Often time homeowners get carried away with their home improvement projects, upgrading and remodeling in areas that don’t necessarily prove to be good home investments.  It’s important for homeowners to realize that when it comes to upgrading or remodeling, there are only four major areas: kitchen, bathroom, master bedroom, and exterior curb appeal. Backyards, living rooms, porches, etc. provide a nice touch to any home, but if you have to chose one project over the other, go for the project that proves a worthwhile investment.

Stick to the Key Areas

The Kitchen, Bathroom, and Master Bedroom are areas of a home that universally matter to every buyer. Investing in these areas will ensure a return on your money, whereas other areas such as a backyard remodel might not be as valuable to all of your potential buyers. Even if you aren’t selling your house, you want to keep that in mind for the day you do decide to sell your house.

Avoid Over Improvements

If you live in a neighborhood full of shacks, you don’t go building a seventy-five thousand dollar home theatre in your living room. Keep your remodel and upgrade projects modest, staying within the mold of what most of the houses in your neighborhood carry. If you decide to overimprove your house, you won’t see as much of a return on investment when you go to sell your house as your overimproved home is being dragged down by the lesser homes in your neighborhood.

Don’t Over Personalize Your Remodels

It’s nice to put your little touch on things, but when you remodel your home with some questionable styles that only you find attractive, you’re ensuring that when you go to sell your home you’ll constantly be asked by your buyers to lower your price so they can remove your “personal touches”. There is a reason all of those new construction homes have a mild design to them that appeals to everyone: THEY SELL! If you’re designing something and everyone seems to hate it but you, that’s a clear sign you need to rethink your remodel project.

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Most people know what a foreclosure is, but few people outside of the real estate business know what a short sale is and how it differs from a foreclosure. Short sales are when the seller’s lender agrees to accept less than what is owed on the mortgage following the sale of the seller’s property.

Short sales are meant for financially distressed homeowners to be able to walk away from their unaffordable mortgages with their credit not completely destroyed like in a foreclosure. Lenders agree to do short sales because they can save time and money doing a short sale as opposed to foreclosing on a home. Especially in a declining market, it makes sense for lenders to allow a short sale and cut their losses rather than foreclose on a property which could be worth less by the time the property is back in the lender’s possession.

Unfortunately short sale transactions take much longer to finish the deal then a traditional resale as they require the diligent cooperation of all parties. Consequently, short sale transactions have a low success rate, and often end with the seller’s lender simply foreclosing on the property. For a short sale to be successful, a Realtor or Seller must prove to the Seller’s Lender that it is more profitable (or rather, they’ll lose less money) to allow a short sale to occur than it is to foreclose on the property and sell it. Every lender is different, so every short sale deal is different in their own right.

For home buyers, short sales can be a great way to find a dream home at a discounted price. But they must be patient individuals, willing to allow two to threes months or more to pass before closing the deal. For this reason alone many home buyers are disinterested in short sales, as their slow process speed and low completion rate often prove to be complete wastes of time.

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Lockboxes are used by Realtors as a means of easy home showings for other Realtors and their clients. Typically lockboxes are placed on vacant properties where owners have already moved out, or in foreclosures where nobody is occupying the property. However there are some cases where the owner still lives in the property, but opts to put a lockbox on his property so the owner’s Realtor can open up the property when he isn’t around. So which is the best all around lockbox to put on your property?

Most Secure Lockbox: Digital lockboxes

The digital lockbox is the most secure because it stores all the information on who showed your property, and at what time. All digital keys are registered to Realtors, so a Realtor has more accountability if your property is burgularized or vandalized. The downside to the digital lockbox is that not all cities have adopted them as the norm, and as such when you have a digital lockbox on your property there tends to be many Realtors who don’t possess a digital lockbox key.

Most Unsecure Lockbox: Lockboxes with visible numbers/non-resetting combinations

Lockboxes like these are unfortunately quite common, and while they aren’t a huge security risk, they do pose problems with forgetful Realtors who don’t remember to spin the combination dials to random numbers after they leave the property. So if a Realtor goes and shows your property and doesn’t flip the combination numbers, any random person who walks by your house can get in by simply flipping the open switch and grabbing the keys to your property. From there you’ll run into huge problems such as vandalism, theft, squatting, keys copied, etc.

Most Frustrating Lockbox: The “High School Lock”

I refer to this type of lockbox as the “high school lock” because that’s exactly what it looks like. While it’s not necessarily a bad lockbox, it’s just frustrating because if you don’t line up the letters/numbers perfectly you have to start all over again. But atleast this type of lockbox you won’t have to worry about other Realtors leaving the combination visible to undesired eyes.

Most All-Around Lockbox: The Pin Lockbox

The Pin Lockbox is one of the most common and most all-around lockboxes used on properties. The pin lockbox resets after you enter in the combination, and doesn’t leave behind any trace of the combination after it’s been used. It doesn’t have the ability to keep a record of who’s been entering the property like the digital lockbox does, but it also keeps things simple and more accessible to Realtors who don’t possess digital lockbox keys. Unless you’re city has adopted digital lockboxes as the norm, the pin lockbox is the best lockbox to have put on your home.

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In today’s real estate market buyers are overwhelmed with choices of homes to purchase. Sellers are discounting and offerings incentives to prospective buyers just to stand out among the competition of other homes for sale. So how can you stand out in a buyer’s market? Try these tips:

Price Your House Right!
I’m writing this tip first because it’s the most important. I can’t stress enough how necessary it is to price your house right. A buyer’s interest in a property comes for many reasons, but the most common reason a buyer is interested in a property is because of price. If you price your home right, or even underprice it, you’ll have many offers coming at you.

If you don’t know what your house is worth, ask your Realtor or Appraiser to do an analysis of comparable homes that have sold within the past 6 months in your area. Don’t base your asking price on what others are asking. Go by prices of homes that sold.

Keep A Clean House
A cluttered house is an ugly house. An ugly house is a house that doesn’t sell. Mop the floors, take the dirty dishes out of the sink, vacuum the rugs, etc. You want your buyers to look at the house, not the mess, so they can consider it.

If you are still occupying your house while you are selling it, it may be tough to keep the house consistently clean for buyer’s to see. One easy way to keep the place clean are to use disposable plates, cups, and utensils so the dishwasher is never full of dirty dishes.

Remove Personal Items
While this may not seem as important as the other tips, it is! Buyers need to be able to see themselves living in your house, and little things like wedding pictures and family photos certainly don’t help your buyers get their imaginations running.

The best thing to do is to take personal items such as family photos and store them in a box, out of the visible eye.

Neutralize the House
Just like you need to remove personal items, you also need to remove your “personal touch” from the house. Re-paint those strongly colored walls a nice neutral beige, retouch the crown moldings with a white finish, and try to make your house appeal to as many buyers as possible.

With all of these tips, you’re bound to increase your house’s chance to sell.

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Buying your first home is always a special thing, and for most people it’s an eye opening event to the inner workings of real estate. Most people don’t realize how involved purchasing a house actually is, and how many problems and delays can occur. So I’d like to offer some advice for all of you first time home buyers who are not familiar with the process of buying a house.

Get pre-approved before you do anything

The obvious reason to get pre-approved for a loan is so you know how much you can afford and you don’t waste any time looking at houses you can’t qualify for. But the more important reason to get pre-approved for a loan is so that when you present an offer to a seller, you can use you pre-approval status to strengthen your offer.

Expect hiccups along the way

Very rarely does a real estate transaction go perfectly. Minor to major things can happen that can make or break a deal. Property inspections, appraisals, loans, title searches, liens, etc. are all things that can result in a property being unsellable.

Don’t doubt yourself

First time buyers typically get filled with many emotions, but the most common emotion is fear. “Am I rushing into this house? What if there’s something better out on the market that I overlooked? How can I be sure this house is right for me?” etc. etc…  Don’t worry, having doubts like these are normal, especially when the excitement of purchasing your first home wears off some. Remind yourself that buying a house is one of most secure ways to build long term wealth. If you’re afraid that there might be something better out there, ask yourself “Is this house everything I’m looking for in a home?”; If the answer is “yes”, you know that there probably isn’t much better out there. And by that point in time you’ll probably be too emotionally attached to the house to care much about comparable homes.

Finally, don’t get too attached

I know know, how can you not get attached when you are finally purchasing a house of your own? Many first time buyers start furnishing their desired homes in their head before they even receive the title to the house, and sometimes it can lead to heartbreak. As I said previously, real estate transactions are a complicated process and requires effort on everyone’s part to complete, and sometimes deals will just fall through for one reason or the other, leaving the first time home buyers crushed. Often these discouraged first time buyers lose their interest in purchasing a house, which leads to them going back to throwing away money in rent. Remember that there are lots of houses out there, and once you settle down and detach yourself from your previously interest house, you’ll begin a new search with more experience and know how then before!

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