Why a Home's Market Time is Crucial for BOTH Buyers and Sellers

Short and simple. Market time usually translates into money saved or money lost, depending on which side of the transaction you are on. It can also give you a clue to urgency.

The definition of "Market Time" (MT) or "Days on Market" (DOM)  is the length of time that a home is available for sale or the amount of time a particular home takes to sell, and is measured in days.

Market time is always on Realtor's listings, however some Realtors opt to remove that field from the public handout they give to buyers. You can find it on most any MLS sheet by looking for "MT" or "DOM", but only if it has not been removed from your data sheet. The one small glitch is that if you do see it on your MLS handout (if you can find it) is that the market time that is listed is only for that listing. If the home was on the market previously, you won't see an accumulated market time for that home, which is very important.

Some Realtors will cancel a listing, and put it back on the market immediately to hopefully attract buyers. It is against our MLS regulations, but agents do it anyway. The market time would not be accurate in that instance. Then again, some homeowners switch Realtors after their home failed to sell. That listing would come up as "new", and with a short market time which would also not be accurate.

Realtor.com shows Market Time  information on listings as "Days on Site", which can be a few days off, but you still get the general idea. Zillow also shows this figure as "On Zillow" which is also approximate, and "Yahoo Real Estate" shows you the listing date, but none of these sites accumulate market time for prior listings on the same property. Your Realtor must do the research on this. Incidentally, you won't find Market Time information at all on Trulia.

The Money Factor and The Bottom Line:

The newer the listing, the less likely it is that the seller will negotiate on price and/or terms. Remember to have your agent perform a Property Listing History report so that the information on DOM or MT is accurate. The longer the home has been listed for sale, the more probability there is for increased negotiations. Sellers- this is one VERY good reason to price your home properly right from the start!
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Having a Difficult Time Selling Your CT Home? What About Offering Incentives?

There are still plenty of options for you consider if your home has languished on the market for longer than you would like. First, it's time to review your pricing and marketing strategies, and if all looks appropriate on those fronts, you might also want to consider offering incentives.

First, review your home's pricing. Is it in line with what it should be? If your agent has not given you an up to date market analysis in the last month, it should be done now, whether or not you decide to implement any kind of incentive. You may be able to roll the cost of your incentive into the price, and no one would be the wiser. It is important that if you decide on an incentive rather than a price reduction that your home's pricing is still in "the reasonable range".
So before you implement any incentive strategies, make sure you are not "giving your home away".

Next, review your marketing from day one. Is your home everywhere it is supposed to be, and can be on the internet, and is it presented accurately and properly? Do you have quality  marketing handouts?  It's time to fix anything that needs it, before you offer any type of incentive.

The reason that these two  things are so important  is that if they are not what the market dictates that you need, the outcome  for an incentive is  wasted, and so is the time and energy that was put into it. That being said, here are a few ideas:

1. Offer to pay closing costs ( or a portion of them) If your buyer is obtaining an FHA loan, the limit for a seller concession for closing costs is four percent.

2. Offer to buy down the buyer's interest rate.

3. Offer to pay the home taxes for one year, or even 6 months.

4. Offer a One year Home Warrantee

5. Offer to pay one year's worth of Homeowner Association fees.

6. Offer to have a room (or rooms) painted, the carpeting replaced, or some other cosmetic of their choice completed  prior to closing.

7. Offer to pay the first month's mortgage payment.

8. Offer a higher commission to the Buyer's Broker

There are many incentives to choose from, and each home is different. Not so long ago, I had a listing at that backed up to the thruway. It was noisy, as I can assume you could imagine. It was a nice home, but the buyers could just not get over the noise. We offered a parking pass to the train station with the sale of the home as an incentive. ( Parking Pass permits had a two year waiting list at the time, and believe it or not, that helped to sell the home! You just never know.

So don't be afraid to try an incentive, and don't be afraid to try a unique incentive. They do work!

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The Connecticut Real Estate Market is Not Entirely Out of Your Control.

True, you cannot change the local or national economy. You cannot change the fact that home prices have fallen over the last few years. And, as you know, you cannot change the location of your home.... but you can control  Four very important aspects of the sale of your home.

The Realtor You Choose: The Realtor that you hire makes ALL the difference. We are all in the same industry, however all agents do not treat their seller clients and listings in the same way. What is standard operating procedure for service from one agent is  not even offered by another. Each agent has their own marketing plan, and  you would be very surprised at the variations. We all have our own style of communication and negotiating, and  it is important that you choose the agent that you feel will work the best for you, given all of these factors. Experience and reputation is key, too.

The  Marketing of Your Home: Your home WILL sell faster if it is marketed correctly. Make sure you get a good feel for how your agent will market your home. There are NO if's, and's, or but's about it. I cannot tell you how many poorly presented homes are on our MLS and those listings are not doing the sellers any favors.  In fact, a poorly presented listing HURTS the homeowner financially. There are  many homes that go without  brochures, as well as additional  and/or enhanced internet marketing, ...and that includes social media, too. Make sure your home doesn't go without any of these very important pieces to the overall marketing plan.

Condition: You can control the condition of your home. If there is clutter, remove it. If something needs to be cleaned, clean it. And if something needs repair and its within reason and your budget, repair it.

Pricing: Only you can set the asking price of your home. The agent cannot. A Realtor can guide you to what they think is the best listing price for your home, but only YOU can set the asking price. In the end, it is You and Your Buyer that technically determine the sales price, because without a buyer, you have no sale.

Remember, you are the seller. You are the ultimate boss. After all, it is your home and your money at stake. Give it the attention it needs to effect a sale, and hire The Right Realtor  that knows how to price your home, market your home, negotiate the best sale price possible, and see you through to closing. That's me!

I am in the business of selling homes, and I'd like to be in business with you. Contact me today to get your home IN the Market, and I WILL get your home sold.

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Sellers: Steps to Take Before Reducing the Price of Your Home

If your home has been on the market for a few months and you have not had any bids, or worse yet, you have not had many showings, it's time to talk to your Realtor about it.  This is NOT always about the price, although that may be contrary to what most agents will tell you.

In Connecticut, and more specifically, Greater Fairfield County, our MLS system allows agents to input a lot of helpful information for buyers, except it is not always utilized. In today's market, every little but counts. PERIOD- Oh, and by the way, none of these items are "little" when it comes to selling your home.

There are at least ten things on your MLS listing alone that will affect your home's marketability. Make sure that these items are addressed  first BEFORE you reduce the asking price for your home.

It's a BIGGIE!  What does your MLS listing look like?

Unfortunately, you have to be diligent about making sure that your home is represented in its best light on the MLS. The information from your MLS listing is "fed" to Realtor.com,  Yahoo.com Real Estate, Trulia, Zillow, AOL  Real Estate, and scores of other highly visited real estate websites. Incidentally, Yahoo Real Estate has MORE visitors per month then Realtor.com, so it's not only about Realtor owned websites.

What should you look for on your listing?

1. Make sure that the information is correct and complete, and the description does not duplicate any of the fields that are already there. You only have a certain amount of space in that description. If it is redundant and has information that is already provided elsewhere on the listing, that is a GRAVE error on your Realtor's part, and you are losing precious buyers and dollars  because of it.

2. Check that the room measurements and room descriptions are included, too. Do you think that's a minor thing? It's not. Buyers want information, and certain buyers will not even bother giving your home a second thought, much less look at it if they don't have any idea that the living room (for example) is big enough to hold certain furniture that they have and love.  Does the living room have hardwood floors, or sliders to a deck? If it's not on your listing,  the buyers may assume that you have carpet or linoleum, or something else rather than hardwood.

Why would a Realtor omit that? Sheer unprofessionalism, laziness or both, in my opinion. Does your master bedroom have its own bath? The listing better read that it does.  If your bath has a whirlpool or steam shower, that should be there, too. These things may sound VERY basic to you, however I can tell you with clarity that whether your home is listed for $500,000 or Five Million, there are glaring marketing errors to the tune of about 86 percent. That's right. Eighty six percent.  For the listings that I see, I calculated the percentage of OBVIOUS MARKETING ERRORS  to be 86%. I cannot believe the number is that high, and the lowest error rate that I have seen was 79 percent.  There is a very good chance that your home is in the majority, SO LOOK AT YOUR LISTING!

3. Are the taxes correct? Is the mill rate correct?  Is the lot size correct?

4.Another BIGGIE: Is the square footage of your home correct? If your agent estimated the square footage, included the basement in the actual square footage or rounded the square footage up to an even number,  IT WILL HURT YOUR HOME'S MARKETABILITY.  Yes, I am yelling here. I see it done all the time. Let me tell you why it's a very bad idea to fool around with the square footage as recorded in the town's Assessor's records

5. If you  or your agent estimates the square footage, and the number is incorrect, you may actually be sued. There is case law that I am aware of, on this where a buyer demanded a refund on the purchase based upon what he THOUGHT he bought, which turns out is not what he bought at all. I do not remember the square footages in this judgement. I do remember that the seller had to refund  "x" amount of dollars, and that was calculated upon the sales price of the home  for the square footage as presented in the listing, and then adjusted downward based upon that number to the actual square footage of the home. The agent was sued for misrepresentation  as well.   YOU ARE LIABLE FOR YOUR MLS LISTING, TOO.

6.Want to include the finished area in your basement in the MLS Listing in the main square footage section?  Not a good idea. Here's why: Let's say your home is 3,020 square feet. Your finished basement area adds another 1260 square feet. Of course that should be mentioned in the listing, but not in the main field for square footage. Your home would appear to be 4,180 square feet, and it would blatantly obvious to a buyer had a minimum square footage requirement. Trust me, they are not buying your home, when you started out with "a lie" on the square footage.  Your home may also appear  that is too big for someone who would otherwise look at it, and maybe not even bother too much with a finished lower level.  All it takes is one obvious untruth on your listing, and everything else falls under scrutiny, and  concern. Don't do it.

7. Rounding up square footage of your home? I tell my buyers to be on the lookout for any home that's listed as having square footage with an even number.
For example- 2,500 square feet, 4,000 square feet, etc.That tells me that I cannot trust the rest of the information to be as accurate.  If the home is 2,476 square feet. Say so. Don't oversell it or misrepresent it.  Market the home for what it is. By the way, I have only encountered ONE house in 26+ years of being in the business that had an even number of square feet. With the owners permission I added one square foot to the actual number so it did not look like it was estimated or rounded up. We also disclosed that as well.

8. Misrepresenting the condition of a home: The surest way turn a buyer off is to have the listing say that it's in mint condition when it's not absolutely in mint condition. It can be in fairly good condition but it's not mint, so don't market it that way.  C'mon agents. You know better than that. When a house needs repair or cosmetics, you can soft sell it, but don't go the other way around and make it wonderful when it's not.  I'm sorry, but Sellers, you're guilty here too, if you have not seen your listing and okayed it.  You know whether or not your home is in mint condition.  The buyer that  thinks that your home is in perfect condition  when they get to your home is even more disappointed. Just remember how you felt when you were looking at homes and went to a house based upon its purported move-in or mint condition. What did you think? You didn't buy that house, did you? Did you wonderwhat standards that listing agent had if they truly felt that this particular home was in mint condition? You get the drift

9. Public Schools Information: Make sure your listing has the public school information for your home. Buyers and agents alike search upon that criteria. If you see BOE or PBOE in the elementary, middle or high school data fields on your listing,  that's more  laziness on your agents part. BOE is a lot easier for some agents to type than making a call to the superintendents office to find out which public schools children would attend if they live at your address. For the record, BOE stands for Board of Education, and PBOE stands for Per Board of Education.

10. Internet Remarks:  This may not be evident in the MLS printout sheet of your home. Where it will be seen is on the multiple listing aggregator sites like Realtor.com, Yahoo.com Real Estate, Trulia, Zillow, AOL  Real Estate and others.  If your agent did not specifically enter remarks in this portion of the listing, then your  listing will not have any descriptive remarks on any of these sites.

You shouldn't even have to check that your Realtor is doing things the proper way, so most sellers never even bother to do so. You would be surprised at the lack of a thorough job  coming from a recommended agent. And here's a good one- The agent that seems to have a lot of listings is not necessarily the best. All of those listings haven't sold and are still on the market. Think about it.

If you want the best representation with a better than average sales to list price ratio and shorter time on market. Call me. I'll get your home sold, and do it the right way

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Communication is Key when Selling a Tenant Occupied Property

For Landlords: Selling your home when a tenant is occupying the premises.

In the last several years, many homeowners who were unsuccessful in selling their home at their desired asking price, opted to rent their home.  This was a new arena for many.    Being a landlord is not for the weak at heart.  There is a good amount of work involved but in many instances it can be a profitable venture and also there can be some substantial tax advantages when the property is eventually sold.  The property can be depreciated, but be careful there are certain holding periods and one should always speak to their accountant to make sure the timing is correct to reap the tax advantages.

When the time comes that the property owner lists the home on the real estate market, there must be good communication between the Homeowner and the Tenant regarding the Tenant vacating the premises.  If the Buyer of the property is looking for an investment property, having a property with a rock solid rental history is key.  However, if the Buyer is purchasing the home as his or her’s primary residence, the property must be vacated before the closing.  This is when the situation gets tricky.  The Seller wants to maximize on the rental income and does not want the property vacated until the Buyer has his/her mortgage commitment but that usually occurs days before the actually closing.  The Seller/Landlord must give notice as required by the lease and if there is no lease than a minimum of 30 days.    The last thing anyone wants to get involved with is an eviction proceeding.    Communication is key between the Seller and the Tenant.

Attorney Felicia B. Watson

FeliciaWatson@sbcglobal.net