Landscaping Affects Value

Most appraisers agree that if a home has nice landscaping, it can often enhance the value and reduce a home’s time on the market.  If landscaping is not kept up or is deteriorating,  it can often lower the value and lengthen the time a home remains for sale. 

 

Curb appeal is essential when selling a home.  This is the homeowner’s chance to make a great first impression. A home with boring landscape or in need of an exterior paint job will be unappealing to prospective buyers and they will factor these issues into their offering price if they make an offer at all.

 

Since landscaping improvements could make an impact on the resale value, homeowners should consider how long they plan to be in the home and whether to make short-term updates or plan for several years.

 

Here are some tips for homeowners to retain or improve their curb appeal

• Keep your landscape design in line with comparable properties in the area.  You don't want to copy your neighbor's design, but be sure that you complement each other's homes.

 

• Imagine yourself as a buyer and driving up to your home for the first time.  Does it make you feel excited about going inside?

 

• Don't overdo it!  Landscaping that requires little or no water to maintain can be quite desirable depending on where you live.  Don't be extreme in either direction.

 

• Remove weak, old or damaged trees planted too close to a home or building that could provide a danger to the home.  Homeowners should also be sure that mulching or beds don’t get too close to wood around foundations to avoid wood-destroying organisms.

In many cases, it is not necessary to spend a lot to give your home curb appeal.  A little creativity can go a long way with landscaping.  If you are not naturally talented in this area, professional help with design will often pay for itself in the end.

 

Nancy Puder is a real estate broker in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415. She always enjoys hearing from you!


 

 

Hot Market Some Homes Selling Slow

Sellers should understand that even if houses are selling fast in your area it doesn't mean that yours will. 

Some reasons why your home may not sell is that it is priced too high, there are excessive restrictions on access to buyers and agents, there is a failure to clean or make repairs and, of course, there could also be a variety of other marketing reasons.

With a sellers' markets underway in dozens of metropolitan areas around the country, new research has found that curious statistical patterns are emerging: Even in cities where listings get multiple offers within days or hours, significant numbers of homes are sitting on the market for six months, 12 months or more with no takers.

 

Despite roaring sales paces all around them, for one reason or another these houses aren't selling.   Everyone is talking about "low inventory" right now but little is being said about this fairly common situation in all areas including the Central Coast of CA

Nationally, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors, 44% of all new listings take 90 days or more to sell, 22% take six to 12 months and 9% take more than a year.

 

When agents discuss among themselves the reasons that certain homes aren't selling, the most often phrase used is "self-sabotage".   Although sellers don't intentionally self-sabotage their own sale, their need to make unrealistic demands often brings them no sale at all.  Once it is known that the seller has rejected reasonable offers and refused to negotiate, buyers and agents begin to avoid their property.  Often, once the seller decides to be realistic, they have already created a negative impression and end up taking less than if they had been reasonable in the first place.

Restrictions on when and by whom the house can be shown is another big reason homes don't sell. For example, sellers who will only allow showings between 10 a.m. and noon on Saturdays, or who require a 24-hour advance notice before appointments to show during the week, or who won't let anyone in unless they or the listing agent are present, inevitably delay offers and sales.

Other reasons homes don't sell:

•Poorly cleaned, messy houses with obvious deferred maintenance.

•Sellers who insist on being present (or hover nearby) when shoppers visit so they can point out every feature they improved or like. Better for sellers to be out of the house or out of sight.

•Smells inside the house that are either bad (especially from dogs, cats and other pets) or come across as contrived, such as scented candles, potpourri plug-ins, etc. When buyers encounter obviously artificial smells they wonder: What are the owners covering up?

 

You've got to think of it as a product you're marketing, not just as your home. Get it in shape to sell. Price it realistically. Be flexible and cooperative on showings and negotiations. Unless it has grossly off-putting features (costly physical defects, ugly design, bad location, bad schools) your property should sell.

 

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415. She always enjoys hearing from you!

Buying a Home?

You've decided to buy a home and now you want to look at properties.  Stop!  The best way to start is to get a referral to a mortgage lender and get pre-qualified.  The fact is that most sellers won't even look at your offer without a pre-qualification or pre-approval letter unless, of course your plan is to pay all cash.  If you are planning to pay cash, any savy seller will require documentation that you have the funds available in your account.  A common response from a potential buyer when asked if they have been pre-qualified  is "I will get the pre-qualification letter if I find something I like". 

 

The problem with this attitude is that if the perfect house comes up, you probably won't get it.  Most listings that are priced right and show well in a desirable neighborhood are not only selling quickly but are also receiving multiple offers.  No rational seller is going to make an already pre-qualified buyer wait while you go out and get your loan approval.  

 

Most good Realtors will actually require that a buyer get pre-qualified before taking them out and showing them houses.  That is only fair since Realtors only get paid if they sell something.  Why should a Realtor spend countless hours with a buyer unless they are willing to show that they are able to perform? If you do manage to convince a good Realtor to take you out anyway, they probably won't call you first about the best deals that come up.  They will naturally call the other buyers they are working with who have taken this important first step. 

 

With loans as complicated as they are these days, I see the most problems with the high income earners who think they are just fine.  Trust me, an hour spent with a lender, will save you countless hours of hassle and sometimes thousands of dollars as you move forward toward a purchase!

 

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a prestigious real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415. Your calls are always welcome!

 

Tips to Increase Credit Score

Your credit score is calculated from information in your credit report and is a measure of how good of a risk you are to the creditor.  If you are thinking about buying a house or even trying to rent one, it is important that you are aware of how your credit score will affect your ability to buy or rent.

 

It's important to know that any lender to whom you apply will obtain your score and provide it to you. As noted below, however, inquiries by lenders may have a negative effect on your score, whereas inquiries by you do not. Hence, it is a good idea to find your score before you apply, so you can make an informed decision on whether you want to apply at that time. 

 

You can obtain your score from many firms in the business, including www.equifax.com, www.transunion.com, www.experian.com and www.myfico.com. 

 

Here are some general suggestions on how applicants can improve their credit score using data from their credit reports.

 

Pay on time: The core rule is to meet your debt obligations on-time, EVERY time. If you have had payment lapses in the past but your habits have improved, time is on your side. The credit scoring rules weight recent experience more heavily than older experience. 

 

Correct mistakes in your credit report: Your score should not be reduced by reporting mistakes, which are all too common. Detach yourself from the "wrong vendors": Because finance companies lend to relatively poor risks, the credit score of any borrower owing money to a finance company is lower than it would be if the creditor was a bank. By the same logic, borrowers who have credit cards or department stores are penalized, relative to what their score would be if they had cards issued by banks. 

 

Reduce balances on revolving credits to less than 50 percent of the maximums: A high utilization ratio is read as a sign of weakness and potential trouble, reducing your score. Credit cards are the most important type of revolving credits, but HELOCs belong in this category as well. A HELOC used to purchase a house or to refinance a mortgage, where the initial utilization ratio is 100 percent, will jolt your credit score.

 

Note that utilization ratios can be reduced by getting the maximums raised, as well as by paying down the balances. In many cases, credit card issuers are willing to raise the maximum at the borrower's request. 

 

Minimize the number of "hard inquiries": Hard inquiries are requests to a credit agency for your credit score from a credit grantor, insurance company or other entity to which you have applied and to which you have entrusted your Social Security number. "Soft inquiries" made by you or by firms looking to sell you something for which you have not applied don't require your permission and don't impact your credit score. The credit-scoring systems may or may not penalize borrowers who shop multiple credit grantors within a short period -- unfortunately, you can't be sure.

 

The credit agencies tell you that multiple inquiries within a 15-day period count only as a single inquiry, but in fact inquiries for mortgage, auto and student loans would probably count as three inquiries, and even three mortgage inquiries could count as three inquiries, depending on how the credit grantors are identified to the credit scorer. 

 

The bottom line is that in applying for credit, find your own score that you can deliver to the vendors you are shopping who need the score to set the price. The vendor you select will verify the score through his own inquiry, but it will be only a single inquiry. 

 

Pay off collection accounts: This may actually reduce your score in the short-run by converting the account from an older entry with a low weight to a new one with a higher weight. However, you can't get a loan with a collection account on your record, so you must pay it off -- the sooner the better. 

 

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415. She always enjoys hearing from you!

 

 

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California Foreclosure Filings Have Been On A Steady Downtrend Since March 2009

California foreclosure filings have been on a steady downtrend since March 2009 as government agencies have rolled out more programs that have successfully lengthened the foreclosure process or provided alternatives such as short sales, principal balance reduction loan modifications, second-lien extinguishments and other forms of debt relief. 

 

California foreclosure filings — Notices of Default plus Notices of Trustee Sale — increased 4.0 percent this March, but were down 59.3 percent for the past 12 months. 

March Notices of Default (NOD), which is the first stage of the foreclosure process, rose 9.5 percent from February. More importantly, NODs are up 65 percent since January, suggesting that some of the regulation-driven decline in foreclosures toward the end of last year has reversed course. While the gain since the beginning of the year was large in percentage terms, the longer-term downtrend has held firm. The March 2013 NODs were at their third-lowest level since we began tracking the data in September 2006. Over the past 12 months, NODs were down 65.3 percent.  

 

It will be interesting to see where we are with these stats at the end of the year.  Inventory is tight causing home sales to rise. Some lenders are more willing these days to work with borrowers who are struggling with their mortgage.   We will keep watching and reporting to you as the year rolls out!

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415. She always enjoys hearing from you!

 

 

 

 

The dream of homeownership is alive and well .  The real estate market buzzes constantly about when to buy, how to buy, when to sell and how to succeed  in the world of buying and selling real estate. 

 

Many believe that buying a home is a necessary component to success and happiness. This belief that owning a home is a necessary symbol of success and that NOT owning a home shows that one has somehow failed in life is simply not true.

 

Please don't take me the wrong way. I totally believe in the American dream of homeownership.  I feel that it is one of the best ways to build a secure future and I love helping people buy and sell homes.  If I didn't, I would be in trouble since this is how I make my living.  

 

For decades, though, the general attitude has been that if the banks approved the buyer's ability to pay the mortgage, the buyer will be able to afford the home. This formula has worked well for many buyers over the years but the question is....what about those who were approved by the bank and are now feeling trapped by their home, or worse, facing foreclosure?  

 

Should everyone buy a home if the bank approves the loan?  My answer is not necessarily.  While the benefits of homeownership are significant and certainly warrants a few sacrifices to initially obtain this goal, it doesn't mean that one should not take the time to look at the big picture.

 

Future buyers need to consider how long they will be able to make certain sacrifices in order to own a home. Will they be happy a few years from now when they still can't have a date night or take the family on a small vacation?  What about the maintenance costs that do not exist when renting because the landlord usually takes care of things like plumbing problems or roof repairs?

 

If the prospective buyer has factored in all the potential costs to their checkbook and lifestyle and still feels confident about moving forward with a home purchase, then I say yes..go ahead and jump into the world of homeownership!   Be cautious, though, if there is a little voice in the back of your head telling you that maybe you should wait a little longer. My advice is to take the time to write all of these concerns down and discuss with your financial advisor before taking the plunge.

 

It is possible that renting may make more sense right now. The market is always changing and contrary to what you may hear, owning a home is not about getting in "at the right time".  Wait until you know that you are ready and then go for it.  That will always be the "right time".

 

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415 She always enjoys hearing from you!

Home Sells Fast!

 

 

 

Local sales reports on homes sold show that the market is experiencing a long awaited "comeback".  Agents say that the  biggest issue right now is that they do not have enough homes to sell!   With consumer confidence on the rise and forecasts of higher interest rates, buyers are swarming the real estate market.  

 

Last week I listed a property located in a popular neighborhood.  I was excited for the seller when the phone started ringing immediately.  Within 2 days, I had 8 offers, 7 of which were at asking price! Needless to say, we are in escrow and the seller is very happy.

 

Over half of the homes that are going up for sale right now, are selling immediately and either very close to or at full price.  Sometimes they are even selling for more than the seller was asking.  

 

Sellers should be aware, however, that their asking price needs to be well researched and set where the buyer still feels like there is a deal in the making.  There are some homes that are not selling quickly and sometimes the reason is that the seller has priced the home too high.  Of course, there are other factors that need to be in place also to make the home attractive to a buyer.  

 

For a FREE brochure on how to get the most for your property, email me at Nancy@NancyPuder.com.  I always enjoy hearing from you!

 

Nancy Puder is the broker and owner of Signature Properties, a real estate sales and management firm in Arroyo Grande, CA.  You may contact her at Nancy@NancyPuder.com or (805)710-2415.