Wednesday, March 30, 2016

10 Secrets That Get Homes Sold

Here are a few tips to get a home sold quick:  Full Article 

1. Think about who the buyer is going to be based on the community and what’s happening in other nearby homes.

2.  Sell the seller on a stager. Tell them to put their buyer hat on. The home needs to appear to the masses.

3. Tell sellers to think from traditional to transitional. Even if the home is nice, but the furniture is outdated it will look that way online.

4. Give a homeseller options. Present them with the price different between working with a home stager and not.

5. Be suggestive on how a space can be used, but let the buyer form their own opinion.

6. Get out of the mindset of a specific room’s purpose. You never know who is going to walk through the door.

7. Give your honest and professional opinion. Push a buyer as far as you can to stage the home to its fullest– but know they can push back.

8. In a listing description, talk about the lifestyle of the house. A lot of buyers want a project, so play up the positives.

9. Figure out what components are going to sell the house and don’t let the sellers mess with it.

10. Get a stager in early so they can think through the space, prep for it and make thought-out decisions.


Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Reasons To List For Sale By Owner

You are probably thinking selling my home is way to difficult to do yourself. Stop right there- it's not. Why would you pay thousands of dollars to a "middle person" just to enter data on the MLS? You have lived in the house, made improvements and know your home better than anyone else.

Join the revolution and sell your home with Savvy Lane, a top flat fee brokerage that lists you on the MLS for a one time flat fee rather than a traditional 3%. Savvy Lane is real estate for the real world. Take the guesswork out of choosing the right realtor.  Do it yourself and save thousands of dollars.

1. FSBO Market is Increasing
According the MLS and many markets worldwide FSBO is increasing and taking 5.5% of the market share. By 2020 it is suggested to take up to 20-30% of the market. Listing with via a flat fee brokerage is the wave of the future.

2. Pricing Your Home
The key factor to selling your home is pricing it correctly.  Listing with a flat fee brokerage like Savvy Lane you can request a detailed market analysis to determine the best market price to list your home.

3. Exposure 
Listing with a flat fee brokerage you get all the exposure you would get listing with a traditional agent. You will be listed on the local MLS syndicating to hundreds of website that buyers are searching on. In addition, Savvy Lane offers all the marketing tools such as a keybox, post with a custom sign that has your phone number printed on it, open house signs, etc. See below

4. Tools
Our Flat Fee MLS packages offer all the same tools that a traditional listing agent would and more. Once you proceed with your listing, you can add any of these additional listing tools.  As a For Sale By Owner you can use these professional tools and services to sell effectively.

5. Paperwork
Savvy Lane offers all the paperwork to list and sell your home. We give you access to all MLS forms to successfully write up an offer. As a brokerage we have a team of licensed agents to help you with looking over offers, negotiating, setting up a counter offer, etc. We pride ourselves on amazing customer support and service. Don't take our work for it, checkout our reviews. 

6. You will make more money listing with a flat fee brokerage 
Listing with a traditional agent you can say goodbye to 6% of the sale of your home. Listing with Savvy Lane you are able to save the commission and list with help. On average our sellers save $12,000. Calculate how much you can save.

7. 7 Day a Week Customer Support
We promise amazing customer support  give us a call 800-915-9174.  Our licensed brokers are here 7 days a week, can the other guys say that?



Thursday, March 24, 2016

How to prep your home for the Spring selling season

The first day of Spring is March 20th. But if there’s no snow on the ground in your neighborhood today, the Spring selling season has already begun – according to this U.S. News article by Teresa Mears.

If you want to sell your home during this year’s spring selling season, now is the time to get moving. Sellers can rest assured that if there’s no snow on the ground, homebuyers are already looking.

Today’s buyers, particularly younger ones, have high expectations. They are looking for a home in excellent condition, with all its best features showcased.

“It’s the HGTV effect,” says Tiffany Hardgrave, owner of Masterpiece Staging and Design in Washington, D.C. “People want to walk in and have everything perfect.”

With these preferences in mind, the most important things you can do are deep clean and declutter, removing big pieces of furniture. Next comes trimming foliage and sprucing up outdoor areas, including planting flowers if it’s not too early.

“As things are turning into spring, it’s time to power-wash the house and repaint the front door,” says Madison Hildebrand, president of The Malibu Life Team and founding partner of Partners Trust Malibu. He also appears as a real estate agent on “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” on Bravo. “Your color can pop at the front door,” he adds.

In addition to getting the house in top condition, you’ll want to think about your selling strategy. Are you going to use a traditional real estate agent, sell it yourself or use one of the do-it-yourself services that have sprung up in recent years?

You can also consult a staging professional. For $200 to $300, you can consult with an expert who will make recommendations on how to show off your house using the furniture and possessions you already have inside it. Or, for $3,000 to $5,000, you can get a stager to bring in all new furniture and accessories for an empty house. “Invariably, the cost of a stager is much less than the cost of your first price reduction,” Hardgrave says.

Whichever option you choose, you’ll want to make sure your home gets in front of the maximum number of prospective buyers, which means posting it on all the online portals (some are free while others require a fee if you post yourself) and maybe even creating a website. You’ll also want your home on social media, with both you and your agent doing the sharing.

“You want everybody to know you home is for sale because that’s how you get the highest price,” says Sissy Lappin, a veteran real estate broker in Houston, and founder of ListingDoor.com, which provides marketing tools to sell your home without an agent. “People want the information, and they want it in 15 seconds or less.” Full Article

Here are 10 things you can do to prepare your home for the spring selling season:

Fix all the small stuff. You may or may not want to have your home inspected before you list it, but know that the buyer will have an inspection before the sale is finalized. If they find small problems, they will worry that there are larger maintenance issues that they can’t yet detect. “They don’t expect to find problems, and when they do they really start to become wary,” Hildebrand says. “That can kill a deal.”

Get rid of oversized and excess furniture. The less furniture you have in your house, the larger it will appear when buyers are touring it. Sell or donate pieces you don’t plan to move to your new home, and store large or ugly pieces. You can rent storage pods, fill them yourself and have them delivered to your new home.

Clear out all the clutter. That can be everything from magazines on a side table to the kids’ boots in the hall to your blender on the kitchen counter. The home needs to look sleek and minimalist. Put everything you can away, but don’t overfill closets because prospective buyers will look there, too. “If we have too much stuff around and too much clutter, people want to walk out,” Hardgrave says.

Depersonalize. Your home may reflect your life, but you want new people to visualize it as their home. That means removing all the family photos, trophies and any political or religious décor items. Strive for a clean slate.

Deep clean your home. Everything needs to be cleaned thoroughly, inside and out. You’ll want to clean out closets, wash all the windows and have the carpets cleaned. Moving your out-of-season clothing elsewhere will make your closet look twice as big, Hildebrand says.  Update and freshen your décor. Many of today’s home sellers are baby boomers, while the buyers are millennials, making them essentially a generation younger. Wallpaper, salmon-colored décor and heavy drapes all appear dated to the younger generation, which prefers minimalist and modern. An easy fix is putting brighter light bulbs in all your fixtures to create more light. “This is not the time to be energy-efficient,” Lappin says.

Focus on curb appeal. Most buyers drive by before they ever ask to come inside. It’s time to trim trees, clean gutters, clear out dead landscaping and add new sod and flowers. Consider resurfacing your driveway, getting a new mailbox and numbers and painting your front door. “It’s a huge first impression,” Hildebrand says. Make sure your home is lighted at night in case prospective buyers drive by after work.

Repaint in neutral colors. Builder white and beige look dated, with warm neutrals such as soft gray or pale taupe preferred, Hardgrave says. “Everybody likes their red dining room, but the buyers cannot picture themselves there,” Lappin says. If your home is already painted in neutral colors, consider a fresh coat of paint.

Get professional photographs. If your home doesn’t show well in the photos, people won’t bother to visit. Some real estate agents provide professional photos as part of their marketing package. Photos taken with a phone or tablet aren’t acceptable, and you may want your stager at your photo shoot. “Great photos don’t happen by accident,” Hardgrave says.

Create a story. Write a paragraph about why you love your home and post it with the listing. Put together information about improvements you’ve made. Lappin’s company hires professional writers to do home descriptions. “Happy homes bring more money,” she says. “The power of the story is incredible.”


Friday, March 11, 2016

Spring Forward

Don't forget to spring forward. Daylight savings starts March 13th at 2am. 

This gives you an extra hour to look at homes. Call us is you want to schedule a showing tour.
 800-915-9174. 

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Testimonial

Don't take our word on how amazing we are, let our reviews speak for themselves
Give our friendly team a call us should you have any questions on our service or how much you can save listing with Savvy Lane. 800-915-9174 savvylane.com



Wednesday, March 9, 2016

What is your sign?


Savvy Lane has rebuilt real estate from the ground up by combining For Sale by Owner and the traditional process. Using our flat fee MLS service will save you thousands of dollars by eliminating the traditional 6% commission. By listing your property on the MLS and hundreds of real estate websites you will increases your exposure tenfold.  Today 98% of buyers start their search online, make sure your property is seen on as many sites as possible with our flat fee MLS options. As a licensed brokerage Savvy Lane will provide access to the MLS, forms, yard signs, lock boxes and support to help you sell like the pros. Our proven technology has transformed the selling process.   Savvy Lane has helped thousands save millions on commissions. Join the revolution and let us help you today.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

How low will interest rates go?

Anders Liljehom seemed to be outsmarting the global economy.

Just a few months ago, virtually every financial expert was warning that years of record-low mortgage rates were about to end. The Federal Reserve was preparing to raise interest rates for the first time since the Great Recession, a move that was supposed to increase the cost of borrowing across the economy.

Liljehom, a 38-year-old from Portland, decided he would act first: He refinanced his mortgage in December, with only days to spare before the Fed raised rates.

But since then, the economy has defied almost every forecast. Analysts are debating the probability of a recession rather than the progress of the recovery. Instead of raising interest rates, the central bank is veering in a far different direction, hoping not to cut them. And that means mortgage rates — much to Liljehom’s chagrin — are lower now than when he refinanced.

“I could have saved more money if I’d waited,” Liljehom said. “My interest rate is still quite low, but it does sting a little knowing it could have been lower.”

It is yet another unanticipated ripple effect of the global economic slowdown: For many Americans, who have benefited from a collapse in gas prices, interest rates have plunged on mortgage and auto loans. The decline in rates comes as most of the readings on the global economy have been glum. China’s meteoric economic growth is starting to plateau, striking fear in investors around the world. The recoveries in Europe and Japan are stalling, and policymakers are having a harder time jump-starting them.

But all that bad news has an upside: ultra-low rates. Analysts are wary of predicting how long this grace period will last, but many consumers are welcoming the extension of easy money that many feared had passed them by.

The drop helps to “create some much-needed breathing room in the household budget,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

Since Jan. 1, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has dropped from 4.01 to 3.62 percent, according to Freddie Mac. Mortgage rates have sunk to levels not seen in nearly a year and are close to their all-time low, prompting economists to reduce their forecasts for rates in 2016. Full Article 


Monday, March 7, 2016

Sales of Existing U.S. Homes Rise to Second-Highest Since 2007

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly rose in January to the second-highest pace since early 2007, indicating the industry will keep prospering.

Closings, which usually take place a month or two after a contract is signed, advanced 0.4 percent to a 5.47 million annual rate, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday in Washington. Prices climbed from January 2015 as the number of dwellings on the market fell.

Near record-low mortgage rates, steady job gains and better wage growth are helping encourage prospective buyers, including first-time purchasers. Further strengthening in residential real estate will support the economy and make up for weakness in manufacturing tied to weaker global growth.

“Consumers are pretty keen to purchase a home,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New York. “Slow and steady growth is what we want. It’s really positive for the U.S. economy in general.”

The January sales pace was the second-strongest since February 2007. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 5.33 million annualized rate, with estimates ranging from 5.08 million to 5.55 million. December’s pace was revised to 5.45 million from an originally reported 5.46 million.

Compared with a year earlier, purchases increased 7.5 percent in January before adjusting for seasonal variations. Full Article

Closing Process: The data were volatile in the last two months of 2015 after a change in regulations aimed at consolidating the closing process. The introduction of new forms used by lenders and title companies led to delays in November signings that were subsequently made up in December.

Supply of Homes: Prices have been driven higher because of a lean supply of available houses. The number of previously owned homes for sale fell 2.2 percent from January 2015, to 1.82 million.

At the current sales pace, it would take 4 months to sell those houses, compared with 3.9 months at the end of the prior month. Less than a five months’ supply is considered a tight market, the Realtors group has said.

Home Construction: Residential starts decreased 3.8 percent to a three-month low 1.1 million annualized rate.

Budding wage growth and unemployment at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent in January are conducive to more home sales. Hourly earnings rose more than estimated last month after climbing in the year to December by the most since July 2009.


Thursday, March 3, 2016

10 Tips to Prepare your Home for Spring Landscaping

Once the first official frost is no longer a threat, don’t you just want to run out into your yard and start spring landscaping?   All winter long the excuse of it being too cold, or everything is covered with snow is no longer an issue. Now that spring is here, gardening, landscaping and increasing your curb appeal is on most people’s minds. Depending on your geographic location and what type of soil and plants are native to your region will steer you in the right direction for your home.  Here are 10 tips to also help you prepare your outdoor home for gorgeous landscaping.  Full Article

1.)  Know your climate: Before you get too excited in the garden area or nursery of your local home improvement store, know the climate for your home. This includes your geographic location on the Earth, as well as the climate of your yard. Choose plants appropriate for how much sun, and shade different parts of your lawn receive during the day.

 2.) Do your research beforehand: Similarly to a do it yourself project, plan out your strategy for your landscaping in advance. Are you going to break it up in phases, or are you going to hire a landscape professional to help you plan? Ask for guidance from your local nursery or neighbors who have beautiful landscaping! They can probably give you as good of advice as a professional.

3.) Know what local ‘pests’ are in your neighborhood: While you may think that all of you have to plan for is sun and water for your landscaping, think again – pests such as wildlife, insects, and stray animals can wreak havoc on your landscaping. Plan in advance if you will need fencing, wire mesh, or possibly planting natural plantings can deter and ward off many local pests.



4.) Plant landscaping at the suggested time of year: While you may be excited to plant your fruit trees and flowering shrubs, many plants will thrive better for years to come if you plant them at the suggested times of year that horticulturists and gardeners suggest. Look at gardening websites and ask at your nursery what times are best for the plantings you choose for your outdoor home.

5.) Plan for growth: When choosing landscaping and sizes of plants, estimate how large the plants will grow in 6 weeks, 6 months, etc… If you plant too many small shrubs in front of your living room window, and then find out they are actually small trees, you may have to dig them up soon! Most plants will have height and growth requirements on the pots when purchased from your nursery. Pay attention to these, before you plant.

6.) Get inspired: For some, inspiration comes from looking at neighboring yards, or traveling to other areas of your town to look at landscaping. While others seek inspiration from home and garden publications and satellite television do-it-yourself programs.  Often times a stroll through your local home improvement gardening center is all the inspiration to get you motivated.  

7.) Map at the area: Once you know what type of plants you’d like at your home, map out, or stake out the area in which your plants will be planted. Estimate enough room for pedestrians walking around, as well as growth and future maintenance of your landscaping. Ensure walkways will have safe areas for footing, and tall plants will not obstruct view lines from inside your home.

8.) Plan for maintenance: Unlike a paint color in your home, once it’s up you’re done, landscaping requires maintenance and care. From pulling weeds, watering and pruning, to occasional replacement of dead plants, etc… Once again, plan what plants will suit your maintenance schedule. Consider hiring a professional gardener or lawn service to take care of your yard if necessary.

9.) Low and high maintenance plants: The beauty of landscaping and gardening is there are plants for every lifestyle, as well as every taste! If your home has a rustic or desert aesthetic, ornamental grasses that grow wild may be more suitable for your home. While if you live in a tropical region, flowering plants and shrubs may be more suitable. Check with a professional to see which ones suit you and your home.

10.) Contrast with your exterior home: Your landscaping should be an enhancement of your exterior home. Choose plants that compliment or contrast the colors in your home as well as the architectural time period of your home. A modern and minimalist home may enjoy a modern Zen-inspired landscape, while a Victorian home may have quaint gardens and flowering areas that are typical for the Victorian era.  Plan your outdoor landscaping to be in harmony with your exteriors.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Home Sellers Shift Pricing Strategy

Home sellers this season are taking a more grounded approach to pricing than they did in the fall, as buyers grow more selective and less willing to overpay.

In a Redfin survey last month, 57 percent of home sellers said their strategy was to price their property in a middle range, an increase of 7 points from our October survey. Thirty-two percent said they would price high, down from 34 percent.

“We’ve seen a shift in the right direction toward pricing in the middle range to better encourage multiple offers,” said Will Fassinger, a Redfin agent in Atlanta. “There’s always the fear of becoming a stale listing that scares buyers off or pricing so low that you don’t attract the right buyers. We advise sellers that we don’t have to negotiate a ton to get the preferred price.” Full Article 



Economy and inventory are top concerns  

General economic conditions continued to trouble sellers, with a third citing it as a top concern. Almost as many were worried about finding another house to buy, echoing the results of our October 2015 survey. A chronically low inventory of properties for sale has created a housing logjam.

 “Even with surging home prices, listings were still down three percent in January from a year ago,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “Sellers are worried that today’s buyers won’t pay enough for their current home to finance their next-level house.”