Selling a Home - Karen's Perspective

Open House – it’s time!

Open door

If you’re planning to sell your home, it’s time to get ready for Open House.

The nicer weather is bringing people out and you want to have your home’s best face ready to be seen! Even if you’re not putting it on the market for another month, now is the time to be getting it ready. Here are some things you need to do:

1) Clean up the clutter! Clean out cabinets and closets. Throw out what you can; give away what can be passed on; box up what you want to keep that you won’t be using often. This gives your home a more open and airy feeling for buyers who will be coming through. It also gets you closer to being ready to move! Read this: Cleaning Out!

2) Clean up the yard. Get rid of all the winter debris – anything dead or dying. Rake the yard well and throw out new seed. Freshen up flower beds with bark or straw and plant flowering plants when the weather allows. Cut back overgrowth.

More Unique Ways to Sell Your Home

If you have a home for sale today, you’re not alone, by far!

How do you get your home to stand out so it will sell? First of all, read my post, Unique Ways to Sell a Home.

Then, listen to Barbara Corcoran on this Good Morning America video.

03 / 07 / 2010
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How Many Ways can Lenders Prevent a Closing?

It’s a rhetorical question. I do not want to know. I am certain that the answer is a number way larger than I care to think about.

However, I did just find one more answer to add to my list of personal experiences.

We have a buyer for a flip who is very qualified; high credit scores, plenty to put down, good job.

Well, the closing took longer than promised (no real surprise today) and our buyer had to be out of the rental he was in. As we were scheduled to close any day (we had passed the first date because of “lender error”) we let the buyer move in and he is paying us a daily amount until we close.

The property itself also passed qualification with flying colors; passed inspection, appraisal came in high (we always sell below market value to keep our properties moving).

So here’s the rub, the warning and the frustration.

Equity – New Workfor Equity Requirements

equity. new work-for-equity requirements

Well, we recently got caught in another regulation change on our way to closing. Are you aware that there are new work for equity requirements? Do you even know what that means?

We do a lot of lease to own contracts for selling. We buy homes and put tenants under lease to own because they’re unable to get traditional financing. We work on their credit and give work for equity credits to help them raise their needed down payment. That’s been working beautifully for years. As with everything else in the 2010 finance regulations, new requirements!

1. For existing construction, which is generally our area: only repairs or improvements listed on the appraisal are eligible for work for equity. Any work or materials not included on the appraisal are not eligible.

OK, so here’s the problem. What appraisal? This means that, before I put a tenant in with work for equity opportunities, the lender wants me to get an appraiser to look at the work they will be doing and set a price for it. Ugh.

Then, the appraiser must look at it after the work is done to confirm the work and the value. Ugh.

Mortgage Resets – Here comes the next wave

I know everyone really wants to believe the housing market is going to get better in 2010. I know we’ve all had enough of the gloom and doom, but it appears we have to brace ourselves for more of the same, at best.

We’re so used to turning the channel when we get bored with what’s on. We expect to drive up to the window and have our food ready. We swallow a pill in anticipation of instant headache relief.

But, from the looks of this graph, we’re going to be in this one for a while. It’s better to know ahead of time to be prepared. Stop spending. Save what you can, when you can. Scale back, downsize, reuse, recycle.

The real estate market will come back strong. It always does. We’ll just have to be patient a while longer.

So, what’s the good news? There’s never been a better time to invest in real estate.

If you live in the Triad area of North Carolina, we’d love to help you with your investing. Check out our Triad Master Mind. It’s a great group of local investors and we’re all working together to help each other profit through real estate.

Don’t wait to invest, invest and wait! Huge returns will be there to reap in your future.

Happy investing!