House Buyers – How To Deal With Them

Posted: May 28th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Find House Buyers | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off

What a huge change from the housing market of just a few years ago. Since it’s officially a buyer’s market, you’re likely to find house buyers who just want the moon – repairs, upgrades, landscaping, appliances, and on and on. Plus, they expect to get a really good deal too. They’re looking for lowball prices, and who can blame them? Mortgage companies are tightening up their lending standards, appraisers are afraid to come in too high in case prices drop even more.

Today’s home buyer is making sure that when they make an offer, it’s not going to fall apart down the road. And they’re also trying to ensure that they aren’t immediately under water when they buy a home, either finding out that the market price is lower than what they paid a few months back, or even worse, that they owe more on their new home loan than the home is worth six months later.

Yet some mortgage lenders are giving potential house buyers the same type of deals they were getting before. It’s still possible to get 100% financing, or just 3% down, for some borrowers. In order to get that kind of financing, everyone involved will have to feel comfortable that the home price is well within the current market, or less. As a home seller, you may want someone to “buy my home” at a high price, but the bottom line is that your home is only worth what a willing buyer will pay for it. And how much they can borrow against it.

Are you prepared to drop your price as a way to sell property fast? You can invest more money in improvements, staging, fixing up things that need repair or touching up cosmetics. But many buyers today simply expect all of that to be done anyway, and aren’t necessarily going to pay you more because the home looks good. Perhaps they’ve been spoiled by the cable home channels who show homes being staged and enhanced to sell, and they expect that you’ve done the same and still are willing to sell at a low price.

As a home seller, you should still invest in everything you can to make the home neutral, attractive, and better than the other homes available in your area. But you will need to walk the fine line between adding those enhancements and spending more money than they will repay in the selling price. Don’t expect that you are going to make a killing on your home price either. The days of doubling your money are pretty much gone, unless you bought your home twenty years ago in a stable market.

Many home owner’s expectations are remaining the same as to believing their home is an investment which has appreciated, even though the going market prices are well below that fantasy value. It’s hard to say “don’t take your home’s worth personally” because so many of us invested our money, time and lives into our homes. This is where our kids grew up, or where we built great relationships with our community. It’s valuable to us, but try not to expect that someone else is going to have the same emotional attachment you have. That attachment is “priceless” and that sometimes means that to a buyer looking at your home, unfortunately, it’s not worth paying extra.

How To Sell Property Fast In A Slow Market

Posted: March 3rd, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: sell property fast | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

It takes a special professional to sell property quick in a really slow market, as we have today.  There are many real estate agents who know how to combine that mix of appearance, location, and pricing to make a buyer just jump at an offer, even if it’s in a location that has been havign trouble moving even the best of homes.  Why is this? What does it take to sell property fast when no one seems to want to buy?

Many real estate agents are fond of saying that every property has its price.  The market determines the price – not the seller, who has a number in mind, or believes – emotionally – that their lovely home is worth a certain amount.  The true judges of price are house buyers, what a buyer is willing to pay is what sets the price. You can see proof of this if you look at lists of homes just sitting on the market: these are homes that are priced higher than any buyer will pay, and so the home does not sell.  So the first thing you must understand to sell property fast is that it must be priced right.

Of course, a seller always has the option not to sell if they don’t like the pricing in the marketplace.  Hopefully, if you are a seller, and don’t want to lower your price, you have the time and the financial wherewithal to wait.  But failing to take steps to sell house fast could mean the property sits for a very long time.

In order to convince buyers that the home is worth more money, though, sellers and agents can take other steps to improve the appearance or the attractiveness of the property in the buyers’ eyes.  There are quite a few things sellers can do, like using a home stager to make the home look like a showpiece.  Stagers are trained to make your home look inviting, and remove your personal touches so that any buyer coming in the house can picture themselves living there – which is hard to do if your pictures, clutter, and personal lifestyle is obvious in the home.

There are also photographers who can create gorgeous pictures of your home to post on the web or on fliers, and this can entice people to come and see for themselves.  Then there are the other kinds of incentives sellers can offer – one seller offered a free boat to buyers of his home, and other sellers are known to offer cars, vacations, jewelry or other snazzy items to attract buyers and sell a house quick.

Ultimately, though, a buyer will have to be able to visualize themselves living in the home, and feel like they are getting a good bargain for their money, since everyone’s finances are tight now. Do your best to prepare and you’ll learn exactly how you can “sell my house fast”.