Special Report on Spring Cleaning

They’re aimed at the Frustrating Five: spring cleaning tasks that homeowners tend to put off and/or ignore more than the others. Since spring is the most agreeable time of year to tackle household maintenance (even the vexing ones), here’s a list to contemplate—along with some widely accepted strategies for taking them head-on:

  1. Kitchen cabinets gradually build up grease—and getting rid of it is one of those jobs we don’t tend to tackle on a regular basis. The first of the top 5 spring cleaning tips is the easiest: that grease is no challenge if you remember to keep a single-purpose product on hand. Hardware stores and supermarkets stock them: just look for the household cleaning bottles that have “Dirt and Grease” somewhere on the label.
  2. Dirty windows are frustrating because they actually present two entirely different spring cleaning challenges. One window cleaning product that works fine inside is often less effective on the outside. Since there are two different kinds of buildup, it pays […]
2016-04-12T00:14:36+00:00

Home Inspection or Offer? Which Comes First?

A reasonable question posted recently on a real estate website can open an interesting discussion. It’s one that touches on a fundamental component of most northwest real estate sales.

The question was, “Can I request a home inspection before I make an offer on the home?

The answer from the moderator was, “I can’t think of one good reason why you would do this.” The moderator should have thought a little harder! And the truth is, for any would-be buyer who has never been involved in buying or selling a home, it’s a pretty logical question.

Take a fictional example. We have a young couple who have no previous real estate experience. Their parents never walked them through how they had gone about buying the homes they’d been raised in, and although both husband and wife have college degrees, neither has been exposed to the first thing about buying and selling a house (this is a hole […]

2016-04-07T00:08:53+00:00

Top 10 Listing Phrases

It’s small wonder that with this spring’s selling season underway, the northwest’s house hunters can afford to be a discriminating bunch—they have the luxury of picking and choosing from a crop of truly inviting offerings. And it doesn’t hurt that today’s low mortgage interest rates have enabled more properties to fit within more family budgets.

For those of us who get to translate those home offerings into words for the local listings, the job is to find phrases that draw attention to each given property’s uniquely attractive features.

But there’s another dimension that complicates things. English is a rich and powerful language, but when it comes to marketing lingo, it’s also true that these days everyone is being deluged 24/7 by vivid advertising claims. We’ve all developed callouses when it comes to the ballyhooing we get from every quarter.

Today’s house hunters have developed sales resistance. Times 10!

So what’s the answer for cooking up language that helps a property jump […]

2016-04-05T03:03:56+00:00

Do-It-Yourself Real Estate Agent Dowsing

Whenever a buyer or seller is set to enter the market, they find themselves faced with the task of identifying the local real estate agent who will serve them best. There are many of us to choose from—and not a lot guidance on how to proceed.

Maybe there should be something like a Real Estate Agent Dowser. You remember dowsers—the folks who divine where to drill for ground water. Most do it by walking around, holding a dowsing rod (usually Y-shaped). When it shivers or points down, BINGO! That’s where the water is. Pay the fee and call the drilling company. Now, it’s said that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that dowsing works. Yet there are plenty of folks who live out in the country who will tell you that, of course it’s hard to believe, but still… That’s why dowsing is a real occupation. Just ask any one of the American Society of Dowsers’ 3,000 members…

Here on […]

2016-03-30T23:01:49+00:00

Buyer and Seller Mindsets

Right now, just a few days into spring, we are right at the start of nation’s peak real estate selling season. I’ve always found it odd that you don’t hear much about it—but that also makes it the beginning of the buying season, too!

As a licensed team of Realtors®, throughout the course of the year we are privileged to act as the agent for both buyers and sellers in many different transactions. The details we’re called upon to manage do vary somewhat depending on which side we are representing in any given sale—but there is one very significant goal that I regard as identical, no matter in which capacity we serve (more on that later).

There are some generalizations that usually hold true about the difference in mindset between prospective buyers and sellers. For one thing, sellers automatically have in-depth knowledge about their area property. Gained through the years, they know the community; they know […]

2016-03-28T19:47:12+00:00

Comparing Mortgage Offers

For home shoppers who anticipate taking advantage of today’s low mortgage interest rates, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a few words of interest. The CFPB thinks it has found a way for consumers to get the best home loan deals.

The way they recommend is to shop around.

Now, it may seem as if everybody would know that without needing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to clue them in, but the CFPB has evidence to the contrary. The last time they looked, nearly half of mortgage borrowers hadn’t shopped around before they signed up for their loan (47% of them, to be precise). That is rather surprising, since even an eighth of a percentage point difference in the interest rate works out to a lot more than spare change. Why more home buyers don’t compare mortgage deals may be due to a number of factors.

For one thing, anyone who has spent much time on the internet has had the unfortunate experience of being promised that they can “see today’s rate” […]

2016-03-17T23:17:21+00:00

House Flipping Opportunities on the Rise

When you think about it, it was to be expected: the pace of house flipping activity in communities all over the country almost had to quicken. The market made it all but inevitable—in places where prices are on the rise while inventories remain tight, the conditions are right.

A “house flip” is what you call any house that sells within a year of being purchased. House flipping happens when something unforeseen occurs that prompts a buyer to change residences more quickly than anticipated, or (much more often) when the purchase is made in the first place because the buyer sees an opportunity to make a profit.

House flipping became all the rage for a while during the housing bubble of the mid-2000s, hitting a peak in 2005. Half a dozen TV series were launched that popularized the adventures of itinerant flippers, tracing their footsteps as they acquired, fixed up, then sold properties for enticingly large premiums. The best of them depicted not simply the money to be made, but […]

2016-03-14T18:31:43+00:00

Keep an Eye Out for Water

 

It’s one thing when you see the word “water” figuring prominently in descriptions of west coast properties. Any time that word comes into play, it’s a cinch that the property in question is more valuable than any waterless neighbors. Everyone knows that a shorefront or beachfront property is likely to be worth more than an identical inland place. In areas like Florida, condos with docks (or even access to a dock) are highly prized. Wherever a lake, river or stream is noted in a listing’s description, it’s likely to add significantly to the asking price—even if it’s only because of a distant view.

The conclusion anyone would draw from the foregoing is that, as a general principle, “water” is a desirable feature when it comes to real estate—and Portland real estate would be no exception.

But that’s only for good water.

Bad water is something else again. Bad water is the kind of water you can’t do anything useful with. […]

2016-03-10T01:44:22+00:00

Homes for Sale in an Election Year

This one was news to me. The Wall Street Journal had it buried in a ‘spread sheet’ section of their online Real Estate section: “Why It’s Harder to Sell Your Home in an Election Year.” If you are like me—never having had an inkling that homes for sale have rough sledding in an election year (like this one)—you’d have to read the details.

“The uncertainty of a looming election can cause a dip in home sales,” it detailed, “especially if the race is close.” The article was illustrated by a cartoon showing a neighborhood street whose every lawn was graced by alternate “vote!” signs and homes for sale signs. The underlying thesis was that in close elections, house hunters are reluctant to buy if an uncertain political future makes them unsure about their own financial fortunes.

This might sound reasonable from a logic perspective, but as you read further into the factual basis for the idea, you’re likely to start losing confidence.

The whole basis for the […]

2016-03-08T01:43:41+00:00

The Future of Home Automation

Home automation is going mainstream.

There: I said it. We all knew it would happen, but some of us hoped it would happen later. The prospect of our house being smarter than we are has been out there since as far back as when the first Terminator movie hit VHS (or was it Beta? Or Betamax?)…

Anyway, the “Smart House” idea has always had such a science-fictiony patina, it allowed many homeowners the valiant hope that the whole thing might be delayed—at least until there was a flying car parked in every garage. Now it looks like our hopes are soon to be dashed. At least, that seemed to be the news coming out of Spain last week.

According to reports from last week’s Mobile World Congress assembled in Barcelona, “the IoT was pervasive.” If you haven’t heard what “the IoT” is, maybe you’d better sit down—

The IoT is short for “the Internet of Things.” It’s a logical development. For home automation […]

2016-03-03T23:31:36+00:00