Honesty Will Help Sell Your Home

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One quality that you should be looking for in your listing broker is honesty, so if a broker does not give you a realistic view of the value of your home do not hire them.  The broker should provide a detail comparative market analysis.  The analysis should be of the last 30 days of homes with similar features.  Here is why.

Today’s market is very volatile, so if you do not need to sell don’t.  You may find that surprising statement coming from a real estate broker, but there are several factors that makes this statement the best advice for any seller.

In previous years, a seller could list his or her home for as much as the seller wanted as long as the buyer was willing to pay the price, it sold.  The seller also could list the home at a number higher than the Realtor recommended that the seller list the home at, and it would sell.   The seller would term this pricing strategy as “wiggle” room. The reason this stragedy was successful was because it was a seller’s market back in 2003 to 2005.

Those tactics started showing the first signs of soften in 2006 when homes that were listed started remaining on the market for 3 to 6 months before selling.  Prior to 2006, it was not uncommon to have a bidding war on homes.  Several changes in the market happened in 2006 that influenced the market today and turn the market from a seller’s market in 2006 to a buyer’s market in 2009:

• increased in foreclosed homes
• changes in appraisal methods
• increase in minimum credit score to purchase a home

At the end of 2008, there were an upheaval of foreclosures and sharp economic downturn; thereby, prompt mortgage companies to tighten their belt and not allow financing.  Those changes affect buyers being able to qualify for a loan due to the credit score requirement to increase to 620.

The belts were so tight that the government had to step in.  I would like to find out if you think the changes to the mortgage industry that the government mandated helped or hurt buyer? seller?

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