How To Sell Your Home In West Chester & Liberty Township OH Now

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In my previous post I said that You Must Sell Your Home Now if you wanted or needed to sell.  Basically that you shouldn’t wait to sell, if you were going to get the highest possible price for your home.  Today I will tell you “How To Sell Your Home Now”.

First thing you should do to sell your home now is, stage your home for sale.  What I don’t mean here is, ask your neighbor or your friend for their opinion on how really nice your home is.  You are not looking for validation.  In today’s real estate market you need to hire a professional stager to assist you in preparing your home to sell.  If you think this is just not in your budget, think again.  The cost of a staging consultation will more than be offset by a higher sale price (= more money for you!)  Need a recommendation for a great home stager?  Call or Email Us, our contact info is a the bottom of this article.

Second thing you should do is price your home to sell.  The list price of your home should be determined by a detailed market analysis performed by a full time, experienced real estate professional.  Price your home exactly where it should be to sell based on this market analysis.  If you are using words like “let’s try it at this price first” or “let’s just test it at this price” you are setting yourself up to be on the market for a long time and sell for much less.  You can be one of the “been on the market for a year” horror stories.

Third thing you should do to be successful in getting your West Chester, Liberty Township & Mason Ohio home sold now is to select a Realtor to represent you that has an extensive marketing plan.  The Realtor that you select also should be an experienced negotiator.  Today’s real estate market is not for the faint of heart either as a seller or as a real estate agent.  In today’s real estate market an experienced real estate agent matters more than ever!

So there you have it.  It’s pretty simple really… Prepare, Price It Right and Hire An Experienced Professional!

Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market value analysis here!

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Why You Must Sell Your Home Now!

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Some West Chester & Liberty Township Ohio homeowners are waiting until after the holidays to put their home on the market for sale.  Some are waiting for the “spring real estate market” to list their home for sale.  My advice… if you want to or need to sell your home, sell it now.

Why?  If you are looking to sell within the next two years, the highest sales price you will be able to attain for your home is it’s current value.

This is not just my speculation or guesswork.  In November, Fannie Mae forecasted median home sales prices for the next eight quarters.  Their projections call for prices to fall and to not again reach today’s values until the 3rd quarter of 2012.

Home prices will not begin to rise again until…. (1) we have a more stable economic climate with higher consumer confidence  (2) unemployment begins to come down significantly (3) the inventory of homes listed for sale in West Chester & Liberty Township is reduced.

Just waiting for the spring months to get here before putting your home on the market can cost you real dollars.  Yes, it’s true that there are more buyers out looking at homes in the spring.  There are also a lot more homes on the market for sale then, meaning much more competition and thus a great deal more pricing pressure.  Waiting to list your home for sale will almost undoubtably mean you will be listing your home at a lower price and will be selling for less.  

But isn’t this just the seasonality of the market you ask?  Take a look at the graph below and you will see a comparison of the last three year’s home sales for West Chester & Liberty Township Ohio.  And while you can clearly see the seasonal peaks and valleys, the real issue here is that moving forward there appears to be no driving force to increase sales (demand) very much.  The other concerning note here is that we are currently operating at sales levels that are lower than sales were during the financial crisis of 2008.

So as we move into 2011 and the time of the year when inventory of homes for sale begins to grow, my advice?  Don’t Wait!   Get your home on the market and price it to sell today for today’s market.  Sell before the flood of additional homes come on the market.

And please don’t misunderstand me here, I am not trying to portray all gloom and doom and be overly negative, but I do think it is only responsible to state the facts and try to draw some reasonable conclusions.  There is reason to act with a sense of urgency here. 

Oh yeah… one other reason to not wait.  If you are also going to be buying a home, in addition to selling your current home you need to know that interest rates are going up and going up fast.  Keep waiting and they will be even higher.

Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market value analysis here!

West Chester & Liberty Township OH Real Estate: Preparing Your Home To Sell (Part 3)

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Are you getting your home ready to list it for sale?  Preparing to sell a home in West Chester, Liberty Township or Beckett Ridge can be an overwhelming task if you are not prepared.  The process of getting your home ready can be simplified by breaking the areas of your home up into groups. 

In my previous posts, >>Preparing Your Home To Sell, we covered Curb Appeal, Front Entry / Porch & Landscaping and in >>Preparing Your Home To Sell (Part 2) , your first impression was covered. 

Today we will cover the first floor living areas including the formal living room & dining rooms, the family room and first floor study.  When you are trying to get propspective buyers to fall in love with your home, you need to offer them enough space that they can easily imagine themselves and their belongings living comfortably in your home.  They are going to make observations about whether the space inside your home feels open and spacious or tight and cramped.  Give the buyers the vision of enough space for their wants and needs and you will get your home sold.

De-Personalize:  Everyone’s home is defined by the homeowner’s personal taste and right now your home is defined by yours.  You need to transform your home to meet your buyer’s need.  To do this, you must take “you” out of your property.  In essence what you are doing is de-cluttering.  You will eventually have to pack up your belongings anyway,  so start now by packing up all of your collections of figurines, sports collectables, commerative dishes, etc.  At best these collections will distract buyers from truly seeing your home, worse yet they may likely see them as clutter.

**Keep in mind; you may need to rent a storage space for a short period of time to store all of the items that you are going to be packing up and/or moving early.**

In the family room and formal living room you will need to remove or replace any personal or family photos.  You want buyers to feel at home in your property and if they are surrounded by photos of you and your family they will feel as though they are just guests in your home.  They may also be distracted from looking at the features of your home by all of your photos.  Also needing to be removed are any signs, pillows or plaques with written sayings on them.  There are many great quotes to be found on household items, they just don’t have a place in the home sale process.

In these rooms less furniture is better also.  Take an honest look at how much furniture you have.  Can you remove that extra table to open up some space?  Any furniture that blocks a window must be removed.  Removing the ottoman is almost always a good idea also.  Any freestanding bookcases in these two rooms must go.  They aren’t adding any value and they certainly have clutter on the shelves.  Also needing to be removed are baskets, decorative screens, magazine stands and all live plants.  Remove all items from fireplace mantels and from window sills.

In the dining room, remove any leaves from the dining room table until there are no more than 4-6 chairs situated around it.  Again, here in the dining room all collectibles, excess dishware, etc. must be removed.   Any glass enclosed dining room furniture pieces should be very sparcely decorated/filled.

In the study/home office the desk top must be completely cleared off of all stacks of papers, files, magazines, etc.  All extra tables, freestanding bookcases and mis-matched file cabinets must be removed as well.  On the walls, all of the awards, diplomas and photos must also be removed.  This space must be staged to create a space that the buyer can picture themselves working in.  If this space is being used as something other than a home office or if the furniture here is mismatched, consideration should be given to buying a nice desk and chair to stage this room or contact a home stager for rental options.  Any built-in bookshelves in this room or any other room in the house should hold only hardcover books that fit properly on the shelves.  No paperback books or oversized books, pack them up!

Why do you have to do all of this you ask?  Because you are going to be trying to sell your home for the highest  possible price that you can get and clutter costs money.  De-cluttering your home for sale will help you sell for more.  If you list your home for sale without doing any home staging and your home doesn’t sell, your 1st price reduction is likely going to be $5,000 – $10,000, so de-clutter.  It’s worth it!  Keep in mind I’m not suggesting you throw your belongings away, just pack them up and put them in storage.  All you are really doing here is getting a jump start on the packing for when your home sells.

You are now on your way to creating a great  impression for home buyers as you continue preparing your home for sale in today’s West Chester, Liberty Township, Beckett Ridge and Mason, Ohio real estate market.  In the next post in this series of articles we’ll cover Preparing Your Kitchen.

Read the first article in this series here >>  Preparing Your Home For Sale In Today’s Real Estate Market (Part 1)

Read the second article in this series here >> Preparing Your Home To Sell In Today’s Real Estate Market (Part 2)

Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market value analysis here!

West Chester & Liberty Township OH Real Estate: Selling Your Home During The Holidays!

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Selling your home in today’s real estate market can be very challenging and that is just the reason that every seller should take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.  Many homeowners who are thinking of selling this time of year or that have been trying to sell with little success, start to think that perhaps they should wait until after the holidays or until spring.  So let’s look at the opportunities that the immediate fall and holiday time periods present:

First, the inventory of homes for sale (the competition) is lower right now, so your home has a better chance of capitalizing on the buyers that are out there looking right now.  Many homeowners are planning to wait until after the holidays, which will cause a flood of new listings to come on the market then.  Without an increase in buyers looking, this increased supply of homes for sale will likely cause a further drop in home prices.  If you truly want to get the best possible price for your home (and I’m sure you do), consider selling your home during the holidays.

Second, your home may show better while it is decorated for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Homes that are nicely decorated for the holidays look nicer than at any other time of year, why not use this opportunity to impress potential buyers with the warmth and added beauty of your homes interior.  Please understand,  buyers buy homes based on emotion and a really nice home, decorated beautifully can seal the deal.

Third, the buyers that are out looking at homes right now are serious buyers.  You may not get as many showings, but the ones you get will be serious.  The “just looking” buyers are not out at looking at homes now.  The buyers that are out looking at homes for sale in West Chester, Liberty Township, Beckett Ridge and Mason right now are ones that are relocating to the area or have sold their current home and need to buy quickly and of course there are always first time homebuyers looking.

Fourth, marketing matters in today’s challenging real estate market and getting ahead start on the rush of inventory coming after the holidays can put money in your pocket.  Homes that sell quickly sell for more!  Getting your home on the market now get’s the marketing process going during a time when the photos of your home will look so much better.  Photos taken now vs photos taken in January or February can make a huge difference, not just in the still photography, but in the creation of the virtual tours and online videos that we create of your home.

Click Here To Search The Entire Cincinnati MLS Database Of Homes For Sale! Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market analysis here!

West Chester & Liberty Township OH Real Estate: Has The Real Estate Market Stabilized?

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Has the Real Estate Market Stabilized?

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Click Here To Search The Entire Cincinnati MLS Database Of Homes For Sale! Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market analysis here!

West Chester & Liberty Twp OH Real Estate: Preparing Your Home To Sell

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Are you getting your home ready to list it for sale?  Preparing to sell a home in West Chester, Liberty Township or Beckett Ridge can be an overwhelming task if you are not prepared.  The process of getting your home ready can be simplified by breaking the areas of your home up into groups. 

In my previous post, >>Preparing Your Home To Sell, we covered Curb Appeal, Front Entry / Porch & Landscaping.  Today we will cover your first impression (interior, foyer).  When selling your home in today’s real estate market it is critical that the first impression that home buyers have of your home is a welcoming one.  A welcoming space is one that invites the home buyer in and lures them into the rest of the house.

Many times homeowners don’t even come and go through their front door and thus don’t place a great enough emphasis on this area of the home.  This is the area of the home that starts off the showing for the homebuyer and this is where they begin to anticipate the rest of the house.

The home buyer needs to be able to envision themselves in your home, so this is definitely an area of a home listed for sale that should have all personal effects, photos and clutter removed.  Generally speaking, any furniture that is located in this area should be removed with the exception of a properly sized foyer table.  Be sure that there are no pieces of furniture or baby gates blocking the path or view from the foyer in the rest of your home.

Be sure to de-clutter your foyer closet.  A full and cluttered foyer closet simply tells home buyers that you are short on closet space.  The foyer closet should not be more than half full.  Store unused and seasonal coats in plastic tubs in a storage area away from the living spaces of your home.

All personal/family photos should be removed from the foyer area.  If your foyer has a space that you feel needs decorating consider a mirror instead of photos.

The foyer paint color should be neutral and an earth tone.  Under no circumstances should your foyer have wallpaper on the walls.

As buyers enter your home, the scent that they smell must be clean and very subtle.  The use of candles or spray air freshener is not recommended.  Many home buyers can have adverse reactions to these strong smells and in some cases may actually wonder what it is you are trying to cover up.

We have now created a great first impression for home buyers as you continue preparing your home for sale in today’s real estate market.  In the next post in this series of articles we’ll cover Living Room, Dining Room, Family Room & Study.

Read the first article in this series here >>  Preparing Your Home For Sale In Today’s Market Part I

Wondering what your home is worth in today’s real estate market? Request a market analysis here!

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