Montgomery County PA Real Estate Video Blog with Diane Cardano

Two Great Resources for Selling Your Home

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

When you overhear your family, friends, or coworkers talk about buying or selling real estate, stop keeping me a secret and simply tell them “I’ve got the perfect person for you.”

In fact, why not share with them some of the incredible free resources I have on my site? I just posted the Cardano Fall Seasonal Reports online for both buyers and sellers. You can find them right here, at www.freeseasonalreports.com and feel free to share the link with anyone you know who is considering making a move in Pennsylvania.

If you or someone you know wants to sell their home fast, like within 26 days, consider signing up for our next Home Selling Sharks Seminar on October 20. It will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Washington. Just head on over to www.homesellingsharks.com to register.

If you have any questions for me, feel free to call or send an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

House Too Small for Growing Family? Move on up Now & Save Thousands

Today, we're here with the October edition of the market report. We have some incredible insights to share with you this month.

First off, existing home prices are up year-over-year in every single region of the U.S. Whenever we have a strong housing market, the doomsayers always jump in and start talking about another housing bubble.

We have been seeing too many of those headlines lately. However, the only states whose current price levels are above the peak in 2006 are the states whose prices stayed level compared to the rest of the country. We are not worried about another housing bubble looming ahead, so ignore those doomsayers.

Now, let's talk about home equity and the move-up buyer. There is a whole segment of homeowners right now who don't realize that they have enough equity to move up. Interest rates are at historic lows and prices are reasonable, but these homeowners just don't realize that they are able to buy the house of their dreams.

The Fannie Mae report shows that 23% of Americans believe they have negative equity in their home, when in reality, only 9% of homeowners have negative equity. Some people think they have to bring cash to the table, and they don't!

In addition, only 37% of Americans believe they have more than 20% equity in their home, when actually, 69% of homeowners have over 20% equity! That means 32% of those homeowners are just sitting on enough equity to move into the home of their dreams without even realizing it!

Also, people who are waiting to put 20% down either don't know that there are lower down payment loans available, or they want to avoid PMI payments. Let's say you're buying a $200,000 house. If you put 5% down, you will end up paying $232.75 more per month than if you put 20% down. However, as home rates continue to appreciate, waiting to save that 20% down payment could actually cost you more.

Waiting a year to have that 20% down payment may not be the best option for you. In addition, interest rates will go up, making homes more expensive. Now is the time to upgrade and move into your dream home!

If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

8 Secret Strategies to Avoid Equity Draining Home Selling Sharks!

The most important part of the home selling process is the marketing of your home to prospective home buyers. The problem is, it can be awfully difficult to do so in the current market. Luckily, there are 8 steps you can take to squash home selling sharks and control the equity drain when selling your home!

When selling there are a lot of sharks out there, or things that can adversely affect the process that will eat away at your equity. The key is figuring out how to fight these things that you have no control over. Each bite a shark takes is thousands of dollars, so it's crucial for you to find a way to keep money in your pocket!

To find out how to fight these sharks, head over to www.8secretstrategies.com and watch the short videos I've put together. They will help you keep money in your pocket where it belongs! Don't wait until the last minute - whether you're selling now or in three years, it's crucial for you to learn how to avoid these sharks that will drain your equity!

If you have any questions or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, don't hesitate to give me a call or shoot me a quick email! I would love to hear from you!

Are We Approaching Another Housing Bubble?

Today, I'm here with your Tri-County market report. You may have heard the media saying that home sales are down, but that's not the case!

If you look at the existing home sales report, we can see that since January 2015, we've been on an upward climb and more and more homes are selling every month. Across the country, sales are up about 10% year-over-year in every region. I think we'll finish out with an extremely strong summer.

As we move forward, we're going to see stronger sales in every price point, except under $100,000. That's because we don't have as many short sales or foreclosures.

Were pending sales down last month? Yes. However, the preceding month, we had the highest number of pending sales that we've seen in years. Last month was still the third highest number of pending sales that we've seen in awhile.

Now, let's look at foot traffic. How many people are still out there looking at homes? This year, we've destroyed 2014's numbers. There is a lot of demand out there, and prices are rising.

This causes some people to worry about a housing bubble, but a housing bubble is not happening. Our historically low mortgages have caused confusion as well. Still, it is a much more thorough process to get a mortgage today than it was in 2007, ensuring that people who aren't eligible for mortgages won't qualify.

If you have any questions, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!

How We Use Marketing to Sell Your Home

Today, we'll discuss the important role marketing plays in selling your home.

Nowadays, people do a lot of research on home values. We use preemptive marketing to price the home. We look at pending sales to determine a market value, and then we test the price.

Typically, Realtors try to get a home on the market as fast as possible, without bothering to test the price. They're thinking that doing so will get them their commission faster, and they can always lower the price as time goes on. However, an overpriced home will sit on the market, making buyers wonder what's wrong with the home. That's why it's important to have the price right from the start, so we test the price!

Traditional real estate marketing consists of a sign on the lawn, an ad in the newspaper, listing it with the MLS, and putting the home on the company website. But who reads the newspaper anymore? Certainly not 26 or 32 year-olds.

Once you've staged your home and priced it, we need to market it appropriately.That means getting your home on thousands of websites before it's listed. In order to do that, we simply fill out the Trend Waiver form, which allows us to delay putting the home on the MLS.

By delaying the MLS, we can help the home generate demand before it even hits the market. We can get calls from prospective buyers before you have your first showing, and when you do have that first showing, you can expect a lot of interested people to show up!

If you have any questions on today's video, give me a call or send me an email. If you're interested in signing up for one of our seminars, go to homesharkseminar.com to register for our October seminar. We look forward to hearing from you!

Don't Let These Two Real Estate Myths Prevent You From Buying a Home

Today I would like to dispel some myths about real estate that may or may not be keeping you from entering the market today.

You cannot afford a down payment: A lot of people believe that you need to make a large down payment in order to purchase a home. However, conventional loans and FHA loans only require a 3% down payment. Some lending options don't even require a down payment!

You cannot qualify for a mortgage: Many people believe that your credit score needs to be 780 or higher to purchase a home, but this is simply not true. The average FICO score on FHA loans is 688, and the average for conventional loans is 757. On top of this, mortgage credit availability is improving, so homes aren't as hard to purchase as most people would have you believe. Interest rates are also hovering at all-time lows, so now is a phenomenal time to purchase a home.

Buying a home is an extremely valuable investment, and when they're so affordable it's hard to think of reasons why you shouldn't be buying a home. If you have any questions about the buying process or if you're worried about anything whatsoever, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I look forward to speaking with you!

Swim with the Home Selling Sharks Without Losing Thousands

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!

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