Local Stories

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Tom and Jenny put their home on the market during the fall. They didn't know they were putting their home on the market at the slowest time of year...their realtor didn't explain to them the seasonality of the market. 

They also had to pay costs upfront to prepare the home to be listed on the MLS. They paid for a carpet cleaner, a cleaning service for the bathrooms, a handyman to repair the drywall, staging costs since the home was vacant, and professional photos...which were more money if they wanted more than 10 photos. 

They had to enter into an agreement with their realtor for 12 months saying nobody else could sell their home...even if they didn't do a good job. This agreement would pay the realtor 3% of the sale price or thousands of dollars. 

They had to pay the mortgage payment, property taxes, insurance, HOA, and utility bills while it was listed. With each passing month, they would receive less money due to the holding costs. 

Eventually a buyer came along but there were more costs, the buyer wanted repairs done after an inspection was performed. The appraisal came in lower than expected and they had to pay the difference. The buyer's agent requested they pay seller concessions to help with a 2-1 rate buydown. An addendum was made for the sellers to keep their washer/dryer in the home for the buyer. 

The home was finally sold, but there were a lot of costs Tom and Jenny didn't know about before starting this whole stressful process. 

Tom and Jenny listed their home on the MLS in the fall of last year. After a lot of negatives with the MLS they were happy to receive a thank you note from their realtor with a gift card to Crumble Cookie.

They enjoyed their cookies that night and wondered how much the realtor must make to be sending out gift cards to all their clients. So they started to do the math...3% on the sale price of their home for the seller's agent AND the buyer's agent. 

For a home worth $300,000, 3% would be $9,000...so that's $9,000 for the seller's agent AND $9,000 for the buyers agent. That's a total of $18,000!

As they ate their cookies they realized they gave away a lot of money to the realtors that they could have kept for themselves. 

Pricing the value of a home shouldn't be a mystery. You can go online and look at Zillow to get a rough guess of how much you can sell your home. However, the market value of your home is dependent on the homes around you and what they sold for recently. 

For homes that need a lot of repairs, you're not going to get the full market value. You would need to complete all the repairs to get the home to mint market condition. This takes time, money, and expertise to squeeze the full amount of cash out of your home. 

If you price your home too high, you will lose money while it sits on the market. If you price your home too low, you will lose money from lost equity. Choosing the right price is extremely important. 

A careful analysis will look at the surrounding homes and their current condition, the recently sold homes and their condition, and the trends in the market. Other factors can include mortgage rates, homes available, and of course...location!