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You are here: Home / Archives for Sell Your Home

Sell Your Home

What We Look At When Pricing a Home

April 18, 2019 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Pricing a Home

When you put your home up for sale, there is a lot that happens “behind the scenes” in order to come up with the right price. You’ve heard about comparable sales (or “comps” as they’re often referred to) and they are hands down one of the best ways to determine the asking price for your home. There’s rarely a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, so a pricing decision often relies on comparisons to several recent sales in the area. It’s both an art and a science and finding the balance between the two is the key to successfully pricing a home. Here are a few of the things we look for when working on pricing your home and preparing a CMA (comparative market analysis).

Location. Homes in the same neighborhood typically follow the same market trends. Comparing your home to another in the same neighborhood is a good start, but comparing it to homes on the same street or block is even better. We typically will start with a very narrow focus (street level, neighborhood) and then widen the scope to look further out if we’re not finding a lot of sales in the area.

Date of sale. We don’t want to use homes that sold too long ago as market conditions shift over time. A good rule of thumb is to look within the last three months, although exceptions can be made for unique properties that are not as easy to define. The closer the date, the better for comparable purposes as even a couple of months can shift the market in a different direction. Other factors, like time of year should also be considered (ie a home in the springtime market is more likely to sell faster and for a higher price than one sold in December).

Home build. Look for homes with similar architectural styles, numbers of bathrooms and bedrooms, square footage, and other basics. We will often try to compare to the same builder or floorplan if possible. Knowing who built in a neighborhood and where else they have built can be a huge help in knowing where to look for potential comparable sales.

Features and upgrades. Remodeled bathrooms and kitchens can raise a home’s price, and so can less flashy upgrades like a new roof or HVAC system. We want to be sure to look for similar bells and whistles. If properties with similar upgrades can’t be found, adjustments can be made to compensate although it is worth noting that these upgrades never come with a dollar-to-dollar value.

Sale types and terms. Homes that are sold as short sales or foreclosures are often in distress or sold at a lower price than they’d receive from a more typical sale. These homes are not as useful for comparisons. Other items like seller paid closing costs and concessions should be looked at as well. A home that sold for $10,000 over asking price that included $10,000 in seller paid closing costs isn’t the same as a house that sold for $10,000 over asking with no seller concessions.

image courtesy of AlanH2O

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: selling your home, comparative market analysis, home pricing, sales price

6 Steps to Take Before Selling Your Home

April 2, 2019 by khproperties 2 Comments

6 Tips Before Selling Your Home

Whether you’re ready to sell today or thinking about doing it in the future, it pays to make sure you’re prepared. These helpful tips can get you prepared to sell quicker and get your home sold faster. Call one of our real estate agents and schedule your pre-listing meeting today. Want a downloadable PDF to share with your friends? You can also read the text of the infographic below…

Meet with your trusted real estate agent: Your agent can save you a lot of time and energy by guiding you through the pre-listing phase. They are there to serve you and help you decide if listing your home is the right option.

Pre-qualify to buy your new home: Get pre-qualified to buy your next home before putting your current one on the market. Working with a reputable mortgage professional will help you understand what you need to net from your current home and achieve your goals for your next one.

Price correctly: Listing your home at the proper market value is critical to selling your home within a reasonable time frame. Be cautious of making decisions based on valuations online and instead use your agent’s in-depth knowledge of the local area as a resource.

Pre-inspection: Home inspections are often a sticking point where a home sale can go wrong. Material defects may need to be repaired prior to a buyer purchasing the home, so determine these potential fixes before you list, instead of during the negotiation process.

De-clutter: If your house is cluttered or filled with personal mementos, it can be more difficult for a buyer to picture themselves living there. Placing large pieces of furniture or family photos in storage is worth the effort to help your home sell quicker.

Professional photography: The modern-day home search almost always starts online and first impressions are very important. Make sure your real estate agent uses a professional photographer or company specializing in real estate photography to show your home in the best light.

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: tips, advice, selling your home, infographic

Fix Up Your Home Before Putting It On The Market

March 5, 2019 by khproperties Leave a Comment

When you’re getting ready to put your home on the market, it’s important to remember that you want to show it in the best light. Taking time to highlight its strengths and fix up some of its possible weaknesses can make a big difference in how fast it sells…and for what price. Some of these items won’t cost you a lot and can be done over a weekend or two and if DIY home repair just isn’t your thing, these can be done by a local handyman for not a lot of money. Here are our top five recommended repairs to make before listing your home and putting it on the market.

Repaint Walls

Giving your home a fresh coat of paint is one of the most cost-effective ways to make it look great, and generally, it can be a weekend DIY project. Make sure to cover any walls with scratches and chips (and patch and re-texture if the damage is large enough) and consider updating any accent walls with a more neutral coat.

Repair Floors

Hardwood floors are a very desirable feature in a home, so you want to ensure they look their best by fixing scratches or dull areas. If your carpet is worn or stained, consider replacing them. And don’t forget the tile in your kitchen or bathrooms. Re-grouting or having them professional steam cleaned can go a long way in making dingy tile work look brand new!

Refresh The Landscaping

Show buyers your home is the full package by dressing up the outside as well as the in. Clean walkways and driveways, plant seasonal flowers and plants, trim hedges and trees, install outdoor décor pieces and put down a fresh layer of mulch. Make sure you keep the lawn watered and green.

Fix Your Fixtures

Leaky faucet? Rusted drains? Loose drawer handle? Making these small fixes can make a big difference to potential buyers with detail-orientated minds. Improve your kitchen. An outdated kitchen can really detract from your homes other better qualities. Updating cabinetry (even just changing out the hardware or painting cabinets can help), repairing or replacing countertops, and installing new faucets and sinks may be worth the investment.

Small changes can make a large impact and it’s always a good idea to knock out some of those quick fixes you’ve been meaning to get to, but never can seem to get crossed off your list.

image courtesy of emily @ go haus go

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: sell your home, tips, advice, repairs

CMAs, Appraisals, and The Value of Your Home

August 24, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Value of Your Home

What is the value of your home? This is probably the first question on every homeowner’s mind when they think about selling. Understanding what the value of your home is and how it can be determined is a key step for you as you make the decision to sell your home. From listing your home to the moment you sell, you will talk a lot about the price and value of your home. As an agent, we will help guide you on pricing based on the CMA, or comparative market analysis. Once under contract, a buyer’s lender will order an appraisal, in order to ensure they are lending money based on a solid value for the home. While the goal is to have these numbers be the same or quite close, it doesn’t always happen that way. Understanding how each arrives at the value of your home can help you get your home sold.

The CMA

You want to list your home for sale, so you call a Realtor. One of the first things the agent will do is run a CMA on your property to get a better understanding of how they can help you sell. The CMA, which is short for comparative market analysis, takes a look at properties similar to yours and the prices they sold at and then factors in a wide array of variables to try and pinpoint the best price to list your home for. The agent will look at the dates of the sales (the closer the better), location of homes that sold, size of the homes, and amenities. The idea is to try and find homes that are the most similar to yours in order to compare them and find the most likely price your home will sell at. When faced with an area where there aren’t a lot of comparable properties, your agent will need to look at other factors and try to adjust the values in order to come up with the best list price.

The Appraisal

Once under contract, the lender will order an appraisal. The goal for the lender is to justify the value of your home based on the price you’re paying – they’re not in the business of loaning more money than the home is worth. In order to do this, an appraiser will take into consideration many of the same items your agent did while doing their CMA. Things like date of sale, location, size, and amenities are all factored into their appraised value (not to be confused with the tax assessed value). Different loan types often result in different scrutiny too, for instance both VA and FHA loans tend to lean on health and safety issues in a home and look at whether a home meets a minimum standard of living. Conventional loans can be a little looser with those requirements, but it all depends on the lender and the loan product being used. Fannie Mae has a set of guidelines for appraisals that assists the appraisers in knowing what to look for and how to select comparables to do their analysis.

The Value of Your Home

Determining the value of your home isn’t always easy – sometimes there just aren’t enough sales of similar homes in your area to compare. In these cases, both agent and appraisers have to look elsewhere or adjust the value of properties based on their differences (ie giving more value to a home that has an extra bedroom or less value to a home that has a one car garage while your home has a two car garage). This is where experience and knowledge of the local area really come into play. The more the agent or appraiser know about the local area, the better theycan serve you.

In the end, it all comes down to comparing apples to apples. The more you try and compare an apple to an orange, the harder is gets.

image courtesy of Cubosh

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: appraisal, cma, selling your home

Less is More When Listing Your Home for Sale

August 9, 2016 by Judy Fernandez 3 Comments

Less is More

How do you know what to do when you put your home on the market – it seems there is so much advice available out there, especially since the internet came along. We’ve talked about staging to smells to photos to curb appeal…and each of these items can have an impact on the sale of your home. Agent Judy Fernandez takes a look at the theory of less is more and how to apply it to the sale of your home. If you’re currently selling your home or ready to put your home on the market, think about how the buyer sees your home and apply some of this theory to your home so that you can get it sold fast and for top dollar.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “less is more.” Well, when it comes to listing your property and showing it, it’s not much different. Having less in your home that is for sale can actually put more in your pocket sooner.

Less Clutter

When showing homes, one of the most common characteristics buyers are looking for is space. “Does my furniture fit here and there?,” is constantly on their mind, especially if they have family heirlooms or cultural items they have acquired over the years. Having a decluttered home can help those prospective home buyers have an idea of how much space you truly have available. Too many boxes or excess furniture and toys can make a room seem much smaller than what it truly is. Make it a point to remove as many items as possible and leave only the essentials to show the functionality of the room.

Less Landscape

Yes, we all love trees and green landscapes, while we can get them in this Texas heat. Yet, you’d be amazed at how many home buyers are immediately drawn away from a property because they have overgrown trees, plants, and bushes out front. Having overgrown plants that cover the windows, get in the way of walking paths, and inhibit natural light from entering a home are real downers to some home buyers. Plus, they get to thinking of how much maintenance a yard will require or how expensive it will be to maintain it. Go for simple greenery that future homebuyers might enjoy without having to put in all the extra hours outdoors in the Texas heat.

Less Scrapes and Stains

While unexplainable streaks of paints and stains might be amazing on an abstract painting, they aren’t so much on the walls or carpets of a property that is for sale. Buyers looking for a new home are usually looking for a clean slate that they can move right into without having to do much additional work beforehand. They already have their hands full with packing up, moving, and unpacking, so the last thing they want to do is spend more time and energy cleaning off scuff marks from walls or washing carpets and having to wait for them to dry. Not only does it require more money, but it sets them back from moving into their dream home. Help them (and yourself) out by touching up the walls and washing or spot treating the carpet.

Overall having less items that potential buyers are drawn away by will give your more money in your pocket sooner. Save yourself the extra time your house can be on the market because of small items that are easy to take care of and help stage your home. Having a clean decluttered home is more relaxing to walk through and easier for a buyer to picture themselves in it.

image courtesy of marfis75

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: staging, selling your home, judy fernandez

Hail Damage Still Causing Issues for Sellers in San Antonio

July 11, 2016 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Hail Damage

Did your home suffer hail damage during the storms earlier this year? Many people don’t even know that their homes were affected by the hail storms and since they’ve experienced no leaks or obvious things like broken windows, they think they have escaped the major brunt of the storms and all is well. Many homeowners don’t know anything happened at all…until they go to sell their homes and the buyer comes along for the home inspection. If your home was in the path of one of the storms that brought with it extensive hail damage, chances are the inspector will find evidence of it and notate it in their report. Once it’s on that report, you’re going to have to deal with it one way or another.

Inspectors know what neighborhoods experienced hail damage and which didn’t, so they are on the lookout for the telltale signs of damage on rooftops. On composition shingle roofs, the hail typically leaves a mark upon impact, which removes some of the granules from the shingle and there is often a bit of a skid mark where they hit the roof and begin to slide down. Although these pockmarks can be small and seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, they are an indication of long term wear and tear and while they may not be causing a leak now, they can cause issues in the future. Inspectors are there to report their findings to the buyer and because of the heightened awareness of hail in the area, they are looking at roofs more closely. Remember, the inspector has to protect their liability too – so when things like this become common place in an area, they are more likely to report these kinds of issues. They have to cover their liability and make everyone aware of the potential disclosure of items that could cause trouble for the owner – now or after the sale.

Once an inspector notates evidence of hail damage in their report, you’re stuck with it. As a seller, you now have a few basic choices:

  • Do nothing. Most buyers are going to back out if you do nothing and if they did their inspections during the option period, there’s little recourse for you as a homeowner. This choice has an additional downside in that you now have to disclose that inspection report to future buyers on your Seller’s Disclosure Notice, so chances are just about every buyer is going to ask you to rectify the situation. It’s not just a matter of the buyer getting a new roof either – most insurance companies won’t insure the property for a new buyer because of the known damage. It truly is a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
  • Fix the roof and pay for it yourself. Depending on what the damage is, it may be a simple fix or it may be time to tear the whole roof off and replace it. Coming out of pocket for a new roof is not something most owners enjoy, so the next option is usually the better one.
  • Call your insurance company and have them come out and inspect the roof. This can take time, so typically the seller and buyer will agree to extend the option period to allow time for an insurance adjuster to come out and present their findings. The insurance company will give you an estimate of what they think the damage is and how much it will cost to fix or replace the roof. Remember, the insurance company will take into account any depreciation of the value of the roof as well as your deductible, so while they may declare it a total loss in need of replacement, they won’t necessarily pay for the whole thing. Once you have your numbers, you can arrange to have the roof fixed. You may have to work with the buyer to change closing dates as most lenders will not close on the home until they can verify the work is complete.
  • You can perform the steps above, but instead of arranging to have the roof work done and paying for it with your insurance claim, you can assign the insurance proceeds over to the buyer at closing. You will still be responsible for your deductible, but this puts the work into the hands of the new owner after the sale. There’s a catch however. Most lenders and insurance companies won’t allow you to do this. There are some that allow it, but in most of the cases we’ve seen this year, either the lender requires the work to be complete before they will close and fund the loan or the insurance company doesn’t allow for assignment of proceeds. The banks are protecting their asset and the insurance company is making sure that the work gets done and no one is just pocketing the money only to make a claim later for the same item. Also, the buyer’s insurance company may not insure the property because of their knowledge of the claim and may also insist the work is done before they will insure the home. Without insurance on the home, the lender will not close on the loan.
    • Whichever route you choose, you’re going to want to keep the buyers updated and informed and you will need to get them to come to an agreement with you on how to proceed. As always, you’ll want to get everything in writing and your agent will draw up and amendment to the contract to reflect the decisions made on how everything will be handled.

      Do You Have Hail Damage?

      Most homeowners don’t go up on their roofs very often to inspect them, so you may not even know you have hail damage. If the storms passed through your neighborhood, chances are you do, even if it is only slight damage. Telltale signs you may need to think about your roof? If you’re seeing roofers all throughout your neighborhood, signs in the yards for roofing companies, pallets of shingles stacked in driveways…you’re going to want to get your roof checked. Buyers and their agents will be looking for those signs as well as having the home inspected and chances are, some evidence of hail damage will be found.

      If you’re thinking about selling and live in an area that did experience hail storms, you can call your insurance company beforehand and have them come out to inspect the roof. It will save a lot of time and hassle while the home is under contract and you can have the work started sooner rather than later. You’ll probably have to come out of pocket for some of it (at least your deductible), but doing it now can save you the hassle and headache later during the sale. If the whole roof is replaced, it can add value to your home as well, so you may wind up with better, stronger offers for more money, especially since many buyers are aware of the length of time it can take to get these problems resolved while the home is under contract and they may not be prepared to take on the challenge of those types of delays. A little preparation goes a long way.

      image courtesy of cafuego

Filed Under: Sell Your Home Tagged With: sell your home, homeowners insurance, hail, inspections

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