Over the last two months I’ve shown about 20 homes. I worried at several of them as my buyer clients gingerly maneuvered the icy driveways and even stairs to the front door. In some cases, there was so much snow on the stairs it was almost impossible to get a foothold. This is not only uninviting, but dangerous.  I sympathize, I really do, but it’s critical to shovel and keep up with Mother Nature.  From a practical standpoint, it also helps keep snow out of the interior of your home.  I’ve also held homes open that were in need of shoveling.  After shoveling a path at two homes to get ready for the open house, I came up with a new policy.  If I get to your house and it’s not shoveled, the open house is cancelled!  One or two inches may not be a big deal, but as we know, this hasn’t really been a ‘one or two inch’ winter!

The good news is, there are buyers looking to preview homes. If your house has good, featured photos on line it might take precedence on the ‘to see’ list of a buyer over a home without the photos.  If a buyer sees three homes and yours is the one with a welcoming, shoveled, safe driveway and walkway, it might be the one they decide to buy.  So, keep reminding yourself that cardinals have started singing, the days are getting longer and there are only 40 more days until Spring!

Appraisals are done by mortgage companies when buyers apply for a loan on your home.  Since sale prices are all over the map (you might find sales from $55,000 to $120,000 for same style, square footage and neighborhood of homes, because of lower sale prices and of course, foreclosures).

There are a lot of reasons why homes get listed too high but I’m only going to talk about scenarios that can be controlled.  In other words, you don’t have to sell.  You’re not getting divorced, moving out of town for a new job, etc.  You just want to see if you can sell your house and buy another one.

So you list it higher than your Realtor® recommends. You know buyers are going to want to negotiate. The problem is, care has to be taken to make sure that listing price is still within market value.  Why? You could have a contract in the works.  The buyer has applied for the loan, turned in earnest money, the inspection is done and everyone is happy.  Until the appraiser comes out and turns in a report saying your homes market value is  lower than the agreed upon sale price.

Now it’s true, the buyer can legally step up and put down more money on the house in order to not be borrowing over the price acceptable to the appraisal. But in reality, most buyers want their extra money, if they have any, to be set aside for any unforeseen expenses that come up in the first year.  This is reasonable, but doesn’t help you sell your home.  In reality, if the appraisal comes in lower, unless you are willing to admit the house sale price should be lower, it probably won’t sell.  The contract will go bye bye.  At least in NE Ohio, this is what is happening over and over again.

I guess my suggestion is this.  Even if you need to move because of a hardship like a new out of town job, consider renting the house if you can’t sell the house to pay back your original mortgage price.  Or if you can’t sell it for what you want to eventually get out of it.  Many people are in the market for single family rental homes; many already rent town homes and condos; the market is beginning to adjust a bit, so in a few years, you might be able to get more for your house.

At the very least, don’t go through an exercise in futility by listing your home too high, setting you and your buyer up for a disappointment at the end.  Just sayin’.  Peace Out – 3C

I’m convinced Spring flowers are nature’s way of telling me to get out and clean the yard so we can look pretty. I have an all day open house today so there won’t be much time to do anything outside, but I did spend last Saturday raking and chopping up tree branches from that midi evil style ice storm we had in March. And hats off  to the City of Cleveland garbage men who took this huge, long branch for me. I had it in the middle of my front lawn, not even on the curb (I found my ax and was prepared to hack away this week). I was surprised to see it gone when I got home on Tuesday!

Just as a reminder, if you have your house listed, a beautiful Spring day like today might nudge you out to make that curb appeal a bit more, er, appealing lol.

I’m going to be at an open house in Puritas Park (Big Met Place off Grayton at Puritas) from 2 to 5 pm if anyone wants to stop by. Peace Out – 3C

If you have your home on the market, your Realtor® has probably told you that a clean house is crucial to ‘looking good’ to a potential buyer. I have a past blogpost on Hints to having your home ready for buyers.

Now that we have some snow on the ground, don’t you want to keep that snow outside instead of on your beautiful floors or carpets? Keep your sidewalks and the walkway to your door (or your driveway for that matter) free of snow. Yes we can ask people to park their shoes at the door. But what if they don’t listen?

Sweeping the porch and stairs can make a big difference. First it enhances the curb appeal of your home on dreary winter days. Imagine the look of horror on your own face when you hear that someone fell on the snowy stairs on your porch and broke an arm. It keeps all the civil law suits in Judge Judy’s courtroom (is her show still on?) on television, and not on the docket of your real life!

I previewed homes today for clients and it amazed me that not one of them had swept away the snow. That’s why I am making this plea to you. If you cannot sweep the snow yourself, your Realtor® can advise you of a list of people to call. And let’s hope that pesky groundhog Phil was correct and winter is almost over!

OK. I’m on my way to sweep off the porch for my mailman now Peace Out – 3C

Several news articles struck me today. They are only somewhat related, but I’m posting them both anyway. The first one is another sledge hammer to personal savings. Reuters and CNN is reporting that personal savings in the United States has fallen to a -1%, the lowest reported since 1933, during the Great Depression. That is a stark figure. They are also talking about Sub Prime Loan defaults increasing in numbers. Sub prime loans are loans given to people who may have credit issues, for example, and do not qualify for prime lending loans; they usually involve higher interest rates. The number of sub-prime loans defaulting has been increasing year by year. The personal savings statistic was very sobering and should be a wake up call to all of us. An article from CNN Money talks about manufacturing coming out of it’s slump which would be good news.The other article is from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on line magazine. In the Cleveland market there are a lot of homes competing with each other for buyers. This article talks about an option for sellers, and that is to allow your home to become a Lease with an Option to Purchase. One reason this becomes attractive to me is if you are selling your home very soon after you have purchased it. Maybe you are moving out of state for job purposes; an unexpected transfer that makes you think you have to put your home on the market even though you just purchased it. We just ‘closed’ a lease agreement on a rental for a home in just this situation. It’s very hard to recoup your expenses in a short period of time so maybe selling a home is not the best idea, why not put it up for rent or a Lease with an Option to Buy ? Single family home rentals are very marketable and this can be a win-win scenario for both the homeowner (landlord) and the tenant. This allows you to wait a bit longer before putting the home on the market for sale, allowing more time for the home to increase in value. It can also give you time to make some improvements that will increase your homes value, all the while making your mortgage payment through the monthly rental amounts. It’s worth considering.
Peace Out – 3C