Selling Your Home

So you're thinking of selling your home, but you don't quite understand how all of this commission conversation, agency conversation that's been in the news is going to affect you when you go to sell your home. Do you still pay a buyer's agent? Do you not pay a buyer's agent? What's the difference? Why should you do one and not the other? What's the benefit? What's the downside, and what the heck does all of it mean? I want to break down some of these conversations that you might be seeing in the news. There is a lot of misinformation out there and I want to make it a little easier for you to understand exactly how it's going to affect you. So if you are getting ready to sell your home, and you are trying to find an agent to help you list your home, get it sold, and get it to closing, you should do all of the same things that you would have ever done, right? You want to make sure that you're comfortable and that you're confident with the person that you're hiring and despite the fact that it is a seller's market, you want to make sure that, that agent is going to not only market your property but make sure it's not one of the 20% of deals that falls apart before it gets to closing. You want to get it to the finish line, right? So you want to make sure that you understand what your agent is going to do and how they're going to do it. Keep in mind that now, as has always been the case, you can negotiate the commission for the listing agent when you hire them. That doesn't mean that every agent is going to work for the price that you want, but you should make sure that whatever price you are paying, you are comfortable that you are getting a great value for that price. And great value does not always mean the cheapest. Great value can often mean I'm paying a little bit more, but I'm getting so much more. It is totally worth it. I saw an agent the other day say working with her was like ordering a 10-piece nugget and getting 11 and that's always my goal, to provide a level of service that goes beyond what you expect. But keep in mind that commission is always negotiable. You can choose whether or not you want to pay a buyer's agent, but if you call me to list your home, I'm going to explain the reasons why you probably do want to pay a buyer's agent. It's just gonna give you that many more buyers. Lots of buyers do not have the cash on hand to pay their agent and you don't want to dismiss them out of hand before they even get in the door of your house. If you have questions about listing your home, you have questions about what it's going to take to get it ready, or you have questions about the commission and how all that is going to break down and how those changes will affect you. Reach out to me give me a call send me an email, shoot me a DM, and let's talk about it and see what's right for you.

If you've been thinking about getting into the real estate market, whether you're thinking of buying or selling, you have probably heard a lot about all of the changes that are coming primarily regarding commissions in the real estate industry. If I talk to five people a day, I get five different opinions on how they perceive those changes to be coming and how they will affect them. So stay tuned here, subscribe to my YouTube channel, sign up for my newsletter, and stay abreast of all of those changes and how they're going to affect you possibly, whether you're buying or selling. As things change, and continue to develop, we're going to get more information and as I have that more information, I'm going to pass it on to you, because I do think agency is one of the most confusing things in this industry. Certainly right now because everybody has a different opinion. There is lots and lots of misinformation out there, unfortunately, so it is super confusing. My goal is to decode a lot of that for you and make it a little easier for you to wrap your brain around whatever side you're on, buying or selling. So if you have any questions about agency and all of what that entails, shoot me a message, send me an email, or give me a call. I'd love to help you unpack all of the information and get to the bottom of how it will affect you.

There are a few reasons why your home might not be selling as quickly as you thought it would or wanted it to. Here are a few of them. Your home isn't easy to show. It doesn't show well. PRICE!! Check out the video above for a deeper explanation of the reasons your home might not be selling. If you have any questions about pricing or getting your home ready to sell, making sure that it moves at the rate that the market is moving, give me a call. I'd love to talk to you walk through and give you some tips on how we can get your home sold for the most amount in the least amount of time with the least hassle for you. Let's talk.

We talk a lot about things that you want to make sure you take away, if you don't want the buyers to have that item, whether it's a chandelier, or a piece of shrubbery, or the tree you planted when your child was born. You want to get those things out of the picture out of the equation before buyers look at it so that they don't get tempted and want those things and it feels like a negative when you remove them. But what we don't talk about as much is what do you leave for the buyers? What are the things that are okay to leave? And what are the things that you really need to move on out of the house. Check out the video above to find out what you should do with the things you don't want to keep before you move out.

If you're selling a home in the state of Virginia, what do you need to disclose? If you have ever sold a home in another state, bought a home in another state, you may be familiar with the copious amounts of paperwork that require you to disclose every little detail about your house, and if you've ever had a problem, if you've never had a problem, or if you don't know. In the state of Virginia, we have a one page document called the residential property disclosure, and it really is just a disclaimer, saying as far as I know, everything's good. But hold on just a second, because if you know of material defects to your home, before you sell it, you do need to disclose those to the buyer. And I know it sounds kind of like a gray area, like what is the material defect anyway, but think about the things that would matter to you if you were buying a home. You don't want to buy a home, only to discover that the basement fills up with water every time it rains. That is something you need to disclose. You don't want to buy a home and find out that every time you turn the lights on in the family room, the electrical panel arcs. Those are major issues. They are material defects that need to be fixed or repaired. So you do need to disclose those or better yet, just fix them before you go on the market. Remember, whether you're buying or selling in the state of Virginia, inspections are the buyers responsibility and I always use this as a as a good example of why this rule works. The little old couple that has lived in the house for 40 years, they may never take a bath. They each take one shower a day they sell the home, they think everything is fine. The family moves in with four kids back to back to back to back baths and the bathtub leaks. Well, the little old couple had no idea because they never used the house in that way. So this is why I like our rules better than the rules in some other states. But being aware of what you're purchasing, being aware of what you're selling goes a long way to making a successful transaction. If you have questions about what's a material defect? What do I need to disclose when I'm selling my house, give me a call. Let's talk and walk you through whether you should fix it, disclose it, repair it, or sell it as is with that disclosure in place. Give me a call send, me an email, shoot me a message and let's talk.

If you're thinking about selling your home and you have things, especially in your yard, you might be thinking, they're not going to care if I take my great grandmother's prized hydrangea that I moved to my house 10 years ago, think again. Anything, and that goes from the chandelier in your dining room to the shrubs that you brought from the old home, anything that you don't want to convey, it is always better for you to get that out of the house before it goes to market. If you get it out before you go to market, you erase any possibility that the buyer is going to want that item that you have decided you want to take with you where you are going. So make sure that before you go, putting a sign in your yard, you've done a thorough walkthrough of yeah, both the yard and the inside of the house to ensure that anything you want to take is removed and not tempting to the buyer. Once upon a time, I had sellers sell a home, didn't tell them this, they dug up all of the shrubs out front because they had just bought them and filled all of the holes with dead leaves. What happens in that instance? Closing can be delayed. It obviously causes some strife between buyer and seller, and was it worth the price of those little tiny boxwoods? I'm not so sure. So, better to be safe than sorry and make sure that you have covered everything you want to go with you and clear it with the buyer if it's something they saw beforehand. So if you want to know what can stay, what should leave, what you need to notify your purchaser of and you're thinking of selling your home this spring and summer, give me a call and we can walk through all of those circumstances to make sure that you not only get a contract but you get it to closing and you close on time.

As we head into the busiest season for real estate, the spring and summer market, one of the questions I get asked all the time is how long it takes to sell a home from start to finish. And I usually have a question back when someone asks me that, and that is, what are your plans? What are your goals, let's take a look at your house, because it depends. In the video above I talk about a general timeline that you might experience, as well as some things that may change a "standard" timeline.

So we've talked a lot about whether it's a buyer's or seller's market and obviously all the data shows, and anecdotally, I can attest to the fact that it is still very much a seller's market here in central Virginia, in the metro Richmond area. But why? Why are we still in a seller's market? What is going on? And is it going to change? So a lot of buyers are out there thinking, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna sit it out until it turns back into a buyers market. And I wouldn't really recommend that and there are a couple of reasons why. And they go back to the reasons why we are still in a seller's market. So one of the reasons why we are still in a seller's market, and we have not actually been in a buyer's market since 2013, or so, is throwing back to the mortgage crisis of '06 or '07, '08. When mortgages were crazy, everything kind of went kablooey. After lenders were giving people mortgages that probably shouldn't have gotten mortgages, and people didn't really have any skin in the game, so to speak. I think the lowest amount I had a buyer, during that time period, bring to closing was about $100. I think there were some people who brought $0 to closing and that just doesn't really give you a great incentive to pay things off. You don't have anything to lose if you walk away and just can't pay your mortgage. A lot of things changed after that period and put us in a position where a lot of builders went belly up. A lot of things just shifted in the whole industry. Buyers were sidelined. It was harder to get a mortgage. There were a whole lot of reasons, but one big piece of fallout that came from that was people stopped building. We just didn't have the construction that we had had up to that point and we just haven't caught up. So there are literally not as many housing units as the market needs nationwide. Everywhere you go. Almost anywhere, there are not enough units of housing. So that means rental homes, apartments, condos, townhomes, single-family homes, all that stuff. I have also seen during the course of my career that things have gotten a little different from the perspective of buyers. I think 15 or 20 years ago, buyers were more likely to come in and buy a fixer upper. I say all the time that with Pinterest, Instagram, HGTV, and all of these things showing great transformations, my natural thought would be that people would be more open to a fixer-upper and they would see the potential more because they've seen it on TV or Instagram or whatever. And it's almost the opposite. So it's a little counterintuitive to me that with the popularity of those things that buyers tend to walk in and see just a couple of things that might just be cosmetic, or just beyond cosmetic and they will walk out of a home. So the deals to be had in this market generally are the real fixer-uppers because a lot of people are just completely, no thank you, on those. They won't even go or they walk in and turn around and walk out. So there are a few reasons why we are still in a seller's market, but there are always deals to be had. If you're thinking of buying, there are always opportunities out there. So don't sit on the sidelines because you may be sitting for a long time. But if you have any questions about buying or thinking about a game plan to get you into a home and you think it's maybe unattainable, I'd love to talk to you because I bet you can actually make it happen.

One of the questions that I get asked all the time in every season, at a party by clients, whatever, "Are we in a buyers market or seller's market?". If you look at real estate news across the country that answer varies greatly from location to location, region to region, but here in central Virginia in the Richmond metro area, we are still in a seller's market. Now, what does that mean? That means that a balanced market is basically six months' worth of inventory. That means that if we had no more homes come on the market, that we would have six months to sell through all of the inventory that's currently on the market. So if a balanced market where it's not preferring or leaning towards buyers not leaning towards sellers, a balanced market is six months' worth of inventory. We are currently still, here in January of 2024, with less than two months of inventory. If we had no more homes come on the market with the buyers that are currently in the market, it would be at a zero within two months, like all of the houses would be sold. That's going to continue to a greater or lesser degree throughout 2024. We will still find ourselves in a seller's market. But with rates coming down, there are a lot more opportunities for buyers, especially first-time buyers or buyers who are very dependent on those rates. So if you're thinking about buying a home, reach out, I'd love to talk to you, and help you navigate that process, whether it's your first home or your tenth. And if you're thinking of selling, yes, it is still a great time to sell and I'd love to talk to you about the best strategy to get your home on the market before the spring when there is still pretty little competition right now. So give me a call, send me a message, and let's set up a time to chat.

If you're thinking about putting your home on the market, yes, even in the seller's market, there are always things that you can do to make it show a little bit better and make it a little bit more appealing to a larger pool of buyers, and that's always going to help you in the long run. One of the easiest things or the 'more easier' thing to DIY is going to be your outdoor space. Especially as we head into the fall in winter a lot of the competition is not going to be doing a lot to their outdoor space because everything starts to look gray and bed and cold and brown. Today's buyers place a premium on well-kept and well-built-out outdoor space. So especially heading into the fall and winter, it is a great way to put your listing ahead of the pack by making your outdoor space more appealing and approachable. In fact, in 2020, 26% of buyers that were surveyed, said that that outdoor space made a huge difference in them wanting to buy a particular home over another. This can look as simple as putting nicer furniture outside or just staging an area to show that it could be a great firepit or relaxing area in any season. If you're wondering about ways to help make your outdoor space a little bit more appealing, I'd love to come take a look at your home if you're in the Richmond area. Give you an idea of what you can do to make your outdoor space a little bit more appealing to potential buyers make your indoor space a little more appealing to potential buyers and help get you the most return on your investment in your home. Send me a message give me a call or shoot me an email and let's set up a time for me to come take a look at your space and help give you that list of things that you can do to make it a little bit more of a wow in the sometimes a little gloomy or fall in winter markets.