Promote your business or product on 700level.com. For
more information about advertising with us CLICK HERE!

FD, coming from a person that deals with hundreds of Realtors on a daily basis (I'm IT support for a major SoCal company) here are a few things I've found:

1: Make sure your home is going to be MLS listed. This shouldn't be hard, and anyone who as a license will do this, but 'some' agents won't.
2: 5% is kinda high, but like anything you get what you pay for. Some agents here get about 6%, but that's because they'll get you 20% more than most other agents and have the sale house on the market for a week and closed in under a month. Rep of an agent is bigtime, so make sure you see what homes they've sold, what area they sell in (called a farm) and how often they sell homes. If the guy/gal is selling 2-4 homes a week, you have a real agent, if they have 3 sales last year you are probably dealing with someone who needs your business more than you need them.
3: Property values in homes are focused mainly on three things: Value of the lot, value of the kitchen and value of the bathrooms. You can have the biggest den in the world, with a freekin 20 foot fireplace, but if there are cracks on the cabinets in you kitchen and moldy tiles in the shower, you've value's going down. That's not to say that some plush things can't raise a price, but the quickest way to toss on more value to a home is to remodel a kitchen or bathroom.
4: There are some amazing websites out there. Don't rely on your agent to provide you with absolutely everything. The main things you want to look at are areas, cultural proximity (theatres, galleries, etc), crime rates, schools and their performances, and proximity to major transportation. Make sure you know 'where' you want to live before you pick a specific home.
5: Checking out the growth of an area is key. If the area has always been heavily valued, and recently has gone down to 'value' levels, the area could start on a down turn, be turning into 'neo-slums', or be attracting poorer community elements, which will maintain a downturn in property value. Areas which fluctuate more or less based on the overall market are more safe bets, and areas that are 'developing' (ie new office buildings, more commercial centers, less industrial areas, etc) are a safer bet for longer term investing in your home.
6: Never forget buying a home is an investment. If you find something that is a "fixerupper" and you don't mind working on it to make it your dream home, you can get a much better value.
7: Make sure your house is marketed on others websites outside of just the MLS, and adding things like Virtual Tours (costs out here about $100) will really bring more attention to your current home so it sells faster. Of course, the marketing will be based on what your agent does, and if they're worth the air they breathe they'll be posting it on several websites (zwillow, Realtor.com, realestate.com are major 'hubs' of the national market).

I hope that helps.

Just a little update here...

My house is going up on 4/14 with a weekend of open houses.

In the meantime, I just received word that a contract we'd been working on for a new house over the past few days finally worked out for both parties after some negotiation and we are closing/taking possession of that new house on 3/30.

I hated to buy a house before ours was sold, but this one was a really interesting purchase that I didn't feel we could pass up at the right price.

We're setting up a bridge loan and the long/short of it is if we are able to sell our existing house by 7/1, we're golden. If it goes beyond that point, we'll be stuck with double mortgages.

We've budgeted for it and it's not going to be crippling, but the sooner we sell the better (obviously).

"but this one was a really interesting purchase that I didn't feel we could pass up at the right price"


This has "Sandwiched between Sam/Wilma and Donovan" written all over it...

FD, as promised earlier on, I'm right here with you and looking like a bridge loan prospect for the first time for me as well. I'm signing a contract this week on a new place that otherwise would go to foreclosure/auction. It's a steal at about 80% of its tax assessment value and it's only one year old. I'm beaming, but all of the sudden have this "other" house to sell.

Good luck with both the new house and the existing one. I bought a similar type of house (but 2 years old)...

Also, thanks to some input from multiple parties here, I was able to negotiate a 5% total fee from the realtor selling my house.

My house has been in the MLS for almost a week now, but my realtor suggested not offering any showings until it officially goes on the market with a 4 hour open house tomorrow, so the saga will begin...

They brought about 10 realtors from the office through on Tuesday and there has been a big sign in my yard advertising the open house in the yard...we've already had several calls with interest, so we'll see how it all goes.

I'll post an update later this week (not that anyone does - or should - care.

I'm interested, so post a followup.

I just moved into a brand new house myself. You think everything is gonna be just fine but it's interesting how that proves to not be the case. First morning in the place, my GF was all excited to get in the shower in the master bedroom, one of those corner shower deals and there is also a jacuzzi tub across the way. Well the shower head is set so that there is no way to not shoot freezing water right at your feet as you turn the shower on, and the shower head does not pivot enough to avoid. Which prompted the first of (I assume) many trips to Home Depot to get a new shower head.



Oh, in other news, GGB is officially engaged as of Saturday night. They don't have much choice but to say "Yes" when they are pregnant with your child. Which was all part of my grand plan....

Well played.

Oh, in other news, GGB is officially engaged as of Saturday night. They don't have much choice but to say "Yes" when they are pregnant with your child. Which was all part of my grand plan...

Congrats, but I hope you didn't spend much money on a ring. To expand on your point, they don't have many options as a "free agent". She'll be fat and sober, so the ring isn't really necessary to close the deal.

Time for me to replace the birth control pills with tic tacs.

Congrats, GGB

BTW, the open house yesterday went really well. Our agent said the place was spotless and looked fantastic. We had 9 couples come through during the 3 hour time frame and our agent said they were all interested (hung out for a while, lingered to check things out, really positive feedback, etc.) other than 2 couples (one was looking for a couple specific things our property doesn't offer and the other was one of our neighbors supposedly checking it out for friends, but likely just being nosy).

So that's 7 legitimate couples with interest despite the fact that we got massive storm.

There is another interested couple coming later this week for a private showing and my realtor just emailed me to let me know there are 2 scheduled showings this afternoon.

One of the showings this afternoon is a new couple and the other is a couple who came yesterday by themselves (they are coming back today with their realtor).

Overall, I'm really excited...seems like we're generating some interest and will be able to move the house quickly with some luck.

Did any of the couples seem interested in "swinging"?

Any "life partners" mixed in with the "couples"?

I'll have to ask my agent, though my borough isn't exactly the melting pot of the region.

My guess is there were a lot of mustaches and steel toe boots walking over the threshold.

Congrats GGB.

BTW, I am fully expecting an invitation (+1), with an open bar.

Just speaking for the mutual friends he and I have- and I know from experience, barring a windfall of some sort, its goin to be an open bar of beer, wine and soda if anything.

And believe me, they'll be scurrying for more beer.

Believe that.

They = Staff.

This isn't directly related to this thread, but is anyone else sick of the "Subprime bailout" bullshit?

These people were asking for it and they got it. Now I'm reading that the government is considering setting up "rescue funds" for people who need financial assistance.

They are also considering paying for refinancing into a fixed rate loans.

I don't want to see people suffer, but I do kinda want to see these people lose their homes. They were the assholes driving the ridiculous prices on homes with a $50K household income and a credit line of $300K for a house. They all knew they were signing time bombs that go off in a few years...

Just pisses me off that (as usual) the retarded wheel gets the grease.

Irresponsibility is rewarded and no accountability for poor judgment is required.

When my wife and I were looking to upgrade our home a couple years ago we figured out what we could afford, estimated what we could get for our smaller home and shopped accordingly.

Sure the bank was willing to loan us a lot more money and sure we could have squeezed into a much bigger home (with no furniture) had we not gone with 30-year fixed rate mortgage... but we didn't want to get burned a few years down the road when interest rates climbed.

What a couple of idiots we were.

Sounds like you traveled the same path we did. Establishing a responsible budget is a really crazy idea, isn't it?

They are painting themselves as victims of predatory ending...give me a break.

F-D makes a good point about how these aholes drove the market up. Although it did help my GF/fiance put a nice chunk of change in her pocket when she sold her place just before the market took a downturn which she/we rolled into our new place.


SO THREE CHEERS FOR PREDATORY LENDERS AND DUMBASS CONSUMERS!!!

My girlfriend's cousin did the same idiotic thing. There was no way they could afford the place they bought, and it was only the two of them at the time in this huge mansion, with basically it's own separate residence inside of it. As a result, the cousin's mom had to move in, and she's put so much into the house, she's the primary owner now.

Amen, Fd. Amen.

Effin assholes. I can't understand why the herd mentality took over so many people to jack up prices and people overextending themselves. They had a special on CNN about 2 years ago saying how 1/3 people spent more than 33% of their income per month on mortgage and how 1/8 spent more than 50% on it! I thought it was crazy then, so I can't feel any sympathy with abject stupidity.

I still crawl on my belly and don't like buying what I can't afford either to pay comfortably with cash (not a house obviously) or can afford the monthly payments with ease.

The big culprits in my area where the physicians recruited from California or NY who saw substantially more affordable homes (compared with their previous residences) and went apeshit rather than establishing meaningful market value.

Still pisses me off, cuz the place I really liked suddenly jumped 50k in less than a month. Other sellers became obstinate convinced that they were sitting on a fortune rather than a piece of shit that needed a lot of work. One place that I liked was listed literally 100k over what it sold for and sat for 18 months. I remember thinking how stupid the seller was. If he pocketed the cash and invested it properly; avoided the 18 additional months of taxes; and upkeep, he'd have done better. Dumbass.

1 2 3 4  5 6 7