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Why a Pre-Inspection is a Good Idea

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When I list homes for people they often ask me about the inspection process. I always tell them why pre-inspection is a good idea.

Picture of home inspector standing in front of house inspecting.
Home inspector in front of a house

Most real estate contracts include a clause making the contract contingent on home inspections. Contingent is defined as “occurring or existing only if (certain circumstances) are the case; dependent on”. The buyer has the right to have the home inspected. If those inspections don’t go well there’s a chance the contract could be terminated. Every state has different contracts.

For instance in Kansas, as well as most other states, after the inspection the buyer can ask the seller to do repairs. Most contracts are specific as to serious defects. This prevents buyers asking for frivolous or cosmetic repairs. If the buyer and seller can’t come to an agreement on those requested repairs the buyer can terminate the contract and have his earnest money returned.

That’s why having a pre-inspection is a good idea. By doing an inspection before you put your house up for sale any potential problems can be handled.

When a buyer asks for repairs often they ask for their own contractors or for licensed contractors to do simple jobs. Simple jobs you could easily do yourself. Repairs are often much cheaper done by you of your own favorite contractors.

Sometimes selling your house “as is” in a strong sellers market is a good idea. That way no surprises and no stress over inspections. If you have already had a pre-inspection you’ll know what to expect. If you have completed repairs before putting the house on the market you’ll have a smother transaction.

The inspection process is where I notice the most stress from sellers. It can get very emotional when repair requests are submitted. personally i dislike the process. I’ve seen deals fall apart over pure pride.

Getting Something

Sometimes buyers, or their agents, will use the inspection process to get something. I’ve had them give a list of repairs and then actually demand money in lieu of or in place of doing the repairs. The repairs are often minor defects sometimes not even real defects at all.

The deal could be held hostage by a buyer, or their agent, threatening to back out if their demands are not met. Yes, it sounds like a crappy thing to do, but it happens.

Buyers could have the mentality that they “want” something in return for the money they spent on the inspector. Even if the house is in perfect condition they may want something done to make themselves feel better.

This is what you avoid by doing a pre-inspection. Know the condition of your house. Take care of any problems before you put it up for sale.

Make it a smooth transaction.

Joel

Getting Your Home Ready to Sell In A Sellers Market

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Getting your home ready to sell in a sellers market is where you make the big money. The nation is experiencing a sellers market which tempts sellers to put their house on the market before it’s ready. If priced right it will sell. But…

By putting forth some effort and minimal expense you can possibly earn thousands more dollars. Properly preparing your home for market gets you more money, period!

Start with curb appeal to get potential buyers inside. Start off on the right foot by getting buyers excited about a house as they approach. People are forming opinions as they walk up to the front door. These first opinions are crucial.

  • Keep grass cut, trimmed and looking good at all times.
  • Trim bushes and hedges to keep them neat and from blocking windows.
  • Add some potted plants during spring and summer to the front porch.
  • Powerwash the house but especially the front porch area.
  • Check the exterior caulk and paint and improve as needed.
  • Check the front door hardware to make sure it functions smoothly and is in good condition.

By now the your buyers have a really good feeling as they enter the house. Keep that good feeling going throughout the rest of the tour by ensuring the house is clean, really clean.

The small defects may be overlooked by buyers because there aren’t enough homes on the market but you still want the house to be clean. Carpets and floors should still be clean. Paint walls if needed or a least make sure they’re mark free.

More than likely unless the house is drastically overpriced you’ll get showings and offers. Just as in any market the better the house looks, and “feels”, the more excited buyers will be. The more excited buyers are the more money they’re willing to offer you.

Get More Money

While there may be a shortage of homes in a sellers market that doesn’t mean a seller should slack off. Buyers may be desperate but they will still pay more for a house that is in excellent condition. The more impressive a house is the more people will want it. That means more people making offers, big offers.

When getting your home ready to sell little things like sprucing up the kitchen by clearing everything off the counters make a big difference. Polish all the appliances and clear the refrigerator of notes, pictures, calendars and anything else. Make sure the cabinets are all clean and in good working order. The kitchen is a big deal.

The rest of the house, like the living room, dining room, bathrooms and bedrooms should all be, yes, clean, clutter free and in good repair.

  • Make sure all doors are working smoothly.
  • Repair any holes in the walls.
  • Closets should not be crowded.
  • All the toilets should flush properly and be clean.
  • Check all plumbing under sinks for leaks.
  • Pack up as much stuff as you can before the sale.

The big take away is don’t be tempted to take the easy way out by simply throwing your house on the market. Take the time to get it ready. Make more money. After all, that’s the reason you’re selling your home yourself. To save money. Might as well make some while you’re at it.

Joel

How to Pay 1/2 the Real Estate Commision Without Negotiating

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Real estate buyers agent shaking hands with seller.

Want to know how to pay 1/2 the real estate commission without negotiating? Easy. Sell your home yourself. Really.

Get your home ready to sell and price it right then list it yourself on internet sites like Zillow and Trulia. Then sit back and wait for a buyer that has an agent.

The worst scenario for the real estate industry is when the public, home sellers, figure out how easy it is to sell a home. Real estate agents should love, and probably do, internet sites like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com because they do all the work. Sure, Realtors have the multiple listing service but consumers use the internet sites to search and gather information on their own.

Those real estate sites can also help you sell your home on your own, as a For Sale By Owner.

There is really no need for a “listing agent” anymore. Home sellers can easily perform all the tasks the agent does for you. The work of getting your home ready to sell (which you actually do anyway), pricing it right and marketing you do yourself. All of the tools needed are available for little or very little cost. And you’ll save thousands of dollars.

It’s happening more and more that people just like you are selling their homes themselves successfully. That’s not to say all are successful. It does take a certain amount of knowledge all of which is available outside of the real estate industry. There is some work involved but the rewards are substantial.

You can get an actual real estate agent to price your home for you or you can use the internet to find comparables and do it yourself.

So now that you know that get your house ready and get it listed For Sale By Owner. Market it all over the internet, to friends, neighbors and co-workers.

The Real Estate Commision

If you’ve done everything right getting ready for the sale you will get potential buyers wanting to see your home. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “sellers market” or a “buyers market” you’ll get traffic. How much relates to the type of market we’re in and the overall health of the economy.

Some of those buyers may have a signed buyers agency agreement with a real estate agent. An agency agreement is a contract between a real estate agent and a buyer that guarantees the agent will get paid. It is assumed, wrongly or rightly but we’re not debating that today, that the seller pays all real estate commissions.

If you accept an offer from one of these buyers their agent will do all the work. You’ll only be paying half the real estate commission. If you like the agent they may even be able to help you find your next home, at no cost to you.

Do not let the agent charge you more because they’re doing all the work. It’s actually easier for an agent to handle both sides of the deal. Remember, you have control. You’ve gotten your house ready, priced it right and it’s in demand. If the buyers agent won’t work with you then find another.

If your buyer doesn’t have a buyers agent you can ask them to get one or even suggest one you may know.

Remember, listing your house yourself on the internet is not difficult. If you’ve done everything right getting ready, attracting buyers will be a breeze.

Having a buyer with a real estate agent enables you to have all the paperwork done for you with only paying half the real estate commission.

Now go sell your house and save thousands of dollars.

How To Tell When More is Better

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Big pile of poker chips symbolizing more is better Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
More is better

When is more better? When Getting your house ready for market. The more you do to make it shine the more money you get from the sale. Sometimes trying to convince my clients of that can be like pulling teeth.

When I meet a seller for the first time we usually do a walk thru of the house. The walk thru is so I can get an idea of condition and to let them know what they could and should do to get the house ready for market.

I often get pushback when trying to explain the beneifits of preparing the home. What I hear mostly is “I don’t want to put a lot of money into it” (but they always want a lot of money out of it).

So I give them the pamphlet we made that shows a detailed list of what to do to get a house ready for market. And that really freaks them out. “I have to do all this!!?!”

The answer of course is no, you don’t have to do all that. You don’t have to anything, it’s your money, but the more you do the better price you’ll get. Isn’t that why you’re selling your home yourself? To make more money? So go that extra mile, make that extra money. Take the time to prepare your home for market properly.

The house should always be ready to show and be show ready. Everything should be clean, in good repair and updated as much as possible. The more you do to prepare the house the better first impression it will make and first impressions are oh so very important.

What’s More Going To Cost

That doesn’t always mean you have to spend a ton of money. If the house has been kept somewhat updated throughout the years then mostly it should simply need a good cleaning. And any minor repairs to make sure everything is working properly.

Sometimes you’ll have to put some money in to get more out of the sale. When something is broken or not working properly have it fixed or replaced. Nothing looks worse to a buyer then holes in the walls or components of the house that don’t function properly.

If the dishwasher doesn’t work, fix it or replace. If a gutter is hanging off the roof, have it repaired. If there’s a hole in a door, replace it.

Those are just a few examples but you get the point.

The more you do to get your home ready for sale the more money you’ll make. I often tell clients to look at it as a second temporary job. If you could go to to work for a week and make an extra $10,000 would you do it?

Of course you would.

Joel

Why You Should Negotiate Directly

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transaction coming to an agreement. The seller, a woman, is shaking hands with the buyer, a bearded man. Why you should negotiate directly.
Negotiate directly in a real estate transaction.

There are many good reasons why you should negotiate directly, among them you will know exactly what the other party is thinking. To be more clear when you negotiate directly you eliminate any chance of a middlemans interpretation not being what you meant.

In a normal expensive real estate transaction one of the services your real estate agent provides is negotiation.

What that means is the buyer goes through their agent and makes you an offer on your house. Your agent then tells you what that offer is and what his/her opinion of it is. Then you tell your agent that you either accept or you counter offer. And so on and so forth until you come to an agreement.

The agent is really just a middleman simply passing information back and forth. They may have some experience in negotiating but it isn’t anything you can’t easily learn yourself. Just google it! Seriously, there are many places online you can learn the basics. Dozens of entire books have been written on the subject. I’ll teach you specific real estate negotiation tactics in our Sell Your Home Yourself course.

A buyer without an agent is the ideal situation. You both then work out a deal. With no agent there are no commissions, you keep your money and the buyer gets a great house.

What If The Buyer Has An Agent

But sometimes a potential buyer interested in your house will have a real estate agent and they’ll have an agency agreement with that real estate agent. The real estate agent gets paid when they have an agency agreement. It doesn’t matter if the home is a For Sale Owner or listed on the Multiple Listing Service.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to pay the agent. It’s simply the way it usually works. An agent is paid to sell a house by a seller then splits that commision with the other agent that brings a buyer. But in this case you are selling your home yourself? You are the “listing agent”.

Theoretically the buyer should pay their own agent since they signed the agreement. And that’s what the agreements say. The buyer shall pay the commision if the seller doesn’t.

But;

The buyer really has no need of an agent so won’t want to pay. You certainly don’t have need for an agent since your a For Sale By Owner. So what happens? The agent will try and steer the client away from you.

The benefit of having the agent is they will do all the paperwork for the transaction but you have to decide what that is worth to you, if anything.

If you decide that you will work with the buyers agent make sure your buyer is present during all and any negotiations. Insist on negotiating directly with the buyer. You may have to broach the subject when both buyer and agent are present.

Why?

Because the buyers agent is definitely not going to like that idea.

You want to know exactly what your buyer is thinking. Not what their agents interpretation of that is. The agent wants to be in control of the transaction and they won’t be if it’s a good ole fashion sit down and hash it out between a buyer and a seller.

How To Negotiate Directly

Since you have elected to work with an agent one on the things that can be negotiated is the agents pay. Say your buyer offers you less than what you want and you say OK but I’m only paying your agent this amount. Or you simply may not think the agent has earned a huge sum of money for doing paperwork.

After all you got the house ready for market. You marketed the house. You attracted the buyer. The buyer just brought an agent along that is costing you money. Does that make sense?

When you offer less of a commission the agent is not likely to bring that part of the negotiation up to the client if the client is not present. In this case the agent is more looking out for him/herself than the client. That’s one reason you want to negotiate directly with the buyer.

You can look them both in the eye and say, yep, it’s a really great house and I’ll accept that price but I’m only paying your agent 1.5%, or whatever.

Or you can figure out the agents commision before you even start on the house terms.

Most of all this is your house and your deal. You elected to go it alone to save money. You’ve studied, you’ve worked hard and you know what your doing. You should maintain control to make sure you get the best deal possible.

When you negotiate directly with your buyer you’ll be able to read the buyers facial expressions and body language. That can be huge. You’ll know the difference between “I’d take this house at this price” and “I love this house so much I just have to have it”.

Those are important things you’ll miss if you negotiate at a distance through a real estate agent.

Negotiate directly, make more money.

Joel

How This Crazy Real Estate Market Saves You Money

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High angle picture shot of suburban neighborhood. How this crazy real estate market can save you money.
Crazy real estate market

I’m going to tell you how this crazy real estate market saves you money, or how it can save you money if you’re willing to listen. You could even call it making money.

It’s almost March 2019. This is the start of the spring real estate selling season and I have to wonder what’s going on with this market. It’s crazy. Prices are rising fast, maybe too fast. Inventory is at an all time low.
Homes are selling so fast it’s dizzying (if that’s even a word).

It’s so crazy that right now there are literally more real estate agents than homes for sale in the small midwestern city I live in.

Are they real estate agents? Or more like opportunists? It’s so easy to sell a house when the market is like this. It seems everyone and their brother are getting a real estate license as a means to separate you, the home seller, from your money.

I’m telling you to keep your money by selling your home yourself. If you’re fearful I can teach you how, but honestly, it’s not that difficult.

Picture this scenario. An unemployed person gets up in the morning, turns on the TV and sees a news story about a hot real estate market. 3 weeks later this person has a real estate license and is handling the biggest financial transaction you’ll ever make.

If that sounds scary, good, it’s meant to.

He’s not worried about how much money you’ll make. He’s not worried about the down payment or mortgage of your next house. His goal is to rake in as much cash as he can while this crazy market is “hot”.

No one cares more about your money than you do so keep it.

Do It Yourself in This Crazy Market

When the markets are like this it really makes no sense to hire someone to sell your house for you unless you just don’t have the time, and are already rich. That’s understandable. I’m not rich but I hire a guy to mow my lawn because I don’t have the time. The opportunity cost is so high it’s worth it. I pay him 25 bucks.

If I were to pay someone to sell my house it would be quite a bit more. Like thousands more.

This really is a crazy real estate market. Homes that are priced right, properly prepared for market and kept show ready are selling the day they hit the market. Overpriced homes are selling the day the price is dropped to where it should be.

That’s really easy money, but for whom? The typical real estate commission is 6%. If you sell your house for $300,000 that’s $18,000 your paying someone to do what you could easily do yourself. Even if you pay a buyer’s agent, that’s a whole different topic, you still save $9000.

Maybe more if your negotiating skills are there.

The point is if you haven’t realized it yet, if you can fog a mirror you can sell a house in this crazy real estate market. Yes, you can.

Joel

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