DFW Real Estate Showing Tips

When showing your DFW home for sale, you want to do your best to engage the buyer emotionally because their decision to buy is based more on emotions, and less on logic. Give the buyer the emotions to say yes by staging and accentuating your home's positive attributes, and minimizing attention to the negative attributes. This is paramount to selling any DFW real estate and Plano real estate successfully.

Gracious Welcome

Although buyers are guests in your home, you want them to imagine themselves owning and living in the home. You don't want to make the buyer feel like an outsider.

· Don't pressure or hurry the buyer. Tell them to take all the time they want.

· Don't expect the buyers to remove their shoes, unless you are selling to a buyer for whom religious or cultural reasons dictate it.

· It is best to leave the house. The buyer won't feel comfortable about talking about the house in front of you.

· Leave a bowl of mints or other treats near the front door with a small note thanking the buyer for coming to see your home.

Check the Temperature

· Now is not the time to worry about your utility bill. If it's cold enough to wear a sweater turn on the heat.

· If it's hot outside, turn on the AC. It's better to heat or cool the house a degree or two warmer or colder than usual and then set the temperature at normal. This prevents the heat or A/C from coming on when the buyer is present, because some HVAC systems are loud.

· You want the temperature inside to be comfortable and to give the buyer more of a reason to stay longer, especially on hot or cold days!

· This may not be possible with Dallas foreclosures because many times the utilities are not on at the property.

Create a Mood

· Light a fire in the fireplace even if it is summer time.

· Romanticize it by placing two champagne glasses on a nearby table.

· Turn on soft music like jazz or classical.

· If you have water fountains, turn them on.

· Turn on all lighting and ceiling fans.

Play Up the Visual

· If you have seasonal photographs showcasing flower gardens, leaves bursting in color or a snow-covered lawn twinkling from street lights, then display them.

· Take down all the photos of your family. If your family members are pasted all over the walls it’s hard for them to imagine it being their own home.

· Open all the window coverings to let in light.

· Keep blinds partially closed that otherwise show undesirable outdoor scenery such as a dilapidated fence or a nearby structure that obstructs views.

Play Down the Scent

· Many people are allergic to certain scents and deodorizers, so don't spray the air or plug-in air fresheners.

· Don't burn candles or spray perfume in the bedroom for the same reason.

· If you're going to bake cookies or brownies or simmer spices such as cinnamon in water on the stove, put out munchies so buyers aren't disappointed. More than one buyer has said, "Oh, shucks, I thought there were cookies here".

Brighten up the House

· Turn on every light in the house, including appliance lights and closet lights.

· Brighten dark rooms with few windows by placing spot lights on the floor behind furniture.

· Turn on all ceiling fans and even the fireplace.

Provide Thoughtful Notes

Attach printed notes to items and in rooms that provide further information the buyer might miss or might not know. This will go a long way with the buyers.

· If you have an expensive chandelier in your dining room, put a card on it that discloses its age and other important details.

· If you have removed the washer and dryer from the laundry room, attach a card to the wall describing the room.

· If a room is empty place a note giving the buyers an idea what this area can be used for.

Top It Off With Food

The best way to entice buyers to linger in your home and notice more details about your home is to offer them food and drink. You don't need to cater a lunch, but finger sandwiches, cookies, soft drinks, water, coffee, and desserts are all a good idea.

Encourage Buyer Feedback

· Near the food and drinks, leave pens and a stack of questionnaire cards for the buyers.

· Buyers will feel obligated to respond to your request after being given food and drink.

· The showing feedback you receive will be invaluable to your selling goals.

· Allow buyer anonymity by not requesting their name or contact information.

Looking Twice at Overpriced Plano Real Estate

Common logic dictates that if a home doesn’t sell there must be something wrong with it. This is a very true statement. In a normal market there is something wrong with Plano real estate that doesn't sell. But contrary to what most people believe, it's not always the condition or location of the house. The number one reason why an otherwise home in good condition in a good location does not sell is the listing price. Homes that are overpriced often never sell at all. Why is this the case? Because home buyers will rarely look at overpriced houses let alone make offers on them.

Home Buyers Don’t Make Offers on Overpriced Listings

· Sometimes they believe that if the buyer is not reasonable about pricing the house correctly in the first place that they will be difficult to deal with.

· They don't want to offend the seller. It goes against human nature to offer substantially less than asking price to a seller. It's can be insulting to the seller and embarrassing for the buyer.

· Buyers many times believe that the seller knows the home is overpriced. They believe that if a seller would be willing to sell for less, the seller would simply lower their list price.

How Do You Find an Overpriced Listing?

The easiest way to find overpriced listings is to ask your real estate agent. He or She can search the multiple listing system for Collin County Homes or Highland Park real estate for example of homes that have been available for higher than normal days on market (DOM). Then ask your agent to study the listings and give you a print out of every home that has been on the market longer than the average DOM.

If your agent is a specialist in the neighborhood you are searching in, it is likely he has viewed many of these homes and has hands on knowledge of the condition and layout of these homes. Ask him to share this information with you. Also ask your agent which of the homes he thinks are overpriced. You will learn that often buyers agents don't tell listing agents that their listings are overpriced because agents don't want to offend anyone either. But listing agents sometimes make mistakes when estimating the market value for a seller. Ultimately, it is the seller who set the listing price.

Why Would a Seller Lower the Price?

A couple who bought a beautiful house at first wondered the same thing. The home sat on the market for more than three months at an asking price of almost $840,000. In a market seller’s market, it probably could have sold for about $820,000, but the market was soft and demand was weak and the sellers had moved out of the area, leaving the home vacant. The listing agent was not aware that the home was overpriced. The sellers were certainly motivated. Pointing out this information to the sellers, this couple was able to negotiate a deal to buy the home for about $160,000 less than the list price. To make their offer more attractive to the sellers, the buyers did not include the sale of their existing home as a contingency. They also offered the seller a large earnest money deposit to show that they were a serious buyer. And they also showed the seller a list of homes that sold in the neighborhood at prices closer to their offer.

Not every home that is overpriced will end up selling for less than its market value. But many homes that are listed at unrealistically high prices are sometimes owned by sellers who are motivated and who are willing to listen to reasons why they should sell at a lower price to you. If you find out that a seller has turned down other offers for less money, it might mean that it's just a matter of timing. At some point the seller will come to his senses and say yes. There are overpriced gems hiding among the inventory of homes for sale every day. Don't just pass them by. You could be passing up an opportunity to buy your dream home at a dream value.

Plano Realtors - Talk to Your Sellers About Absorption Rates

What are “absorption rates” as they pertain to real estate sales?   The absorption rate takes into account how many homes are on the market and how long, on average, it will take that home to sell on the open market.  Professional Plano Realtors and DFW Realtors have a duty to their Seller clients to explain this calculation so they will have an idea about how long it may take them to sell their home.  Whether you are at the listing presentation, or you're following up with a seller who's been listed a while, providing the added service of helping the sellers to understand absorption rates and how their price falls into the current pool of available homes for sale in their area. Absorption rates are now required from appraisers for all government related loans; which is just about every loan out there today.

Fannie Mae's Form 1004MC, and Freddie Mac's Form 71 both require that appraisers calculate days on market, inventory levels, and absorption rates for the comparables and immediate area around the subject home. The assumption is that tracking the variability of these three measures across time periods can provide trend information to determine home value direction. The appraisers must also take into consideration the Plano foreclosures on the market which could impact the absorption rate.

Absorption Rate Calculation Example- Say we take the number of closed sales for the last six months in a certain area, and it is 110. We then check the current number of active listings, and it is 420 in that area. First, divide the 100 sales by 6 months, to get a rate of 17 closings per month. Then, divide the 420 active listings by 20 to arrive at 21 months to move that inventory; that's the absorption rate.

Under the Freddie Mac's Form, we see that they require this number for three time periods; the immediately preceding three months, four to six months back, and seven to twelve months in the past. Then, the appraiser must indicate whether the absorption rate is decreasing, stable, or increasing. If it's decreasing, then the market appears to be slowing, and this could cause the value of the home to be adjusted downward. Also considered are corresponding periods for days on market, inventory, and the sale-to-list price ratio. If sale prices are getting lower in relation to list prices, this will be evident on these addendum forms, and the appraiser should be adjusting the home value downward. So, it's clear that a good market is showing higher absorption rates, lower inventories and shorter times on market on average. They prefer to use "median" numbers.

On the bad side, if median absorption rate is declining, and days on market and inventory are rising, this doesn't look good for the market in the near term. Couple that with wider spreads between list and sale prices, and the picture darkens as well. But, good or bad news, you should be on top of this information and sharing it with sellers and prospects to help them in their decision processes.