Tips for Selling Your House in a Tight Real Estate Market

Erica Whitney, real estate investor and agent joined me today on Real Estate Reality Radio to talk about today’s real estate market. 

Erica’s best tip for selling your house in a tight real estate market: Give them the Wow Factor.  The “Wow Factor” includes making the house look top notch & pricing it right. 

To make the home look top notch, clean it up, give it a fresh coat of paint, clean or replace carpets and add some new light fixtures if necessary.   Stage the home with furnishings and accessories to make it look inviting.  Give the buyer a reason to think, “Wow -right features, right price!”

Price the home at or below the most recent comparable sales.  Erica shared some interesting information on pricing.  She said, “If you’ve had 10-12 showings and no offers -You’re 5-10% over priced.”  “If you have no showings you’re 10% over priced.”

Other topics discussed:  where to invest, cash flow, tenant management, the new GA Purchase and Sale contract, short sales, and more!  Here’s what one listener had to say about the show, ”

“I very much enjoyed listening to your broadcast. You helped me better understand the options around management of properties after the purchase is complete.” 

Thanks, 

Giulio

Listen to the show.   

Atlanta expired listing – Are you making the most of the market?

I received an email update on the Atlanta market from Cindy Stuart and Associates. The number of expired listings is up 30% over last year! If part of your strategy is to work with expired listings, now is a great time to do that!

Read the full email below. The expired listings information is in bold.

You may have heard some bad things about the housing market lately. We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the Atlanta market, so we thought a report on what’s really going on might help. Even if you’re not moving within the Atlanta market, you may have someone with whom you would like to share this information. According to the First Multiple Listing Service, there were 4,454 closings for single family homes in January which was a 8.1% decline from January 2006. However, once lags are reported the decline will be much less. Condos and townhomes had 658 closings or an increase of 1.9% from January 2006.

According to FMLS, January’s decline is an improvement from December’s 10.4% decline with no lags.

The average sale price in January for single family housing was $254,388. This was an increase of 5.6% from January 2006 and the largest year-to-year period increase since December 2005.

The number of expired listings in January for all single family homes was 5,505. This is up 30% from January 2006. However, FMLS notes that the increase is small compared to withdrawn listings –2,246 withdrawn or an increase of 65% over January 2006.
The overall supply of new construction single family homes increased 57.9% from 1/31/06-1/31/07. Overall supply of resale single family homes increased 22.8% from January 06 to January 07.

Average days on market from January, as reported by FMLS, was 90.6 for all single family. This is the second consecutive period above 90 days and the first time this has happened since 1998. The average time on market for homes listed by Stewart & Associates is 68.

We hope this information finds you well and provides valuable information about the Atlanta market. If you have additional question please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail us. As always, your business is greatly appreciated. If you know of anyone making a move, please allow us the opportunity to help them.

Thanks again and MAKE it a great day.

Lisa Brownlow
Inside Sales / Marketing Director
Stewart & Associates
678-597-5868
cindy.stewart@kw.com

Nancy Spivey http://www.transformit.net