Things change and so does real estate. What's in, goes out of favor with home buyers and sellers. What was true in the last couple of years doesn't ring true now. Markets and buyers taste shift, locations are no longer affordable, buyers find new value perceptions, paint colors evolve and new technologies redefine what we need in a home. Mark Nash author of 1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home and syndicated columnist for Realty Times dispels common home buying and selling myths. -Sellers set home prices. Wrong, not in 2006. Sellers and their real estate agents can set value parameters, but sold comparable's are based on what the buyer perceived as a fair market price. -Low-ball offers test the waters. Good try, but low-ball price offers do more to set up an adverse relationship between buyer and seller, which could cost the buyer more in the end. Don't start below ninty-percent on a well priced property. Determine negotiating strategy before putting a low-ball to paper. -Look for major price concessions from home inspection. You should read the fine print in your contract concerning home inspections. Many contracts state that if an system, appliance, or structural element works for its intended use, regardless of age than it is deemed acceptable. -Tour more than thirty homes before making a decision. Better buy good running shoes. All home search criteria being the same, looking at ten homes will give you as good overview of the market and your housing options. Looking at more than twenty gets you into "house blur". That's when you can't remember over sixty of the homes you have toured. -Mold is only an issue in older homes and in southern humid climates. Nope, it can pose a problem in newly built home, because they are much tighter and allow less air filtration from the outside. Mold can be a big problem in northern climates when household exhaust fans are vented into attics or condensation lines on furnace humidifiers are not cleaned on a regular basis. -When a home sells in the first couple of days it is under-priced. Sorry, it is a signal that the market and buyers have the same perception of value that the seller had. Homes in good condition with today's amenities that are priced right speak to the largest pool of homebuyers. Buyers follow inventory conditions and will react when a new home comes on market that priced right. -People don't care about how the house looks, just that it's in good condition. Clean outsells everything else in today's buyers market. Plus many buyers assume clean houses are well-maintained ones. A couple of years ago many sellers could do nothing and a home sold in record time, but wake up and smell the cleaning products daily in 2006. -We should wait for a better offer if we don't like the first. Go ahead shot yourself in the foot or the pocket book. No one has a crystal ball and if realty agents had a dollar for every first offer declined in favor of waiting for a better one, they would be wealthy. Keep in mind the elements of the contract other than price, I've seen many a high price with very weak terms. The best offer is the one that will take you to the closing table. -Public open houses sell homes. Hello, where have you been? According to industry sources less than five percent of homes are sold as a result of a public open house. But, over seventy percent of homebuyers start their search on the Internet before contacting a real estate agent. Make sure you have at least eight still photos and a virtual tour on the Internet when you stick a for-sale sign in the yard. -We won't paint or put new carpet in because the buyer might not like it. Buyers are time-crunched and not that ambitious when it comes to tackling redecorating in 2006. Plus they might not have the creative skills to see through that dirty beige carpet or the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dining room. Don't forget to repaint the one-off decorating disaster that you have lived with, buyers won't like it either. |
