Real estate agents are used to working with buyers who sometimes freak out when they realize they have actually purchased a home. Sure, looking at homes, writing offers, negotiating, it's all fun and games until the time comes when a seller says, "Heck, I'll take your offer." That's when the pani
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01/15/2008
Sales are down, but inventory percentages have dropped further than the sales decrease percentage, so this is good news. Pending sales are up. These numbers could predict a very interesting January.Although sales dropped 2% from November, which is usual for this time of year, inventory went down
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01/14/2008
Home marketing and advertising should have one common goal. Contrary to popular belief, that goal is NOT to sell your home. The goal is to get a buyer interested enough to LOOK at your home. The premise is simple. If you can't get buyers in the door, you aren't going to get an offer. So, everythi
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01/14/2008
There is no reason to let buyers know you are getting divorced when you are selling. If buyers can figure that out, they will offer you less. They will think you are desperate. And let's face it, some divorcing couples are desperate. They want nothing to do with each other, and the faster their h
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01/13/2008
Once I sold my home on a lark. I grabbed a For Sale sign out of my garage, scribbled my phone number on it with a black felt-tipped pen and shoved that sign into my front yard -- all because my neighbors were drawing traffic from their open house. As a result, my home sold that afternoon. But tha
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01/13/2008
Ever walk into a home that is on the market and spy a basket near the door with little booties in it? Generally, there is a sign attached to the basket that asks visitors to remove their shoes and put on these slippers before walking through the home. Now, in some parts of the country where it sn
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01/12/2008
The only person whose opinion matters when your home is listed for sale is not you. It's not your agent's opinion, either, nor is it the opinion of all the other agents who work your neighborhood. The person whose opinion matters is the buyer. It is the buyer who will make an offer and, it is you
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01/12/2008
Most sellers have figured out it's not a good idea to leave a gold watch lying on the dresser when their home is on the market, but the things they do leave lying around boggles the mind sometimes. Sure, little items can be slipped into a thief's pocket during an open house, for example, but what
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01/11/2008
If you ask ten agents to explain the differences among listing agreements, I'm guessing that nine of them can't tell you. It's not because they don't want to share the information with you, it's that most agents use the Exclusive Right to Sell Listing agreement. So they don't use the other listin
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01/11/2008
So, the for sale sign goes up down the street, and the first thing neighbors will do is call the listing agent to ask, "How much?" (Unfortunately, that's often the number that gets stuck in that neighbor's head when that person decides to sell the following month, but that's another story and ano
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01/10/2008
