Selling Real Estate
News Blast: Beverly Hills Flats
September 9th, 2008 Categories: Beverly Hills - BHPO, Buying Real Estate, Selling Real Estate
Just a quick news briefing to keep you in the know:
The pocket on Sierra with the huge lot just sold for around $10M…
718 N Rodeo just went back into escrow- listed at $5.8M…
624 N Oakhurst is in escrow- asking $5.675M…
1303 Park Way is pending with an accepted offer at $4.65M, their listed price. They were taking overbids, if any, today in court.
New listing on Linden for $8.5M, 6,800 sf with a 14,000 sf lot, beautiful villa… gorgeous tilework, wood beams, front courtyard, incredible backyard…
Things are moving in the Flats.
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How to Sell Your Home: Staging Matters
September 2nd, 2008 Categories: Real Estate, Selling Real Estate
Sellers, have your heard of staging your home? Have you wondered if it could help you sell?
If you’re new to the idea, basically with staging, you hire a company to come in and do anything from very light staging (they can even use what you currently have and rearrange) or bring in their own furniture and pieces to create an attractive home environment.
We see that homes that are staged typically sell faster and for more money when compared to similar homes that are not staged. Why do you think developers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on staging? They know how crucial it is for a buyer to feel right at home the second they walk in the door.
There are 5 key items that are important when selling your home:
1. PRICE (your #1 determining factor)
2. Condition
3. Timing
4. Ease of showing
5. Agent
Staging relates to Item #2- the condition of the home. From personal experience, we always see buyers react to homes that are staged much more positively than homes that are either vacant or not staged. It’s really a night and day difference.
If you’re thinking about selling, ask your agent if your home may be a candidate for staging. They can give you a few company referrals so that you can call them to get their ideas and bids. Yes, it’s money upfront that your paying out to sell your home but the finished product- and result- is worth it!
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Termite Inspections, Reports and Work - Who is Responsible?
May 21st, 2008 Categories: Bel Air - Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills - BHPO, Brentwood, Buying Real Estate, Cheviot Hills - Rancho Park, Culver City, Hollywood Hills, Home Improvement, Home Resources, Inspection Resources, Malibu, Marina Del Rey - Venice, Pacific Palisades, Real Estate, Real Estate News, Santa Monica, Selling Real Estate, Sherman Oaks - Studio City, West Hollywood, Westwood - Century City
So you’re about to buy or sell a house and the subject of termite inspections come up in discussion - usually when the offer is being written and/or presented.
Here is what YOU need to know:
CUSTOMARILY, the Seller is responsible for the inspection, providing the buyer with a termite report, and ultimately a termite clearance at the close escrow. The Seller usually pays for Section I work, and the Buyer can pay for any Section II work needed.
What is “Section I” and “Section II” work?
Section I is any EXISTING termite infestation, damage or wood destroying organisms such as dryrot fungus and the like. This may include local treatment, whole house tenting, and replacement of damaged timber.
Section II is anything found to possibly invite termite infestation or cause wood damage in the future, such as debris in the attic, earth to wood contact, etc.
There are circumstances when the Seller is NOT responsible for all the “termite work”, some examples are:
- When it’s an ALL CASH purchase. The termite clearance is necessary to close escrow because it’s often a condition for funding by the lenders.
- When the property is a TEAR-DOWN. If the intent by the buyer is to bulldoze the property to the ground, no one really cares if there are termites or rotted wood all over the place.
- When the SELLER specifies in the contract they will not do any work, or caps the dollar amount they are willing to pay for work needed. The Buyer then can agree to pick up the difference.
95% of the homes that are sold here in SoCal require some termite clearance action. Homeowners are well advised to maintain a termite treatment regime once a year to keep those buggers away.
Call us anytime for a referral to a reputable company to add to your home vendors list!
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So, What is the MLS Anyway?
May 15th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Real Estate, Selling Real Estate
Once you start looking for a home or getting involved in real estate in any shape or form, you’re going to hear the MLS mentioned over and over. What in the world is this? How does it work?
Basically, the MLS stands for Multiple Listing Service and is a database service that all brokers use for their listed properties. Area brokers belong to their local MLS system and pay an annual fee to be a member. This way they can keep track of homes that are actively on the market, those that are looking for back up offers, in escrow (pending) or have closed. They can also go into the listing history of properties and compare comparable sales in the area for clients making offers or getting ready to list their property.
How are the search features different from regular search engines like yahoo.com or Google? Or brokers’ sites like coldwellbanker.com? Or real estate specific search engines like Realtor.com?
All the real estate search engines will basically get you the same info- it’s just the lag time behind the market that makes the difference here. I’m not sure about the other brokerages but I know that when you look at Coldwell Banker’s site, you’re not just going to see Coldwell Banker represented homes. You’re going to see every home that fits your search criteria. Realtor.com is the same way. It’s a great place to see all of the homes. The issue is that it’s a few days behind the market.
So, to get real market-time information, brokers go to the MLS. You may not think that a few days would matter but it most certainly does for HOT homes. Those can easily be snatched up by the time it hits Realtor.com.
Since the MLS is a closed service, you need to be an agent to place your property on the system. As an agent, I can, however, set up clients on a private MLS website so they can have access to everything that is on the market that fits what they’re looking for. This way they will see everything available in real market-time and be updated as soon as a property comes on the market, comes back on the market or gets a price reduction. I can also set up clients who are selling their property on their own site so they can also keep track of the competition.
So, my suggestion is that if you’re looking to buy, get started on an MLS website ASAP- even if you’re thinking about buying down the road. And if you’re looking to sell, have your agent set you up on a website as well so you can become familiar with current competition.
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Multiple Offers Sweep Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Hollywood Hills…
March 17th, 2008 Categories: Bel Air - Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills - BHPO, Brentwood, Buying Real Estate, Cheviot Hills - Rancho Park, Culver City, Hollywood Hills, Malibu, Marina Del Rey - Venice, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Selling Real Estate, Sherman Oaks - Studio City, West Hollywood, Westwood - Century City
Per our last posting, there are plenty of reports from reputable sources and sensationalistic news articles that can argue the ups and downs of our Los Angeles Westside real estate market all day long.
We could argue for the stability of our unique market and likewise we could tell you it’s all going to hell in a hand basket. You’ve heard it all before.
What we’d rather do is to give you a small sample of what’s actually happening behind closed doors (as the seller reviews with his/her agent, the spread of offers to purchase their home). As they say, “show me the money” and in our market, there seems to be lots of it flying around. Yes, still.
Observed Multiple Offers on Hot Properties in the last 14 days:
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Mixed Signals: Making Sense of Real Estate News for the Westside
March 14th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Real Estate, Real Estate News, Selling Real Estate
We are asked by clients every day about what we’re seeing in the market. Are prices really dropping like what we’re seeing in the news? What’s going to happen next year? When should they buy? Should they sell now or wait to get more? And so it goes. Well, no one has a crystal ball but I can tell you what I’m noticing lately…
Everywhere we look, we see stories about the real estate market. This was true before the mortgage crisis in September and will be true next year and the year after. What’s happening is newsworthy, yes, but more than that, it sells papers and the media knows that if they lead with a story about the real estate market, people are going to watch. We are all interested and bad news- not good news- is going to get viewers’ attention. To confuse everyone even more, we see a constant stream of mixed signals by the press (see the relatively positive recent UCLA Anderson School’s report and a recent negative Los Angeles Times’ article as examples).
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Beverly Hills Post Office - Elegant Cape Cod Contemporary
March 7th, 2008 Categories: Beverly Hills - BHPO, Buying Real Estate, Selling Real Estate
Click the mini flier photo for detailed property information.
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SOLD! To the Highest Bidder at a Santa Monica Home Auction
March 3rd, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Events, Real Estate, Real Estate News, Santa Monica, Selling Real Estate
If you haven’t attended a live home auction recently, you’re like the rest of us because they just don’t take place all that often!
I witnessed my first home auction this Saturday at 710 Kingman Ave in Santa Monica. The property is a beautiful Spanish contemporary on a lovely tree lined street. The home is in great condition, 4 bedrooms with 3.5 baths in just over 3,000 square feet, on a 7,500 square foot lot. There is a beautiful tropical grotto style lagoon pool in the back, with the master balcony overlooking it. Fabulous home in a great neighborhood.
The living room was filled to capacity. It started with the expected dictation of the auction’s rules and regulations followed by a fun and LOUD practice bid for those participating in the process to get warmed up to the real deal. Yes, the Santa Monica Pier was auctioned off.
Opening bids for the home started at $2,000,000. The energy in the room blew the roof off as the auctioneer swung his gavel in the air rambling (in his professional auctioneer way that only an auctioneer can) off the increasing prices while the (five registered bidders’) paddles shot up in succession of one another…until we reached…da da da dummm…MARKET VALUE.
SOLD! with the crack of the gavel promising the home to the winning buyer for $2,450,000.
(Understand, that with an auction home sale, the buyer pays the costs of the sale, so the price sold is the amount the seller nets not what the buyer ends up paying. The buyer actually will pay about 8% on top of the $2.4M he’s agreed to pay for the house itself.)
A home auction is quite like dealing with mulitiple offers on a property that’s for sale, with some minor differences. As one of the buyers, you know what the other buyers are willing to pay when everyone is standing in the same room at the same time with the same goal. For the seller, the process of the auction saves time and the paperwork of having to counter offer all buyer offers in writing, a process that can take days.
Most obviously illustrated for all to see is that on the day and time of the auction when real serious buyers (cashier checks in hand!) turn out for the bidding to bid against each other for said property, there is no doubt about the home’s market value once THE MARKET SPEAKS.
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5 Steps to Buying a Foreclosure Property in Los Angeles
February 3rd, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Money & Mortgages, Selling Real Estate
It usually goes something like this:
r.e. agent: So what are you looking for specifically?
buyer: Well, I’m open to area, but I want a good deal. Hey, I hear that foreclosure properties are great deals and there are tons coming on the market. Do you have any foreclosure properties?
r.e. agent: Yes, I have access to foreclosure properties. How much do you want to spend? How much were you thinking of putting down?
buyer: I was thinking of going for a 0% down loan, you know, get a great deal! (i.e. steal a property)
BBBBZZZZZTTT! Stop right there.
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