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Listing expired? Make selling a “co-mission”

5/26/2018

Last week we focused on the Realtor® aspect of what to do if your listing has expired and your home hasn’t sold. This week we’ll talk about the other critical team member in the home sales equation—the home owner.

If your listing has expired and you still want (or need) to sell your home, it may be time to shift focus from “commission” to “co-mission” thinking.

“Commission” thinking is the view that it is exclusively the listing agent’s job to sell your home in exchange for a commission payment based on a percentage of the closing price. But a listing estate agent’s job is to help homeowners sell their homes. In other words, it’s a team effort.

I have found that the most efficient and effective real estate sales occur when property owners and listing agents work collaboratively on a CO (joint; mutual; common) MISSION (an important goal or purpose).

In other words, expired listings can be overcome when real estate professionals and homeowners work together toward the important mutual goal of selling a home.

When a listing has expired, one way to sell the house is to lower the price. But what if that isn’t necessary? What if you instead took some steps to improve the perceived value of the home? Here are some things you can do as the homeowner to help your home sell in the shortest period of time, for the greatest value:

Create a great first impression--Your property is the product that either attracts or repels buyers. Accordingly, the importance of curb appeal cannot be overstated. If prospective buyers like what they see on the outside of your home, they’ll be enticed to see the inside. If they don’t, they won’t. Keep in mind that first impressions don’t just occur during scheduled showings; curious buyers drive by homes all the time. Here are some things you can do to create the best first impression possible:

Make it sparkle on the outside--If you were selling a used car you’d take it to the car wash, right? Why not do the same thing for your house? You can, with pressure washing. Pressure washing does a number on the staining, moss and mildew that can do a number on the curb appeal of a property’s decks, patios, siding, roof and gutters. There are many things you can “do it yourself,” but when it comes to exterior cleaning, it really pays to hire a professional. Even if you have access to pressure washing equipment, there’s a risk of damaging the exterior of your home (your biggest investment) by forcing water into or behind the siding, which can cause or exacerbate mold issues. You can also peel paint, splinter or damage wood, rip up or damage the surface of shingles if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I recently spoke with James Poole of Poole’s Pressure Washing. He showed me dramatic before and after pictures of properties he’s serviced. I was blown away by the difference (you can see some examples at facebook.com/poolespressurewashing). I learned that James doesn’t actually pressure wash houses. He does what’s called a “soft wash.” With this method they use a low pressure system, water and detergents to agitate the organic staining, dirt or other buildups that are on a home.

The benefit to using this “soft wash” method is that it minimizes the risk of damage to the exterior of your home. This is much more practical and effective than traditional pressure washing, which has been found to damage various types of siding and surfaces. Now that the outside is sparkling, let’s move to the inside of the home…

Clean and cut clutter to close--A clean, clutter free interior makes an amazing difference when showing a property to buyers. It sounds obvious, but it is crucial that your home looks livable. Prospective buyers can be easily distracted by clutter. Clean and declutter as though you are expecting very important visitors… in this case visitors who may want to give you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) for your property!
Pay special attention to cleaning windows so your property looks great from the outside looking in and inside looking out. Open or remove drapes, curtains and valances so every possible ray of natural light penetrates the interior of your home. Just like lighting is important when filming actors, models or products, proper lighting will help your Realtor® take the best pictures and give the best showings possible.

Paint for profit--Everyone knows you can cover up wear and tear, crayon marks and other sales distractions by painting walls. But did you know that paint color is an important factor that can affect a home’s selling pace and price?
Experts often advise choosing neutral colors when painting rooms, but some recent information suggests that fresh paint in the right color may actually help you sell your home more effectively. Zillow’s 2017 Paint Color Analysis studied over 32,000 photos from homes sold nationwide in order to determine how certain paint colors impacted average sale price versus comparable homes with white walls. Their findings suggest that homes with:

blue or soft gray-blue kitchens sold for a $1,809 premium
powder blue or soft periwinkle colored bathrooms sold for $5,440 more than expected (white bathrooms sold for an average of $4,035 below similar homes)
light cerulean to cadet blue bedrooms can earn a $1,856 premium
slate blue to pale gray blue dining rooms sold for $1,926 more on average than homes with white dining room wall colors
front doors painted in shades of dark navy blue to slate gray sold for $1,514 more
light beige, pale taupe or oatmeal-colored living room walls sell for $1,926 more

If your listing has expired and you are still motivated to sell your home, it may be time to shift focus from “commission” to “co-mission” thinking. As a homeowner, you are a critical member of the home sales team. By taking a few actions to improve curb appeal, cut clutter and leverage color, you can help your listing agent help you. It might be the difference between a successful sale and another expired listing.

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My Listing Expired. Now What?

5/18/2018

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A home I have under agreement right now was listed previously with another agent. The home didn’t sell the first time around and the prior listing expired after nearly six months, even though the property is affordably priced, is in great shape and offers attractive amenities including an in-ground pool, tennis courts, and 150 feet of Lake Winnipesaukee water frontage with stunning views, a private, sandy beach, kayak/canoe racks, and four long day docks.

Expired listings are an all-too-frequent reality in real estate, so I thought it might be helpful to share some tips on what to do if your listing has expired. In this week’s exciting episode, we’ll focus on the real estate professional. Here are some options:

Give your current agent another chance--There are some advantages to trying again with your current listing agent. For example, she or he is already familiar with your property and can update and reactivate the listing very quickly. Giving your current agent another chance spares you the time and effort of interviewing other agents, who must start from scratch with questions, paperwork, photographs and marketing. Besides, breaking up is hard to do. What do you say to your Realtor®? “It’s not you, it’s the property?” “I can’t be in a committed listing relationship with you, but we can still be friends?”

If you’re open to keeping your current agent, ask how the market may differ now. For example, if your Lakes Region home was listed over the winter it may have been exposed to lower traffic than it would receive this time of year when far more people are visiting the region and shopping for homes. Perhaps there are fewer homes for sale now and therefore less competition. Maybe some comparable homes are under agreement and establishing the price precedent your home needed.

Also ask your agent what, if anything, he or she is going to do differently to sell your home this time around. We’ve all heard that the definition of insanity is “trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different response,” so if your home hasn’t sold it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a new approach in order to achieve a new result. On the other hand, if the agent doesn’t have satisfactory answers to those questions, you might…

Give another agent a chance--There are advantages to bringing in a fresh set of eyes, especially if your previous agent wasn’t proactive and responsive in their communications (perhaps the leading cause of breakups between sellers and agents). Here are some important questions to consider when interviewing a replacement Realtor®:

Will you put a lock box on my property? I’m amazed how common this practice is. My perspective is that lock boxes don’t sell your home, they just let people in. I’ve had numerous experiences where I was given a lock box code over the phone and never saw the listing agent during showings, inspections or walk-throughs.

Further, lock boxes open real estate professionals and home owners to a lot of potential liability. For example, what if something is stolen during a “showing” where no one was there to represent you? Or what if your pipes burst because a buyer agent unfamiliar with your home thinks they just turned off the lights in the basement, when, in reality, they just turned off the oil burner switch and it’s 10 below?

Do you practice real estate full time or part time? There are some fine people who practice part time and just pick up a listing here and there. A part-timer may get the job done but if your listing has expired there are two issues important to consider: time and commitment. For example, what if the agent is busy with his or her primary job and can’t show your home in a timely fashion? Well, I guess they could put up a lock box.

Further, real estate requires a steep and constant learning curve. Someone who is not 100 percent committed to the business may not be current with the latest training and techniques to make sure your property sells, for an appropriate price, with minimum legal liability.

Where is your office located and what does it focus on? In this case, my client disclosed that his previous listing agent had only a handful of showings over the nearly six months of prior listing. I looked into it and found that the prior agent’s office was in a town more than an hour away from the Laconia property. That agent may be very good, but it’s tough to devote over two hours just to get to and from the property you’re trying to sell. I guess she could have put up a lock box.

Further, the agent worked for a metropolitan office of an ubermegabehemoth international franchise, so the Lakes Region represented only a miniscule, infinitesimal, teeny, little fraction of that agency’s sales.

On the other hand, my office and home are about ten minutes away from the above-mentioned Laconia property, and since its inception decades ago, Roche Realty Group’s slogan has been: “We sell the Lakes Region.” In other words, Lakes Region properties are not an afterthought for us—they are the only thought.

Agent approach and office location and focus can make a huge difference. Because I am dedicated to Lakes Region markets including Laconia, Meredith, Gilford and Moultonborough, practice real estate full time, and don’t use a lock box, I have the above-mentioned property under agreement after just 18 days on market, and for $11,000 more than the previous agent’s expired listing price.

Now that we’ve talked a little bit about the agent side of the equation, in our next exciting episode we’ll explore what you as the homeowner can do differently if your home hasn’t sold and your listing has expired.

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A Sale of Two Cities

5/12/2018

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I recently spotted a story about the cheapest home for sale in San Francisco, the most unaffordable city in the United States. If Charles Dickens had been a real estate professional he might have opened the listing remarks with: “It was the most affordable of homes, it was the most unaffordable of markets.”

The median price for a one bedroom home in the “City by the Bay” is estimated at $820,000 (meaning half of comparable homes cost more). The most affordable home listed in San Francisco in February was an uninhabitable (hey, what do you expect?) 1,085 square foot, one bed, one bath single family home on a 0.06 acre lot about five miles from the city’s center.

Originally built in 1900, this property was listed for $399,000.

Like all good real estate professionals, the listing agent did what he could to tactfully describe the home in order to drive both interest and perceived value. “Very poor condition,” the listing bragged. “Very little likelyhood (sic) of buyer obtaining a loan,” it boasted. Hey, even Charles Dickens may have been at a loss for words when it came to describing this property charitably.

Naturally, the agent complemented his literary listing remarks with photos designed to highlight the property’s best features.

Unfortunately, the most appealing photo, a landscape shot designed to provide supporting evidence for the claim of “Terrific Bay Views!”, looks to me like a terrific view of the world’s most expensive shanty town.

The images quickly went downhill from there.

Now, I’m no remediation expert but I’ve discovered enough fuzzy, gray/green leftovers over the years to know mold when I see it, and one glance at the picture of the home’s dark, sooty and battered entrance hall suggested a ceiling festooned with growth like last Thanksgiving’s forgotten cranberry sauce.

The rusty, moldy and otherwise dilapidated bathroom (with an avocado green tub) looks like a perfect location for a scene in the next installment of the “Saw” horror movie franchise. The one bedroom home’s kitchen photo inexplicably features six befouled mattresses.

Finally, had you spoken with the listing agent, he would have disclosed that none of the appliances worked, that the plumbing was not functional, and that the heating system, flooring, and interior sheetrock were all severely damaged.
With all that going for it, San Francisco’s most affordable house naturally attracted multiple competitive offers from prospective buyers. Of the 23 offers received, 12 were over $520,000 (for a property listed at $399,000), and the winning offer was for $565,000, cash.

"This is 'affordable housing' in San Francisco," the listing agent said during an interview. "When you have a property that's below a million, it's a steal. If it's close to $500,000, it's a joke."

Now that we’ve addressed the City by the Bay, let’s cover the City on the Lakes.

The median list price for a one-bedroom, single family home in the Laconia is presently $80,000 (about one tenth of San Francisco’s median). The highest valued one bed, single family home listed at this time is an immediately inhabitable 674 square foot one bed, one bath, four season cottage on a 0.61 acre lot (more than ten times the size of the lot in San Francisco) with a boat slip and 125 feet of Lake Winnipesaukee waterfront.

Lovingly updated since its original construction in 1966, this home is listed for $524,900 (that’s over $40,000 less than the uninhabitable home in San Francisco sold for).

The listing agent (full disclosure: his barber cuts my hair) evoked the spirit of Charles Dickens and wrote:

“You just can’t get much closer to the water than 87 Harglen. This adorable four-season waterfront cottage could be a playhouse for your inner child, a happily-ever-after home for your retirement years, or both. This personal paradise is located on one of the best lots in quiet, private, no-wake Pickerel Cove, which connects you to over 45 thousand acres of beautiful Paugus Bay and Lake Winnipesaukee water… With a nearby private beach for the community, snowmobile trails and skiing, there are infinite recreational possibilities outside, and easy-to-maintain single floor living with no stairs once you're back inside…The property also features an external 12’ x 16’ multipurpose room which could serve as a bunkhouse for guests, an art studio, personal workshop or more…”

Naturally, the agent complemented these literary listing remarks with photos designed to highlight the property’s best features.

If you were to search MLS # 4682787 or visit www.87HarglenLane.com, you’d see that this home has legitimately terrific interior and exterior views of the water (which is literally steps away) and the Belknap Mountains.

The entrance to this property is a bright 17 by 8 foot heated lakeside sunroom with views of water and mountains.
The bedroom easily swallows a king-size bed, the bathroom is nicely finished, spacious and well tiled, and the bright, open kitchen flows naturally from the living room and is well-appointed with exotic granite countertops, high end laminate flooring and new cabinets.

If you spoke with the listing agent, he’d disclose that the appliances—including the Deco All-in-One Compact Electric washer/dryer—all function and can convey with the sale. He’d also tell you that 87 Harglen Lane in Laconia is a special property that offers a million dollar view for half the price and proves you can live large in a small home.

So there you have it, a tale of the sale of two cities. In San Francisco, “If it's close to $500,000, it's a joke." In Laconia, a similar investment secures a personal paradise with peaceful water and mountain views that will make you feel a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

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Rising construction costs highlight the value of existing homes

5/1/2018

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If you’re in the market to buy a Lakes Region home the best bang for your buck is on existing resale properties, not new construction.

That’s because construction material costs are accelerating. Bloomberg recently reported that the cost of framing lumber spiked 16 percent between December 2017 and March 2018. Additionally, a National Association of Home Builders survey revealed that other construction materials (including particleboard, plumbing, concrete and insulation) cost 5.1 percent more in March 2018 than they did a year ago, the biggest annual price increase in nearly eight years.

There are numerous factors causing the cost of new construction materials to swell. For example, demand has surged since August 2017 when hundreds of thousands of homes in Puerto Rico, the Florida Keys, Houston, Texas and California were damaged or destroyed by hurricanes and wildfires. There is also inflationary pressure on construction commodities, and the prospect of import tariffs affects the cost of steel and other building materials.

So if you’re in the market to buy and looking for the best bang for your buck, existing homes can offer superior value… and location.

To illustrate, consider my latest listing, a three level, two bed, three bath, 1,645 square foot townhome at Paugus Bay Racquet Club, a 32 unit condominium association located at 833 Weirs Boulevard in Laconia.

This property, which is listed for $172,900, was built in 1974 when labor and materials were more affordable and prime waterfront locations were still available. That works out to $105.11 per square foot (and that doesn’t even include the unit’s five decks which add real functionality to the home).

Let’s compare that cost to three recently-developed Lakes Region condominium communities in Laconia and Meredith. Prices on these properties generally ran from $180 to $310 per square foot, with an average cost of $245 per square foot. That means the newer construction cost about 133 percent more than this unit at Paugus Bay Racquet Club, and that was before many material prices surged to their present levels.

New construction is nice when it is complete (and the dust and drilling, blasting, nail gun, hammering and truck noises finally subside), but it’s hard for new projects to profitably offer the value, location and amenities that an existing community like Paugus Bay Racquet Club boasts.

The open and flowing main level of this home features a large closet/mudroom/pantry space, a half bathroom with washer and dryer, a dine-in kitchen, and a comfortable living room with a covered deck that offers seasonal, filtered views of Paugus Bay.

Go upstairs and you’ll find a full bath and two bedrooms with a generous amount of closet space and private, enclosed decks. The master bedroom on the quiet backside of the building is so large that it easily swallows the two queen-sized beds it is presently furnished with. The bedroom across the hall offers an enclosed deck with peek-a-boo views of Paugus Bay.

Go to the lower level beneath the main floor and you’ll discover a spacious bonus room that could be used as a recreation room, a sweet office suite, or an extra sleeping space. This level also boasts a large closet/storage area, a three quarter bath and a sprawling, covered walkout deck that’s perfect for barbequing and entertaining.

As they say in the late night infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!” Paugus Bay Racquet Club also offers a beautiful kidney-shaped in-ground pool with a large sunbathing area, an adjacent tennis court, and more than three quarters of an acre of common space on the other side of Weirs Boulevard, directly on Paugus Bay.

This peaceful patch of ground hosts more than 150 feet of Lake Winnipesaukee water frontage with stunning views, westerly exposure (meaning longer days with more sun, and exquisite sunsets), a private, sandy beach, kayak/canoe racks, and four long day docks capable of holding up to seven boats.

At $105 per square foot, this condominium at Paugus Bay Racquet club (MLS #4688336) offers an outstanding value in today’s marketplace, a value difficult to for projects being constructed today to compete with, and it features a prime waterfront location that is simply not available like it was four decades ago.

Please contact me if you’d like to schedule a showing of unit C6 at the Paugus Bay Racquet Club, or if you’d like help selling or buying a Lakes Region residential property.

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​Listing expired? Make selling a “co-mission”

​My Listing Expired. Now What?

​A Sale of Two Cities

Rising construction costs highlight the value of existing homes

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Listing expired? Make selling a “co-mission”

My Listing Expired. Now What?

A Sale of Two Cities