Montgomery County PA Real Estate Video Blog with Diane Cardano: Buyer and Seller Tips

Showing posts with label Buyer and Seller Tips. Show all posts

Why You Should Avoid the Traditional Real Estate Process

The traditional real estate process is no longer a method that works for sellers, and I’ll tell you why.

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search

Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation

Call me at (215) 576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation

The traditional real estate process is lengthy and confusing for sellers. The first step that agents usually take is the listing interview, where they may be afraid of giving staging suggestions to the owner of the property for fear of insulting the owner. They’ll suggest a starting price and put the house on the market immediately without taking the time to adequately stage the home.

The seller will sign a long-term listing contract with no “easy out guarantee” in case they aren’t satisfied, and after a month on the market they’ll put the price reduced sign out on the front lawn. Does that sound like a successful process to you?

The average traditional Realtor lists one to two homes a year. They might not own a digital camera. The photos on the MLS may not be updated as the seasons change. They don’t do premarketing or a pre-inspection on the home, and one broker monitors hundreds of agent’s listings in those large corporate real estate offices you think of. There are no systems for monthly marketing meetings, either.

There are so many unstaged homes with ineffective pictures online that a well-staged home will stand out from the competition and be noticed. Something as simple as updating photos to match the current season will make a world of difference to potential buyers.

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There are so many unstaged homes with ineffective pictures online that a well-staged home will stand out from the competition and be noticed.

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In my next video, I’ll take you through the four steps in what I like to call the new world of real estate. These steps will help you list your home for the price you want and sell it quickly.

If you have any questions about real estate or you would like to know more on this topic, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help.

Secret Strategies to Making Your Real Estate Great Again

Home sellers face many challenges in our current market. Luckily, I have a list of eight secret strategies that can help them sell quickly and for top dollar.

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search

Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation

Call me at (215) 576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation

One of my greatest passions as a Realtor is getting my home sellers the best possible price in the least amount of time with the least amount of hassle. In short, my biggest concern is making your real estate great again.

Today’s home seller faces many challenges in our current market. For one thing, our market is complicated. You can’t just put a sign on your lawn and expect it to sell. Currently, the average days on market is 80 days, which isn’t great. In fact, it’s bad. Taxes are also high, and they’re only getting higher. This makes it difficult for buyers to afford homes, which is causing home values to go down every single year.

Another problem is Realtors making false promises about selling your home and then using slipshod tactics like taking its listing photos with a cell phone. That’s not what a professional does! It only takes about $600 to get a license, so, unfortunately, not a lot of training goes into handling such a large asset.

How can you avoid these problems when listing your home? I’ve put together a list of eight secret strategies to help guide you through the process. You can learn these strategies by visiting 8secretstrategies.com. Whether it’s through me or another agent, this list will tell you what you should do to sell your home. In short, there are two main things that can make your real estate great again: having both a marketing expert and a negotiating expert on your team.

Why am I telling you this? Because houses today are selling quickly–for those whose house is priced right and staged properly. It’s now November, which means if you plan on selling in the spring, you need to make a plan now. Don’t make the mistake of waiting too long or not hiring an expert Realtor.

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Only houses that are priced right and staged right sell quickly.

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If you have any questions about how to make your real estate great again, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email. Remember, we’re having our next Home Selling Sharks seminar on January 21st at the Hilton Garden Inn. To register, all you have to do is visit homesharksseminar.com. In the meantime, I hope to hear from you!

Swim with the Home Selling Sharks Without Losing Thousands

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search
Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation
Call me at (215) 576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation

In today's video, I discuss the sharks that can eat away your equity. I call them sharks because these are things that can come back to bite you when you least expect it.

The five sharks are home staging, pricing, marketing, negotiating, and overseeing details. The key to making money when selling your home is to swim with your sharks. Your Realtor acts as your shark cage, so you want a Realtor with a lot of experience.

Right now in Montgomery, more and more people are becoming real estate agents. The average Realtor sells 4.9 houses a year. You want someone on your team who is experienced, so that you can come out of the buying process stress-free.

Also, I think that the biggest shark out there is the negotiating shark. If your Realtor doesn't negotiate well, or doesn't have experience negotiating, it could cost you an arm and a leg.

If you want to learn more about the home selling process, go to www.homesharkseminar.com to sign up for our next home seller seminar on October 20th at the Hilton Garden Inn. We can help you sell your home for 18% more than the average agent.

If you have any questions about today's topic, or about real estate in general, please give me a call or send me an email. We'd love to hear from you!

Are You Doing What It Takes to Get Top Dollar for Your Tri-County Home?

Today, I want to let you in on some valuable information. At a recent seminar I led, I taught people about Secret Staging Guidelines and people were ecstatic! Today, I'll share a few of these great home selling tips.

As a general rule, less stuff equals more money for you, the seller. Clear the clutter from flat surfaces to make your home feel bigger and more open. Let the buyers breathe by getting rid of random knick-knacks and other items that don't serve an obvious purpose.

Don't block the natural light when selling your home. Half of the photos I see online have closed shades, making the home look dark and unwelcoming. You also want to keep furniture out of the corner of the rooms to make the space feel more open and full!

Many people have centerpieces on their table and are surprised when I tell them to remove them! The table needs to be clear of everything, so that the photos capture the essence of your home, rather than your things.

The last tip for today is to depersonalize your home. Remove personal pictures from the walls so buyers can imagine their family living in your home. You also want to clean out your closets so buyers don't feel like they're invading your personal space and so that online buyers can get an idea of how much storage space is really there.

Essentially, the main thing to keep in mind is that less is more when selling in the Tri-County. If you have any questions about selling, or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, we would love to help. Give us a call or shoot us a quick email for the service you deserve!

Hot Off the Press: June Market Report for the Tri-County Area

I started off last month's report talking about existing home sales, so let's begin there again.

Existing home sales have been cascading upward since February and March, which bodes well for a strong market this summer, no matter which region you're looking at. Existing home sales aren't the only things that excite us, it's the fact that homes are selling in nearly every category. Sales in the $250K-$500K range are up by almost 27%! However, homes below $100K are drying up because there are very few foreclosure sales happening anymore.

Foot traffic has also significantly increased, and this is an important trend. We're getting much, much more foot traffic this year than we were last year. A reason for this renewed interest in buying homes may be because 31% of Americans believe that real estate is the best type of long term investment. People chose real estate over stocks, gold, savings accounts, and bonds.

Throughout the country, homes are selling in less than 45 days, but you'll be happy to hear that my average is 26 days! However, inventory levels year-over-year increased in March, but we're still below inventory in our area. This means that home prices may be rising soon. The Case Shiller year-over-year price change tracker for 20 cities shows that we're seeing a steady level of appreciation, ranging from 3-5%.

All this activity has the media begging the question: is there another housing bubble forming? My answer is no, but there is probably a strong seller's market taking shape.

This means if you're looking to sell your home, rising prices may move you off of the fence and into the market. I can sell your Tri County home for top dollar this summer!

If you were not available to attend my Home Selling Sharks Seminar June 17th, get my FREE Home Seller toolkit here, http://www.homesellertoolkit.com/. It lists my eight secret strategies for home selling.

Where Is the Montgomery County Market Heading in 2015?

There are many great Montgomery County area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (215) 576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Hello, and welcome to the 2015 edition of the Hot Off the Press Real Estate Market Report! As far as we can tell, this is going to be yet another great year for real estate here in Montgomery County.

The existing home sales report shows there was a drop in November of last year, which is normal because the winter months often cause many people to back out of the market. Many of the talking heads in the media like to report that the market is down right now, but that's simply not true. In fact, so far, this winter has been one of the best we've seen in a decade!

When taking a look at pending homes over the last few years, you'll notice that they plummeted in November of 2013. When looking at pending home sales for 2014, pending home sales remained high even though we usually see a significant drop during the winter months. They dropped a little bit, but they didn't crash like they did in 2013.

Now, let's take a look at home prices. Appreciation, year over year, is slowing down. The headlines you've read about falling home prices are incorrect - prices are simply rising at a slower rate than they were in previous years. According to Case Schiller, prices were up 13.2% in January 2014 over January 2013; by August they were only up 5.6% year over year, and by October of last year the year-over-year price change was at 4.5%. So, home values are still on the rise, but their value isn't going up at the same rate as it was in years past.

Although we have seen a slowdown in appreciation over the last 12 months, we're expecting the appreciation rates to be higher in 2015 than we saw in 2014. Most experts are predicting home prices to rise an average of 3.7% in the coming year. That will bring us much closer to steady levels, which is some great news!

Where do we expect interest rates to go, you ask? Taking a look at the first quarter of January 2013, you'll see that rates were under 3.5%, before skyrocketing toward the middle of 2013. They've been falling ever since, trying to find that equilibrium point. Remember, part of the reason the government wants to keep interest rates low is to spur the economy and keep people spending. At this time last year, people thought rates were going to jump in the near future, but because the economy never recovered the way they expected it to, rates have remained low!

If rates do rise soon, it will have a significant impact on your purchasing power. If you're looking at a $300,000 home when rates are 3.75%, a rise of just 1% will cost you 10% of your purchasing power (that's $30,000)! We'll keep you updated on where rates are heading, but you need to be wary of waiting to make your move.

We hope you find this information helpful. Give us a call or shoot us an email if you would like real estate assistance of any kind, we're always here to help!

Thanks, and have a wonderful day!

Extra! Extra! Hot off the Presses! July 2014’s Market Report!

There are many great Montgomery County area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (215) 576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

This is Diane Cardano with the July edition of the “Hot Off the Press” Real Estate Market Report.

Speaking of hot off the press, we have some interesting news to share with you about why it may not be a good idea to list your home as "for sale by owner." We also wanted to share with you the latest about home sales, where we stand in the market, and what we can expect for the rest of the year. So check out our video and make sure you sign up for your FREE Home Seller Toolkit!

Housing is Stronger Than You Realize- And it’s Driving the Economy!

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen! This is Diane Cardano with the June edition of the “Hot Off the Press” Real Estate Market Report. Before we get started this time, I wanted to share with you something that made my team and I feel particularly proud.

Every time a house sells, there is a certain economic impact; a certain amount of money goes into that state’s economy, which is pretty amazing! The national average is over $50,000. Every single time a house is sold in Pennsylvania, $50,000 is being injected into our local economy.

This is a wonderful and inspiring aspect of this industry. I know you have all heard me talk about how I love building lifelong relationships with our clients. But I also am delighted to know that everything we do together is positively impacting so many additional lives, and is playing a role in helping our nation’s economy grow stronger. How awesome is that?!

Please watch the rest of my vlog to see just how we did it!

And don’t forget! To really get an advantage, don’t forget JUNE is a huge month for Home Selling Shark Seminars! Two supersized, information-filled Seminars, one at the historic William Penn Inn on Tuesday June 17th and the other at the lovely North Hills Country club, on Thursday June 19th. They start at 6:30pm sharp. Seating is limited so reserve your spot today! Go to www.homesharkseminar.com and register now!

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