neighborhoods

Selling a house is like middle school gym class

by John Rice

I was that kid in middle school that was always picked last in gym class. You know the drill. Two team Captains (Buyers) pick their team (Houses) until there is only one left and that person gets picked by default. Don’t feel bad for me though…….I’m sure the past 40 years has been better for me than for most of those picked before me.

The real estate market is very similar to what we’ve all experienced in gym class. Buyers organize the houses in order of preference. Naturally, they are most interested in move-in ready houses that are priced right. Then they move down the list to those that are less desirable.  Sellers want to be picked sooner rather than later. Think “Days on Market.”

Once the Captains are chosen, that is like the beginning of the house hunting season. The Captains pick those they think will be the best. Once those kids are on a team, they are “Sold” and not available anymore. All a Captain can do is pick the most desirable kid from what is left. Once the best one has been picked, the second best one becomes the new best choice. That is until it was just me standing there and the Captain says my name with the enthusiasm as if he had just heard the cafeteria was serving goulash for lunch.

Right now, we are in the time of year where not many new listings are hitting the market. It’s kind of like when there are only about 6 kids left from the whole class. These are the ones that maybe nobody really wants, but the next kid that gets picked is going to be the best of those that are left. There are many sellers right now with average to below average houses that will get contracts simply because there are no better choices for a buyer right now. I always say that fall is the best time to get rid of  house that nobody has wanted all spring and summer, which I guess is my whole point.

 On a side note, the only time I ever got picked any higher than dead last was when it was for volleyball. See, I am left-handed. When I serve, the ball always goes on the opposite side of the court from where it lands when most people serve. Everybody on the other team was always caught off guard. Nobody ever noticed the pattern of where the ball would go when I served. Come to think of it, that is one of the first times I ever realized the benefit of zigging when most people zag and zagging when most people zig.

Getting ready to sell?

by John Rice

Getting ready to sell your house? Here are some things to know:

Often a seller will think they need to do something like spend a lot of money refreshing a kitchen or a primary bathroom. While I am positive any buyer would appreciate that, doing so usually costs more money than it adds in value. If it doesn’t add more value to your home than it costs, it is a waste of time. The goal is to do things that add value and/or make the house sell faster. A better choice is to bring up the least best parts of your house than to make one or two areas way better than average.

Most sellers usually have one or two repairs that they think are going to cause the buyer to walk away. Often they are sort of minor issues that have bothered them the entire time they have lived in the house.

I remember once I had a seller who was planning on spending a lot of money to replace a front door because it had some wood rot between the metal on the front and back. From the side of the door, it looked like about a 3/4 inch by 2 inch area of rot. I told them not to do that. Why? To begin with, I didn’t think that a buyer would find it to be that big of a deal. When a buyer gets their inspection report, they are most focused on bigger issues usually. Something like that little bit of rot at the bottom of the door probably looks especially minor compared to the top 2-3 issues their inspector finds…..meaning that the seller can decline their request to repair it and focus on the real items that could be deal breakers.

What to do then? Fresh paint. A deep cleaning. Decluttering. These are the things that make your house look the best and cost the least.

    OK to take a contingency offer?

    by John Rice

    Well, I don’t really like to do it. Sure, an offer without that type of contingency is better, but there is a good side to this type of contract. Guess what it is? The buyer will typically pay you more with a contingency to sell or close their old house than a regular buyer will without that contingency.

    I see it all the time. A buyer with a house to sell or close gets really nervous about not knowing where they will be living. They are desperate to find a house and will pay top dollar for the mental peace of knowing where they are going to land.

    The bummer part is if the deal on their old house falls apart, so does your deal. There is an upside though, and it is the home inspection. If the inspection goes okay on the buyer’s old house, it typically means it will too on your house. Short of some catastrophic issue, a buyer will not walk away from your house. Why? There is not enough time to find another house prior to closing their old house…..and remember, they did all this because they do not want to be homeless once they close on their old house.

    Is a view worth less if it is not as good?

    by John Rice

    I was driving through the new Peninsula neighborhood the other day. It is over off Richmond Road and backs to the reservoir. I could see the back of the houses on Dew Court, Rain Court and Coolwater Court. For decades the owners of those house have had a rare and fantastic view of the water and the woods where there are now these new houses.

    But that has changed. The water is still there of course. The woods are gone.

    Question is this: Are those older houses worth less since the view is not as good?

    To those owners who have enjoyed the “Old” view, I am sure it is not as good now. They probably think these new houses have impacted the value of their homes. I totally get that vibe. I dealt with something similar. I used to have a peek-a-boo view of the Greenbrier Golf Course from my last home. Across the fairway was a beautiful hillside full of trees. About 6 months after I moved in, I heard bulldozers clearing the hillside. Now there is a neighborhood there. While I did not like the new view as much as the old one, it was still a view. It just didn’t extend past the golf course now.

    And that is exactly what the 1980s houses have. They still have a fabulous water view. I mean, the new houses are going to be extremely desirable being on the water and they have the houses from the 80s on the other side of the water in their view. There is no reason to think that somehow the market is going to like the 1980s houses less because they now have a view of the new houses across the water, right?

    Something else to consider. Whenever the 1980s houses come up for sale in the furture, no buyer is going to know that the view was better before the new neighborhood was built. All they will know is what is currently there, which is a very rare water view.

    The repair list shouldn’t be like playing Marco Polo

    by John Rice

    Most people think all a realtor does is open doors, fill in the blanks on the paperwork and cash checks. Sad thing is that there are a lot of realtors who think this too.

    Not me.

    The ultimate goal is the get the best terms for my clients and make the process as smooth and drama-free as possible.

    I recently had a situation where my drama radar was going off so I made some moves to prevent it.

    I got a repair list on one of my listings. The issue was the wording on the repair request for an air conditioner. The other realtor stated what the inspector found and pretty much just said fix it. The inspector stated that the air conditioner was only producing a temperature difference of 9 degrees. Now, I knew what the intent of the buyer’s request was. They wanted a normal working air conditioner. But at what point would they find a repair acceptable? If my buyer fixed it and it was only 10 degrees, would that be okay? Who knows? I never liked playing Marco Polo when I was a kid. I don’t like finding Waldo. I also don’t like the “I see something you don’t see and the color of it is” game. I am definitely not going to play those games with a repair list.

    My Dad is retired now from being an attorney, but he is still a brilliant man. Back in 2005 when I was writing my first ever repair list, I consulted him on the wording. I think I did what most realtors do, which is to state the problem and just say fix it. He told me two things which I have never forgotten and try to share as often as I can with other realtors so our industry improves:

    1. Write a repair to be done to achieve a goal rather than for a task to be performed. Why? You can sometimes do a task which doesn’t achieve the goal. When that happens, you have no recourse because you asked for a task to be performed and it was done as you requested.
    2. Write EVERYTHING so clearly that a third party could read the contract, addenda or repair list and know exactly who was to do what and what the agreed upon outcome should be. That third party could be a judge or mediator.

    So, when I read this one repair item, I knew there was no specific outcome requested. There was no verbiage saying that “If the seller does this with the air conditioner, the buyer will accept it.” The effort to get this right at this point may have saved some last minute drama right before the closing. When my seller has packed up and moved out, and the buyer has packed up and made moving plans is NOT the time to discover that we had a difference of opinion on what was expected.

    Ultimately we agreed upon wording that said the air conditioner had to cool within industry standards, which is a minimum temperature difference of 15 degrees.