turn, will qualify you for a loan based upon your annual income.

Buyer’s… now is your time! If you are unsure of where your credit score falls, call me for a free credit report and analysis. I will be pleased to evaluate your report and counsel you in repairing your damaged credit if needed. It is my personal goal to put you and your family into the best mortgage possible.

For what it’s worth, this Mortgage Broker is predicting brighter days ahead.

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It is an integral part of his “Baby Steps” routine for complete financial fitness. “This is the toughest of all the Baby Steps,” he writes. “It is so hard, but it is so worth it.” Rather than attack debts in order of interest rate - say, from highest rate to lowest - Ramsey suggests that his clients pay off their debs in order of smallest balance to largest balance.

This excludes your home mortgage, as well as any similar real-estate or business loans which total more than 50 percent of your annual income. If more than one loan or debt have similar balances, list the highest-rate debt first. At that point,then, you round up your money and start with the first debt on your list. Pay the minimums on all debts except the first, and keep them current. Throw every cent of money you can at your smallest-balance debt. When that is gone, you then “snowball” (add) that debt’s payment into your monthly payment for the next debt on your list.

“The Debt Snowball is designed the way it is,” Ramsey writes in “Total Money Makeover”, “because we are more concerned with modifying behavior than correct mathematics. Sometimes motivation is more mportant than math. This is one of those times.” The bright idea here is to get some “quick wins.”

The payoff is twofold. For one thing, human nature is such that we tend to bog down on tasks, or quit them all together, if we cannot see ourselves making progress toward the goal. That isn’t the problem here: You write down all your debts, and you see yourself making quick progress - swatting away your smallest debts like the nuisances they are. Many people magnet their Debt Snowball charts to their refrigerators so they can continually see how far they’ve come.

“I don’t care if you have a master’s degree in psychology,” Ramsey says. “you need quick wins to get fired up. And getting fired up is super-important.” Additionally, the quicker you pay off a debt - any debt - the quicker you can snowball (add) its payment to the next debt on your list. Your debt payments therefore “compound” upon themselves as you slice through your debts, one by one. ” All the money from old debts and all the money you can find anywhere goes on the smallest debt until it is gone,” advices Ramsey.

“Every time the Snowball rolls over, it picks up more snow and gets larger, until by the time you get to the bottom, you have an avalanche.” And in this case, an avalanche is exactly what you want to see coming your way.

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“Whats the best way to boost my credit score?”

Knowing that everyone’s situation and circumstances are unique, there is one thing that will shoot your credit score up every time. - PAYING DOWN DEBT.

And more specifically, paying off debts that carry balances closest to the limit. I have personally witnessed credit scores jump by 100 points by simply paying off credit cards that were almost maxed out. Those individuals with the highest credit scores are the ones with the least debt and with a habit of never missing payments.

So are you curious where your scores stand? Check out www.annualcreditreport.com to receive your free credit report. Scores will cost you between $5 and $6 for each bureau, but may be worth it in the long run.

If you have any other credit report questions, feel free to call me. Sean Carter 530-647-2036

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“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “

A great many folks think that money cannot be used in a spiritual way and that when you talk about money, you are talking about something that is only material. However, our Lord says that we are to lay up for ourselves treasure in heaven.

How can we do that? Well, instead of putting it in a bank in Switzerland, put it in heaven by giving it to the Lord’s work down here-but make sure it is in the Lord’s work.

You ought to investigate everything you give to. Make sure that you are giving to that which will accumulate treasure for you in heaven. If it is used for the propagation of the gospel and to get out the Word of God, it becomes legal tender in heaven, and that is how we gather treasure in heaven.

Perhaps you are saying, “But I don’t give for that reason.” You ought to, because our Lord said, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” That is a laudable motive for giving. And He gives the reason: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” If you get enough treasure laid up in heaven, you are certainly going to think a lot about heaven. But if it is in the bank, your thoughts are going to be on the bank.

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