How to Stage Your Home Properly

How to Stage Your Home Properly

Today I wanted to speak with you about the art of selling property. Where we begin is looking at the property itself and how it’s priced. We work with our clients to stage their property, thin out what you have and make the property more comfortable and easier to move around by de-cluttering. We also offer marketing and staging services.

We are among the top realtors in the country when it comes to continuously reinventing our marketing approach by dedicating entire staffs to working out agreements with our marketing partners for better distribution. With de-cluttering, we are ensuring that our professional photographers have something beautiful to capture.

With our marketing strategy, we provide something called “Command Central.” Command Central is a tool that tracks inquiries from yard signs and online search engines. More and more, the industry is moving towards online marketing which changes your pricing strategy in how you present your price online.

When you look to hire a realtor, I urge you to hire one that is savvy and is constantly looking for new approaches; this means finding a realtor who has a robust marketing budget and is willing to spend money to make money. Utilizing websites like Trulia and Zillow are the norm for us and we are constantly revaluating our marketing strategy. We are someone of the biggest budgeted amongst realtors and running ourselves as leaders and holding ourselves to higher level.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you around the way.

Don't Think it is Time to Sell? Think Again!

Give your home the attention it deserves and sell it for the price you want!

We are constantly asked whether it is a good time to sell. In most neighborhoods, my clients and friends have reported that their homes are now more valuable as they ever were. A few factors play into this. There is a profound lack of inventory; we’re coming off of three straight years of 20-30% declines of homes being listed. This decline was most likely caused by the consumer’s lack of trust and confidence in the market after the downturn a few years back. I’m here to report that you should check in again, with us, and find out if this is the right time to consider selling. You may have noticed there are not many homes for sale in your community; it’s happening everywhere. The lack of inventory is affecting buyer behavior, causing them to react quickly because they have fewer choices. Every opportunity a buyer has to view a home is deemed more precious since opportunity doesn’t come around that often.

Another great aspect is the interest rate environment. The summer did bring us a roughly 1% increase in rates, but we have come down from that with three straight weeks of declining interest rates. Buyers are realizing that the market is moving very fast and are starting to compete. We know this market is very different than it was three years ago, so we encourage you to give us a call. You may find that it is just the time to sell. Thanks and have a great day!

Government Shutdown October 2013

Government Shutdown October 2013

Strictly going by the manner of the media, one would think the market is in shambles. This is not true, however, people are feeling pessimistic about the market as this summer brought a 1% rate increase, a potential sequester looming and the current government shutdown. The real issue in the D.C. market is the lack of available inventory. There has been a slight increase in supply from the slow summer months, but based on current trends and historical standards, we have hit a low point in regards to inventory. Depending on your location and price point, we’re coming off a two year stretch of inventory being down 20-30%. Although this is only one factor, it’s very powerful especially in terms of the current bumps we’ve been hitting.

In addition, even with the government shutdown, D.C. remains one of the best job markets in the country. In a robust job market with very young and strong professionals, having a job provides all the confidence for buying or renting a home. This provides a lot of room for growth and development. Another strong part of the market is the builder segment. Builders are still putting up condos and individuals are continuing to purchase homes on the resale market to flip.

Overall, the market is a mixed bag with very strong forces moving in both directions. The strongest factors appear to be the stable job market and the lack of inventory. The supply issue makes purchasing harder on buyers but works favorably for sellers. The rates are still historically low and hovering between 4.5-4.75% in most loan scenarios. This is still encouraging and the market appears to be balancing out.

If you have any other questions, please contact me as we are the top Keller Williams team. Thanks and I hope to see you out there!

Learn How to be a Competitor - with James Grant

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to our video blog!

Today, I have my partner, James Grant, with us. He has been the number one buyer’s agent on our team for years. He is great at connecting with buyers and understanding the emotional process.

I asked James to join us today because I wanted him to tell us what a buyer can do to become a competitor in our market today. We have a shortage of inventory and a large pool of buyers, so when you are looking for a home you need to be prepared.

James Grant says,

"There are a number of things a buyer can do before they even engage with a realtor.  One of the most important steps is getting pre-approved. Without a pre-approval letter, we have no idea what homes to look at and a seller will not take you seriously without it.

After you have the pre-approval letter, find a productive agent to connect with. As Carlos mentioned, we are in a crazy market. Homes are selling within a week! You need an agent who can help negotiate for you, knows how to make the best offer and can get it done quickly.

The final bit of advice is the scariest for most. Be decisive. Buying a home is a huge decision; I understand that. I want to make sure, though, that you don’t take too long deciding and miss out."

We will have a part two of this video where I will explain how to become more decisive: what types of criteria to look at and how to evaluate your needs.

If you have any questions please call us, we’d be more than happy to help!

Bidding Wars

Welcome to our video blog! Thank you for joining us! We are the number one Keller Williams Team in the region; we sell in the DC/Virginia area.  We are a highly efficient team and we hope that you will consider us if you run into a bidding war as a buyer.

Bidding wars can really make you lose your appetite for buying. It can be discouraging and intimidating when you find out what it may take to win. So, when we discuss whether a buyer should participate in a bidding war, often times buyers want to know if they do offer higher, will they be foolish, and what will the market do?

This is a great question. While we don’t have a crystal ball, it is important to know what is going on in our current market. We have a lack of inventory now and I think many buyers want to know will there soon be an increase in inventory, making buying a home less competitive.

Theoretically, that is possible, but in the Washington DC area we are coming on the third year of experiencing drops in inventory. What I can tell you is if the supply and demand does start to balance out, it won’t happen over night.

If you do have any information on these topics, send us links; send us articles. We are looking at whether sellers are under water; we are wondering where these people are. As we approach peak pricing and pass it, we can anticipate more houses coming on the market.

There are also sellers who are perfectly well positioned to sell but don’t know the benefit of doing so right now!

Thank you so much for joining us! Just know, we will follow this issue very carefully!

Rising Market Rates

Hi everyone, thanks for coming back to our real estate video blog!

So, my head has been spinning a little from the recent changes in rates. There have been a lot of articles out about rising interest rates. On June 4th an article came out titled “Will Higher Mortgage Rates Kill the Housing Market? Maybe Not”

What the article says is there is a cyclical loop when it comes to interest rates. It can be hard to know what is actually going on.

Well, to simplify things, as the economy improves it becomes less important to make money cheap.  Interest rates then rise and those rising rates can scare us in the real estate market. However, if rates are rising, it means the economy is improving. While it seems our economy is improving, we do not know if our economy is out of the woods nationally, though.

It’s very interesting as we observe rate movement; things that would appear to put downward pressure on the market (rate movement up) are happening because other things could place upward movement on the market (an improving economy, improving job market and consumer confidence).

What I can tell you as a real estate investor is, if it becomes a little more expensive to buy a property because of rising interest rates, it means the economy is improving. There are many buyers who have the ability to purchase my property if I am a seller.

I’d also like to note that we were at an all-time low in interest rates. Even if rates do increase to 5%, it isn’t the end of the world! I know I probably haven’t answered all your questions about rising interests rates, but I want you to know as we learn more and have more numerical information, we will share it with you!

We are data-driven here and love to research the real estate market! Thank you so much for joining us and I promise to keep you updated on the rising rates. If you have any specific questions please give us a call at 202.290.1313

Thanks for watching! We really do appreciate it!

A Good Listing Agent

Hi everyone. I wanted to talk to you about the value of a good listing agent. Recently we talked about the importance of a good buyer's agent and what qualities that individual should possess. A good listing agent, though, needs some different expertise.

When I got into real estate sales, I had already been involved in real estate. I had been an investor for more than a decade. I loved real estate and I was sure that my background as a lawyer and my passion would make me a great listing agent. I have to admit, though, it didn’t.

A good listing agent is a marketing maven. The number one thing a successful listing agent does is market the heck out of your property. They need to know how to present your home beautifully, how to represent and project the best qualities of your property.

The second part of their job is to make sure that your home is exposed everywhere, that the information is widely distributed. If they aren’t doing this, they are not a good listing agent.

Here, we understand the importance of marketing. Our marketing budget is six figures every year, $10,000-$20,000 a month depending on what we are doing. We can be very intense geographically and demographically. We are also one of the leading agent teams in the country for Zillow, which is the most visited Real Estate website online!

Give us a call 202.290.1313 so we can list your home the best way possible!