SOLD guide to selling your home
WHAT'S HAPPENING
IN THE MARKET First Quarter Take aways. March's median price for existing U.S. homes (all types) was $236,400, up 6.8% from last year ($221,400). March's price increase represents yearover-year growth for the 61st straight month. Total national housing inventory by the end of March lifted 5.8% to 1.83 million existing homes available for sale, but remains 6.6% lower than a year ago (1.96 million) and has dropped year-over-year for 22 consecutive months. There is a 3.8-month supply of unsold inventory at the current sales velocity. Nationally, properties typically stayed on the market for 34 days in March, down considerably from 45 days in February and 47 days a year ago.
Freddie Mac data indicates that the average commitment rate for a 30year, conventional, fixedrate mortgage grew for a fifth consecutive month in March to 4.20% from 4.17% in February. For 2016, the average commitment rate was 3.65%. First-time buyers drove 32 percent of March's sales, unchanged from February and up from 30% a year ago. First-time buyers represented 35% of sales in 2016.
Ronnie George EDITOR IN CHIEF
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e h t s i l e trav u o y g n i h t y l on s e k a m t a h t buy . r e h c i r you
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The real estate industry has changed so much over the past 5 years. With social media taking the way real estate is sold to an entirely new level. Selling a home is now a spectacle to be observed by the masses. People are watching Facebook LIVE feeds, Instagram stories & being retargeted by Facebook Ads everyday! Here are a few tips for preparing yourself for the sell.
TOP TIPS WHEN SELLING BY RONNIE GEORGE
DONT BE SHY If you have a show quality home then you're already ahead of the competition. Just remember the more people that fall in love with your layout, color choices, even your furniture - the better.
FACEBOOK If you're not on Facebook...get an account. You'll want to share your home with friends, family and local trade groups in and around your community. This will raise your organic reach dramatically and the best part, it's FREE!
SHOWINGS If you can help it, do not cancel or post pone any potential showings on your home once it's on the market. The percentages drop dramatically for a reschedule and most buyers get completely turned off when they don't get their way. Buyer's are pretty picky these days and want to feel accommodated to.
AGENTS If you decide to sell on your own, great. If you decide to list with an agent, great. It's all up to you in the end. IF you do hire an agent, just make sure they have a social presence and know how to market your property on the platform the buyers are using in today's time. Facebook!
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All the things you've heard before... kinda
While “location, location, location” might be the home buyer’s mantra, as a home seller, that’s one variable you really can’t change. Instead, the key factor to selling your home in a reasonable amount of time is pricing it correctly, which isn’t nearly as easy to do as you might think. Sure, you can go online and see what nearby homes have sold for, but are you really comparing apples to apples here?
Sure, you can go online and see what nearby homes have sold for, but are you really comparing apples to apples here? An experienced Realtor will be able to perform a detailed market analysis which not only takes into account your home’s condition and any improvements you might have made, but can generate an up-to-the-minute temperature reading of just how hot (or not) your local market really is.
TRIED AND TRUE TIPS According to the most current data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), FSBO sales accounted for only 9% of all home sales in 2013. Not too impressive, is it? Well, it gets even worse when you take into account that FSBO sales seem to have been steadily declining over the past decade from a 2004 peak of just 14%. Marketing via social media, what could be more up-to-the-minute? Sure, you may have hundreds of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, so that’s a potentially sizable audience if you decide to advertise your home that way. Think about it, though – how many of them actually live in your area? And of these, how many are actually looking for a new home? If you do manage to sell your home that way, you’ll be one of the lucky few.
DID YOU KNOW? Today’s tech-savvy buyers prefer to house-hunt in more methodical ways than simply driving around the neighborhood. And yet, according to the NAR, this is still the top FSBO marketing method, as 36% of would-be sellers rely on yard signs
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a n a h t e r o m it's r u o y s ' t i , e hom . . e f i l
@christophermarkellphotography
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#1 - The most important thing you can do to prepare your home for sale is to get rid of clutter. Make a house rule that for every new item that comes in, an old one has to leave. One of the major contributors to a cluttered look is having too much furniture. When professional stagers descend on a home being prepped for market, they often whisk away as much as half the owner's furnishings, and the house looks much bigger for it. You don't have to whittle that drastically, but take a hard look at what you have and ask yourself what you can live without. #2 - There's a common belief that rooms will feel larger and be easier to use if all the furniture is pushed against the walls, but that isn't the case. Instead, furnish your space by floating furniture away from walls. Reposition sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groups, and place pieces so that the traffic flow in a room is obvious. Not only will this make the space more userfriendly, but it will open up the room and make it seem larger. #3 - One of the things that make staged homes look so warm and welcoming is great lighting. As it turns out, many of our homes are improperly lighted. To remedy the problem, increase the wattage in your lamps and fixtures. Aim for a total of 100 watts for each 50 square feet. Don't depend on just one or two fixtures per room, either. Make sure you have three types of lighting: ambient (general or overhead), task (pendant, under-cabinet or reading) and accent (table and wall).
#4 - Don't overcrowd a room with furniture that is too large for the space; it will only make the room appear small and cramped. However, don't leave a room too barren either. In a narrow space, shelves can add depth to make a room feel larger. Tip: Paint the backs of the shelves the same color as the walls to create an illusion of depth. When dressing a window, remember designer Monica Pedersen's formula for balance: For a large window in a large room, use largepatterned window treatments. A small pattern tends to disappear in a large room.
Staging tips It's time to get your home SOLD! Let's focus on getting your home in show ready condition so it will appeal to all those potential buyers.. SOLD
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24 The average percentage received when selling in the first quarter.
Nationally, the average price gain for homeowners who sold in the first quarter was $44,000. This represents an average return of 24 percent on the purchase price -the highest average price gain for home sellers (in both percentage and dollars) since the third quarter of 2007, according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ First Quarter 2017 U.S. Home Sales Report.
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BRISKEST PACE IN MORE THAN A DECADE!" According to National Association of Realtors® (NAR)
TOTAL EXISTING-HOME SALES (TRANSACTIONS FOR SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, TOWN HOMES, CONDOMINIUMS AND CO-OPS) GREW 4.4% TO A SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ANNUAL RATE OF 5.71 MILLION IN MARCH FROM 5.47 MILLION IN FEBRUARY
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RONNIE GEORGE THE GEORGE GROUP, LLC BROKER / OWNER Ronnie started selling real estate April of 2006 in Alexandria Louisiana. At the age of 18 I feel head over heels in love with selling real estate. I would constantly tell my broker at the time, "I love this job!" It was the process that I just couldn't get enough of. From the marketing, guidance / education to viewing properties. I just couldn't get enough. This love for real estate stayed with me even when I put my license on hold for 2 years when the entire economy collapsed after 2007. Determined to re connect with my true passion I went back into selling real estate part time and took a HUGE leap of faith in 2014 when I left my full time job making selling real estate my primary income.
This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life and certainly for my career. I joined Keller Williams Realty and soaked in as much knowledge as I possibly could. I grew into a small group with an assistant & two buyers agents. We just topped the 10MIL mark before I left KW in the beginning of 2017 to start my next adventure. I started my own brokerage with the customer & their experience being the only measuring stick to go by. I focused my entire brand around giving. From cutting commission to selling homes and only charging $1 for my fee. Any and everything to help my clients realize their dream of owning a home. This approach turned out to be my second best decision of my career. SOLD | 10
THE GEORGE GROUP, LLC IS A REAL ESTATE FIRM SPECIALIZING IN RESIDENTIAL RESALE AND NEW CONSTRUCTION HOMES THROUGHOUT LOUISIANA.
RONNIE GEORGE / BROKER
BUSINESS DISTRICT 934 3rd St, Sixth Floor Alexandria, LA. 71301 1 (888) 548-7853 SOURCES: © 2017 GREATER CENTRAL LOUISIANA REALTORS® ASSOCIATION ALL DATA SUBJECT TO ERRORS, OMISSIONS OR REVISIONS AND IS NOT WARRANTED. ALL INFORMATION DEEMED RELIABLE BUT IS NOT GUARANTEED. SEARCH ALL GCLRA LISTINGS AT WWW.GCLRA.MLSMATRIX.COM
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