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Select Home Improvements That Pay...

Generally speaking, there are two ways to go about home improvements. You’re either going to splurge on your home because it’s your palace and you simply want a beautiful place to live, OR, you’re going to take a more logical, pragmatic approach designed to increase your home’s value.

It takes saavy and experience to achieve both. Many homeowners expose themselves to the very problems they’re trying to avoid in the process of home fix-ups.

Take Tom and Carol Jenkins, who four years ago purchased a 3 bedroom 1 bath home in Oakhurst for $190,000. Since buying their home, they’ve spent over $120,000 renovating it, adding a master suite, updating the kitchen and baths and making it the “perfect” place to live. A few months ago, they put the home on the market at $359,900. They sat on the market for 6 months with an agent who couldn't sell. I listed their home in July of this year and sold it a 26 days later. ...

Price vs. Value

There are just two things you need to know about the real estate market:

1. Every HOME has a VALUE in today's market.
2. Every SELLER has a PRICE for their home.

Now, you may be asking yourself...What's the difference? A key distinction that is often overlooked in our industry is that of value vs. price. You see, the VALUE of a home is the what a ready, willing and able buyer pays for that home in today's marketplace. PRICE, on the other hand, is merely a strategy devised through the offering of a home to the market for sale....

Real Estate Agents Are NOT All The Same!

Your decision to place your home for sale involves more than simply running an ad, holding a few open houses, and waiting for the sales proceeds check. And your decision to buy a home clearly involves more than looking at two or three homes, making an offer, and moving in.


Hiring the wrong agent can mean the difference between making or losing money, selling or buying quickly…or taking a long time, a trouble-free transaction, or a living nightmare.


Unless you have experience interviewing people (and real estate agents in particular), you won’t always know what questions to ask. So come back tomorrow for my first (of 12) posts with important and insightful questions you should ask ANY Real Estate Agent before you sign anything.

...

The Foundation of Successful Sales...

Over at Bloodhoundblog Cathleen tells of a great experience around the importance of cleanliness in the sale-abilty of a home and the dismay over agents who fail to realize this simple fact.

Even if the sellers insist on shooting themselves in the foot, why would a listing agent join them in self-destruction? Taking a listing takes time and money. Why do something with half the effort when you know that anything less than full effort is doomed to failure?


Great question Cathleen...penetrating, really...and some of the best advice conducive to listing and selling real estate that I've heard. And because I work in a market where many of the homes I sell are 60 to 80 years old, plagued with "paint-can" renovations and hack-job remodels, often times a clean home is the least of my worries. Inspections are notorious "deal killers" in this neck of the woods...

Purchase Decisions Are Emotional, Not Logical

Think about that. People never buy homes because of logical reasons. If they did, one four bedroom, two bath home would sell just like any other. But they don’t.

They don’t because people discriminate by nature. One home will always appeal to them over another based on their DESIRES.

Buyers buy homes because of the FEELINGS the home gives them. Nearly everyone buys a home thinking of the LIFESTYLE BENEFITS they’ll get by living there.

Lifestyle benefits are the memories of watching your children play in a safe area. While getting a good education at local schools. Where your home is decorated as an extension of your individual personality. Where you enjoy Sunday dinner with the family, and Thanksgiving reunions.

It’s the place where you relax in your favorite hammock on Saturday afternoon. The place where you can hold summer barbecues under the shade of a beautiful Birch tree.

The place where...
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