How Selling a Home Is Like Selling a Car

Selling a home is truthfully more complicated than selling a car. However, as far as selling the product is concerned, the process is similar. Let’s examine this hypothetical situation for clarity.

Let’s say you have two identical cars. Both are the exact same age, with the exact same usage and mileage. You’re getting ready to sell both of them. One has been detailed, cleaned, vacuumed and smells like a new car even though it isn’t. The other car doesn’t smell so great, is dirty, and messy. It clearly doesn’t look as good as the other one.

The car that looks amazing is going to sell for more than the one that doesn’t, even though they are the exact same car. An investment of $300 to $500 could get that messy car looking just like the clean one.

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They don’t want your dirty car.

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Understand that when buyers are looking to buy, they are going to end up buying based on emotion. They don’t want your dirty car; they want something that looks great. If you were to spend a few extra hundred dollars detailing the car, you might increase the sale price on it by $1,000 or $1,500. You’re investing money in the car with hopes of a large return.

When you’re getting ready to sell a home, the same rules apply. Think about what you can do to make your home look, smell, and feel fresh. You want a buyer to submit an offer that makes you happy.

If you have any questions for us, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

How Your Agent’s Marketing Plan Impacts Your Home Sale

I had a conversation with somebody recently who had tried to sell their home in the past and was unsuccessful. As we were talking, I asked him why he thought his home didn’t sell. He said he attributed it to the market. I followed up by asking him what his agent did to maximize exposure on his home. He said, “I don’t know what he did; don’t all agents do the same thing?”

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is, not all agents are created equal. Some agents have very strong marketing strategies, and some agents have no marketing strategy. As you’re preparing to sell your home, it’s very important to work with an agent who has a strategy based on your goals and your needs to make sure that you can get your home sold for top dollar.

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Not all agents are created equal.

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When a seller doesn’t know what their agent’s marketing plan was, it usually means one of two things. First, there’s a pretty good possibility that the agent didn’t have a marketing plan to begin with. Second, it’s possible that the agent either didn’t fill the seller in on their marketing plan or the seller didn’t ask about it. Either way, not having a strategy or not knowing your agent’s strategy is a recipe for failure. You can’t expect to sell your home for top dollar if your agent isn’t putting out maximum effort when it comes to marketing and exposure.

Whether you’re getting ready to list your home for sale on the market for the first time or you’ve tried and failed to sell in the past, it’s crucial that your work with somebody who has a clear-cut strategy. This strategy should incorporate traditional marketing efforts as well as modern, cutting-edge methods.

Real estate is no longer local; it’s global. This is especially true in Orange County, where people are coming from out of state and out of the country to find homes. How are they going to find out about your property and know that it’s for sale? Through marketing. So, if you don’t have the right agent targeting the right people, you’re not going to get the traffic that you need, and that will not result in the offers that you want to sell your home for top dollar.

If you have any questions about marketing your home at the highest level or questions about anything related to real estate, please reach out to us by giving a call or sending us an email. We’d be happy to help you!

Tracking the Changes in the Orange County Market

Rather than discuss what I’ve heard or read about our market this year, I’d like to give you an update on what I’m personally seeing in different neighborhoods as I work with buyers, sellers and investors.

First, what I’d like to talk about is buyer fatigue. The market is beginning to shift, and prices have been climbing pretty high, pretty quickly for just over four years now. Buyer fatigue occurs when home buyers pull themselves out of the market due to high prices and decide to wait to buy a home until prices go back down. We’re starting to see a lot of this, and many of our clients have expressed concern over how high prices have gotten.

On top of buyer fatigue, another factor that has contributed to the market shift is the abundance of optimistic home sellers. We have between two and three months of active inventory on the market right now, which means that if no new homes are listed on the market, it will take between two and three months for all homes to sell at the rate they’ve been selling.

Any less than six months of inventory is considered a seller’s market, so this figure, in combination with the historically-low interest rates we’ve been seeing, is causing some home sellers to overprice their homes. The problem is that just because interest rates are low, it doesn’t mean that buyers are willing to overpay for a property.

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Buyer fatigue and optimistic sellers
are causing a market shift.

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This, along with buyer fatigue, equates to a major disconnect in the market. This means that homes are taking longer to sell, and in many areas, I’ve personally seen homes sell for less than what the most recent home in the neighborhood sold for. For this reason, many areas are seeing a stabilization or a decline in home prices.

To add more fuel to the fire, interest rates are extremely volatile right now. Some might predict that rates are going to go up after the election and some might say that they’ll go up later this year or in 2017, but rates will inevitably go up, and it’s a rule of thumb that for every half a percent that rates increase, home values will have to drop 5% for your monthly mortgage payment to stay the same. This poses a dilemma for buyers about whether they should lock in low interest rates now and overpay for a home or risk waiting for interest rates to go up again.

What does this mean for buyers? If you are actively looking to buy a property, it’s my personal belief that by securing the lowest interest rate, you’ll be getting the best deal possible.

For sellers, it’s a great time to consider selling your home. If you wait until after the election and interest rates go back up, there will be less buyers on the market looking for properties in your price range.

If you’re looking to invest in a property, now would be a great time to get a loan, too. However, if you’re planning on buying in cash, you may want to hold off and see whether prices will stabilize or decrease in the future.

This is what I’m seeing in the market right now, but I know that every buyer, seller, and investor has a unique situation. If you have any specific questions about how the market shift can affect you and your big-picture goals, please reach out to me by giving me a call or sending me an email. I’d be happy to help you.