judyo's Blog: General Real Estate

 

A few months ago I received a listing referral from another REW member, Ken Smith.  He sells in the northwest Chicago suburbs and I sell in the southwest area.  Sometimes our websites attract each other’s area so we trade prospects whenever we can.

The sellers sounded very nice over the phone and I was excited to actually work what at first sounded like a good referral.  These sellers were selling a home in Palos Heights, which is a very sought after southwest suburb of Chicago.  They were still listed with another brokerage.

My excitement waned as I was preparing the Comparative Market Analysis (CMA).  The house had already been on the market for over 200 days.  The original asking price was $349,900 and after several price reductions they were…

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I've had 3 offers on 3 different listings this past week (2 over the weekend). One listing has only been on the market for 3 weeks and has received a first offer. Of course, it was very low (almost $20,000 under asking price and the price is what could be considered below market already). Of course, what is "below market" today? The price of the property is $193,500.

Last year the sellers had a sale that fell through (I did not have the listing then). The appraisal was done prior to the transaction falling apart and it appraised for around $214,000. In fact, when it was first put on the market it was listed at $240,000. We can all say, well it was obviously listed too high to begin with, but they did get an offer at some point in the price…

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I have written two staging stories you can read here and here.  As popular as Home Staging has become in today's real estate market, I can't believe the majority of sellers in my area that either haven't heard the term or just don't think it will make a difference in their property.

I have shown more vacant homes than ever in the past few years.  When I first started in the business in the '80's, there were few vacant homes to show.  And if they were, it was an estate sale or a job transfer.  Today, there are many "flipped" homes that sit vacant (you can usually spot these investment properties pretty quickly) and homes that sit vacant for many other reasons.  Even I ponder how average people can afford having a home sit vacant if it's not an estate sale…

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This is the 2nd installment to my first Home Staging story.  I am not a professional home stager but in my 24 years in real estate and reading and watching shows on staging homes, I feel I can offer some free expertise on the subject.  Plus, I'm experienced on what buyers want and expect and how most buyers are visual and cannot see past what is in front of them.

Another story I remember is about a home for sale in Oak Lawn that was a unique floor plan that one builder incorporated into a particular subdivision in the area in the 1960's.  I have never seen this same home since.  It was a nice home that had a few full, wide steps up from the living room, giving it the appearance of it being a "sunken living room."  Not quite a 3-step ranch, not a raised…

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I have been giving home staging advice before it was called "staging."  One of my fondest memories was the appointment I went on for a Burbank IL real estate listing.  It was a basic split level style home with 3 bedrooms, formal living room, kitchen and down a few steps was a family room. 

A family of 7 lived here and it was time to move on as they were very cramped.  I walked through the home and we went over things that I felt the house needed in order to sell at the price the sellers wanted to get.  There were some repairs that were needed but the first thing that I told them was that they had to clean up the family room.

This room must not have been used for its purpose in years.  It was stacked from wall to wall and top to bottom with furniture,…

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It was late last night when I first went to Zillow.com.  That was part of my problem.  As a REALTOR® I thought it might be a good idea to add my profile to the popular website.  Kind of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality.  OK, I did it to see if I got a backlink.  No, really, such a popular site might actually bring some traffic.

As I entered my profile I saw the "add a listing" feature.  I decided to try it with one listing I have where my sellers have a contingent contract on another property and need to sell.  I'm trying to do whatever I can to market their place.

It was easy enough to enter and I pressed the Publish link.  To my horror I saw the list price of $349,900 followed by the zestimate of $262,733! 

Today, I tried removing…

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I know many buyers and sellers realize that real estate agents have a networking system where they can refer a client to an out-of-town, out-of state or out of country agent.  Yet few buyers or sellers take advantage of this and try to go to the area they're moving to or selling from and try to locate their own agent.

While it's not a terrible thing to do it that way, a prospect might be better served by going through a local agent to give them a referral of an agent from the area they are thinking of moving to or selling from.   I am located in Chicago, IL, but can find an agent in any other state, or a different country almost anywhere in the world.

What is the benefit for you?  You don't have to do any searching and interviewing.  That can take a… Read Full Post

This is my final post on the subject – until something else breaks.  The first two posts are here and here.

Again, these things all happened within the same week which was stressful enough without these failures.  But this one brought my blood pressure up the highest. 

I was meeting first-time buyers for their LaGrange home inspection.  I grabbed my Supra key off the holder just in case the seller wasn’t going to be home.  The cradle is supposed to do an automatic update but mine doesn’t for some reason.  I don’t think it ever did.

I tried doing a manual e-sync but it wouldn’t take and I was running late so I thought I would just get the update code over the phone, which is an option.  The key seemed to be working fine, just needed the daily… Read Full Post