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Marketing Your Home
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Written by ForSaleByOwner staff
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Conditions are aligning for a strong start to the spring home selling market. As you get ready to list, you can tweak the condition and positioning of your house to appeal to what buyers want right now.
And what is that? Keep reading! Here’s the latest market research, interpreted for your selling success.
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Marketing Your Home
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Written by John Handley Special to the Tribune
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Can housing upsize and downsize at the same time? Absolutely. Despite the sluggish real estate market, two age groups continue to be active: Younger buyers are bent on upsizing, while older empty-nesters are keen on downsizing. Here's who's buying now...and why.
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Marketing Your Home
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Written by Erik J. Martin Special to the Chicago Tribune
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If Scott and Kim Fogel had a theme song, it would be "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Because, as the chorus reminds us, if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need, especially when it comes to a new home.
The Fogels weren't looking to make a showy statement in the move-up house they would eventually purchase. Instead of opting for formal, fancy and full size, they put their wish lists aside and chose a new home in Lake in the Hills that fulfilled their No. 1 priority: having separate bedrooms for their 10- and 6-year-old daughters."With our second home, we could've gone bigger, but we weren't totally comfortable with that," said Scott
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Marketing Your Home
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Written by Joanne Cleaver
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Appraisals are tripping up as many as a quarter of home purchases these days. Here are top takeaways from the appraisers who reviewed properties for the recently concluded “Is Your House Priced Right?” contest.
- Compare your house only to those of similar age and condition. Neighbors are rehabbing? It gets very complicated very quickly to try to add and subtract value once a house becomes very different from yours.
- Local preferences rule. Your house doesn’t have central air conditioning…in Florida? Your condo doesn’t have walk-in closets..in Los Angeles? Local preferences will put your house on the ‘must see’ or ‘never mind’ list for buyers. If you think your appraiser has underestimated the value of certain amenities (Hot tubs in Marin County? Terraces in Manhattan?) request a review of those points.
- ‘Functional obsolescence’ will drive down the value of your house. What was new and hot 20 years ago isn’t so much any more. If your house has eight bedrooms and most neighboring houses have up to four, you are not going to get much extra value out of the extra bedrooms.
- Overly defined spaces limit value. Adding a separate office adjacent to a new garage is smart. Even smarter is adding a full bathroom. Now the office is self-contained, and could be used as a studio, guest suite or even an in-law suite. The more flexible the space, the higher the appraised value.
- Foreclosures must be counted. Appraisers can’t overlook relevant foreclosure sales just because they are foreclosure sales. Until foreclosures clear the market, they will be in the mix.
- You are in lockstep with your neighbors. When a neighboring house sells, the parameters for the value of your house narrow. The more recent the sale, the more indicative that sale is of your home’s value. Don’t try to fight it. You won’t win.
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Marketing Your Home
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Written by Joanne Cleaver
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Price your house according to what a local appraiser recommends and track neighborhood trends using publicly available data. That's what ForSaleByOwner.com's own Matt Brown told vieweres when he was recently interviewed live by newscasters in several key cities. Here's the instant replay of Matt's turn at fame.
Fox 59 in Indianapolis
Fox 43 in Harrisburg, PA
PIX 11 in New York
WGN in Chicago
Fox 40 in Sacramento |
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