To Realtors, me included, settlement day is something that has been know about for awhile. It’s written on the first page of the Contract of Sale and everyone in the process is working toward that date.  The lender, the buyers, the title company. Home inspectors and appraisers have deadlines to meet in order for settlement to occur on the date in the contract.

No, it doesn’t always happen exactly on that day but, for the most part, it’s supposed to.

The other thing that is supposed to happen on that date is that the house needs to be empty for the new owners – the people buying the house – so they can move right in 1o minutes after the ink is dry on all the settlement papers.

At settlement, Seller shall deliver possession of the Property and shall deliver the Property vacant, clear of trash and debris, broom clean and in substantially the same condition as existed on the Date of Contract Acceptance.

—Maryland Association of Realtors Contract of Sale

Did you catch that word: vacant? That means the house needs to be empty.

But I Don’t Need All This Stuff

Over years of living in one place we accumulate a ton of stuff.  We store it away thinking we’re going to use it one day in the future. Knick knacks. Furniture we no longer want or need.  Just a bunch of stuff. Moving Day can be very stressful. You need to pack and box and wrap and sort. If you don’t have a moving company lined up you need to rent a ruck and beg friends and family to help you on moving day. You look through stuff that you loved and wanted to keep, for some reason, but know you won’t have room for it. Or, you look at the stuff and wonder why on earth you kept it in the first place.

Wouldn’t it be nice just to be able to leave it and let whoever is buying the house deal with it?

Sure it would. But the people buying your house probably don’t want it and almost certainly don’t want the expense of having to get rid of it. So, it is the responsibility of the  home seller to do something with the stuff.

You can have a yard sale or garage sale. You can call people who might take a bunch off your hands. Maybe the neighbors will want some stuff. Your family will probably want some mementos. Yet, when all is said and done, you need to have an empty house when settlement day comes.

Can I Sell My Stuff?

You can try.

The hard truth, though, is that your stuff is really not as valuable as you think it is. I have had lots of clients tell me the backstory of why this piece of furniture is so valuable or that antique clock or how expensive the cooking equipment was when they bought it. These rugs were bought in some exotic outdoor market in the Middle East.

Here is the hard truth: your stuff is only valuable to you.  I’m sure there may be some things that an estate appraiser or a collector or someone like that will know is worth money but, for the most part, if you can have a yard sale and sell your stuff for a few bucks, you’re ahead of the game.

The other thing is that the person buying your house probably doesn’t want to buy your stuff, either. I have never met a buyer offering to buy anything the seller wanted to leave behind. If the seller is lucky, the buyer will agree to accept the contents of the house. That, at least, means the seller doesn’t have to pay to have it hauled away.

Moving Day

So, Moving Day is really the day before (or several days before) the actual date on the first page on the contract.  You need to be able to pack up and have everything on the truck and ready to go because when the buyer comes to the house for the pre-settlement walk through, they are expecting to find an empty house they can move into.

The other part of this is the coordination of moving from where you live now to the place you’re moving to…but that’s another blog post.

Do you know people who have left a whole house full of stuff behind?
Let me know in the comments section below!

The post Selling Your House – Moving Day appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

• Housing inventory is low, low, low. There just aren’t enough homes to go around for all the buyers that want to purchase a home.
• Mortgage interest rates are low, low, low.  Back in the early 2000s a mortgage interest rate in the 5% range was the sign of a good deal. Today. If you can’t get 3.5% it means you’re credit challenged or…
• 100%, no money down mortgage are back. Yes, indeedy. If you have a great credit score and documented proof you can repay the loan you can get a “no-money-down” mortgage for the house you want to buy. They do come with a higher interest rate but, hey, no money down.

The Quick Real Estate Settlement

Another housing bubble phenomenon is the quick real estate settlement.  The buyer will offer to settle in 30 days or, sometimes, less. Basically, this is a “Here’s the money. Take it and run.” type offer. The buyer figures if they can entice the seller with a quick turn around they can beat out other buyers who might not be able to act as quickly.

I’ve actually heard of some mortgage companies making promises of very quick settlement time frames which has area appraisers going nuts.  These are the guys who determine the true value of the house. Unlike days of old, appraisers are hired through a third party so there shouldn’t be any “coercion” to come up with a particular value.  That’s something that was fairly common in the Housing Bubble 1.0 days. (“Get me a $400,000 value on this house or you’ll never work in this town, again”).

The thing is: appraisers like the work and if they keep pulling in appraisals that botch up the deal they could find themselves with a “lighter” workload even though they aren’t hired directly by the mortgage company.

Take A Deep Breath

Here’s the real deal. If you’re trying to sell your home and you want everything to move along smoothly, you might do well to listen to your professional Realtor about the listing price and what a realistic settlement date might be. Holding out for some fantasy price or running around like crazy only causes stress that you don’t really need.

Selling (or buying) a house is a big deal. It really isn’t like taking a pair of jeans through the check out line at Walmart.  You really need to have your ducks in a row and you need to be realistic.

There was lots of hand wringing and finger pointing and talk of how awful it was that people bought houses they couldn’t afford. Or that home prices shot up to where they were unaffordable to many people. Or, if people had more of a down payment, more this, more that then there wouldn’t have been this huge foreclosure debacle that we are still try to dig out of.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line.  If you get a great price for your home, take it and set a reasonable time to move out and leave the house empty for the next owner. Remember, you may be going through the same process when you buy your next house. Even if you plan to rent for the rest of your life or move into a retirement community, you may want to consider that the stress and hassle of quick settlement dates and crazy mortgages are really worth it.

Maybe I’m nuts.
Should you just grab the biggest bucks and the shortest time and move out?
Let me know in the comments section below.

The post Housing Bubble 2.0 appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

I know that sounds kind of self serving coming from a Realtor but it really isn’t. There’s lots of moving parts. Lots of things you need to keep track of as the process moves along.

The most important part, I think most people will agree, is getting a good offer on your house. After all, you want to get the most money possible.  You also want to make sure that whoever it is that wants to buy your house can actually afford to buy it. This means cash or a mortgage.

But first things first. You need to find that person.

Can I See Your Home?

More and more, I am running into people who either want to be at the home when a potential buyer comes buy or, for whatever reason, don’t like the idea of a lockbox.

There are probably lots of good reasons not to have a lockbox but I can’t think of many. It’s true that many times when agents make appointments to visit your house they get caught up or a little behind schedule. Sometimes their buyer client will see the house they want before they get to yours.

It’s a real pain in the patootie to have to get up and leave when you really don’t know 100% for sure that someone is coming.

Still, there is the flip side.

There are lots of times you aren’t going to be home:

• You’re at work
• You’re visiting with a friend
• You go on vacation
• You go to the grocery store, the doctor’s, the vet
• You take your daily walk around the neighborhood.

The bottom line is that all the times that you’re away from the house living your normal life is probably going to be the time someone wants to take a look at your home.

Why Access Is Important

Access to your home by licensed real estate agents and their buyer clients is critical. There are many reasons that the agent and his buyer client chose the time they did. Who knows?

• They just got off work
• It’s the weekend and they scheduled time to look at houses
• They’re relocating from out-of-town and they have a limited amount of time to look at houses
• This is the time they found someone to watch the kids
• This is the time they can bring their parents/trusted friend along for advice

Whatever the reason is, if they don’t see your house, they won’t buy it.  If there is no lockbox or if you insist on being at the house and they need to work around your schedule, they may not visit your home and you’ve missed a good opportunity.

Take A Walk

I tell my seller clients that they shouldn’t get up and leave for every appointment until they actually show up.  Unless, of course, they were planning to be doing something else, somewhere else anyway.  But, the seller should make themselves scarce once the buyer and his agent come by.

I can’t count how many times I’ve had buyer clients tell me they felt uncomfortable walking through someone’s house while they were there. They felt they were intruding and making a nuisance of themselves. They felt like they were there to take away someone’s home. What they didn’t feel was that the house they were in was the right house for them.

Sellers also tend to want to “sell” the house to the visitors.  They want to point out all the wonderful improvements or talk about how their children grew up in the house or that they would love to sell some of the old furniture along with the house, if the buyers wanted some [old,used and probably ugly] furniture. Many times the seller will actually talk the buyers out of buying the house.  If they had just taken a walk, the buyers might have fallen in love with the house.

Just Two Things

So, when you’re selling your house two things are critically important:

1. Allow access to your house by allowing a lockbox 
2. Give the buyers some space. Let them walk through the house with their agent while you do something else.

I think if you follow those two simple rules, your house will sell more quickly for more money. What’s not to like about that?

Do you feel the need to “be there”?
Let me know in the comments section below.

The post Selling Your Home – Access appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

Puh-leeze.

If you read the article a little more closely, you’ll see that a lot of these sales were in high demand areas in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, MD.  No mention of Prince George’s County, MD. Hmmmmm.

There was a reason for this and it can’t all be attributed to lazy reporters or a natural bias against Prince George’s County.

Not Every Home Sells In A Day

A couple of days ago, a buyer’s agent called me about a listing I have in Bowie, MD that has been on the market a tad over three weeks.

Back in the old days (a year ago), if a house had been on the market less than three months, no one would have batted an eye. However, we’re now in this hot Seller’s market and homes are flying off the shelf and the media is more than happy to write articles about it. So the agent wanted to know “what was wrong” with this particular house. Why hadn’t it sold already.

Amazing, huh?

The house had been on the market less than a month and already it was “tainted” because no one had bought it.

Why?

Unrealistic Expectations

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the fact that the media is really ratcheting up the expectations on home prices and how quickly homes are selling. The more the main stream media trumpets the housing recovery, the more likely it will be to continue regardless of unemployment or the sequester.

The real challenge is that now everyone, including some real estate agents, expect houses to sell in a day regardless of price or condition or location.  Unfortunately, all three factors have critical roles in the sale of a house.

• If the house is over priced to the comparable homes in the neighborhood both the individual home buyer and the real estate agent will know it and either pass it up completely or low ball the price in their offer to buy it.
• If the house is in terrible physical condition or if it is excessively cluttered up or it looks like there hasn’t been an update since 1950, home buyers will also pass it up for homes that have been touched up and present well.
• If the house is in a less than desirable location or, maybe, the neighbors’ homes don’t really look that nice, buyers will pass.

You can’t do anything about location but you can certainly do a lot about the physical condition of the home and the price.

Some Homes Just Take A Little More Time

There is also the intangible. Sometimes, for some weird, unknown reasons, houses will not attract the perfect buyer on the first day. In the Washington Post article there was a lot of mention of “pre-marketing” homes before they actually hit the Multiple Listing Service. This is where the agent puts the word out to a list of agents they like to work with or might actually have a buyer for the house. It’s doesn’t open up the house the entire home buying public but it might make for a quick sale. Maybe.

The fact is not every home sells in a day. So, if you’re thinking about putting your home on the market you should really stop to think about price, condition and location and talk to your Realtor about the best way to market your home so that you’re not disappointed if you don’t get a bidding war after only three hours.

You should also have a nice talk about when you actually want to vacate the house.  If the house really does sell quickly, you may need to move quickly (pack, arrange for movers, have a place to live). If the sale takes a little time it may throw a kink into your plans to move into your next home.

The bottom line is not to have unrealistic expectations about how fast your home will sell. Have an honest conversation with your Realtor and make a rational decision based on current market conditions.

Are homes in your neighborhood selling in a day?
Let me know in the comments section below!

The post “Flash” Home Sales and Unrealistic Expectations appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

The mainstream media is really starting to talk this thing up.  The editorial cartoon in this Sunday’s Washington Post shows a potential home buyer walking away from a house for sale because he didn’t have enough for an escalation clause. Parade Magazine has a cover story in Sunday’s paper called, “Navigate The New Rules of Real Estate”.

This is a good thing. A lot of home owners will be able to recoup some of the equity they lost during the financial meltdown. Fewer people will be “underwater” with their mortgage and may even be able to refinance so they can take advantage of the extremely low mortgage interest rates in today’s market. Of course, that also means that when a home owner wants to sell their home they’ll be able to sell it without having to depend on the bank to approve the sale.  The dreaded short sale.

In yesterday’s blog post, I talked about a home pricing strategy that could put you in the enviable position of receiving multiple offers. Multiple offers usually lead to two or more people trying to out bid the other for your home. The happy end result for the home owner is a price that can be very attractive.

For the potential home buyer, there is a strategy to make sure they are the one that gets the house.  It’s called an escalation clause.

Escalation Clauses.

In the same Washington Post article I referred to yesterday about “low ball listings”, Kenneth Harney also talked about escalation clauses and some of the things a potential home buyer and the home seller should know:

These are add-ons to contract language that keep bidders in the competition even when the price soars well beyond the original asking amount. Typically, the bidder agrees to match and exceed any verifiable, bona fide competing offers by set increments — say, $500 to $1,000 — up to some to some maximum amount.

They key is to set the maximum amount at some reasonable and doable number. Going nuts and offering a huge price in the hopes of being the winning offer can have a downside, as the article points out:

Downside: If you need a mortgage, the appraisal could be a problem because it’s likely to come in lower than the purchase price. Be prepared to throw extra cash into the deal upfront.

That’s right. The mortgage company will only provide you with a mortgage up to the appraised value of the house. If the contract price is above the appraised value, the home buyer will need to pay the difference — in cash.

Is This A Housing Bubble In The Making?

The thing about these articles and headlines and cartoons if that they tend to take a “macro” or broad look at a larger phenomenon.  It’s true DC is having a great time with their home prices. Parts of DC. There are parts of DC still struggling because, truth be told, those parts aren’t in the area that are gentrifying.

The same is true of the Maryland Suburbs of Washington, DC. Parts of Montgomery County are going nuts. Ditto with parts of Howard County and Anne Arundel County. There are even parts of Prince George’s County where a house put on the market today will be under contract within a few days. However, as the saying goes, “all real estate is local”.

There are pockets where houses are taking a bit longer to sell. Location is important. So is price. So is the condition of the home.

The other part of this is that banks are still only lending to people who are A++ platinum and the borrowers with marginal credit or not enough for the FHA required 3½% down payment are still locked out of the market. If you need a mortgage you still need to play by the Golden Rule. He with the Gold Makes The Rules. And the banks have the gold.

Is Now The Time To Sell Your Home?

Only you can make that decision. The signs look good, though. Mortgage rates are still low making home mortgages attractive to home buyers. There are a lot of home buyers in the market looking for homes. If you price your home well (and maybe think about the home pricing strategy I wrote about yesterday) and it’s in a great location in “move-in” condition, you’ll be able to sell your home and make a couple of bucks to move to the next home you want to live in.

How do you feel about using an escalation clause?
Let me know in the comments section!

The post Home Prices And Escalation Clauses appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

Especially if you want your home to sell quickly.

Pricing High To Sell Low

All home sellers want to sell their home for the most they can possibly get for it. That’s a given.The conventional wisdom is to try and determine what other similar homes are selling for and to price your home just a little bit higher. You know. So, if someone wants to buy it and offers you something lower than the list price you can “come down” and get close to the price you really wanted anyway.

Sound familiar.

I know more home sellers think this is a new and exciting home pricing strategy but it’s something almost everybody does.

Almost.

Pricing Low To Sell High

In an article in today’s Washington Post, columnist Kenneth Harney writes about some strategies people are using in the hot real estate markets.  One such strategy comes under the sub heading of “Low-ball listings.”

In a nutshell, the home seller prices their home lower than the current market would indicate. So, if you have a home in Bowie, MD, for example, your home might be worth about $300,000 according to the comparable sales in the neighborhood. You might price it at, say, $275,000.  A bargain.

Buyers, and their agents, would notice that your house was being sold at a great price and flock to it. Multiple offers would come in. A bidding war would ensue. The end result is that you  — the seller — could actually get a price above $300,000.

It’s a counter intuitive home pricing strategy but I’ve seen it work more than once.

There is a catch.

Home Pricing On Day One

If you’re going to pursue this home pricing strategy you need to do it right out of the gate. You can’t price your home high “just to see” if you get any takers.  Any price reduction after the initial listing price is, er, just a price reduction.  It will be seen as the seller’s attempting to “chase the market” and it will inevitably get much lower offers from potential home buyers.

So the home seller needs to have the intestinal fortitude to take that deep breath and price their home lower than the market suggest right on Day One.

The home sellers I’ve worked with in the past that have followed this home pricing strategy have always ended up the winner. Their home sells quickly. The home buyer is less likely to ask for a whole laundry list of trivial home inspection repairs (if any) and they usually get the price they want or more.

It’s tough to do, though. I know. It’s counter-intuitive.

But, you know. It works.

Tell Me I’m Crazy In The Comments Section Below!

The post Home Pricing on Day One appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

Mortgage underwriters will review all these financial documents and verify your employment, your current residence, how much you pay to live in your current residence and seek detailed explanations for any little blips in your credit history. Mortgage guidelines take into account your debt-to-income ratio and determines if you can actually afford the size of the mortgage you want.

In other words, you really need to be prepared to run the gauntlet in order to buy a house.

Is this good?

Relaxed Mortgage Guidelines

Lat week, the President came out in support of relaxed mortgage guidelines. He is suggesting that mortgage loans be made available to people with “weaker credit” as this article in The Washington Post points out.  Now, to be clear, this does not mean going back to the days of No Income, No Assest (NINA) loans also known as “liar loans” since borrowers could make up anything they wanted in order to get a mortgage for the house they wanted whether or not they could actually afford it.

We’re not heading back to the days of 100% ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages), Interest Only, Stated Income or any of those exotic mortgage that got us into this trouble in the first place. No, what the President is advocating is just allowing people who may not be Platinum A++ to be able to get a mortgage.

On the face of it, it sounds like a good idea. More people in the market willing and ready to buy homes will help home prices increase. As home prices increase, more people who were “underwater” with their mortgage will get some of their equity back and be able to sell their homes and maybe, just maybe, make a little money on the sale.

Skin In The Game

Every now and then I run into home sellers who remind me that back in the “old days” home buyers were expected to have a 20% down payment.  Now, in today’s market that would mean someone would need about $60,000 in order to buy a $300,000 home.  That’s a lot of money.  It also means that the people buying the home were pretty serious about owning it and that they probably would think two or three times about allowing it to go to foreclosure.

Of course, having a 20% down payment means that you have bult in equity in your home and that, if you really needed to sell it, you could without having to do a short sale and get the banks involved.

FHA - the government agency that backs most loans nowadays – only requires a 3½% down payment. The thinking is that this allows people with moderate incomes who haven’t had the chance to save up for a 20% down payment could still buy a house. That’s still $10,500 on a $300,000 house and it’s still a good chunk of change.  However, it’s easier to walk away from a house if you’re in some financial distress than if you have more. Even 5% to 10% would make a big difference.

Can The Government Afford To Back More Mortgages?

The real deal is that relaxed mortgage guidelines really means that the Government – you and I – are on the hook for any of the defaults that happen as a result of people with “weaker credit” being able to buy homes.  I’m not really sure this is a good thing.

Yes, if more people were able to get lending, more homes would be sold.  People who are eager to sell their homes don’t really care if the borrower puts down 20% or 3.5% as long as they can sell their home and move on. The housing recovery would continue to gain steam and that, in turn, would help the broader economy in lots of ways.

Still, I don’t want to go back to the days of millions of homes (thousands in this area alone) going through the short sale and foreclosure process, again.  I would rather see people have some skin in the game and I would rather that the banks didn’t take on a lot of unnecessary risk.

We need more mortgages for people who want to buy homes.  No question.  I’m just not sure lending to people with “weaker credit” is the answer.

Am I off base with this?
Have you been trying to buy a home and run up against the mortgage roadblock?
Let me know in the comments section below!

The post Should Mortgage Guidelines Be Relaxed? appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

First, the key thing to remember is that the people in the story are real estate investors. These people do not let emotion carry them along.  They don’t care about paint color or school district or public transportation. They care about how much the house will cost to fix up and then how much they can sell it for or rent it out.

The second thing to remember is that these folks are buying these homes with cash. The green stuff. Moolah.

I doubt seriously they come to these auctions (more on auctions in a minute) with a grocery bad full of cash but they do come with a cashier’s check or other forms of certified funds to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the money is there.

The House Auction

The article also points out that these homes that are being snapped up by real estate investors are being purchased at auction.

You may have seen one of these things on TV or you may have seen some other auction type show.  You may have even been to an auction.  Here’s the bottom  line on auctions: if you’re the top bidder, you get the house. Period. End of Story. You can’t back away or say you’ve made a mistake or, God forbid, claim you don’t have the money. Nope. If you get carried away and bid a tad too high, you just bought yourself a house.

The real danger in this is that if you – the normal home buyer – want to “get a deal” and buy a cheap house, the house auction may not be the best place because the real estate investors that are bidding against you know what the house is worth. They know what it’s going to cost to fix up. They know what it might actually sell for if it gets fixed up. They’ll stop bidding at the right price. You might get a tad carried away and go too high.

How Real Estate Investors Drive Home Prices Up

Lets get to the meat of the matter, here. The article would have you believe that because these real estate investors are buying a lot of run down, beat up houses that the price of, say, your house, will rise.  To a certain extent, that’s right. The fewer homes on the market for any buyer means that your house will be filling a vacuum for the demand of buyers who can qualify for a mortgage.

The difference between the real estate investors who are buying trashed out houses for cash and your house is that your house is nice (let’s hope) and real estate investors don’t buy nice houses. Nice houses are too expensive. Your house needs to be attractive to home buyers that want to move in and set up house.  They don’t want to do a lot of repair work and they will most certainly need a mortgage.

Home Prices Will Go Up

The fact of the matter is that there aren’t really a lot of homes in any condition that are on the market for sale.  It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. As long as people who would normally sell their homes to “move up” to a larger home or “downsize” into a retirement community or smaller house stay put and the longer housing inventory stays low, prices will continue to edge up slowly.

Will there be another bubble? Will home prices skyrocket the way they did in the early 2000s?

Anything is possible but my guess is that the banks won’t make the same mistake (that’s a wild guess knowing that the banks are driven purely by greed). Currently only the most credit worthy borrowers can get a mortgage.  That means if more homes hit the market, the supply and demand curve may change and prices will even out.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line: despite what The Washington Post says about a “land rush” by real estate investors, it doesn’t necessarily mean Prince George’s County will be the next big thing for real estate.  I hope it is.  That’s where I do a lot of my business.  But, I’ve heard this song before.

Hey, if you want to know what your home is worth,
give me a ringy dingy at 240-417-9100
Or  e-mail me.

The post Real Estate Investors and Prince George’s County appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

There were lots of tables of area merchants and people promoting upcoming events.  In fact, that’s why I was there.

The Rotary Club of Parole (Annapolis) is putting together it’s Third Annual Naptown barBAYq set to take place on May 4th and 5th at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds. We hope to have 50  competitors vying for a $10,000 prize for the best barbecue and well over 40 bands on three stages. Oh yeah. A special kid’s area with lots of fun stuff for the little ones…and the kids get in for free.

Check out the barBAYq website for more details. There will be lots to do and lots to eat!

Below is a little video I put together to show the fun we had with all the mascots and people!

..and here is a map to where the Naptown barBAYq will be held…

View Larger Map

The post Bowie Baysox Family Fun Day – 2013 appeared first on Maryland Suburban Homes.

Whew!  It’s about time, huh?

But, wait!  Even though your house might get multiple offers (yes, they’re back!) or sell pretty darn quickly near your asking price, there might be a reason not to sell. There might be five reasons to sit out the housing recovery. (By the way, if you are thinking of selling your house, stop reading right now and call me at 240-417-9100)

I had to wrack my brain but here are five reasons to sit out the housing recovery:

Reason #1 — You Have No Place To Go

This is a biggie. Even if you can sell your for the big bucks, if you have nowhere else to live it doesn’t make sense to sell your house. No one likes being homeless. Even with a ton of money in the bank you need a roof over your head.

Reason #2 — You’re Still Underwater With Your Mortgage

Home prices are rising. Why? Not much housing stock and lots of buyers snatching up mortgages below 4%. Still, if you bought your home at the tippy top of the last bull market (somewhere in the 2005 -2006 area) your house may not have recovered enough to sell.  At least, not yet.  Hang in there. Things are looking up and everyday more and more people are finally getting the equity back n their homes.

Reason #3 — Your House Needs Tons of Repairs

I hate to say it but even with a strong seller’s market going on home buyers still want a house they can move into without spending a lot of additional money fixing it up. Sure. Real estate investors will buy homes that needs a lot of repairs but they won’t pay much for the house. So, get to work on fixing up all the stuff you were letting slide. Paint. New carpet. Spruce up the kitchen and baths.

Reason #4 —You Want To Wait For Higher Prices

Wow! This is a good one. A lot of people were waiting for the “market to peak” in 2007 only to find out it crashed. Timing the market, whether it’s the stock market or the real estate market is almost impossible. My guess is prices will continue to climb at a moderate rate.  For how long?  I have no idea. Where is the top? You won’t know until prices start going down, again.

Reason #5 — You Love Your House and Your Neighborhood

This is really the best reason of all. No one says you have to sell your house. I love people who are solidly part of the neighborhood and love their home. I know lots of people who have really put a lot into their homes. Lots of home improvements. Lots of love. They know their neighbors and get involved in the community. If this is you and you don’t want to sell your home just because everyone is talking about the housing recovery. Stay put. Enjoy life.

Can you think of a reason I missed?
I’d love to know what you think.
Please leave a comment in the section below.

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