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The Ultimate Kiss of Death When Selling Your Property

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So, you want to sell your property. 

The whole process can be frustrating, confusing, and worrying and there are a lot of important considerations to make: how to sell your property, how much to sell it for, when to sell it, and so on. 

However, there is one major mistake that many sellers make, and usually don’t even realise they’re making it. This can be referred to as the kiss of death, and it is usually disastrous (hence the name). However, there are ways to avoid this and to sell your property quickly, efficiently and with no issues.

To find out more about what the ultimate kiss of death is when selling your property, and how to make sure you never have to experience it, keep reading through this guide. We’ll give you all the information you need to make sure you sell your property safely and for a great price.

What is the ultimate kiss of death when selling your property?

There are a couple of errors that sellers make when trying to sell their property, but this one is by far the worst, which is why it is referred to as the kiss of death.

To put it simply, the ultimate kiss of death is leaving your property on the market for far too long. The longer a property is on the market for, the less likely it is to sell. This is because we are hardwired as humans to follow trends.

If you’re looking for a new home, and see one which has been vacant and waiting to sell for months, you’re going to wonder why no one has snapped it up before this. Potential buyers will be put off and worry that there is something wrong with the property, whether this be its location, its interior, or something else.

Some sellers simply do not know how to combat this problem and will go crazy with the frustration of not knowing why their property just won’t sell!

How to avoid the real estate kiss of death

The main way that you can avoid the kiss of death is to make sure that your property sells relatively quickly, otherwise you run the risk of it looking undesirable and never selling.

This may seem obvious, but is not always straightforward to do. Read on to see a list of the best tips and tricks out there to make sure that your property sells at a fast rate, and for an excellent price.

How to sell your property quickly

Make sure your property is up to scratch

No one wants to buy a property that doesn’t look the part, or that is full of problems that will be costly to fix. To make sure none of your properties on the market fall prey to this issue, make sure they are being regularly inspected and managed.

A great and easy way to do this is through a site like Property Inspect, where you can keep up to date on the status of your property. Applications like these speed up the managing of properties and means that you don’t have to waste time on administrative duties, which can really slow down the selling process.

Price it right and negotiate

Of course, there is no base rate when it comes to selling a property. But a common mistake many sellers make is to price their property too high, which will instantly put off prospective buyers. 

It is better to price on the lower side in order to get people interested, and then sell the property to the highest bidder. The more people interested, the more desirable the property becomes, meaning that people will pay more in order to secure it.

Try not to become too fixated on a certain price, either. If you have a really keen buyer who can’t quite meet the price, then there is no harm in negotiating a little, as this will benefit you financially in the long run.

The Seven Habits of Experienced Homebuyers

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Buying a home is a complex process

Congratulations, you decided to buy a home! Have you purchased a home before?  Buying a home is a complex process that usually takes a few months to complete.  If you’ve never been through the home buying process, do what experienced home buyers do.  It’s really pretty easy to do and there’s nothing to study. This article will show simple techniques you can use to give you the advantage over other home buyers.  While this may be your first home, you can still buy it like a pro. 

During the homebuying process, you and your real estate agent will spend a lot of time together.  At times you may even drive each other a little crazy and mostly in a good way. While it’s important to maintain a good relationship with your real estate agent, there are things you can do as a smart real estate client that will help you get your deal. 

If you’re serious about buying a home, use this as your guide. Be a smart client and you hold the advantage when buying a home.  The 7 Habits of Experienced Homebuyers will help you buy the home you want at the best price and terms. 

The 7 Habits of Experienced Homebuyers

  1. Look past aesthetics.   Whether you look at three homes or thirty before you buy, you need to look past the color of paint, carpets, furniture, and decorations because these are easily changed.  Remember that everything you see that needs replacing, repairing, cleaning, or moving has a price. Consider these prices in your negotiations should you decide to buy this home. The seller may be willing to make many of the changes you want prior to the close of escrow or give you credit to pay for them later, such as flooring, paint, or roof.  The cost to make the home like new is often easy to negotiate if both parties agree.   The lesson here is everything you want to be done, can be done — for a price. If that price isn’t right for you, keep looking. However, if the price and terms are right, be ready to act.
  2. Remain tight-lipped.    You will usually become completely comfortable with your real estate agent and observations can sometimes just slip out, such as, “Why didn’t they clean up a little.” Or, make a joke about the seller’s taste in art.  Sometimes a seller will be home and overhear such a comment, or it can be captured on home surveillance video, even if the home is vacant.   Save jokes and comments until you and your agent are back in the car.  Some sellers take negative comments or criticism of their home personally and become offended making negotiations with that seller more difficult.
  3. Be ready to act when the time comes.  Found the home you want to buy? Buy it. Don’t delay. If you’re in a competitive market like we’re experiencing today in Orange County, CA, you need to be ready to jump. Part of being ready to act is to have an agent with the experience you need in today’s competitive market made more complex due to public health policies now in place. We close this article with information about evaluating and hiring top producing local real estate agents. 
  1. Remember, there’s more on the table than money.  Of course, money is the most visible factor in buying a home, but it’s not everything. The highest-priced offer is not necessarily the offer a seller will accept, rather an offer with a better structure usually wins. I have often said, “You can set the price if I can set the terms.” Meaning price isn’t everything. A good purchase offer is a mixture of timing, price, and reasonable contingencies. Contingencies in the offer give you the option to cancel the deal if one of the contingencies isn’t met. If in negotiating, you and a seller agree to a purchase price yet you refuse to give in on your ten contingencies, you make things difficult for you, your agent, and the seller. In most cases, this would not be considered a good offer.
  2. Pay attention to what the seller wants.  You’re buying a house but you also need to remember you’re also buying a product. Buying a home isn’t like normal purchases. In real estate, the seller needs to choose you as the buyer, and sellers are motivated by a variety of needs that you, the Buyer needs to pay attention to.  Money isn’t the only motivator, though it can be in some cases. Some sellers want to see their home go to nice people who love it as much as they love it, and others simply like one buyer over another.  An experienced real estate agent will also look into the seller’s motivation.The information gathered will be used to write the best offer. For this reason you need to hire a top producing real estate agent – busy but not too busy.  Ignoring the seller’s motivation could put your offer at risk.
  3. Team loyalty.   Both sides share a mutual interest and wish to complete the sale.  Team loyalty is about keeping confidential your negotiating strengths and weaknesses; it isn’t about taking sides.  The seller’s real estate agent may be a very nice person but remember they are also gathering information about you and your motivations as a buyer.  Even friendly conversations with the other agent can reveal important negotiating issues. Inexperienced home buyers will often disclose information that will harm them when negotiations begin. “Don’t worry about the small repairs, my son will take care of it.” Or, “We’re getting a giant relocation bonus so we’re buying all new furniture.”  It’s the little, not obvious statements that will tip your cards.

Remember the listing agent’s job is to get the highest price at the best terms for his client.  It’s best to avoid all unnecessary conversations with the seller and their agent.
       

  1. Write a meaningful counteroffer.   It’s going to happen; a seller returns your offer with a counteroffer. A counteroffer isn’t personal and not meant to be anything more than what ii is; the next step in a normal negotiation.   A counteroffer is an important step in real estate negotiations.   A counteroffer shows that the seller is motivated to sell to you.  You have only two options with a counteroffer: (1) Accept the counteroffer. Or (2) Do not accept it and make another new offer back to the seller. If you choose this option, your job is to be reasonable.  If you counteroffer one of two things will happen…  Your agent will either begin going back and forth with the other agent which drives agents nuts, or the sellers become irritated and sell to someone else.   Of course, you don’t want to overspend. Agents already know this.   If you hired an experienced real estate professional, listen to them. Their experience combined with their insight into the seller’s motivations will help you construct a new counteroffer the seller may accept. Just remain cool.

Start smart, hire the right real estate agent.  

Experienced home buyers hire experienced real estate agents.  Hiring a local top producing real estate agent is your most important job as a home buyer.  It’s more important than ever during these trying times of strict social public health requirements you hire an experienced real estate agent. Your agent will need current experience, observing these new challenges in the way we preview and purchase homes today. 

We offer these 5 criteria as a guide for you to follow when evaluating real estate agents.  This list is based on the standards used at AgentFactCheck.com, an Orange County real estate agent evaluation and referral program.

  1. Hire an agent local to the area in which you wish to purchase.
  2. Hire an agent who is busy but not too busy for you.
  3. Look for an agent with 6 to 18 home sales in the past 12 months.
  4. Hire an agent who shows you proof of their home sales record for the year.
  5. Use a full time agent in good standing with the local board of Realtors.

Buying a home in Orange County, California may be a bit stressful even if you hire an experienced top producing local agent. But it can also be a lot worse if you hire the wrong real estate agent.  Be a smart real estate ‘buyer client’ by hiring the right real estate agent.

Welcome to your new home.

Reason Your Property Listing Might Not Be Selling

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Why Won’t My Property Listing Sell?

Real Estate Listing Not Selling

The current inventory of homes throughout the Sacramento – San Juaquin Valley is at the lowest level in nearly a decade while the number of reported sales each week continues at a pace of a normal market.  Buyers are often competing against each other for the few homes within their price range, causing a spike in home prices as demand exceeds the supply.  So, why won’t your listing sell?

It is without a doubt a sellers’ market, but that does not necessarily mean that every home on the market sells quickly. In fact, you may be one of the unfortunate sellers that has been on the market for 30 or 60 days with no offer in hand.  As a real estate broker, I often sit in counsel with both clients and other real estate agents lamenting over long listing periods and lack of offers.  Recently, a home seller was relating his displeasure with the lack of an offer on his home even though it had over 100 showings in the 8 months the home had been listed.  After reviewing the listing material, it was clear the listing agent had done his job and done it well.  The photographs of the home were outstanding, the description was inviting, and the home was mass marketed on all the major websites.  The problem, however, was obvious; the house was overpriced by $10,000.  When I explained this to the seller, he shared that his agent has been begging him to lower the price, but the seller wanted to hold firm to his listed price.  In spite of the advice from both the listing agent and myself to lower the price, the seller searched for other reasons to blame the lack of a sale on the agent.  Less than two weeks later, the seller called me to share the good news.  He accepted an offer on his home!  The seller excitedly explained that he fired his old agent, hired a new agent, and after only 5 days on the market, he had an offer in hand. 

Why the sudden movement on this house?  I was quite shocked to see that the new agent literally used the same photos and posted an inferior description of the home. So, what did this new super-agent do differently?  He lowered the price by $10,000. 

This story is not unique. In fact, this identical scenario has been brought to my attention several times this week alone. As difficult as it can be to hear for home sellers, the number one reason why their home is not selling is price.  While it may be easy to blame the listing agent, a home that has been even remotely marketed properly will sell very fast in this market.  Conversely, any home that is overpriced, no matter how great the marketing, will sit on the market.  The reason for this is relatively simple.  Buyers quickly become an expert in their price range.  Buyers, especially in a seller’s market, often look at dozens of homes and may have even been outbid on several properties.  These buyers know the market and are rarely ever willing to overpay for a home.   Savvy buyers will often identify an overpriced home and take a “wait and see” approach, waiting out the seller and watching for price reduction.

While some may argue better marketing or agent “networking” is to blame for a lack of  offers, I could easily cite dozens, if not hundreds of examples of poorly marketed homes that sold in less than a week simply because the price was correct.  Remember, in a seller’s market, buyers are scouring the internet daily in search of a home.

Obviously, as a seller you want to maximize the return on your investment, which means setting a listing price as high as possible.  As a real estate agent, I share your goal of selling the house for the highest possible amount.  There are certain tasks that must happen to get top dollar.  These tasks include making sure the house is show ready.  The home should be decluttered, clean, and pleasant smelling.  Unruly pets, and dirty litter boxes are one of the biggest turn-offs for buyers.  Newly listed homes get special attention, so it is critical to hit the market on day one with professional quality photographs of the house. Follow up is important.  A good real estate agent will follow up with potential buyers after every showing because you want their feedback.  Sometimes minor items can be easily fixed to achieve a sale. Be cautious about listing high to leave room for negotiating.  Some sellers think a good strategy is to list higher than what they want to sell for.  This leads to an overpriced listing that will sit on the market, eventually leading buyers to embrace the “wait and see” mentality instead of acting now.   

My advice is to hire a real estate agent that has a proven track record of sales and high customer reviews on trusted sites like Zillow or RatedAgent.com.  Stay away from any agent that promises to sell your house for more than any other agent – we call this “buying the listing” in the business.  Keep in mind that marketing the house is probably the easiest job your real estate agent will have, a good agent will spend a great deal of time and energy counseling you on the strengths and weaknesses of the offer, negotiating repairs and credits, and helping you complete disclosures.  If you did your homework upfront and picked a trustworthy agent, listen to their advice.  This is what you hired them for.

How to Find the Market Value of a Home

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Market Value of a Home

I’ve been a Realtor in the California Bay Area for 20 Yrs and the most common question I get from all sides is “How much is this home worth?”  Home Owners want to know much equity they have or how much they can get for their home if they sell it.  Prospective Buyers want to make sure they’re paying the right price for whatever home they’re considering purchasing.

Can We Calculate a Fair Market Value of a Home?

And while the Home Owner and the Prospective Buyer have diametrically opposed biases regarding the value, a price needs to be agreed upon by both sides for a sale to ultimately happen.

A common perception is that a neutral 3rd party, the “appraiser”, is the perfect arbiter to establish an objective value that’s unbiased.  But the reality is that in a “Sale” appraisal, all the appraiser is doing is looking at what the Buyer agreed to pay for the property and trying to see if they can come up with a “good argument for that price”, based on the most recent Sale comps and reasonable adjustments for differences.  And an appraiser will often stretch the appraisal adjustment guidelines as far as they can in order to find that reasonable argument to give it the value (the price that the Buyer has agreed to pay).   Failing to find it, they will at least get the appraisal price to be as close to the purchase price as they possibly can.

While this may seem like an ugly truth about appraisals, it speaks to the fact that appraisers recognize the ultimate truth about what “really” is the value of any given property.  Each given property is unique in itself, even in the case where differences (between it and other nearby properties that have recently sold) are seemingly “minor”.  And in most cases, the differences are many and some of those differences are “major”.
Thus, ultimately, the value of any given property “right now” is the most than any given Buyer is “willing” AND “able” to pay for that property “right now”.   And in parts of the country like the Bay Area, where demand perpetually exceeds supply and a plethora of Buyers have high salaries and large down payments saved up, that reality plays out in spades.  While it’s great to understand a “range” of “appraisable” value of any given property prior to making an offer, that won’t matter much in multiple offer situations where you have no way to know how badly the other bidders want that house and/or how strong they are financially.

Thus, in the end, until any given house is ultimately sold, we all need to be comfortable with the fact that we don’t really know what our house/property is worth.  The best we can do in the mean time is to gain a vague understanding of a “likely range of value” from an analysis of the most recent nearby Sale comparables and the differences between those Sale comps and our own house/property.

What to Know When Buying a House

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House Buying Tips

Many of you who are considering buying a home for the first time will find the process very daunting, especially since it’s one of the biggest commitments you will ever make in your life.  For this reason, I have put together a list of the key things to think about at the beginning and along the way.

The 1st thing I recommend for anyone/everyone buying a home and using a mortgage loan, is to get pre-qualified for the loan so that you understand the maximum home price you can afford and/or that you’re “comfortable” with.  There are a lot of lenders out there to choose from, so ask around your friend or co-worker network and see if you can find a trustworthy one that is recommended by others whose opinion you trust.

Now you have your maximum purchase price in mind and a pre-approval letter to show the seller of any home for which you make an offer.  Now make a list of the areas and/or neighborhoods you’re most interested in living, including only ones where you would feel safe, are close enough to work and to places you hang out for leisure, close to public transportation (if that’s important), and/or (assuming you have kids) ones with sufficiently good public schools.

Then make a list of your primary minimum requirements for your home or town home/condo.  Some of the most common and obvious things include a minimum # of Bedrooms and Bathrooms, a minimum overall Square Footage, a minimum amount of included outdoor space (or Lot Size in the case of a house), a specific # of parking spaces and parking “types” (Garage, Carport, etc), Inside Laundry, Modern Construction (1990 or newer), Minimum “Condition” (such as only properties that are in “Move-In” Condition or only ones that are furthermore already “Recently Updated”), or (in the case of a Town Home or Condo) maximum monthly HOA Dues.   Try to think about any other important considerations, such as how many levels the home has, what story the unit is on (in the case of a condo), what type of floor plan you  prefer, etc. and include those on the list.  Many of these “other important considerations” will be secondary ones, so be sure to list them that way.

Now, you’re ready for the next step, which is to choose a Realtor to help you with showing you properties of potential interest, get you information on the properties you’re interested in, and negotiate for the purchase of it.  As with the mortgage lenders, there are a lot of Real Estate Agents out there to choose from, so ask around your friend or co-worker network and see if you can find a trustworthy one that is recommended by others whose opinion you trust.

If you’re working with a good agent, one of the first things they will stress to you is that you should try to focus on the 2 things that are most important, Location and Floor Plan.  Location is the most important because it’s the one thing that you “can’t” change in the future.   The 2nd most important thing, the Floor Plan, is also incredibly important because there are aspects of it that you will never be able to change (especially with a Town Home or Condo) and some of the aspects of it that you “can” change can be very “expensive” to change. 

Buyers are often distracted by frivolous aspects of a property like the color of the paint, the type of flooring, and/or the way the house is decorated.  In the big picture, those are things can easily be changed and not necessarily all at once.  So it’s better to be focused on the desirability of the location and the floor plan, while considering other things only in terms of adjusting how much you’re willing to “pay” for the property in light of the money you think you will need to spend to get the home looking the way you want.

Regarding looking at properties, I recommend doing private viewings with your agent.  Open Houses can be convenient in terms of being able to view properties without your agent when he/she is unavailable, but the truth is that with private viewings you will get a better feel for the property without the distraction of other buyers milling around.  And it’s better for your agent to be with you during showings so they can best understand your needs and best understand the property if it ends up being one that you’re interested in to make an offer.

Before making an offer on any property, be sure to review any/all disclosures provided by the Seller(s) and have your agent give you an analysis of the most recent sale comps to help you understand the most likely “range of value” of the property.

Also, keep in mind that the more you like a property, the more “everyone else” seeing the property likes it.  If there are competing Buyers, put your best food forward by choosing the strongest price/terms that you would be happy to get the property for, while not feeling that you would be disappointed if you “don’t” get it with those terms.

Happy House Hunting!


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