If you plan on selling your home this year, The Lawhead Team has a recent article they found for all home sellers! Remember to call The Lawhead Team for all your home buying and selling needs.

Real Estate Agents Rank Biggest Home Seller Mistakes

A recent survey of real estate agents by ActiveRain has confirmed that there are certain things a seller should avoid if they are trying to get their home sold for the best price in the least amount of time. 

The results of this survey are no surprise to real estate agents, but sellers need to understand that eliminating as many hurdles as possible to the sale of their home will help them achieve their desired outcome.

Of the top mistakes, most are ultimately in the hands of the seller. Here are the top mistakes real estate agents commonly see made by homeowners looking to sell their house.

1. Overpriced Home – Nothing shocking here. This was far and away the most common mistake sellers make that prevent them from selling their home. 

If you overprice your home there is a pretty good chance no one is going to want to buy it. Real estate agents do not set the real estate market. A great real estate agent will suggest a price at which to list your home based on comparable homes that have already sold in the market. Overpricing a home to ‘see if you can get someone to bite’ is not a strategy employed by someone really serious about selling. Overpricing a home will lead to missed opportunities with buyers that are serious about buying in the range at which your home should be listed.

The first week during which a home is listed will generally be the time that the most eyeballs are on the home and the largest potential pool of buyers will be exposed to the listing. Setting a price that reflects the market is essential to selling! This is exacerbated in a downward trending market. Many a seller has lost thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars chasing a market down after setting a listing price that was outside what the market was willing to bear.

2. Showing Availability – It’s Difficult to Set a Showing

The chances your home will sell when buyers can’t get in to physically inspect the property are minuscule. Sellers need to understand that listing a home for sale is going to lead to some inconveniences in your normal routine. Many serious buyers may want to physically inspect a property during times which may not be convenient for the seller. Knowing this, motivated sellers need to understand that flexibility in when you allow the home to be sold could have a direct impact on the sale of your home.

It’s not uncommon for a seller to see 8, 10, even 20 homes during a showing tour with their agent. If your house isn’t on that list because you only do showings on Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, you will miss out on ready, willing and able buyers. 

As a seller, realize that the more people that can see the home in person, the more chance you have to find the buyer that wants your home. 

3. Cluttered Space – Unwilling to Depersonalize or Remove Clutter

Sellers are sometimes unwilling to either make the effort, or unwilling to compromise how they live in their home during the time the home is on the market for showings. Serious sellers realize that by depersonalizing the home and removing unwarranted clutter, it allows potential buyers to more easily visualize their own things in the house.

When you live in your home day in and day out, you become comfortable with your own ‘things’. In many cases, however, your ‘stuff’ can make a room feel smaller than it actually is and in some more extreme cases, your ‘stuff’ can completely distract someone from visualizing the potential of a room. We know you are proud of your kids as the shrine in the living room displays all of their ribbons, trophies and diplomas from the last 20 years. But for a buyer, this is only a distraction. 

Many agents will make recommendations about ways to remove clutter or depersonalize your home. Some will even suggest that a professional homestager be brought it to completely maximize the space and create a setting maximizes the buyers ability to visualize their own things. The key thing to remember here is these suggestions are not personal and you may have to be a little uncomfortable so that your house puts its best foot forward.

Click here to read the other 7 home selling mistakes you don’t want to make.

The Lawhead Team recently came across an article from the Home Buying Institute about the low inventory of homes in the San Diego area.  As a leader in our industry, we would like to share this important article with our readers.

Buyers Struggle to Find Homes in San Diego, as Inventory Plummets

Currently, the San Diego real estate market can be summed up with a single phrase — inventory shortage. Home buyers are having a hard time finding suitable properties, especially in hot neighborhoods near the coast.

The supply-and-demand situation has completely reversed itself over the last few years.

Given all of this, it’s no wonder prices are rising. According to the San Diego Association of Realtors, the median sale price for single-family homes jumped 13% over the last year. The median for townhomes and condos rose by nearly 19% during the same 12-month period.

Inventory is Way Down in San Diego

According to Realtor.com, the number of homes for sale in San Diego County fell by nearly 35%, from October 2011 to October 2012. Some of this is the work of investors who sensed the ‘bottom’ months ago. They are now scrambling to purchase homes before prices rise any further. Investors typically pay cash, and they are willing to bid over the asking price in many cases. This makes it hard for regular home buyers to compete, especially first-time buyers who don’t have a lot of capital.

Real estate inventory has fallen for 15 months in a row, according to the San Diego Association of Realtors. The trend will likely continue into the first quarter of 2013, and possibly beyond that.

Investor demand for housing is still strong. But the level of demand among regular buyers is growing more slowly, tempered by high unemployment. But the job market is improving. San Diego’s unemployment rate fell to 8.4% in September, down from a high of 10.9% in January 2010. If demand continues to grow while inventory remains tight, we could see home prices rise even further next year.

Looking Ahead: More of the Same in 2013?

So what does the San Diego real estate market look like in 2013? Here’s a likely scenario for the first quarter, at least:

Mortgage rates are expected to remain low into the first part of 2013. This is partly the result of actions taken by the Fed. Earlier today, Freddie Mac announced that the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage had fallen to 3.34%, the lowest in more than 40 years. This will act as a powerful incentive for San Diego home buyers in 2013, especially if the job market continues to improve.

Demand for housing is growing across the price spectrum. Investor activity may level off as prices continue to rise and there are fewer deals to be had. But this should be offset by rising demand from live-in home buyers. Low mortgage rates and a slowly improving job market will bring more of these buyers into the market.

Inventory will probably continue to fall over the next few months, as it has since the summer of 2011. All of these factors combined will make the San Diego real estate market highly competitive in 2013.

According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure activity in San Diego fell by 26% in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year. This means there will be fewer distressed properties coming onto the market in the months ahead — always a boon for home values.

Next year, we will likely see buyers paying over the asking price for homes, in many cases. Buyers will also have to make numerous offers before getting a home, as investors bid properties right out from under them. The low-ball offer will become a thing of the past.

In fact, we are seeing some of these trends already. The North County Times recently told the story of a couple who made offers on nearly 100 homes, offering $20,000 above the asking price in some cases.

Though inventory may be low in San Diego, having The Lawhead Team on your side will help you in finding your next dream home.  Because Two Lawheads Are Better Than One^TM.

Article can be found at: http://www.homebuyinginstitute.com/news/inventory-plummets-280/

You are a normal home buyer, meaning you are looking for your next permanent residence.  It may seem like a tiresome effort, finding a home which would be perfect and put an offer in on it, only to find out an investor came in with an all cash offer and snatched it out right from under you.

The Lawhead Team would like to share some tips for what a home buyer looking to simply buy a house where they will live for years to come.

While there is a limited supply of “nice” homes for sale that are well-priced.  And if they are located in desirable neighborhoods, they are selling quickly.

Many of the homes for sale today are rundown bank-owned properties or homes in foreclosure, or homes where the owners are not willing to lower their asking price to current market values. That leaves a relatively small number of homes for sale in the “sweet spot” where they are properly priced, well-located and in good condition.

That’s why we are now hearing stories of multiple offers on some homes for sale. When you have increasing demand for homes caused by extremely low mortgage rates and a relatively small number of desirable homes, that creates a supply-demand squeeze in the seller’s favor.  Homes located in the outlying areas are selling slower. As always, the most important factors in determining a home’s market value as a home buyer are “location, location, location.”  Therefore, you have a couple of choices if you want to find a nice home to buy.

One choice is to widen your search and look at homes located farther away from the major job centers. But keep in mind that the reason those homes are selling slower is because they are less desirable due to factors such as longer commute times.

So when you sell your home in the future your home’s price will be impacted by the same negative marketing factors facing the current sellers.
Another choice is to find a good “buyers agent” who will scour the market for you on a daily basis and be prepared to rapidly make an offer on a good deal when it becomes available. Some real estate agents require you to sign a contract to act as your buyer agent.

Once you have found a good real estate agent with whom you are comfortable you must look at enough houses so that you can quickly recognize a “good deal” when you see it.

Sometimes your agent might show you a home that was a “steal of a deal” but the buyer is reluctant to write up an offer.  Once they decided it might be a good idea to write up an offer, the home was already sold to someone else. Don’t put yourself as a home buyer in that position. Even in a slow housing market, well priced homes sell fast.

It’s tough, but the good news is that this may be a sign that the housing market is finally starting to “bottom.” We won’t know for sure until home prices rise for a couple of years because you can only truly spot a market bottom in hindsight.

But if we are at or near the bottom of the housing market, you probably won’t have to worry about your home’s value falling much, if at all, over the next few years. Just remember, you are buying a home as a lifestyle choice, not an “investment.”