Home Seller Tips

Home Seller just isn’t negotiating!

One of the hardest parts of buying a home is making an offer. Really, it isn’t easy to come up with the right offer, and I always tell my Northern Virginia real estate clients that their initial offer should be their “ideal scenario” from the start.

• Offer price, determined after looking at recent sales and condition of the home
• Closing or Settlement date, when do you really need to be in the home?

No, that isn’t everything to factor into your offer strategy but they are two essential elements because they are key starting points. Either of these can become major stumbling blocks that may stop a home seller from wanting to negotiate with you at all.

Home Seller motivations are important to understand  because sellers will typically have a bottom line number and an ideal time-frame too (an ideal scenario). I look at this information as part of a “pre-negotiation” for both seller and buyer.

Incompatible time-frames can be a real estate deal breaker

Having worked both sides of the fence here, I know it is important to communicate a home seller client’s ideal scenario to a prospective home buyer or REALTOR who has indicated that they are putting together an offer. For a recent seller client, he was very specific and wanted to settle June 23rd which was information that I shared with all interested parties. There were three competing  offers all with different offer amounts but with June 23rd as the settlement date.

One of my buyer clients submitted an aggressive offer recently on a Vienna home and, although that neighborhood has had no sales in the past two months, the seller is holding firm on the price. Unfortunately, the seller’s REALTOR shared no “ideal scenario” information that could get things moving. In fact, that home seller really isn’t negotiating at all which makes me wonder why they are listing the property in the first place? Yes, the offer is still out there and has even been improved over two weeks… yet it remains a mystery.

So, understand your “ideal scenario” before you list your home or make an offer on a home because it is essential to making sure a negotiation is even going to happen.

In Real Estate, Online Photos are Essential

You would think that Northern Virginia real estate agents would get it by now, but I am still seeing some really bad house photos being posted online. It is a trend that a lot of agents across the country poke fun at, and even have blogs of the worst photos seen in their MLS.

Anyone who is looking for a home to buy is starting out on the Internet while sitting at home or at work (yes, we know). Doing online research like moving to Vienna, Virginia is done easily from a living room in San Diego, California. So it seems obvious to me to get house photos right from the get-go and put as many photos of the highest quality into the MLS or a linking site like Google’s Picassa or Flickr.

The MLS site is the obvious place to start because it feeds consumer real estate sites like Trulia, Redfin and Zillow. Yup, those photos taken by me are disseminated by the almighty MRIS which is Northern Virginia’s MLS. So 30 photos definitely get popped in here for fast syndication.

The McLean and Vienna VA real estate markets are highly competitive so having quality, staged photos should be 50% of your home’s marketing strategy. (this is obvious to home buyers)

Here are my tips for better real estate photography:

• If you are unsatisfied with your photos, then hire a professional
• Use a digital camera with a wide angle lens built into the camera
• I update my camera on a regular basis, read more at my FAQs page
• Take plenty of shots (50-100) and then pick and choose on your computer
• Do not use a fish-eye lens because the photos just look too weird
• STAGE your photos by turning on lights, hiding garbage cans etc.
• If the sun isn’t out, then come back later for another cover shot
• Keep in mind that the buyer who is boarding a plane to house-hunt will only have time to see five homes in McLean, and will pick one to buy.
• Don’t be afraid to change the photos… if there was snow on the ground the first time and it is now May, take some new photos then upload them!

Having clear photos is an absolute must, #1 priority for me when I list a property. Why? Because  home buyers wanting to see Mclean or Vienna homes for sale have their iPhone or Droid real estate apps running all the time showing photos, photos and more photos.

Having poor quality real estate photos is a real no, no!

Leave a comment about any bad photos you have seen recently.

McLean, VA Home Sales Stats | April 2010

The warm scent of spring sent the McLean, VA real estate market up in April which should not surprise anyone who has followed Northern Virginia Real Estate Stats. There was a lot of snow during the winter months and those contracts written in late February or March came to a close in April.

Although our memories aren’t always accurate, remember that early 2009 had a cascading stock market and the country was falling into economic turmoil.

Please know that this information is reported from MRIS which is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate but should be considered pretty darn close.

Mortgage rates were again falling and super low (around 5%).

Home Sales Numbers for 22101 in April 2010:

Keep in mind there were big snow storms that shut down Northern Virginia for more than a week. I even had to push my car with my wife at the wheel up the hill on Route 123 in Tyson’s Corner near International Drive at 10:00 pm one Saturday night!

Home Sales Numbers for 22102 in April 2010

**This zip code reflects some extremes in pricing as there were 19 sales under $600k and 6 sales over $1.0 million. The McLean, VA home market includes condominiums in all price ranges.

I have set up a quick search for you of McLean homes in 22101

or

I have set up a quick home search for you of McLean homes in 22102

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• McLean VA Home Sales Stats | Hyper Local January 2010 (dougfrancis.com)
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Vienna, VA Home Sales Stats | Hyper Local April 2010

April will be a month that most agents will want to revisit for a long time as buyers picked up the pace to buy before the April 30th tax credit deadline and home sellers rushed their homes to market to capture that demand (read: premium).These “under contract” homes will close in May and June so those numbers should be higher

If you bought, closed and want you tax credit rebate check, then read more here…

What this surge in real estate activity did was free up home sellers to move up to bigger homes. This segment of the market gets ignored when there is a foreclosure because when the bank owns the home there isn’t that move-up result. The Vienna Home Blog saw move-up sellers impact the real estate market with contracts in April.

But please know that this information is reported from MRIS which is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate but should be considered pretty darn close.

Keep in mind, mortgage rates were still hysterically low (around 5%).

Home sales numbers for 22182 in April 2010:

April, May and June will need a “*” because of the federal home buyer tax credit deadline.

Home sale numbers for the Town of Vienna, 22180, April 2010

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