Home sellers – head this warning. If the only positive thing that your agent can say about your home is that “it has a nice lot“, then you need to do some upgrading.
At our office meetings we are able to promote new listings. The office manager pulls up the listings on Real Living HER’s web site so we can view the photos while the listing agent discusses the features and details of the home. Sometimes the agent will mention other special notations about the listing without divulging anything of a confidential nature.
Because my office is located in Worthington many of the listings are in Worthington which has mainly old or older homes. A lot of them haven’t been updated since they were built. “Hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. The carpet may be worn. Some have wall paper that was popular eons ago. Appliances may be outdated – remember harvest gold and avocado green. Bathroom tile may be mint green or Pepto Bismol® pink. Basements may be finished with knotty pine paneling.
Because updating such a home is a major task and expense, sellers are often reluctant to want to spend the money to do it before putting it on the market. However, potential buyers feel the same way. They want to buy a home that they can immediately live in. They don’t want to spend thousands of dollars fixing up what someone else didn’t want to bother with.
Is this a good strategy? Generally not. First of all, the price will need to be low enough to reflect the cost of the upgrades, such that when the improvements are made, the resulting cost is AT the current market.
Home Price + Cost of Improvements = Market Price
Buyers often aren’t very knowledgeable about the cost to upgrade and generally will overstate the cost to make the upgrades. For instance, putting new carpet in a room may cost only $2000-$3000. Buyers are apt to estimate it to cost $5000-8000. If they do decide to write a purchase offer, they will use the higher figure when they discount the list price.
Market Price – Cost of Improvements = Maximum price to pay
Some of the homes mentioned in today’s meeting were in need of updating and the sellers were unwilling/unable to make the improvements. This left the agent to explain that the “home needs updating – but, it’s got a GREAT lot”.
If you don’t want your home to be described in this fashion, do at least some of the updates. It can be a well spent $5000-6000 because you’ll likely get it back with a higher price and a quicker sale.
Copyright © 2009. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.
The more things change … the more they stay the same
Have you been following the news regarding the importance that Twitter is taking in getting reports of the events occurring in Iran? People are re-tweeting the reports and photos which due to the exponential nature of Twitter, is spreading the news world wide in real time. The Iranian gov’t has tried their best to silence the news going out of the country, but Internet providers have stepped up to provide proxy servers that allow the news to by-pass the bans.
While a lot of tweets are just casual conversations, Twitter is proving to be a valuable source to quickly spread information to the world. Even the national U.S. media are spreading the tweets. Having the world know exactly what’s going on, seeing the bloody photos of the suppression, will make it tougher for the Iranian officials to not react in some way to the uprisings.
As I was seeing all these tweets hit my TweetDeck news feeds, I couldn’t help but think about what a great thing this instant news is as well as giving so much power to voices of common citizens.
Just as I’m sure some spouses get frustrated over the time people spend on Twitter, my Mom used to get tired of Dad spending so much time on his ham radio. Some people say they don’t “get Twitter”. I “didn’t get” Dad’s fascination with his radio either.
I wonder if Dad were still alive, if he would now use Twitter?
Copyright © 2009. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.
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Posted in Commentary, Internet, Media, Technology, Television
Tagged ham radio, Twitter