Hey Anoka County Homebuyers! Do you Have your Eye on a Real Estate SLEEPER?

You check the MLS link every day and there it is...sitting on the market day after day. It's your dream home and you have watched it for a couple of months now. It seems to be priced right; in fact, it is a steal of a deal. But the market has you paralyzed into watching and waiting rather than making your move on the perfect home so there you are on the fence still waiting until that perfect moment to call up a REALTOR® and put in your offer on your dream. As you continue to "time the market", waiting to see if seller of that “sleeper” is going to drop the price again, you may be missing out. It is time to WAKE UP! Because, you might not be the only one with an eye on that sleeper and if you wait too long it will be gone.

A real estate “sleeper” is a home that is an amazing deal but few people, if anyone, is paying attention to it. Usually it is a great property, location, structurally sound and priced well but has not sold. In a buyer’s market where there is significant home inventory but few buyers, sleepers are abundant.

Maybe the home was originally over priced and though it is now priced very well it is being overlooked because of high days on the market statistics.

Possibly several very similar homes went on the market at the same time and in the same condition. Picture for a second, three homes listed during the same week in a cookie-cutter development where all the homes have roughly the same floor plan. All the homes are the same age, condition, and priced very well, but only one homebuyer comes through the neighborhood during the next two months. So after 60 days, there are two sleepers left that didn’t sell. Since the houses are essentially the same as the neighboring home that sold, it's not that the homes aren't properly priced. This is another scenario that will cause a sleeper in this changed market.

And then some great homes are "sleeping" on the market because…well, there is just so much darned inventory out there!

But if you are sitting on the sidelines and just watching your perfect home for another price reduction, beware. I have sold a couple of sleepers this past year throughout Anoka, Ramsey and Washington Counties. In each case, nothing was happening on the property then BAM....we had 2-3 qualified parties interested in the home at the same time. In these particular cases, they weren’t the cookie-cutter variety either. One home in Ramsey County in the White Bear Lake/Vadnais Heights area in an ideal location. After months on the market, there were suddenly two offers in one day! Agents and clients were nonchalant when I told stressed that the home had recently seen a sudden surge of interest. Many even “pooh-poohed” the idea and mildly accused me of trying to get them of trying to coerce an offer. When the first offer came in, the seller wasted no time in accepting and I had several parties, buyers and agents alike, shocked, and more than a little miffed, that it was suddenly sold!

If the sleeper phenomena had happened only one time this past year, I would consider it a fluke but I have experienced this situation on homes in Washington and Anoka Counties as well. In some cases I was the listing agent and others I was representing buyers.

So homebuyers heed my warning, if you are on the fence watching a sleeper that is currently listed, now might be the perfect time to make your move...Contact your REALTOR® for a showing, make sure you have your pre-approval from your loan officer ready to go and make your move! Or someone else might beat you to it!

Copyright 2011www.terieckholm.com

REALTOR Operating on Cruise Control? Not in a Minnesota Winter!

Okay, I’ll admit, this Minnesota girl found out just recently a year or so ago that cruise control was a no-no when the snow is flying. It is surprising even to me that I didn’t know this as I learned to drive in the winter but the cars I learned on didn’t have the cruise option. Now I do have it and I just never gave a thought to how dangerous it would be to hit ice with the cruise on….until it happened to me. No accident, thankfully…just a wake-up call. I know better now and when I am white-knuckle driving in snowy weather, I manually adjust the speed while I keep focused on driving.

I wonder how many REALTORS® felt a bit like they hit ice when the housing market took a nose-dive a few years ago? Bet they were cruising along doing the same-old, same-old when it came to their listings: Put in the MLS with a few good pictures and stick a sign in the yard and wait for the buyers to arrive. Operating on cruise worked pretty well when buyers were plentiful. Unfortunately, I realize some agents still are on auto-pilot and when a listing crashes and burns; it is the homeowner that pays the price.But like driving in a Minnesota blizzard, a good REALTOR® will shut off the cruise control and create a unique plan to aggressively market your home in this changed real estate landscape. Here are just a few of the things I have changed during the last few years when I shut of my cruise control to get my clients listings SOLD.

Blogging about the Home—Writing up a blog with features to excite potential buyers about the property. It also helps internet searchers find information on the home by the address.
Virtual Tours—People love to view the interior and exterior of homes on a virtual tour of the home…even if it is just a slideshow of photos.
Dozens of interior and exterior photos—It takes time in this market for homes to sell. Photos should be reshot when the seasons change.
Staging Recommendations—A good agent is going to want you to put your home in it’s best light before the first potential buyer walks through the door.
Pricing Advice—Traditional sellers need to understand how their home will compete against area foreclosures and lender-mediated homes. Finding the right listing price is essential to getting a sold sign on the door.

I create a unique marketing plan for each of my listings taking into account its location, price and unique features. If you are thinking of listing your Anoka or Washington County home and want an agent that is not on auto-pilot, give me a call.

Copyright 2011 www.terieckholm.com

Real Estate 101—Eyecatching Advertising if You Do Cows!

The first time I saw this billboard as I travelled the four hours stretch of 94 to Fargo from the Twin Cities earlier this year, I almost died laughing. It was kind of a WTF-moment (or “What The Heck” to non-texters who don’t like bad language). When I stopped laughing enough to catch the small print, for wedocows.com, I realized what a perfect marketing campaign this was! A three word tagline that makes everyone laugh (and never forget it) plus it says exactly what the company does…WeDoCows.com is a veterinarian supply company that has products for the care of farm animals, hence they really DO cows!

Now in real estate, some of the marketing used by agents really can leave something to be desired. Some REALTORS® do come up with things that make us laugh…It seems like every other Monday night Jay Leno is sharing a real estate agent’s ad that was poorly written in his Headlines segment of The Tonight Show. Once it was a house for sale in the “hysterical” district of town and another time ad showed a dirt yard with one large boulder as professionally landscaped. Typos and puffery can be funny but it is doubtful that these ads sold the homes

The real estate ads that really bother me are the proclamations to “Sell in 90 Days or We Buy It!” Granted, "I'll buy your house," is an attention getting statement in this sloooooow market. But I caution a potential seller to read the fine print. In most cases, the agent/broker making the claim are headed to the poorhouse with a load of deeds to homes that are un-sellable. No, they are getting people to list their houses but don’t expect too many takers on their buyout offers when all is said and done. They simply don’t have to buy too many houses as few sellers choose to sell to the agent at the outlined terms. (i.e. The homeowner must list the home at what the agent/broker believes to be the market value. If not sold in 90 days, the agent/broker will buy the home for 80-90% of appraised value where the appraisal has been done by an appraiser selected by the agent/broker.) The home is listed at a very competitive price from the start because the guaranteed amount is significantly less than what the home owner would comfortable accepting. It is a rare case where the agent/broker has to actually buy the home. It is a great ploy for getting a listing but not always the best deal for a homeowner.
So what as a home seller what would you prefer… A marketing scheme that gets you to list your home? OR A Good Marketing Plan to get YOUR home SOLD!
Don’t take everything at face value. It is important to ask questions, read the fine print and avoid the gimmicks when deciding who you want to market your most prized possession, your home. Make certain that your home is listed with an agent who has a PLAN to get your property priced correctly and marketed with the expertise necessary to SELL your house in this changed market. Because in reality when it is your home on the market a SOLD sign is the only sign you care about!

Copyright 2010 Teri Eckholm