Easy Agent Blogs

In any neighborhood, the homes with the most attractive interiors often sell first – that’s the reality. Although attractiveness and beauty are a matter of taste, certain interior design and decor trends reflect what’s popular with a large number of homebuyers.

Every year, interior designers, architects, home builders and real estate professionals publish their in/out lists. If you’ll be selling your home this year, read on for some tips on what, according to the experts, buyers want in home interiors.

Efficient homes top the list for many homebuyers

Small, so-called ‘starter homes,’ especially those located in the suburbs, are popular with baby boomer homebuyers, according to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB).

Energy efficiency is the name of the game when trying to appeal to this generation. You can meet this desire with ENERGY STAR appliances and energy-efficient windows and lighting.

If you plan on including these items in your listed home, they’ll need to be prominently featured in its marketing materials. Don’t be shy about tooting your energy-efficient horn, either. Place tent cards prominently on any appliances to lure prospective buyers.

The kitchen as a tech center

While the kitchen has long been considered the hub of the home, it has evolved to include more space for entertaining. When the walls come down, there’s room for everyone, a feature that lures homebuyers.

The open-concept kitchen has spawned another trend: Bluetooth and smart appliances. “Having kitchen appliances that communicate with one another and their owner is dramatically changing traditional ideas about the kitchen,” claims the editors at interiordesignsociety.org.

“Being able to remotely preheat your oven and sync timers between multiple appliances, is changing the way the kitchen functions,” they conclude.

By the way, many of these smart appliances are compatible with your smartphone so they can be controlled by Alexa or special apps.

“Smart” isn’t just for kitchens

The ubiquitous smartphone can close garage doors, monitor security cameras, control the lighting and temperature and even command the floor be vacuumed, depending on the connectivity of other appliances and gadgets of course.

Rest assured, high tech in the home isn’t just for gadget freaks or luxury homeowners. The best part: these systems are rapidly becoming more mainstream and, thus, more affordable.

Should you decide to incorporate any of these popular new home design elements into your home before putting it on the market, rest assured that we will produce marketing materials that will have the gearhead buyers out in droves.

Specialized rooms

When the National Association of Home Builders asked Americans what features they look for in a new home, members of Gen Z and millennials mentioned exercise rooms and home offices.

In fact, a majority of “… Millennials (61%), GenX’ers (62%), and buyers paying half a million dollars or more for their home (67%),” crave an exercise or workout room, according to the previously-mentioned NAHB survey.

Since these homebuyers’ ideal home has at least 2,500 square feet and four bedrooms and three bathrooms, there is certainly room for one or both of these specialized rooms.

Dedicated laundry room

The humble laundry room has been on the list of must-haves for homebuyers for a few years now. If your home has more than one story and the laundry room is upstairs, near the bedrooms, it will attract even more attention.

Don’t forget to stage this room. Young buyers, especially, love Instagram-worthy décor that they don’t have to do themselves.

For inspiration, check out these laundry rooms at Instagram.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember when carpeting, especially Berber carpets, was all the rage? Today it still has its fans, but it’s mostly considered “so 90s.”

In other words, carpet of any type, to many, makes a home feel outdated. But remember, like most things real estate-related, the location of the home may determine which flooring materials are most popular and, thus, may have a positive impact on its perceived value.

Consider the type of home and its location

In areas with substantial periods of hot weather such as Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV for instance, cool tile floors may be popular with homebuyers. Chilly Minnesota feet, however, may long for a plush carpet under them in the winter.

It’s easy to get excited when you read online “… that the average ROI (rate on investment) for installing hardwood floors is about 70 percent to 80 percent, and wood floors can boost the sales price of your home as much as 2.5 percent.” (familyhandyman.com)

Buyers looking at starter homes aren’t going to turn their noses up at brand-new laminate or luxury vinyl flooring because it’s not marble.

With the tables turned, however, high-end homebuyer expect something a bit more luxurious.

But don’t make a decision on flooring material until you consult your real estate agent. He or she is the only person that can offer opinions on what flooring material will bring the most bang for the buck in our area.

Let’s take a look at how two of the most popular flooring materials can impact the perceived value of a home, nationwide.

Hardwood floors are best for some

Yes, it can be pricey. And, yes, hardwood floors come with maintenance chores. But if you are selling a high-end home and will be replacing the flooring, you will get the best return on investment by installing hardwood floors.

About those maintenance chores. According to Jeanne Huber at washingtonpost.com, at a minimum, these floors require:

• Daily removal of dirt and dust to avoid scratching the wood.
• Cleaning about once a month, depending on traffic.
• Repairing and recoating as needed.

With inflation and prices rising daily on just about everything, it’s tough to come up with an estimate of the cost of purchasing and installing a hardwood floor.

In April of this year, Katie Flannery at bobvila.com estimated that $4,540 as the national average cost. It may be much higher in the current economy. Visit bobvila.com for a list of the average prices for the various types of wood and then plan on paying more than that.

According to the Remodeling Impact Report, published by National Association of REALTORS®, installing hardwood flooring brings a 106% return on investment.

Move over hardwood …

Luxury vinyl flooring has been rising in popularity for the past few years and now takes the top spot on fixr.com’s survey of nearly 49 experts, aimed at giving “… you the hottest flooring choices for your home.”

Consumers can choose between two styles:

• Luxury vinyl planks (LVP)
• Luxury vinyl tiles (LVT)

The former, by the way, is the most popular.

So, what’s the big attraction with LVP flooring? “Vinyl planks allow you to achieve the look of hardwood or tile at a fraction of the cost. They are all waterproof, easy to clean and maintain, scratch resistant and more,” promise the pros at Mannington.

The waterproof aspect of this flooring material is what makes them so popular among homebuyers with children and/or pets.

Although there is anecdotal evidence that LVP and LVT flooring positively impacts a home’s value at resale, we were unable to find exact figures from reputable sources.

Of course, LVT, LVP and hardwood aren’t your only flooring choices. If neither of these meet your needs, consider looking into other popular flooring options, such as:

• Bamboo
• Concrete
• Cork

You might also consider offering a flooring credit at closing, although it defeats the opportunity to raise the home’s perceived value while it’s on the market. We can crunch the numbers to find out which option is best for you.

 

 

 

Go online and run a search for “recommended home improvements to sell my home,” and you can find a seemingly-endless list of tasks to perform. In fact, our Google search brought us 853,000,000 results.

What many home sellers seem to forget, however, is that well-worn adage “All real estate is local.”

So, while some home improvement tasks may be ideal for Topeka, and others will fulfill the dreams of homebuyers in Phoenix, they may be a waste of time and money here in our neck of the woods.

And, isn’t your end goal to make as much money as possible from the sale of your home?

Ask most real estate agents which improvements will give you the most bang for your buck and they’ll most likely rattle off whatever is on the latest list of improvements published by the National Association of Home Builders.

We keep track, however, of local trends and can tell you exactly which improvements have led to success for other local homeowners.

Choose upgrades based on your most likely buyer

Not all of our clients want to take on the extra work required to spiff up their home’s appeal. If you aren’t among that group, you may be surprised to learn that many fixes or upgrades require a minimal investment of time and money.

For instance, do you understand who your most likely buyer is? Someone shopping for a luxury home, for instance, may not appreciate improvements made to attract a condo buyer.

Based on research and experience in the local market, we can pinpoint from which buyer pool your buyer will come. When you know your most likely buyer’s hot buttons, the needed improvement list practically writes itself.

Additional inexpensive projects to consider include:

• Interior cleaning by a professional
• Interior painting
• Curb appeal improvements (green-up the lawn, paint the fence, prune trees, add fresh mulch to the beds)

If your budget is exceptionally tight, the bare minimum you should do is to ensure the entire interior of the home is light and bright.

• Remove and replace heavy window coverings with lighter material.
• Replace low wattage light bulbs with those that emit brighter light.
• If the walk-in closets lack lighting, install some.
• Wash the windows to allow in as much natural light as possible.

If you have room in your budget, consider these upgrades

Not all homes for sale are starter homes, so not all buyers are seeking the same upgrades.

Move-up homebuyers are most keen about kitchen improvements, with countertops and cabinets at the top of the list. Nearly half of those surveyed also mentioned bathroom upgrades and new, energy efficient HVAC systems. Next on the list were plumbing and electrical upgrades.

Yes, these are a bit pricier than those we mentioned earlier. But even the less expensive fixes can make a world of difference in how the home shows to potential buyers. This difference may result in a bigger check for you at closing.

Reach out to us to learn more.

 

The housing market, like many other aspects of our economy, is changing. After years of sellers being in the driver’s seat and homes selling faster than they had in decades past, the market is taking a breather.

The inventory of homes for sale, for instance, climbed more than 25% from April to May, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Home seller price reductions increased by 74% during this period as well.

What is causing this?

Interest rates, primarily. In fact, the rise in rates has “… already caused the housing market to slow down,” Jacob Channel, senior economist at Lending Tree told the New York Post.

He goes on to conclude that “Fewer people are getting mortgages, homes are sitting on the market for longer and some sellers are cutting prices.”

Does this mean that if you list your home now it might not sell? Absolutely not.

How will home sellers know if it’s time for a price reduction?

Keep an eye on the number of homebuyers who tour your home. According to a national real estate survey, home tours fell 9% at the end of May. Because of this, one in five sellers dropped their price.

If you don’t receive an offer within two weeks of listing, you may want to consider a price reduction. This is because, according to the aforementioned national real estate firm’s studies, your odds of receiving a full-price offer after two weeks on the market drop by 50% and continue to drop with each week that passes.

When a real estate market is adjusting, it may do so rapidly. If nearby homes similar to yours are priced lower it may be a sign that the market is changing and you should consider reducing your home’s price. At least if you hope to remain competitive.

Keep these strategies in mind

Remember that a home’s value isn’t based on what you, the homeowner, think it should be. It’s not based on what the tax assessor says it’s worth.

It is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. We know how much they’ll pay by looking at recent sales of homes comparable to yours. Anything else (such as the price of homes currently for sale) is fantasy.

Be fast and be realistic. If buyers aren’t visiting your home and hardly anyone shows up at your open houses, you may want to seriously consider dropping the price. But, do it quickly.

Homes that sit on the market too long makes homebuyers and their agents suspicious. They will also wonder why it’s priced higher than similar homes.

Once you’ve made up your mind to act quickly to drop the price, you’ll need to be realistic with the new price. Many small reductions over time give the impression of a bargain-basement-type home and make you, the seller, appear desperate.

The idea is to ensure that there won’t be additional price reductions in the future. We’re happy to help you come up with a new, more competitive price.

No matter how much time you spend looking at houses, buying a home ultimately comes down to deciding which house you really want. You can choose your home in a number of ways, from gut instinct (not generally recommended) to tallying up the pros and cons of an individual home. Here are some factors to consider during the home shopping process.

Mortgage Costs and Financial Considerations

One of the biggest mistakes people make when buying a home is purchasing more house than they can afford. This is easy to do unless you are aware that  homeowner’s costs include far more than just the mortgage. Associated monthly costs include:

• Association, neighborhood or condo fees
• Electricity, water and other utilities
• Homeowner’s insurance
• Maintenance and repair costs
• Mortgage insurance
• Mortgage payments
• Property taxes

It’s all too easy to overextend your finances trying to buy the “perfect” home. Be sure you can afford the home you choose. Your dreams shouldn’t exceed your finances.

The Basics: Structure, Design and Location

The structural integrity of the house is extremely important when you choose a home. It may seem beautiful, but if it isn’t well built, home maintenance costs could cripple a new owner’s finances. From the moment you start looking at homes, keep the houses’ structural soundness in mind.

Design and floor plans are also important when choosing a home. A badly designed floor plan greatly detracts from people’s enjoyment of a home. If an odd-shaped room or tiny kitchen drives you to distraction, maybe you should keep looking at homes until you find something that suits you better.

Location is also critical. What are the pros and cons of a home’s location? Possible considerations include:

• Commuting distance
• Future development projects planned for the area
• Local crime
• Local economy
• Neighborhood age and cleanliness
• Neighborhood traffic noise
• Property values
• Proximity to shops, hospitals and schools
• Nearby traffic noise from cars, railways and airports

Evaluating Other Pros and Cons

Once you’ve evaluated a home’s structural quality and other major pros and cons, the final decision often comes down to little details.

Do you like the carpeting, the windows, and the general feel of the home? Is there anything special about this house you haven’t seen elsewhere while looking at homes?

How long can you see yourself living in this house? What would you change about it if you could? Would you be able to afford those changes?

While it’s not advisable to make a gut decision about buying a house before checking major concerns, once you’ve determined a house is well-built and well-located, your final decision may be emotional.

At one level you’re deciding whether or not to buy a house- but you’re also deciding whether or not to make that house your home. And when all the pros and cons of house buying are considered, whether or not a house feels like home is an important consideration.

A homeowner whose home is on the market has given up a lot of privacy. It is almost guaranteed that buyers will open drawers, peek inside cabinets and touch items that are obviously personal and not included in the sale.

Coming home from work to find that the impeccably-made bed they left in the morning is now covered in a ball of linens is annoying.

These are just a few examples of nightmare homebuyers behaving badly. Read on to learn how to not turn off the seller of your dream home.

Don’t be a time bandit

Savvy home sellers spend a great deal of time ensuring that the home is presentable during the marketing period. They clean, de-clutter and then inconvenience themselves by skedaddling before the potential buyers show up.

Therefore, buyers that cancel appointments at the last minute, or just don’t bother showing up, are behaving quite badly.

Unless an emergency came up and there was no time to call your agent, try to provide your agent with at least several hours’ notice that you won’t be touring the home. It’s the polite thing to do and it just might save the seller from needlessly preparing for your arrival.

“Time is of the essence” is a term you’ll see in most real estate purchase contracts. What it means is that all specified deadlines in the agreement are mandatory — sort of. Yes, you can request an extension of a date and it will most likely be granted, if the reason for the request is compelling enough.

Frivolous requests, however, or those made repeatedly, are time stealers.

Sellers are frequently on a tight schedule to get the transaction to the closing table. Just as you are excited to get into your new home, the seller has plans as well. Keeping contract deadline extension requests to a minimum is one way you can contribute to a smooth transaction.

Then there is the homebuyer that, once the ink dries on the contract, treats the home as if it’s unoccupied and equipped with a revolving door. One week it’s their interior decorator that needs access to take measurement, perhaps the next week it will be their architect.

Many buyers want to show family members their new home – before it is actually their new home.

The seller, in the meantime is packing for the move, having repairs completed, accommodating the appraiser and inspectors all while attempting to live a normal life. Additional home tours are more than an inconvenience, they are time stealers.

If you must gain access to the home, ask your agent to find out when the inspector or appraiser will be in the home and arrange to be there at the same time.

The Nit-Picker

Nit picking is neither a price-reduction nor negotiating strategy, as those buyers who have tried it can attest. Bankrate.com’s Dana Gratch calls these buyers “gladiator wannabes,” who, after they’ve agreed to purchase the home, come in with a long list of things that are wrong with it or a list of concessions.

The art of negotiating depends on give and take, not a barrage of one-sided demands. Let your real estate agent do the negotiating. If you truly feel that what is wrong with the house commands a price reduction, your agent should be able to justify it with a list of comparables and reasons why the seller’s home doesn’t stack up.

The Unprepared

There are several reasons a real estate agent suggests that a buyer get fully approved for a loan before submitting an offer to purchase. Buyers that don’t take this important step run the risk of derailing the entire transaction.

Even a pre-approval commitment from a lender isn’t firm. Once the loan application is in the hands of the underwriter, anything can happen. Many times, the buyer will receive a letter from the bank – in the middle of the transaction — listing all the conditions that must be met before the loan is approved.

Satisfying these conditions not only takes time, but, depending on the conditions, may result in a cancelled sale.

Take the time to work with your lender to ensure that you will get the loan before committing to purchase a home. Don’t make any major purchases until the home closes escrow.

Entering into the process knowing that you’ll get the loan is not only a courtesy to the seller but the peace of mind it gives you is priceless.

Both parties to a real estate transaction have schedules that need to be accommodated during the purchase process and, yes, sellers can behave badly as well (we’ll take a look at that in a future blog post). Respecting one another’s needs helps make the transaction run smoother and more comfortably for all concerned.

Think finding the perfect home is the is the most important step in the homebuying process?

Think again.

It’s the financial aspects of the process that will determine how dreamy of a home you can buy and how you can comfortably pay for it every month.

The bedrock of these aspects is your credit score. Sadly, many Americans have little to no understanding of how vital this score is to your success when buying a home, an auto and even in the purchase of insurance.

If you’re trying to figure out how to raise your credit score, it’s important to understand what impacts it, both negatively and positively.

1. Late payments show up so quickly on credit reports it’s as if the bureaus are standing over our shoulders when we write the check, or go online, to pay a bill. In all fairness, the experts at Equifax.com say that average time period from late payment of a bill to this information being reported to the credit bureaus is 30 days.

Which is a bit scary, because “Even one late payment can cause credit scores to drop,” according to these same experts.

To top it off, each time you make a late payment, and it ends up in your credit report, it will remain there for seven years.

The moral of this story is to pay your bills on time every month.

2. Closing credit card accounts that you no longer use may seem like a good way to help build your credit score. It’s not.

This is because one of the factors used to determine your credit scores is your “debt-to-credit” ratio. “That ratio is how much of your available credit you’re using compared to the total amount available to you,” say the pros at Equifax.com.

When you close an account you’ll end up with less available credit, raising your ratio.

Consider as well that older accounts have more clout than newer ones. “The history of your credit accounts makes up 15% of your FICO Score,” according to Lora Shinn at LendingTree.com.

“So that credit card you opened 15 years ago may well be helping to boost your credit score by increasing your average age of accounts,” she concludes.

3. Opening new credit card accounts seems like it would give you a leg up on a credit score, but it will do the opposite.

Opening new credit card accounts “… may impact your credit scores in two ways: the hard inquiries resulting from those applications … and the new accounts themselves may lower the average age of your credit accounts,” caution the pros at Equifax.

4. Not utilizing the credit you have may have a negative impact on your score; yet another factor that seems counterintuitive to many. If you don’t use a credit account, no new information is reported by the bureaus. This, in turn, “… may make it more difficult for lenders and creditors to evaluate your application for credit or services,” according to the credit experts at Equifax.com.

If the inactivity goes on for a certain amount of time, the creditor may close the account. As mentioned earlier, a closed account may have a negative impact on your credit score.

Use your credit accounts, especially for small purchases, and pay the bills when due.

5. You’re entitled to a free copy of your credit reports every 12 months. It’s important to take advantage of this offer if you hope to keep track of your credit score. Go to annualcreditreport.com (the only source authorized by the federal government) for the details.

It’s May and the Fed recently held their latest pow-wow. When they met in March, they raised “… the federal funds interest rate by 25 basis points,” Rick Dennen, president and CEO of Oak Street Funding, told InsideIndianaBusiness.com.

This month, they raised it 50 basis points, “… the biggest rate increase in more than two decades,” according to Taylor Tepper at forbes.com.

The media loves to tell us how the hike in interest rates impacts the homebuyer, but we hear little about the plight of sellers. Let’s take a look at what happens to this population when interest rates rise.

Mortgages get more expensive

With each tick up in mortgage rates, loans become more expensive for homebuyers. For those on tight budgets, that additional expense may just be what pushes them out of the housing market.

Ryan Boykin at investopedia.com crunches the numbers for a hypothetical homebuyer to illustrate how rising interest rates impact homebuyers.

“… if Johnny Home Buyer wants a 4% rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage on a home worth $400,000, his monthly mortgage payment would be $1,900,” calculates Boykin.

“But if Johnny only qualified for a 5% rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage, his monthly payment would rise to $2,138.”

For each 1% rate increase, Johnny’s payment increases by “… $238, or roughly 13% … A 1% increase in mortgage interest decreases Johnny’s purchasing power by $45,000.” Boykin concludes.

That $45,000 (or more) loss in buying power particularly impacts homebuyers on tight budgets. Naturally, demand for homes is diminished when a large portion of the homebuying pool disappears.

More expensive loans, combined with inflation fears and stock market volatility are contributing to what many experts believe is a slight cooling of the housing market.

As interest rates rise and homebuyers leave the market, sellers will find their home values dipping and homes will sit on the market longer than they have in the past few years.

It’s not all doom and gloom for home sellers

On average, if you put your home on the market now, you are likely to get 47% more for it than you would have if you sold it last year, according to Clare Trapasso at realtor.com.

In fact, the median home price is up nearly 15% from this time last year and now sits at a nation-wide average of $391,200.

So, although the volume of homes sold dropped in April, home prices continue to climb.

For how long?

Now we circle back to how increasing mortgage rates impact home sellers. Most housing market experts predict that the market will change slowly, with price reductions of homes for sale gradually becoming more common.

In fact, the number crunchers at one of the big real estate conglomerates recently said that 12% of homes for sale in the U.S. experienced price drops during late March into early April.

Uncertainty is the watchword right now in the housing market. There is a big “if” in the expectation that the housing market change will be gradual.

“If the economy grows fast enough, rising mortgage rates will not have as great an effect on property value and housing prices, as long as salaries and wages correspondingly grow as well,” Boykin claims.

The economy, as you know if you follow the news, isn’t growing and talk of a looming recession is becoming more common.

“Eventually mortgage rates will slow down home prices …” economist Ken H. Johnson tells bankrate.com.

If you want to, or must, sell your home and you want the most money you can get for it, the time to sell is right now.