What About the Housing Market?? I think... (Berwyn, Brookfield: appointed, real estate market)

[cmoscinski]

Sellers need to open their eyes. As I mentioned in a previous thread - this is not the worst situation our country has been in. Homes are selling and people that have a reasonable credit score will be able to buy Conventional or FHA. People are working (those of them that want to).

Sellers just don't understand that there is so much inventory (competition)and they really need to spice up their homes to get them sold today. Meaning, clean up the clutter, do some maintenance and landscape the property to give it curb appeal. I have visited homes that have had dark purple painted walls, screaming yellow painted walls, chipping plaster, leaking sinks and worse! Change it by cleaning it up, neutralizing colors and dress it up modestly and the home will sell!

Also, make sure your home is PRICED RIGHT FOR THE MARKET you are in. If not it will sit for a long, long, time....

There are two kinds of buyers in today's market: The one "Looking for a Deal" and the one that is "Looking for a home to raise their Family In".

Just my rant for the day

[giazma]

i agree, but my house is on the market and is very neutral and decluttered, its the damn new construction killing us, and there is not much we can do for that! heheh

[mia220]

I agree that (some) sellers need to open their eyes.

My husband and I are first time buyers primarily looking in Brookfield and Berwyn. We've noticed that major fixer uppers are priced pretty comparably to houses (of the same size) that have had a ton of work done to them. I'm no expert, but some of these dumps seem to be priced way too high. We'd save maybe $20,000 by buying a major fixer upper-going by the listing prices.

From the research I've done, the selling prices seem to be a lot lower from the asking prices. I don't want to take advantage of the sellers, but many are in denial about the market.

Originally Posted by cmoscinski

Sellers need to open their eyes. As I mentioned in a previous thread - this is not the worst situation our country has been in. Homes are selling and people that have a reasonable credit score will be able to buy Conventional or FHA. People are working (those of them that want to).

Sellers just don't understand that there is so much inventory (competition)and they really need to spice up their homes to get them sold today. Meaning, clean up the clutter, do some maintenance and landscape the property to give it curb appeal. I have visited homes that have had dark purple painted walls, screaming yellow painted walls, chipping plaster, leaking sinks and worse! Change it by cleaning it up, neutralizing colors and dress it up modestly and the home will sell!

Also, make sure your home is PRICED RIGHT FOR THE MARKET you are in. If not it will sit for a long, long, time....

There are two kinds of buyers in today's market: The one "Looking for a Deal" and the one that is "Looking for a home to raise their Family In".

Just my rant for the day

[badman70]

Originally Posted by giazma

i agree, but my house is on the market and is very neutral and decluttered, its the damn new construction killing us, and there is not much we can do for that! heheh

Have you tried pricing your home below the new construction prices?

[ahava]

We all know that people who bought their homes in the '80s/'90s and sold them in '05/'06 made a killing, and I think it's hard for sellers now who bought their homes more recently to realize that they're going to be lucky to make a profit at all. I recently put my house on the market, and it's listed for $31k less than I bought it for two years ago. I can accept that because I want my house to sell, but I think most sellers don't want to admit they missed the boat on making a huge profit and want to believe they still can. A home is an investment and nobody likes to see that they've thrown money away on interest and by not selling before the market slumped.

[giazma]

I owe a certain number on my home, they are still building for what i paid 2 years ago, I just need to find a buyer who wants to mortgage the cedar fence, paver patio, a/c, shed, ceiling fans, paint, hardware on cabs etc...that the builder doesnt offer....qw paid out of pocket....so it we are taking a loss but we still obviously need a down payment on a new house. Thank god there are no specs as of now in my sub......My dad is our realtor so I dont think he would steer me wrong

[sullyirishtwins]

We would love to move sometime next year toward to Fall. We both fell in love w/a builder that is just down the road from us. It has all the featuring we need to and a home to have the kids to grow up as our last house.

As we did some research, but our comp in our subdivision is no where nearly $230k even it has some upgrades from the builder and partial upgrading to-date compared to what builders don't have such as patio, landscaping, and etc.

Our goal is to make profit to this house to get for next home w/ larger down payment onto a 10-5k more into our next house. We brought ours at $180k but w/upgrade to $189k.

I agree, in order to sell the house it has to be declutter, rent fancy furniture -- staging it, and will get the house to sell but to the price to what we are asking?

I can't see how that would work if we have to work with slow comp. in our subdivision comparing to next door subdivision that sells theirs for more than $230k.

We're the 2nd largest of the model w/3 car garage, 3 bedrooms, family room, dining room, and den w/3 full bathroom, unfinish basement (w/rough plumbing ready), large cement patio/walk around garage, upgrade our master bathroom shower/tub/flooring, upgrade a simple nice back yard landscaping, and this house is close to 2,000 sq. feet and if we had a finished the basement it would be another 900 ft. The asking comp is $211k (got this information from yahoo). I personally can't see it sell at that price range as "asking" I would normally wanted it to go up between $230-240k.

The buyer can't see eye to eye that "homes" that are available ready for move-in without shelling out of pocket expense w/all the amendities that we have in our home. I considered our home very neutral nothing stand out w/sore eye. <wink>

Any advice here?

[sullyirishtwins]

If you're saying we need to make it look like a "model home" in order to sell NOW even the market is slow? We talked w/our mortgage loan (a family friend) says it not a good idea to sell it now. I was disappointed, meaning we have to stay here for a 2 more years. If that the case, I would do a bit more of remodeling to make it update such as tear down our 2nd bathroom tub area.

I can tell you this -- they put cheap one piece tub in all of the most of the newly homes! You can tell it look like it wearing out over time. No matter how hard I keep it clean and shine.

Bottom line, the buyer can't see the neutral newly shower/flooring w/white subway tiles which is a very popular. I watch too many shows on TLC but it does help to vision more of updating, clean look, and happier.

I'm don't know what to do. If we stay here? I don't want to invest too much of the remodeling and go over board since most of the homes here aren't catching up w/remodeling to date.

[giazma]

I am going to try to sell until about Aug, if nothing by then I will stay until my 9 year old goes to high school, but I think the market in my area is not DEAD just slow....I am lucky in the aspect I live right near the models so I have alot of traffic on my block with obvious buyers......now all i need is for one to call and buy my house! It would help if we had a sign outside, but my realtor (daddy) just changes offices so he is waiting on a sign to be made,,,,,fingers and toes are crossed

[aragx6]

So I'll admit I'm kind of an HGTV geek and I was watching "My house is worth what?" last night and I had to just laugh laugh laugh.

This ep. was taped in 2006 right when the real estate market was starting to downturn in LA. This woman was hoping her house was worth 775k.

The realtor looked at her and asked "How'd you come up with that number?" and she said "I heard you can add $100,000 to your house for every year you've owned it." The realtor laughed before telling her the value of her house- $669,000.

My point in telling that story, is that I think sometimes sellers get these crazy ideas in their heads about what their home is worth that they lose sight of reality. She had no basis for her claim, had never looked at a comp in her area! That's what I think sellers who have their home listed for too much are thinking- and their realtors don't want to argue with them because they need the business.