Is there ever a good time to take real estate advice from friends and family?

When you're getting ready to purchase or sell a home here in Tamaqua, you'll get plenty of advice, whether you ask for it or not.

 

Everyone from cousin Gus who sold real estate back in 1982, Aunt Sally who sells real estate in another State,  your next door neighbor, and your garage mechanic will want to “help” you make the right decisions.

 

We agents, of course, urge people not to take advice from anyone who isn’t working in the business – here in Tamaqua– every day. They simply don’t have the same information and experience to share.

 

But think about it…

Those who live in your community can give you at least one good bit of advice – they can recommend an agent who served them well (or warn you about one who did not.)

 

Secondly, anyone who has been involved in a real estate transaction recently can give you something more - warnings to help you avoid the mistakes they made.

• Both buyers and sellers can tell you what happened when they failed to take their agent's advice – and did things to harm their own chances of success.
• Home sellers can tell you about mistakes such as over pricing their home, insisting on being present for showings, refusing to fix-up or repaint, and getting insulted and refusing to negotiate low offers.
• Home buyers can tell you about the time wasted making low-ball offers or the disappointment of losing out on the home of their dreams when they decided to "sleep on it."

So listen to your friends and relatives – just don't listen when they give you pricing advice, and don't listen if they tell you to ignore advice from your own experienced real estate professional.

What’s in a Front Door?

When you begin the search for your new home in Tamaqua the second thing you’ll notice about the homes you visit is the front door.

 

First you’ll see the overall picture from the street and you’ll begin to form an opinion about how the house has been maintained. As you draw closer, your focus will naturally come to the front door, especially since your agent will probably have to spend a minute there getting the door unlocked.

 

Even though you might not consciously think about it, that door and its condition is going to influence how you see the rest of the house. If the door is clean and freshly painted, you’re going to “see” the good things inside. If it’s muddy, scratched, or dented, you’re going to see the flaws.

 

Our brains are strange that way – they seek to reinforce our first impressions and opinions.

 

This is perhaps the reason why polls show that a new front door is one of the few improvements home owners can make that will consistently return more than 100% of its cost when selling the house. (Another is the garage door.)

 

The moral of this story:

If you’re a seller, get that front door looking its best. Scrub it, paint it, and add new hardware. OR invest in a brand new door. If you’ve got kids or dogs who might leave muddy streaks, check the door every morning before you leave the house.

 

If you’re a buyer, realize that the front door might NOT be a reflection of the entire house. You don’t know that seller’s situation – If the front door makes a poor impression it might be that they aren’t physically or financially able to make it look beautiful. That doesn’t mean they’ve let the rest of the house go.

 

The opposite might be true...perhaps the only thing in good repair is that front door!

 

So override your subconscious and enter with an open mind.

You can’t divorce your mortgage…

Going through a divorce is unpleasant at best, and when there’s a house to “split,” it can get even more unpleasant.

 

You and your soon-to-be ex-spouse may agree on the property division and a court may assign ownership of the house to one of you, but if you have a mortgage and you both signed, you’re both still liable for the payments. As you might expect, the bank has no interest in your divorce, and no desire to simply let one of you “off the hook” for the payments. For them, the more people responsible, the better.

 

That means you’re financially tied together until the house is either sold or refinanced by the person in possession. If it took two incomes to qualify in the first place, keeping the house may not be an option.

 

More troubling to some is that if there’s no refinance, the payment history will appear on both of your credit reports. If the person responsible for making payments falls behind, you’ll both suffer.

 

For many couples, selling is the best choice, but even that can be stressful. Unless your divorce decree involved one of you signing a deed to transfer full ownership to the other, you’ll have to reach some agreements.

First you have to agree upon an agent, then you have to agree upon the price. Then you’ll have to agree again when it’s time to consider offers.

 

The agent you choose can be your key to success.

You need an agent who will be patient and sensitive to your needs, who will never divulge your motivation for selling, and who will never, ever take sides. You may also need an agent who is willing to meet with you separately.

 

Finally, you need an agent who will present you with a clear market analysis and show you your home’s true market value, so you need not have conflict over the listing price.

 

If you’d like to know how else I can help you get through this trying aspect of your divorce, give me a call.