How We Can Turn Your Home into a 5-Day Listing

Our five-day listing program is designed to get you the most money and best terms for your home in the least amount of time. Here’s how it works.

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The market is very hot right now and a lot of homes are receiving multiple offers. What are we doing to create higher offers for our listings in the current market?

We’ve come up with a tactic that I call the five-day listing.

We start by listing your home on a Thursday, after we’ve gotten it ready and had it properly staged for the market.

Then, we schedule an open house for that Sunday. Realtors and buyers see the property hit the MLS and all of the other real estate websites on Thursday, so they call to schedule showings on Friday or Saturday.

When they call, we tell them that the seller has an open house scheduled that Sunday, and that the seller has asked to wait until after the open house to accept offers.

This way, we create urgency and scarcity in the mind of the buyers and the agents. If they make an offer before the open house, they will make the highest offer possible.

We advertise the open house on every real estate website out there, including Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, and the MLS. That way, buyers know about the open house. We also put out 30 to 50 open house signs to create a huge event.

We make a spectacle out of the open house to create a sense of urgency for the buyers.

We really want to make a spectacle out of your open house so that any buyers who are interested in your property will be scared that someone else might buy it.

A lot of the time, we never even have to have the open house. Since the buyers who have showings on Friday or Saturday are scared of losing the house, their offers are usually very good. In that case, you can just go ahead and accept an offer.

If we do have the open house, you will likely have multiple offers on the home by Monday. Those offers can drive the sales price up and help you get the best terms.

Our five-day listing strategy helps you sell for the most money in the least amount of time and without any hassle.

If you have any questions about selling your home in today’s market, just give me a call or send me an email. My team and I would be happy to help you!

Do Open Houses Actually Sell Homes?

Should your agent hold open houses in order to sell your home? I’ll explore a few reasons why that may not be the best use of your agent’s time.

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If you are trying to sell your home, should your agent be doing open houses? The question isn’t whether or not open houses work—it’s whether or not they are a good use of your agent’s time.

According to the National Association of Realtors, less than 1% of homes sell via open house.

So, why do agents still bother with them? There are two reasons why your agent might have an open house:

1. They want to show you that they are doing something that looks like work.
2. The agent wants to get future business from the open house rather than sell your home.

If your home is in a lower price range, you should also know that buyers who look at open houses often end up buying a home close to 30% less than the price of that home.  

Is it efficient for your agent to do open houses? Let’s say you hire someone to frame a house. Are you going to pay one carpenter more because they will use a hammer instead of a nail gun? Of course not.

Less than 1% of homes sell via open house.

Everything works sometimes, so every now and then an open house will sell a home. That said, your agent really shouldn’t be wasting your time on open houses. They are not going to find a quality buyer who can afford your house that way.

If you have any other questions about open houses or about selling your home, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

The True Costs of Selling a Home in Today's Market

Selling a home can be expensive, and today I am going to break down exactly why.

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A lot of agents are trying to avoid this topic and tell you at the last minute how much it might cost to sell your home. Selling a home can be expensive, so it’s important to know what you’re getting into before you make the decision to sell yours.

The total cost of selling a home averages around 10% of the list price. The reason for this is the commission for employing a buyer or seller’s agent is typically around 6%, and it’s also typical for sellers to give a 3% buyer’s commission. There’s also an additional 1% for seller closing fees and minor repairs.

The total cost of selling a home averages around 10%.

So, say you’re selling your home for $300,000. Given the percentages I just stated, it’s going to cost you about $30,000 to sell your home. Now, that isn’t out of your pocket. The money comes from the proceeds from the sale of your home.

If you have any other questions about this topic or you’re looking to buy or sell your home, give us a call. We’d be happy to help!

How Property Investors Are Seeing 20% Returns

We've had a lot of success lately working with property investors and single-family homes. Some have even been able to fetch a 20% return on their investment in our market.

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Some of the real estate investors we work with have found a lot of success with single-family investment properties. Some are even seeing annual returns up to 20%.

Here's a hypothetical example. Say you buy a $100,000 rental home and you need $25,000 down with $10,000 in reserve in case of issues like vacancy or repairs. On top of that $35,000 investment, you'll have costs like maintenance, taxes, property insurance, and property management of $525 a month. The rent will be $1,250, and the mortgage payment will be $400.

This would give you a monthly profit of $325. Since you can write off depreciation, that's essentially tax-free. Effectively, you're looking at a profit of $425. If you add in an assumed appreciation of 2% yearly, you're looking at $7,100 in yearly profit over time, which is a 20% return on your initial investment.

By properly leveraging the investment, you can get up to a 20% return.

Many people only look at real estate in terms of costs and monthly rent, but if you use a mortgage and leverage, the return on your cash can get pretty significant.

If you have any questions about finding investment properties or about the basics of real estate investing, just give me a call or send me an email. I'd be happy to tell you more.

3 Factors That Impact Your Home’s Value

When you are buying or selling a home, you cannot rely on online home valuations. The true value of a property is determined by three main factors.

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There are many factors that affect your home’s value.

Whether you are buying or selling a home, you should not make important decisions based on online home valuations, like Zillow. It’s fine to look at those if you are just keeping an eye on sales in the neighborhood, but if you’re buying or selling a home, I recommend hiring an agent who knows what they are doing to look at the home.

After all, those online sites cannot look at the main factors that actually impact home value.

When determining home value, you have to compare apples to apples. Look at the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage of homes in your neighborhood. Some areas may have foreclosed properties that are in terrible condition right alongside remodeled homes; the difference in value can be about 25%. A good agent knows the inventory, will look at those homes, and compare yours to the homes it matches best. That way, you won’t end up over or underpricing your home.

Your agent can also give you tips to increase your home’s value so that you sell at the higher end of your neighborhood market.

The next factor you should pay attention to is sold or pending properties. Those properties will act as a price ceiling for your home, as they are what an appraiser uses to validate the value of your home. Your home price cannot be too far above those pending or sold properties.

You need to look at your competition.

Finally, you need to look at the active competition. Right now, we are in a low inventory market. There is not a lot of competition out there, so you can be a little more aggressive in that value range and sell your house for more money. If you only look at sold or pending properties, you might sell your home for a little less, so that active competition is very important.

So, the three factors that determine your home value are comparable properties in your neighborhood, pending and sold properties, and your competition.

If you have any questions about what your home is worth or if you would like to learn more about our current market, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

Is Professional Home Staging Worth It?

Is professional staging worth it? We’re looking at the numbers to determine if it is.

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When sellers get their home ready for the market, they’ll often ask me about home staging and whether it’s worth paying a professional stager.

To answer the question, I looked up some stats over the past year from our clients who professionally staged their homes and the clients who didn’t.

The clients who professionally staged their home sold in an average of 11 days with an average list-to-sale price of 100%. The sellers that staged got their full asking price, on average. The average cost to stage a vacant home is around $2,000, with a furnished home costing less.

Those who didn’t have their homes staged sold in an average of 75 days. Their average list-to-sale price was 95%, which is good but not great.

Professional staging is undoubtedly worth the investment.

With that original $2,000 investment, the staged homes sold for 5% higher and in 64 fewer days, which is essentially two months of rent or two mortgage payments.

Professional staging is worth the investment, no question. In addition to being a fiscally wise move, it eliminates a lot of the stress surrounding the sale of a home. If you want to sell quickly and for the most money possible, we’d love to set up a meeting with you and our professional stager.

If you have any other questions in the meantime, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

How to Prepare Your Home for the Spring Market

The spring real estate market is just around the corner, so today, I’ll go over a few tips to help get your home ready to sell.

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The spring market is fast approaching, so today, I’ll go over a few tips to help you prepare your home to sell.

It’s never too early to prepare your home for the spring market. It’s very important to plan out your strategy and how your sale will be coordinated before you list your home.

I also recommend staging your home and making minor repairs. You can go online and download many home staging guides. We even have one on our website. My team would be happy to come by early to take a look at your home and make it more appealing to potential buyers.

It’s never too early to prepare your home for the spring market.

You should also have a real estate agent do a market analysis. That way, you can figure out how much your home will sell for and how that number will affect your move. A market analysis allows you to make smart financial decisions ahead of time instead of at the last minute.

At the very latest, you should start preparing for the spring market at least one month ahead of time. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I would be happy to help you!

Why Is Now a Great Time to Sell Your Home?

Many people are skeptical about listing their homes in December. However, there are a few reasons it’s actually one of the best months to put your home on the market.

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Many people in our area think that homes don’t sell during the holidays. However, the holiday season can actually be one of the best times to market and sell a home, and there are several reasons why.

A lot of people who had their homes on the market during the summer and fall take their homes off the market until after the holidays. However, we have a good amount of government and military buyers that have time off around the holidays to look for homes.

As a seller, this leaves you with less competition and high buyer demand. So, it’s a good idea to have your home on the market during the month of December. If you wait, you’ll have to deal with the additional competition that comes on the market during January, February, and March.

If you wait, you’ll have to deal with additional competition.

Whether it is convenient for you to sell your home during the holidays might be a different story. You might have plans that you would need to work around. However, if you are looking to sell your home, you need to take into consideration that, historically, December is one of the best months to put your home on the market and sell it.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out by giving me a call or sending me an email. I’m happy to help.