€œZillow€, €œRedfin€, €œTrulia€, €œEAppraisal€, €œHouse Values€, €œCyberHomes€, these are just a few of the websites out there promising to help you find your home€™s value. It€™s so confusing, isn€™t it? €˜Zillow€™ seems to be one of the top offenders if you ask us. They would be great at finding a home€™s value if all the homes here were exactly alike with exactly the same upgrades, the same views, the same everything. In the Hollywood Riviera, we all know this is far from the truth. Each and every one of these houses is different…even the €œtracks€ are all different now. So many have been added on to, or completely gutted and started over, and some have been torn down and rebuilt brand new. Zillow, and these other websites rely solely on the public tax records to place value on your home. Then they go through the tax records and find the most recent transfers within a certain proximity to your home. We€™ve seen the €œzestimates€ be off by a few hundred thousand dollars. A lot of the public tax records are inaccurate for one thing. Often tax records have the wrong number of bedrooms, square footage, etc and again take in no regard for whether the property has a view or not…which we all know can change the value of a property upwards of $100,000 or more sometimes. The bottom-line is that you need to hire a “human being” who knows the area well. Someone who has been inside these houses and knows the condition of the homes. Someone who can come inside your home and see all the upgrades and assess its true value. As Realtors we spend a lot of our time viewing homes – that’s our inventory, so we pride ourselves on knowing it. This is how value gets established – knowing what the comparables really are.
Recently, the number of sales is so low in our area, that it makes determining the value of a home very difficult. There are very few homes to compare to “yours.” Unfortunately, in today’s buyer’s market it works out that value is typically drawn by looking at the last comparable sale and taking about 10% off of that if you plan on “selling” the property and not just sitting on it.
Kelly & Laura take notice! People pay us to take notice! It’s one of our biggest assets. Laura and I notice things – sometimes we wish we didn’t notice, but we do. We see all the little things, and today it’s the little things that buyers see too. Today, marketing your home must take the form of ”tip top condition.” We did some “photo shoots” today for a couple new listings. We work together with the photographer….we don’t just sit idly by. We move rugs, little nick-nacks that “stand out” in a photo, turn on lights, move random “in the way” furniture, set blinds/shutters so they are all “the same direction.” It’s little stuff like that we notice and that the camera notices. A camera notices much more than our human eyes. Our eyes are very good at fooling our brains. The question is: if we removed the items for the photographs, should the items be removed for the showings? I’m pretty sure that’s a rhetorical question – yes, of course - it would look much better in real life if it looked better for the photograph!
Seller’s – take notice – Selling is a lot of work and moving is even more work. When you are the seller, you are so used to seeing these items every day that they don’t seem “cluttered” or “in the way” to you. That is why you hire someone who takes notice! Someone who sees things like the buyer. We represent buyers and sellers – the good news for sellers is that when we work with buyers we hear exactly what they have to say about the sellers’ houses. Buyers are not kind in most regards…they see everything too and want a discount for what they see out of place or scuffed or for what they can’t see as well. Buyers need to see your house and not your stuff! I’ve been with buyers who just stop and stare at your photos…they can’t help themselves. It’s human nature – that is why you need to get rid of the family photos….you are not selling those. The buyers need to imagine “their” family photos on the walls. Buyers look in your closets, your cabinets, your pantries – they look at it all and you want them to. The more they look the more they most likely want to buy your house. Take notice sellers – if you have fabulous hardwood floors don’t cover them up w/ lots of small area rugs….and don’t fill up rooms full of furniture that doesn’t belong in there. Store it – let the buyers see your wonderful rooms!
Take notice – and start packing now!
Buying your dream house – now that is glamorous! Moving into it – not so glamorous!
Help is here….Home Sweet Home is a professional packing and organizing service!
This is taken right off their website – http://www.UnPackMe.com
Prepare your home for showing by your realtor
Sort your belongings for your upcoming move
Pack everything into boxes
Unpack all of your boxes after delivery
Organize your home and put everything away
Remove boxes and packing materials
I personally used them about 4 years ago for “unpacking” - they were great. They were so attentive to our needs. The moving truck leaked due to the large amount of rain that week. My baby’s crib mattress was soaked and actually dripping wet – it got full of water. They ran out and got me a new mattress so we could all go to bed that night. They had a great sense of organization – they unpacked my whole kitchen without me being there and to this day I’ve left everything where they put it. It was all in a very logical and thought out place! Can’t ask for much more. It was so nice to wake up the next morning in our new house and be able to fix breakfast and not have to worry about the boxes everywhere!
Do you know what it is like moving to a completely new area and not knowing which area you want to live? Where the good schools are? Where to get your hair cut? Best restaurants, movie theatres etc..? I do, when I moved to Connecticut in 1995, I still remember walking in to what I thought was a clothing store, only to find out it was a grocery store. I was so frustrated I broke into tears, OK it was a bad day! We love this area and are so proud to help new people who want to move to the area find the perfect home and start to integrate themselves into the community!
Kelly & I have a lot of experience working with the big three corporate relocation companies in working with both buyers and sellers. It isn’t too different than a standard sale, but there are very specific forms to use and market analysis forms the companies want filled out just so. In this blog, I want to focus on what it is like to work with a relocation buyer.
First off it is usually under a tight time constraint. Buyers will be flying in and have maybe a few days to look at and possibly to purchase a houses. I like to find out as much about the people as possible such as, first-time buyer or not, do they have children, what are their hobbies, do they want to be near the beach or more of a rambling lot such as in PV or Seaside Ranchos… etc.. Then I find out if their children will be coming along to go house hunting so I can plan more breaks, provide appropriate snacks and entertainment for the car ride. Then there can be upwards of 10 homes to look at in the different areas of the South Bay. It can be hard to determine a couple’s tastes until you start looking at a few homes, so you can quickly cross some off the list (as well as add homes to see) after the first few showings. I always have a digital camera in hand so I can email them photos later that day. During their area tour, I drive them by the area schools if they have children and give them the most recent API scores. Once they have found their dream home and move in, I give them all kinds of information about the community so they can hopefully not walk into Ralphs thinking they sell clothes!
