What to Do When Your Home Won’t Sell: Part 1

Are you having trouble trying to sell your home? If so, you may want to try one of these four alternatives.

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Listing your home can be a stressful experience in and of itself, but this is especially true if you’re having a difficult time attracting buyers. To help address this common problem, our team is launching a two-part series on what to do when your home won’t sell. And today marks the first episode.

We’ll be covering the first four solutions in this installment, so let’s dive right in:

1. List again in the future. Sometimes the reason your home won’t sell is simply that the timing’s wrong. Sellers must consider current market conditions, as well as their own personal circumstances, before putting their home on the market. If you’ve been struggling to sell, sometimes the best solution is to try again at a more opportune time.


2. Refinance your mortgage instead of selling. If your motivation to sell is largely financial, then perhaps a home sale is not the right solution at all. This isn’t to say that a sale is entirely out of the question, but you should consider other options if this is your reason for listing. Speaking with a lender is a great first step. They will be able to inform you of your options based on your individual situation. 

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If you’ve been struggling to sell, sometimes the best solution is to try again at a more opportune time.

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3. Turn your home into a rental. This isn’t always the best solution for those who lack experience in acting as a landlord, but it can be a decent alternative to selling for those ready to accept this (often hefty) responsibility. There are renters out there who will take great care of your home, but you must be prepared for less favorable outcomes before you decide to rent out your property. You should also check with your mortgage company to ensure that this option is within your legal right.


4. Pursue a short sale. This option isn’t as common right now as it was in years past, but it is still available for those who need it. Still, like the other options we’ve listed, sellers must think carefully about their situation before pursuing a short sale. Having an attorney by your side when you do so may also be a smart move.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thinking of Subdividing? Here Are the Factors You Need to Consider First

If you’re thinking of subdividing or developing a piece of property, there are several factors you need to consider to determine whether or not that will be economically feasible.

Want to sell your Kansas City Home? Get a home value report here 

Want to buy a Kansas City home? Search all homes for sale here

If you’re thinking about subdividing a piece of property or developing it and then selling it, you first need to determine whether taking this step is economically feasible.

Some parcels of land can be used for high-density development, but a lot of them can’t. This means you need to consider factors like how close your land is in proximity to the nearest city limits, whether your water lines and utilities are available and strong enough to service the number of rooftops you plan on building, how the land slopes in relation to the nearest sewer, etc.

Another factor to consider if your property is somewhat larger (50 acres or so) is whether the road accessing the property can handle the type of traffic that comes from being near the city limits. By and large, you can fit two and a half to three homes per acre on a developable property. By “developable”, I mean that the roads, sidewalks, and infrastructure can allow the fire and police departments to service the community properly.
 

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When a developer invests in a property, the most affordable part is the land, itself.

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It’s important for you to remember that when a developer invests in a property, the most affordable part is the land, itself. The expensive part is building the infrastructure and adding all the off-site improvements (i.e., water lines, sewer lines, gas lines, sidewalks).

On a 50-acre property, you can build anywhere from 100 to 150 homes. If you add that much traffic—say, two cars per household—to a county road that doesn’t have curbs, gutters, and proper stormwater planning, that can create a plethora of problems. Adding stoplights and turning lanes can cost up to $250,000, so that alone can make a property economically unfeasible for development.

Every property is different, and there are many other things to consider before you decide to subdivide and/or develop yours, but these are just a few factors to educate yourself about before moving forward.

If you have any other questions about this topic or you’re curious about what’s going on in our market, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help you.

How We Helped Kathy Sell Her Home

"They got the house sold! The money I got from the house was great and everything went without a hitch. They went above and beyond on everything. I always felt like I might have been their only client!" - Kathy Barabary, Home Seller

How to Handle Multiple Offers

Want to buy a Kansas City Home?  Click here to perform a full home search  Want to sell a Kansas City home?  Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation   You may also call us at 1-800-686-5088 for a FREE home buying or selling  consultation to answer any of your real estate questions. 

Right now, we're seeing a lot of multiple offers, which is great news for sellers. When we market a brand new listing, we build a lot of anticipation. Buyers will sit on the listing and wait for it to hit the market. If we price the home at a sweet spot, then that home will get multiple offers, sometimes in less than a week.

Some buyers may think that the only way to win in a multiple offer situation is to offer more money. However, nowadays contracts are 40 to 50 pages long, so there are plenty of opportunities for negotiation. For example:

• The closing date - Being flexible on the closing date is appealing to sellers who may be looking for a home themselves.
• The earnest deposit - Increasing the earnest deposit shows that you are serious about your offer, which is good news to sellers who need to close.
• Inspection dates - Being flexible with inspection dates - or even foregoing certain inspections - will also make your offer more appealing to sellers looking to close on the property.

These are just a few options, but as you can see, there are other things you can negotiate besides purchase price. However, in this market, buyers absolutely need to be pre-approved. If you're working with someone who allows you to shop without a pre-approval, then you have been set up to fail.

Other things to consider when looking for a home are your expectations for your new home, what your time frame is for purchasing, and how much your payments should be. Once you've determined those three things, you can get serious about finding a home.

If you have any questions about today's video, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

What You Should Know Heading Into the Spring Real Estate Market

Looking to buy or sell a home in Kansas City? Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 1-800-686-5088 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions. 

This year we're expecting a lot of millennial buyers to enter the market. It has been projected that 46% of all home buyers in 2015 will be first-time buyers. This is great news for our market in Kansas City, and we're expecting a surge of activity from this demographic. 

Other good news is that down payments have become more affordable with new loan products from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that only require a 3% down payment. USDA and VA loans are also very affordable options if you can qualify for them. We can refer you to really great loan officers to find you the best possible deal.

We're also seeing a much more balanced market in Kansas City than in the last 5-7 years. The market has heavily favored buyers in the last few years, but we're seeing some change now. In some of the upper price points the market still favors buyers, but overall we're seeing a neutral market in the Kansas City area. 

If you're serious about entering the market to purchase a home, be sure to contact our team and we can analyze the market and show you the absorption rates for the homes that you would like to buy. 

We would love to serve you! Contact us today if you're interested in buying a home!

How Can You Prepare Your Home For a Quick and Efficient Sale?

Looking to buy or sell a home in Kansas City? Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 1-800-686-5088 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions. 

There are a lot of different things you can do to prepare your home for a quick and efficient sale, but in the competitive real estate market we're seeing in Kansas City you might need some extra help to get your home market-ready.

1. In order to prepare for a sale you will want us to come out and assess your home's unique selling position. Each home is different, and we need to create a marketing strategy and good price for your property so that we can attract the right type of buyers.
2. The next thing that you'll want to do is stage your home so that it feels inviting to potential buyers. This includes cleaning, decluttering, repainting, and rearranging your home. We have a wonderful stager that can help you in this process.
3. After your home looks good, we'll send our professional photographer out to your property. Good presentation is really key in today's real estate market because most buyers look online for homes, so you really only have one chance to make a good impression. 
4. We've seen some healthy appreciation in this market (2.5-3% increase in home value), so we need to take that into account when we price your home. There will be a strong demand for homes this spring with low interest rates and great new loan products from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a seller's market that we're seeing right now, there is not a whole lot of danger in pricing a home too high, but your home may sit on the market for a little bit longer. 

Hopefully this can help you going into the spring selling season, and if you have any questions in regards to this information, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm always willing to assist you!

How to Price Your Home

Pricing is the #1 element in selling your home. Sellers ask us how they should price their home.

It's important that your marketing expert educates you on what's happening in the market. Are there other homes out there like yours? What are they pricing and selling at? That's our job.

We also look at what your appraisal value is and what the supply and demand is for homes similar to yours. How do we do this?

We determine the absorption rate. That means seeing what the supply is for homes similar to yours compared to how many buyers are out there. This figure will help us determine how quickly your home will sell.

It also tells us how to price - whether it's more aggressive or maybe you can ask for more money.

I hope you find this helpful; if you have any questions about how to price your home, please give me a call.

Thanks for watching!

5 Ways to Get Your Home Ready for the Market

Thanks for joining me today! Lately, I've had a lot of people ask me how to get their home ready for the market. If you're thinking about selling your home, give us a call. We will gladly  come in and give you a free market evaluation. That way you can see what your home is worth and what you can do to improve it. Here's five tips to help improve your home.

1. Look at your home through the eyes of a buyer - Start from the outside of your home and walk through it with a critical eye. What does your carpet, walls, trim, counter, etc. look like? This can help you see what a buyer will see when they look at your property. 
2. Professional Stager - We bring in our professional stager to get your home in the best showing condition. She knows how to get you the biggest bang for your buck. 
3. Get a pre-inspection - We recommend getting your home inspected before you put it on the market. This way you can fix all those potential deal breakers for a buyer. 
4. Get an appraisal - Just like a home inspection before listing, we also recommend an appraisal. 
5. Get your home in tip-top condition - Make sure the paint isn't chipping, the carpet is fresh, etc. This makes a tremendous difference.

If you have any questions, please give me a call. Let's figure out how to get your home ready for the market.

4 Reasons to Sell During the Holidays

Welcome back! The holidays are here and that always brings the question whether now is a good time to sell or not. There’s a big misconception that the winter months aren’t a good time to list your home, but that simply isn’t true.

There are actually four great reasons why you SHOULD list your home.

1. There’s lower inventory - Because so many people believe the misconception that now is the wrong time to sell, it means there is less competition for you.
2. Buyers are more serious -  The buyers that are looking during the holidays are have-to-buy buyers. We find most people who are relocating for jobs look during the holidays. They have time off too to look. 
3. Homes look great - Who doesn’t love holiday lights and decorations? The buyer often can become emotional when seeing homes like this.
4. We can arrange timing - You may be worried that you’ll have to move right during the holidays, but you typically have 45-60 days of escrow, so you can enjoy your home for one last holiday!

These are four great reasons why you should list your home now. So give me a call and we can get started marketing!

Thanks for watching!

Kansas City Fall Real Estate Market Update 2013

Welcome to my video blog! I wanted to give you an update about what’s happening in our real estate market. Despite the recent increase in interest rates and the government shutdown, we haven’t seen any dramatic changes other than the typical seasonal patterns.

It’s a great time to sell. Depending on your location and price range, absorption rates do vary, but they are all very good.

It’s a great time for buyers as well. Interest rates are still historically low and if you have good credit and 3.5 percent down, you’ll be able to get a great loan.

With the government shutdown we do expect a slight slow down in the amount of closings. We have yet to see any changes take affect, though.

If you have any questions or are ready to buy or sell, please give me a call at 800.686.5088 or send me an email at chip@chipglennon.com

Thanks for watching!

How to Make a Buyer WANT Your House! Staging your house, before it’s too late and you lose the sale

 
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If you’ve shopped for a home, chances are you’ve come across one that you really wish you hadn’t visited in the first place. True, houses for sale ought to have a certain “lived in” quality to them, because they are to be lived in after all, but the art of tactfully balancing just the right amount of hominess with neutrality is not so simple. You need to know what you’re doing when you prepare to set up your house and show it to potential buyers. We’ve put together some great tips for home-sellers so you can get the same results you’d get by hiring a professional staging company.

Fix Up the Place

One of the biggest mistakes homeowners make before putting their house up for sale is to neglect areas in the house that need attention. Folks, don’t leave that faulty step unrepaired, only for a potential buyer to step on, slide off of or worse, get injured on – FIX IT! You might think potential buyers won’t notice but they are walking around on your premises like hawks, noticing each little detail. The good news is that they are noticing the first-rate stuff too, so as long as you have the home’s amenities in order and other major areas in tip-top condition, you should be in good shape. Here’s how:

Get Rid of the Clutter

If you want to successfully sell your house, you need to get those potential buyers to imagine they already live there. Too much clutter, hobby-oriented items or personal possessions that most people may not be able to identify with, can easily get in the way of that vision. Organize things in stylish storage bins or better yet, have a garage sale before the open house and get rid of unwanted stuff. You have to move soon anyway, why not kill two birds with one stone? A clean and organized home will seem like a clean slate to buyers, who can then see themselves moving in without much hassle and settle in effortlessly.

Stay Neutral

Skip the tie-dye sofa cushions, shaggy 70s rug and don’t light incense on the day of your open house. While you’re at it, don’t fill the space with gender-specific things either. Buyers should walk into a neutral ground – literally. Light to medium colors, preferably in beige tones, are the simplest way to pull buyers’ attention away from other personal aspects of your home that they may not be able to identify with. Beige goes with almost anything so if someone considering purchasing your home can imagine their things in the space, then you’ve just crossed one of the most major hurdles in home-selling – making a buyer identify with the home.

Make It a Modern, Inviting Environment

If you don’t already have them, invest in a few modern decorative accessories to improve the look of your space while lending an air of style and taste and making it more enticing. It doesn’t have to take much but depending on how you set it up, you can enhance a given space with a few simple additions and deletions. Take your over-crowded study and rearrange the bookshelf to display only a few strategic but essential books, like a leather-bound set of encyclopedia or some literature classics. In the same way, leave a few children’s toys in a child’s room but be sure to display them tastefully.

Put a Few Finishing Touches in Place

The idea is that you want your house to be sold – and you probably want it sold fast. If you are careful to respect the people who are visiting your space to decide whether it’s the right one for them, then you are doing something that a lot of homeowners neglect to consider. Taking down a piece of controversial artwork that may make a potential purchaser uncomfortable could be the one bargaining chip that could make or break the sale. Arranging for all those who currently live in the home to be away during the open house and while showing the house being dressed in a way to present a good impression are also great ways to tip the scales in the right direction.

It’s very simple. You need to make the potential buyer feel right at home from the get-go. If from the moment they walk in and smell cinnamon cookies baking makes them wish this was already home – then you’re already two steps ahead and can call the open house a success! Of course, a signature on the dotted line is where the real success lies and as long as the buyer feels at home, chances are that if everything else lines up – the sale is a winner!