Category Archives: housing

Home Selling, Home Staging, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate, Staging

10 Tips for Staging Your Home

•Remove the clutter – put small things away
•Brighten areas up with light – open drapes and blinds, add lighting
•Re-purpose rooms – add some new furniture and paint
•Vary wall hangings – try different groupings
•Bring nature inside – add plants and fresh cut flowers
•Group in threes – odd numbers are preferred when grouping accessories
•Give areas a face lift – add new counter tops or cabinet doors if dated
•Add some color – paint with warm tans, honeys and soft blue-greens
•Beware of layout – pay close attention to the traffic flow of each room
•Clean – this is the cheapest and easiest way to improve the look of your home

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Home Buying, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate, Real Estate Investing

Regrets of the First-time Home Buyer

  • 62% outgrew their homes quickly and wished they had purchased a larger home
  • 40% feel they paid too much or should of put more down
  • 38% were surprised by how much it costs to maintain a home
  • 34% wished they had negotiated more or found a better mortgage rate
  • 25% found out after moving in that they didn’t like the neighborhood
  • 24% have regrets related to their yard
  • 17% dislike their parking situation

Source: HouseHunt.com

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Home Buying, housing, Interesting Facts, Realtor

10 Questions Home Buyers Need to Answer

You can make the home buying process go much smoother for yourself and your agent if you can answer these 10 questions in the beginning:

  • Why buy and why buy now
  • Are you working with a lender
  • How many houses have you looked at already
  • How do you prefer to be contacted
  • What if we found the perfect house tomorrow
  • What are your three favorite neighborhoods
  • What is your favorite room in the house
  • How important is outdoor/garage space
  • How long do you think that you’ll live in the house that you buy
  • What is a deal breaker for you
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Home Buying, Home Selling, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate, real estate market, Realtor

Consider a LeadingRE Firm for Your Real Estate Needs

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® is a network of over 500 of the very best real estate firms that are located in nearly 50 countries. These firms have 3,500 offices with 120,000 sales associates. In 2013 these firms had sales of $314 billion dollars representing over one million transactions, which placed Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® #1 in sales volume in the United States.

Sales volume numbers for 2013 were as follows:
Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® – $314 billion
Coldwell Banker – $267 billion
Re/Max – $221 billion
Keller Williams – $131 billion
Century 21 – $122 billion
Prudential – $114 billion
Berkshire Hathaway Home Services – $80 billion
Real Living – $44 billion
Sotheby’s International Realty – $28 billion
ERA – $22 billion
Realty Executives – $19 billion
Better Homes & Gardens – $12 billion

Firms affiliated with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® can offer sellers global exposure of their home in addition to strong marketing expertise at the local level. Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® has the resources to market your property to the highest possible number of potential buyers. With 120,000 talented associates around the world, they expose your property to buyers on six continents ensuring more eyes are on your property. In addition they receive inbound clients from other affiliates around the globe who are interested in purchasing a home.

If you are looking for the best real estate firm to sell your home, then you need to consider a firm that’s affiliated with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®.

Source: Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®

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Home Selling, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate

Inside the Mind of a Seller

The NAR 2013 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers gives some key insight into what today’s typical seller is thinking when it comes time to move.

97% – Recent sellers typically sold their house for this percentage of the listing price.

88% – Sellers that were assisted by a real estate agent when selling their home.

59% – Purchased a newer home than they’d owned previously.

47% – Reported that they reduced the asking price at least once.

36% – Sellers that offered incentives to attract buyers.

13% – Sellers that had to delay or stall selling their home because the value of their home was worth less than their mortgage.

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Home Buying, Home Selling, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate

How Do Home Buyers & Sellers View Technology?

A recent independent poll commissioned by Discover Home Loans provides insight into how consumers use technology in the real estate buying and selling process, and how they view it as a resource. A few key findings point out how much consumers use technology for real estate activities:

93% – technology allowed them to do things remotely

92% – technology helped them save time

90% – reported an overall positive experience when using technology

89% – used some form of technology to help them with the home buying process

83% – technology helped them to stay organized

47% – technology helped them to save money

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Home Buying, Home Selling, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate, Real Estate Investing

Factors Influencing Urban Buyers’ Neighborhood Choice

64% – Quality of neighborhood

58% – Convenient to job

42% – Overall affordability of homes

36% – Convenient to friends or family

32% – Convenient to entertainment / leisure activities

29% – Convenient to shopping

27% – Convenient to parks / recreational facilities

26% – Design of neighborhood

20% – Convenient to schools

19% – Quality of school district

12% – Convenient to health facilities

8% – Availability of larger lots or acreage

7% – Convenient to airport

5% – Other

4% – Home in a planned community

Source: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, 2013 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

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Home Buying, housing, Interesting Facts, real estate

Community Preference Survey

The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 2013 Community Preference Survey reveals the following preferences in neighborhoods and where people want to live:

86% value privacy from neighbors when choosing a home.

75% of small town and rural residents would still live in a rural area if they could choose any plave to live.

60% prefer a neighborhood with a mix of houses, stores and businesses that are easy to walk to.

42% complain that there are too few shops or restaurants within an esy walk of their house.

Sources: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® & The Council of Residential Specialists

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Home Buying, Home Selling, housing, real estate, Realtor

2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

This information was obtained from an annual survey that was conducted by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Here are the highlights from the latest report:

•Thirty-three percent of recent home buyers were first time buyers.

•For 43 percent of the home buyers, the first step in the home-buying process was looking online for properties.

•Ninty-two percent of buyers used the internet in some way in their home search.

•Real estate agents were viewed as a useful information source by 98 percent of the buyers who used an agent while searching for a home.

•Seventy percent of home sellers only contacted one agent before selecting the one to assist with their home sale.

•The share of home sellers who sold their home without the assistance of a real estate agent was nine percent.

Source: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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