list in winter

Best advice when buying a home

by John Rice

It is amazing to me to think about the extreme markets I have seen.

I spent most of 2011 until COVID giving advice based on my experience of seeing how hard it was to sell ANY house during the Great Recession.

I think I will spend the next decade giving advice based on my experience of seeing how easy it was to sell ANY house right after COVID.

We are now back to a more normal market. Inventory is up a little, but seems really high compared to the days of only 3-4 houses being on the market in any price range.

I recently had an out of state buyer. It is always fun when somebody rolls into town with a mission of finding a house. I get to literally see almost any house worth considering, and all within a few days.

I sorted through about 90 houses in their price range. I narrowed it down to about the best 15 houses. Man, it sure was nice to be able to do this. I haven’t been able to do so in many years. Just not too long ago, there were not 90 houses for sale in all prices ranges in the whole Bluegrass area.

Many from this list were new listings. Most sold immediately. We ended up finding an ideal home that was clearly the nicest in it’s price range since there were multiple offers. After going over the list price, waiving inspections and paying cash, I am happy to say it closed last week.

The whole time I was out with these buyers, I was thinking about those other 75 or so houses for sale. I am sure none of them had back to back showings like practically every house I showed my clients. A couple of years ago, any of those houses would have gotten multiple offers the first day and possibly sold for over the list price…….but not today. Today they are nothing anybody wants. They all had some bigger negative like being on a busy road, in poor condition, a bad lot, etc.

Which takes me back to some timeless advice I have been giving for years: Buy a house that will be easy to sell in a bad market. Buyers in any market all want the best house available to them. I remember getting multiple offers on listings in 2009 when there were literally hundreds of houses available to those buyers who all wanted my listing. What house is that? One with a good floor plan. One with a good lot. One that is in a desirable location. One that fits into it’s neighborhood nicely. One that has no big negatives. One that has at least one unique feature that gives it a little pizzaz. How will you know this house when you see it? Take me along and I will let you know.

Fall Market Blunder

by John Rice

It’s that time of year again.  The time when sellers make their biggest mistake.

Many people think fall and winter are bad times to sell.  Truth is there is never a bad time to sell.  If you have a good house that is priced right, it is ALWAYS a good market for you.  Sell it whenever you want.  You might even get more in the fall/winter.  There are two sides to the supply and demand equation.  Yeah, there are more buyers out in the spring and summer, but there are also fewer good listings in the fall and winter.

Let’s say you have a house that hasn’t sold this past summer.  Your instinct is to take it off the market.  But guess what?  If nobody knows your house is for sale, then there is a 0% chance of selling. Then let’s say you wait until spring to put it back on the market.  Well, you are setting yourself up for failure all over again because you will have to compete with better listings.

Without a doubt, fall/winter is the BEST time to sell a house that did not sell earlier in the year.  I preach this to sellers all the time……few ever believe me.  Whenever I have a listing that is hard to sell for whatever reason (steep driveway, bad lot, poor condition, awkward floor plan, etc) it always sells in the fall/winter.  It is because there are so fewer choices for buyers that your listing looks better.  It’s like that last piece of pizza.  The one that only had one pepperoni on it and didn’t have much cheese.  Once all the better pieces have been taken, you eat that one because you don’t have another choice.

I’ve had two listings that were hard to sell this year.  One was an amazing house whose only flaw was a sloping lot.  The other was a great house too.  On a golf course with a view of a pond.  The problem there was that the HOA dues were nearly $1500 a year.  If you didn’t plan on golfing, there were similar houses for similar prices in similar neighborhoods that didn’t have those HOA dues.

The high HOA seller took their house off the market and wants to try again next spring.

The amazing house with the sloping lot just sold.  While it was an amazing house, it was always the bridesmaid and never the bride as long as there were other amazing houses with flat lots.  Once the market exhausted it’s supply of amazing houses with flat lots, this one rose to the top.

So, if you are thinking of selling, or you have been trying to sell, now really is a good time!

Reading the tea leaves when your house isn’t selling

by John Rice

House not selling? Wondering how to interpret what is going on? Here are a few of my thoughts on some common situations. The following assumes your house is being presented well online with plenty of good pictures and marketing remarks that describe it with more than trendy generic AI generated verbiage.

The house that gets lots of showings but no offers

Assuming that you don’t have some negative that wasn’t obvious like backing to a highway, apartments, or having an Eiffel Tower looking electrical thing in your yard, this situation simply means that the house doesn’t live up to what buyers expected. The good news with this one is that buyers think the price for what they thought the house would be is okay or else they wouldn’t come at all. The solution here is to either lower the price or improve the house so that it meets the expectations buyers have. Whichever is easiest.

I once had a condo that got tons of showings. I kept encouraging the seller to paint. Once we did, it sold. I recently had another listing that was getting tons of showings. It was a nice place, but just felt like a 15 year old house that needed a fresh vibe. The seller did some painting and replaced the flooring in all the bathrooms. As soon as it was done, it sold. Both of these places looked great online, and just needed to match what buyers thought they were getting. Both were improved for far less than the price reduction we would have needed, so both sellers actually came out better by going that route.

The house that gets no showings

This one is easy, but hard for sellers to accept. The price is too high. If a house is presented well on the MLS, and still nobody comes to see it, all you can do is lower the price. Real estate is all about price, location, and condition. You can’t change the location, but the other two you have some control over.

Also something to think about is this: If you have a $400k house and you’re asking $475k for it, buyers are comparing it to other houses that are really worth the asking price. The buyers who are going to spend what your house is really worth aren’t even going to see it since the list price is over their budget.

The house that gets the same bad feedback over and over

This is the least fun thing that can happen to a seller. I mean, they get kicked out of their house for showing after showing with no offers AND get to hear what people hate about their house.

Several years ago I had this really cool older house that had been mostly remodeled. It had the smallest living room I have ever seen……must have been the smallest anybody had ever seen since that is all I kept hearing after the showings. I’d ask for feedback and the buyer’s realtor would go on and on about how beautiful the place was, how unexpected it was to have walk-in closets in such an old house….then they would say their client wasn’t going to buy it since the living room was so small.

We tried putting in smaller scale furniture, but that didn’t help. After that, all we could do was drop the price. A price reduction opens the house up to a larger pool of buyers as well as enticing them to overlook a shortcoming if they are getting a better deal. We got that one sold too.

If you have a situation that doesn’t fit into these scenarios, give me a shout and I’ll let you know what to do.