Oops! I Made a Mistake

October 28, 2009 Leave a comment

When it comes to selling your house, “oops” won’t cut it.  Recently, I read an article on HGTV’s FrontDoor.com about the most common mistakes when trying to sell a home.  I’m not sure what kind of research they did, if any, but I thought the list was worth sharing.

1.  Waiting Until Spring to Sell – For some reason, people have it in their heads that Spring is the best time to put their home on the market.  Here are the numbers for pending homes sales in Lancaster County as compiled from the Keystone MLS over the last six months:  April – 481, May – 469, June – 485, July – 461, August – 483, September – 464.  Not a lot of difference here - is there?  Here is a short, un-scientific list of reasons why people move: getting married, getting divorced, job transfer, new addition to the family, death.  You will notice that none of these happen exclusively in the Spring.

2.  Not Reading the Paperwork - When it comes to the largest amount of money that most people will spend on any one thing in their lives, don’t let anybody tell you that “you don’t have to read it because it’s a standard real estate form.”  Sure there’s a lot of paperwork to read and comprehend but don’t you think the time invested is worth it?  Go over the fine print of the agreement with your real estate agent or attorney before signing anything to make sure you understand your responsibilities

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Lancaster’s Central Market – A Jewel at the Center of It All

October 7, 2009 Leave a comment

The American Planning Association (APA) recently named Lancaster’s Central Market as one of American’s ten great public spaces.  If you have never been to ‘Market’, you’re missing out on an experience that is uniquely a Lancaster landmark and tradition.

The APA’s Great Places’ program celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning.  Locations are selected annually and represent the gold standard in terms of having a true sense of place, cultural and historical interest, community involvement, and a vision for tomorrow.  In short, they are considered enjoyable, safe, and desirable and places where people not only want to visit; but to live and work every day.  They are defined by many criteria, including architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement.

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How To Explain the Accuracy of Zestimates® To Consumers

August 15, 2009 Leave a comment

Image courtesy of Flickr

I remember a couple of years ago when Zillow first hit the real estate scene.  Consumers embraced the web site almost immediately because of the web site’s cool, on-line tools.  One tool in particular caught their fancy:  the Zestimate.  This single, funny-sounding word would grow to strike fear in the heart’s of REALTORS® everywhere.

But what is a Zestimate?  A Zestimate is an estimated market value of a home based on Zillow’s proprietary, mathematical formula.  The home data they compile to generate a Zestimate home valuation varies by location.  Some geographic areas provide all the data Zillow could hope for, but others are lacking such key things as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or, in some cases, the square footage of the home.  The theory says that the more data Zillow has, the more accurate the Zestimate.  They even made it easy for users of the site to help them improve accuracy by incorporating edited home facts into their Zestimate calculations.  In some areas, Zillow can’t produce a Zestimate at all, but they do have some basic information on the homes.

Why did REALTORS® dispise Zillow?  Because they claimed that the tool that produced Zestimates oversimplified the valuation process and gave inaccurate results.  Regardless, Zillow shot up the popularity charts and in no time at all it was firmly entrenched as one of the top ten real estate web sites in the world.  REALTORS® looked at the new kid on the block as a threat to their own personal fiefdom as experts on property valuation.  They exclaimed, “How dare they hand out FREE property estimates!  They’re misleading consumers.  Why can’t consumers see that the accuracy of  Zestimates is atrocious?”

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Lancaster County Heads Retirement Relocation Options

August 11, 2009 Leave a comment

Lancaster County was recently cited in ”Where to Retire” magazine as one of the eight best places to live during one’s golden years.  What other locations did we share this distinction with?  Fort Myers, Fla.; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Greeley, Colo.; Spokane, Wash.; Chattanooga, Tn.; Salem, Ore. and Chico, Calif.  I’d say we’re in pretty fair company.

“Where to Retire” magazine was launched in 1992 with the goal of helping its readers find the ideal place to retire.  Now published six times a year, the magazine covers the best retirement regions, towns, and master-planned communities, and has a national average circulation of 220,000 and an average readership of 500,000.

According to the magazine’s editor, Mary Lu Abbott, it’s a prime time for retirees to find affordable places to relocate, as an excess inventory of homes provides great values at low cost.  She’s states that as the housing market recovers, much of the buyer traffic will be active adults looking toward retirement and the cities that offer the opportunity for a well-rounded lifestyle coupled with great home buys should see increased interest from relocating retirees.

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Existing Home Sales Rise – Again

July 26, 2009 Leave a comment

The NAR building and U.S. Capitol

Image via Wikipedia

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reported on Thursday of this past week that existing home sales for the month of June increased for the third month in a row fueling speculation that the housing downturn is starting to reverse direction.  Excerpts of NAR’s press release¹ follow:

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – increased 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units in June from a downwardly revised pace of 4.72 million in May, but are 0.2 percent lower than the 4.90 million-unit level in June 2008.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, is hopeful about the gain.  “The increase in existing-home sales occurred in all major regions of the country,” he said.  “We expect a gradual uptrend in sales to continue due to tax credit incentives and historically high affordability conditions . . . “

Much of the fuel for the fire of homes sales has occurred in the first-time homebuyer market which has accounted for 29 percent of transactions according to an NAR survey of its practitioners.  With the $8,000 tax credit deadline of December 1, 2009 (4½ months away) fast approaching, it will be interesting to see if this segment continues to stoke sales numbers.

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Lancaster’s Real Estate Market Improves

July 10, 2009 Leave a comment

The gap between the 2008 and 2009 real estate markets in Lancaster County is down to a razor’s edge.  On Wednesday of this week, the front page of the Intelligencer Journal ran the following story:

Market Here For Housing Gets Better ¹
Numbers for pending home sales improve

The housing market in Lancaster County continued to rebound in May, creeping ever closer to 2008′s level, local Realtors reported Tuesday.

The number of pending home sales here was down only 2.5 percent from the May 2008 figure, the smallest gap so far this year, according to the Lancaster County Association of Realtors.

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Tough Questions For Tough Times

May 23, 2009 Leave a comment

 
Over the last decade, the role of a REALTOR® has changed drastically.  REALTORS® are no longer the gate-keepers of information because of the proliferation of real estate related web sites on the internet.  Consumers today can compare mortgage rates of various lenders, read about ways to improve the marketability of their home and obtain comparable home data from the comfort of their home without any interaction from a real estate professional.

While a REALTORS® role may have changed, it doesn’t mean our importance as a trusted advisor has waned.  In fact, our function today is more valuable than ever.

I read an article on REALTOR.org by Steve Harney that drives this point home.  Steve specializes in negotiation and leadership training and has been in the industry for more than twenty years, first in sales and then as broker-owner of a 500-associate real estate company.  He explains that the REALTOR® of today needs to be able to take all that information that is readily available to the consumer and interpret it for them.  Here are four questions that Steve lists in his article that today’s real estate practitioner needs to be able to address.  Notice that none of them has anything to do with providing a printout or a body of statistics but rather furnishes a valuable interpretation and opinion of why things are the way they are today.

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Start YELPING!

May 18, 2009 1 Comment

  

Are you YELPING?
Screenshot of yelp.com

Found an interesting and useful website while browsing over the weekend.  The site is yelp.com.  The site is all about the power of ‘word-of-mouth’ amplified.  It is loaded with reviews of local businesses from real people on just about anything you can imagine in your area.  Want to know something about that new Italian restaurant that just opened up down the block?  How about which beauty spa gets high marks for service?  Where should you buy your next kitten?  I also found this website great to learn about businesses and service providers when you are traveling out of town.  Happy YELPING!

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