Hi folks,

Many home owners focus on interiors when putting their houses up for sale, especially in winter when it seems too cold to stay outside long enough to have a good look around the property let alone carry out maintenance. But most purchasers start making judgements from the minute they step out of the car and a bad first impression can stay with them when they go inside. The following ideas may help you get your purchasers off to a good start.

It’s worth looking at your home as if looking at it for the first time. Most of us get used to our own clutter and cobwebs and no longer notice them. But untidy or damaged gutters, cobwebs or overgrown gardens brimming with weeds might just make purchasers decide you don’t care about your home and make them wonder how good your attention to detail is in the areas they can’t see like plumbing and wiring. Cleanliness is important, even people who don’t mind their own dirt and clutter usually notice other people’s.

Before putting the house on the market, stand at the curb and have a critical look. This is the first thing your purchasers will see. Does your home measure up? Here are seven things that are easy to do and will make a difference to the exterior of your house.

1. Sweep paths and decks.
2. Clean gutters, window frames and eaves.
3. Don’t forget to wash outdoor or deck furniture if you have it– in winter it is easy to overlook if you’re not using it like you do in summer. If it is grungy and decrepit, borrow or buy something that suits your home. It’s not expensive in the scheme of things.
4. Clear away odds and ends – even those that are lurking in the less visited parts of the garden. Remember purchasers will see EVERYTHING. Old plant pots and  broken toys or tools – even the half-finished projects or building materials that look like works in progress to you  – all these spoil the look of your house.
5. Organise for high pressure hoses to clean mould or moss from brick work or stone.
6. Invest in a bit of mulching – it makes garden beds look tidy and the property looks nurtured and loved.
7. Put in some colour where you know people will notice it. You can use pots if that is easier. Just make sure they are kept watered as drooping plants are worse than no plants at all.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

A house should always sell in a reasonable timeframe or its price is likely to drop as it becomes stale and over exposed to the market. If you think purchasers are losing interest in your property, you need to do something and fast! Start by looking at the five most common reasons houses linger on the market and see if any of them could be holding up your sale.

1. The price is too high.
   When the price is too high, purchasers move on to other properties that have the same or similar features for less money. Ask your agent if this is your problem. Are other similar properties attracting offers?
2. It’s a good house but it’s dirtier than average or poorly maintained.
   Sadly, a property where cleaning has been neglected for years, even if it’s in good condition, is not the same as other similar age properties down the road that have been looked after well. Sometimes, items such as blinds are beyond cleaning and have to be replaced. If the oven, for example, has not been kept clean, it may have to be replaced or require a lot of time to restore to its original condition even though it is only a few years old. Has the garden become overgrown with weeds? If so, these and any other similar items need to be attended to or the selling price changed to reflect the cost involved.
3. The location is unpopular, such as on a highway, or on a railway line, or impacted by industrial noise.
   In this instance the price is the only thing you can change to attract purchasers. The location is fixed!
4. Is access to the property working?
   Are you or your tenants putting too many restrictions upon inspection times? Even totally derelict houses riddled with borer sell! (When the price is right)

1. Maybe the listing agent is not doing a good job.
   While it is possible the agent is not doing a good job – and this needs to be assessed – it would be a shame to make this assumption without looking at the facts. Be realistic, are the above 4 issues being addressed?

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

Hi folks, I was asked this week, and not for the first time, about marketing and advertising. The costs, the different places to advertise, why we do it and how does a vendor decide which advertising vehicles are worth the money.

Immediately, I would suggest the predominant reason as to why we do it is simply that no agent has every buyer on their books. It doesn’t happen, we may have a lot of buyers but we can’t have them all.

Re: places to market, these days it is fair to say that most professional agents conduct bona fide local research to establish what media work best in their area. Informed vendors would do well to ask if agents have done that research and what the results show, rather than making the assumption that the more widely (thinly!) they spread their advertising dollar, the more successful it is likely to be. While the successful media vary from location to location, the number of media that is supported by statistics is usually no more than four.

Confusion arises because some less professional agents recommend a wide range of advertising vehicles that sound good to a vendor even though the statistics about where the purchasers come from don’t actually support them. It is easier for some agents to offer to advertise in a large number of media rather than do the research that isolates where the vendor’s dollar is best spent.

While most of the traditional advertising vehicles (window display, local paper, signboard) are still as popular as they were in pre-internet days, statistics show that the internet has modified the way most people make their first approach to the property search. In the US, eight out of ten people (in Australia and New Zealand seven out of ten) make their initial foray into the market via the Internet. After all, the net is convenient, inexpensive and wide-ranging and it allows purchasers to be anonymous until they are ready to buy.

Posted in Tips on Selling, Advertising;

Hi folks,

I’ve had an interesting week real estate wise! I’ve dealt with 4 different property negotiations, 3 of which were successful. By that I mean negotiations were completed and sales have been agreed but certainly 2 of them were touch and go as emotions were fried and the deals nearly lost. This led me to ponder about how much of my work is emotive and how easy it is lose track of the ultimate goal of purchasing a home.

You are in a stronger position if you keep your feelings under control or at least hidden from the other party in the negotiation.

Even if you are desperate to buy or sell the property, it is better to play a waiting game and not go higher (or lower!) just because the other party is taking too long to get back to you. If you are a buyer, this technique works very well when there aren’t many buyers. It is harder to do when there are more buyers than properties and the market is going up in leaps and bounds.

The opposite is true for sellers. If you are a seller, let your agent guide you as to when to hold out for a high price and when to come down. Professional agents understand the market and are in touch with buyers. Be sure you have some market knowledge yourself as this makes it easier to know what the agent is talking about and helps with issues of trust. Sometimes lack of faith in your agent can lose sales too. The agent is working for and paid by the seller.

If you are a buyer, offset emotion by arming yourself with as much knowledge as possible. Get to know recent sales in the area and keep the negatives as well as the positives of the property in your mind to help you keep things in perspective. Remember who the agent is working for when they try to create urgency by saying things like: ‘There are other buyers interested’, (although in my experience this is a futile method of negotiation, I believe agents should only talk of “interest” if an offer is in writing) Most buyers know the market well enough to know if it is likely to be true or not, remembering that the licensee is trained to create pressure.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

One of the advantages of my job is that much of the time the same questions or problems come up, so today I will revisit an oldie but a goodie for those considering selling their home. For the majority of the buying and selling market there isn’t a choice but as I have been asked the question by a potential vendor I thought I would try to give a balanced answer as to whether it is better to buy or sell first.  Selling the home you’re living in before buying another one is the financially safe option in most circumstances. But could the state of the market affect your decision?

Selling first means you know exactly how much you are getting for your current property and correspondingly how much you can spend on the new one. Finance is more straightforward because all figures are known and stress is reduced. But unless you arrange a delayed settlement, or sell your current home in the period between exchange and settlement, you may need interim accommodation. While this may not be so expensive, other expenses take their toll - storing excess furniture and paying two sets of removal costs for example. And what if you just can’t find the right house? These then become long term and potentially damaging holding costs.

Buying first allows for a straightforward move from one home to the other, but it may be stressful and financially demanding paying a double mortgage if your home takes longer to sell than expected. You may then feel that the best solution is to take less for your current home in order to save the costs of bridging finance.

There is no hard and fast rule that covers buying or selling first as each person’s individual financial and accommodation options vary; however, it is almost always useful to take into account the state of the market before making a decision. In a sellers’ market where prices are rising and there are more buyers than properties for sale, it might be sensible to buy first, as your property is likely to sell fast. Conversely, in a buyers’ market where there are lots of properties for sale, it may be smart to sell first, especially as this is just the kind of market where you may get less than anticipated for you current home.

It’s surprising how many people somehow manage the seemingly impossible – a simultaneous settlement. Those that are successful have usually done their market research thoroughly and have realistic expectations about what their current home is likely to sell for.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

Are you planning on selling your home some time in the next 12 months? 

If so, then it’s not too early to pave the way for a successful sale with three important preparatory activities.

• It’s important to choose the right agent. (I always recommend Steve Slicker) If you are using a tradesperson at your home, ask them if there is one they would recommend. Tradies often do work in houses that are being prepared for sale and as a result they often hear stories about agents both good and bad! They also likely work for agents so do they get treated professionally when doing so?
• Get a current market appraisal now so you’re getting a good idea of value. Do bear in mind that in 12 months the price may be different, up or down!
• Look carefully at your home – inside and out. Are there minor maintenance and repair jobs that need to be planned for, such as painting, cleaning, de-cluttering, leaking taps etc? This is not the time to do anything major as purchasers may not like your changes but a house should look cared for. If you are unsure what is necessary to help sell your home, I’m happy to come along and offer advice and make suggestions if requested.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

It’s fair to say that I consider myself very knowledgeable about the Upper Hutt residential market place and one thing I have learned is that most people who have just bought or sold a property know a lot about their market in their area are as well. They have gained this knowledge over weeks and months of looking at properties to buy or preparing themselves to sell. So how can they keep this market knowledge current so that they always know market trends and price movements?

I can help!

Many residential property buyers and sellers keep up-to-date with what is happening in their local market in a way that places them under no obligation to become a client of the agent who provides the information. Most professional agents have a website with information about prices currently being achieved in their local area, as well as more general advice about the real estate market. I also use Facebook and I place articles with useful information for people at every stage of the buying and selling process, from first home buyers, to novice property investors, from the young couple who is struggling to get a deposit together for their first property to the empty nesters downsizing.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

Few vendors trying to decide which agent should sell their property would base their choice simply on whether they are likely to get a quick sale. And is a ‘quick sale’ an advantage anyway?

A quick sale may seem to some home owners a godsend and to others likely to sell the property short. But when judging an agent’s sales success, length of time taken to sell properties is worth taking into account. It is especially significant when properties stay on the market so long that vendors’ commitments aren’t able to be honoured and their plans go astray -are as well as resulting in a lower selling price at the end of the process.

When selecting an agent, ask them not only what their selling success rate is, but what is their average time to sell a property similar to yours – in other words, how many days on the market?

Then, find out whether they are likely to follow through in your individual case by asking them to demonstrate that they have genuine purchasers who are in the market for a property like yours. Ask: “If I list my property with you today, how many genuine purchasers from your data base could you bring to inspect my property in the next 48 hours?” Experienced home sellers report that many agents simply offer the anecdotal “We have lots of buyers waiting.”

While there is no guarantee that the right buyer for you is already on an agent’s books (you will most certainly still need to advertise) the professionalism of the agent who can get the ball rolling with purchasers interested in a property similar to yours augurs well for a successful transaction.

Posted in Tips on Selling;

Hi folks,

It takes a certain expertise to write a good property advertisement, but as a home owner, you know your house better than anyone else. So give some thought to the benefits of living in your particular corner of the world. Some of the attributes that could help sell your home might actually surprise even you.

Your agents might be able to write a better ad than you, the home owner, but they can’t write an ad that speaks to the hearts of potential buyers without the benefit of your intimate connection with the property. What sort of things might the agent want to know?

Not that we have many of these in Upper Hutt but if you are in an apartment in Wellington you might mention the bus at the door that has lots of great cafe stops on its route, or that you feel safe to let your teenagers catch it at night because they don’t have to walk home in a dark street. You might even mention how much you enjoy the fact that there is a rubbish chute that saves you going to the ground floor with your rubbish.

If you are in Trentham it might be a back gate leading to a track to TMP where your kids can play without having to walk there by the road, or the number of bird attracting plants in your garden.

These are things your agent might not know, so make sure you jot down these benefits as they occur to you and let the agent use it as a basis for writing the best ad. Don’t expect the agent to use all the material you give them, let them be the judge of which benefits will best appeal to local buyers, and when too much information is counter-productive. The important thing is that the personality of your house shines through in the detail that is revealed, not that no detail is left out.

Posted in Tips on Selling, Advertising;

Hi folks,

Considering areas outside of Wellington, such as our fair city, Porirua and the Kapiti Coast, are becoming more and more appealing to investors and out of town buyers, now could be a good time to consider sprucing up your house to sell.

Here are some important points to consider if you are seriously thinking of renovating

The first and most important is money! It can cost a bit of money to check the feasibility of your project. My suggestion is to have the property appraised by a trusted real estate agent, I gather Steve Slicker is pretty good. What’s the house worth now, what will it be worth with the work is done?

Make sure you have your finance sorted and understand how the process works from a financing perspective. It’s not as simple as the banks giving you access to all the funds needed for the project, they will want to see plans, valuations and builders fixed price contracts covering all the work. Funds may have to be progressively advanced.

So then do you want to renovate the property to live in or do you want to sell for a tidy profit?

This all depends on what outcome you are hoping to achieve from renovating. Everyone’s situation is different. Whatever you want to achieve, make sure you explore all options. What is the cost of trading up in the same area, compared with the cost of renovating and extending what you have?

Top areas to renovate that will add value:

Kitchen, bathrooms and think of your street appeal, what is your garden looking like? You could also consider adding another room

Posted in Tips on Selling, Pricing Your Property;