Lake Homes Realty CEO, Glenn S. Phillips, reveals two unspoken real estate secrets– not all real estate agents are equally skilled, and many use the same formula when listing a home. With a special property like a lake house, how do you determine which agents can successfully sell your home?
Glenn recommends interviewing potential agents and asking three questions: What else will you do to sell my home? Who do you know? and Can you name 15 areas where people are shopping at my lake? The best lake home agents will feature your property on highly-targeted websites, have connections with multiple lake-focused agents, and have expertise in several lake areas.
How do you maximize your opportunity to sell your lake home? When it comes to selling, here’s the real goal: you want to maximize the odds that you will get the maximum price the market will bear in a timeframe that is suitable for you. Here are five ways Lake Homes Realty can help you sell your lake property.
Maximize exposure
Pricing guidance
Lake real estate expertise
Unique network
Buyers from across the country
As mentioned in the video, the Lake Real Estate Market Report contains unique multi-state market information about lake homes and land, including lakefront property, lake access property, lake view property, and near-lake property.
Free to the public, the market report can help lake home and land buyers and sellers better understand their local market, and how it relates to other similar competing markets. Download it HERE.
With COVID-19 on lake homeowner’s minds, many are wondering if now is a good time to sell their property. Lake Homes CEO Glenn Phillips outlines five reasons why now is a good time to do so.
During these times, sellable and appropriately priced homes are selling fast, and prices are stable. For buyers looking to mortgage their home, they are attracted to the historically low interest rates.
Finally, there’s a high demand for lakefront property, and the market peak has continued to rise. If you’re exploring the idea of selling your lake real estate, keep in mind that the process is often slow and hiring a lake expert agent will facilitate the process with their expert knowledge.
Would you like to learn more about selling your lake property? Here is a FREE downloadable guide:
Article co-written by Dezirae McGee and intern E’vondrua Harvey
As a recent study confirms, 80% of people decide whether they want to buy a home within seconds of stepping into it.
However, this isn’t always for aesthetic reasons, as many other factors can affect a buyer’s initial impression of a property.
One of those factors is how the home smells.
Believe it or not, scent can draw the line between making a sale and having potential buyers running in the other direction.
Why are good scents important?
Prospective buyers tend to perceive a place as displeasing or of less valuable if it does not look and smell fresh.
Just as you wouldn’t go into an interview for your dream job without showering that morning, you want your house to look and smell its freshest.
Essentially a listing walk-through is an interview between the house and its prospective buyers. If a home has an unpleasant smell, the agent may know immediately if it’s going to make the home harder to sell.
We react positively to smells we find familiar, which means as buyers we take more stock in properties we identify with.
For example, if a couple walks into a prospective home and smells fresh pine, it may remind them of a peaceful hike through the forest, thus allowing them to perceive the space as peaceful.
Or the scent could trigger memories of Christmas trees, leading them to imagine what it’d be like to have Christmas there.
Making the home smell its best
To ensure a home smells its best, it’s important to explore the home for items that could cause foul odors. You can start by following these simple steps:
Clean. Do not simply surface clean. You will need to replace air filters, check air vents, remove any traces of mold in sinks and tubs, and clean current appliances. Then you can maintain surface cleaning.
Trash Removal. Remove any trash from the home. This includes bathroom trash, junk mail, old boxes, etc.
Floors. Have the carpets and floors professionally cleaned. Depending on the condition of the carpet, it may be best to have it replaced.
Pets & Smoke. Make sure that any traces of pets, such as hair, toys, and litter boxes, are contained or taken out of the house. Also, remove any ashtrays and replace linens that may have been tainted by cigarette smoke.
Be sure to give special attention to areas that can generate the most odor, such as bathrooms and kitchens.
What scents, and where?
After the home has been properly cleaned, the next step is to choose a fragrance to fill the space when potential buyers visit.
U.S. News and World Report recommends using simple scents such as vanilla, herbs, green tea or citrus. Other suitable scents include aloe vera, ivy, and lavender.
Even though the choice of scent is important, how you choose to disperse the scent is just as important.
It is best to use discrete methods to do this. Examples include potpourri, oil plugins, linen, reed diffusers or fresh plants.
Regardless of which smells you choose, remember masking bad scents isn’t going to fool anyone. Find the source of the odor, treat it, and then proceed with making the home smell to sell.
Sensory smells can make a person picture themselves living, working and most important, breathing in the home. Be sure the scents you choose can paint the picture you want it to.
Because Lake Homes Realty has an exceptionally strong online component, we’re often misidentified as an online brokerage. In reality, Lake Homes Realty is a new breed of tech-enabled services companies that fuses the power and convenience of the web with the personal service of local lake market experts.
It’s true that our website, LakeHomes.com, is the best online tool for searching lake homes and land and for connecting lake real estate buyers and sellers.
But of the many features our site offers, homeowners will not find among them an option for selling their properties directly to us.
iBuyer programs have recently grown in popularity, offered today on such platforms as Zillow, Redfin and Opendoor.
However, is selling to these companies, or iBuyers, really a practical option when it comes to lake properties?
To know for sure, it’s best to familiarize yourself with the iBuying/Selling process and consider what this new transaction model could mean for lake real estate.
What are iBuyers?
iBuyers are companies that provide instant offers for property listings — sight unseen — even before they are listed.
By filling out iBuyers’ online questionnaires, homeowners often use such platforms to get an idea about their properties’ values before entering a contract with an agent.
Typically, iBuyer offers are based off what home valuation models estimate the properties to be worth, taking into account the properties’ current fair market values.
These companies pride themselves on quick closings and fast resell times, earning their money not on the profits made from resales, but on the fees associated with using their instant offer platforms.
According to one Forbes article, iBuyer fees can quickly add up to as much as 10% of a listing’s fair market value, compared to traditional real estate commission fees which total between 5 and 6 percent, on average.
Data on the effectiveness of selling to iBuyers is limited; however, the same Forbes article reported 9 out of 10 homeowners who initially considered iBuyer offers ultimately chose to work with a live real estate agent.
iBuyer ROI
iBuyer offers are deeply rooted in home valuation tool estimates, so it’s important to point out these models do not play well with unique properties like lake homes.
Tools like the Zestimate (LINK) are great for cookie cutter properties, like those found in subdivisions, but when it comes to properties with unusual property shapes, lake view or lake front, home values can get a little more tricky.
Particularly when it comes to niche properties, list prices should be determined with the help of a local market expert who is intimately familiar with your lake.
However, to illustrate how selling to an iBuyer can effect your return on investment when listing your lake home, pretend you have foregone the help of a lake real estate agent.
Say you originally purchased your lake home for $500,000. In this scenario, you put down a traditional 20 percent down payment, meaning on the day you became its owner, you had roughly $100,000 in home equity.
When you decided to list your home, it had not appreciated much in the short amount of time you’d owned it, and therefore its fair market value, according to your iBuyer’s estimate, remained close to the $500,000 for which you bought it.
Once listed, an iBuyer offered you $475,000 for your lake home, a loss of about $25,000. Still, the offer appeared attractive, and was close to what your own home valuation estimate research had shown, so you accepted and agreed to pay a 5 percent commission to process the transaction.
This totaled nearly $24,000.
Combined with the $25,000 lost on the fair market value, by working with an iBuyer, you ultimately ended up losing $48,750 of the equity you started with, though your home closed quickly.
Lake Real Estate Agent ROI
Now, consider this: Originally purchased for 500,000, your lake home is located right on the water, has a newly finished back patio and has a custom $30,000 boat dock.
Shortly after closing, the lake’s managing entity passed regulations restricting the construction of any more docks along your shoreline.
As a result, your lake home instantly gained $10,000 more in value, without appreciating naturally over time.
Because home valuation models are based on tax records, comparable home sales and user-generated data, the model your iBuyer used could not factor in the above variables, thus offering you the $475,000.
Out of curiosity, you contact a Realtor, who happens to live on the same lake himself. As an area local, he understood the significance of your home’s dock and suggests you list at $510,000.
After several months, you accept an offer from a live buyer, for $500,000.
After paying your agent’s 6 percent commission, you walk away from the table with $60,000 of your home equity as opposed to just over $51,000 if you had sold to the iBuyer.
A difference of less than $10,000 may not seem like much to some, but for those homeowners who have very little equity – or those who paid cash for their lake homes – this amount can be rather significant.
What This Means for Lake Real Estate
Traditionally, lake listings stay on the market for longer periods of time than off-lake properties, often because these listings serve as second or vacation homes. Therefore, owners are rarely in a hurry to sell.
And, going into the original purchase of their home, they likely understood that as a discretionary property, their lake home would not be as easily liquidated.
Still, we can see how the time element of iSelling can be attractive.
Ultimately though, when dealing with properties whose values depend on more than public records, it’s best to consult a real estate professional who has experience working similar listings, even if only for a second opinion.
Especially if there is no immediate need to sell, take your time, and exhaust all your options before jumping at the first offer that’s brought to the table.
Your lake home is unique to your local market. Be sure you are getting the most from your sale by speaking to your local Lake Homes Realty expert.
It’s possible your home is worth more than you think.
Brinkley’s homes are luxury properties, much like many lake homes across the country. Unlike other homes, such high-end and niche-market homes face challenges that other homes don’t when it comes to selling fast.
These types of homes are all discretionary purchases, meaning their purchase is optional. Like dinner at a high-end restaurant, no one has to pay that much just to have food, or in this case, shelter.
Because of this, selling luxury homes often requires more time on the market. Sellers have to wait to match up with a buyer that has both the means to purchase such a property AND the inclination to buy now.
The more expensive the home, the longer sellers should be prepared to have their home listed. This extended time commitment is just one of many reasons sellers may choose to take their home off the market and relist it later.
Relisting a home for sale is not without some market challenges. Some of these risks include:
Today’s knowledgeable home buyers (and local agents) know this property is not a new listing. Buyers may wonder if the home has some problem that is making it difficult to sell.
The home may get a reputation as having “been on the market forever.”
Taking a home off the market and relisting at a new price may lead buyers to believe if they wait long enough, the price may drop again.
If a home isn’t on the market, it can’t sell. During the time the home is unlisted, sellers are missing out on buyers that could come along.
Relisting a home may not be a magical solution, but there are steps to take that help make the most of relisting the home for sale.
The marketing strategy must be very different when sellers relist. A new approach is needed to be successful before dropping the home back onto the market.
Make a meaningful change in the price. This signals to buyers the seller is serious about a sale.
Update the property in some manner, but don’t go overboard since some of this money will not be recouped. However, yard landscaping, new paint, new carpet, or better staging can help a home sell faster.
There are really only two reasons a home does not sell: it is not marketed well or priced correctly. However, the higher-priced the home, or the more specialized the home is (like a lake home), the more time it usually takes to sell.
Removing the home from the market and relisting is one approach used by people selling such homes. Though it does come with some risks, relisting can sometimes be another useful tool in the sales plan.
If you are selling your home, chances are your real estate agent has spoken with you about an open house.
These are an excellent way to get prospective homebuyers in the door and get them talking to your selling agent.
If you are still living in your home, this can be tricky.
Here are some tips to help you work with your realtor and make your property as appealing as possible.
Clean, Clean, Clean
Now is the time to do all the spring cleaning you’ve been putting off, and then some. Vacuum, mop, clean the floors, wipe down the countertops and more.
Don’t neglect any out-of-the-way areas like the guest bedrooms, bathrooms or the garage, either. This is the time to clean the grout, tile, fixtures and appliances.
Remove the sources of any unpleasant odors. Even faint odors from a pantry, cigarette smoke or garbage disposal can often turn buyers off.
Especially if you have pets, vacuum the carpet, drapes and upholstery. Buyers with pet allergies won’t want to stay long otherwise!
If you don’t want to handle the cleaning all by yourself, consider hiring a cleaning service for a good, deep clean.
De-clutter
Buyers are attracted to properties where they can imagine themselves moving in as soon as possible.
Help this process along by removing any day-to-day clutter that might distract them from those happy thoughts.
Put away things such as laundry, dishes, bills, children’s homework or pet projects.
Make sure the dishwasher and sink are empty, and all trash cans are empty, even those in the bathrooms or garage.
When possible, you should also remove any prominent personal items. You want buyers to imagine your property as their new home.
Family photos, quirky fridge magnets, religious icons and sports memorabilia can make that difficult.
If removing framed photos leaves a big empty spot on the wall, you can temporarily replace them with a simple painting or other generic decoration.
Let the Sun Shine In
Homes look their best, and their biggest, when they are open and well-lit.
Turn on every light in the house, other than those that cause noise, such as lights wired to kitchen exhaust fans.
Clean your windows and pull back the curtains, as well. If bushes or trees obscure the view, consider trimming them back.
Open windows always make a house look larger, especially in the living room.
Don’t let Rover come over
If you have pets, try to remove them during the open house, especially dogs.
Dogs can be very anxious or excited around visitors, especially if you aren’t there. No matter how friendly they are, your furry friends might give the wrong impression.
If you simply can’t remove your pets, for whatever reason, confine them to a specific part of the property, such as the garage.
Make sure they won’t bark or scratch at the door, and that your realtor is comfortable being alone with them.
Whatever you do, do not lock pets in sought-after areas such as the master bedroom. The entire point of your open house is to give buyers an in-person look at the property!
Protect your Belongings
Ideally, you will have several strangers looking and moving through your house. Make sure your belongings and valuables are kept safe.
Your realtor can’t be everywhere at once.
Remove or secure any jewelry, medication, electronic tablets and other valuables that might “walk off.”
If you aren’t sure where to put them, simply pack them in the trunk of your car until afterwards.
After the open house, double-check your doors and windows to make sure they are still locked.
Remember the Great Outdoors
Mow, trim, weed and wash!
Your front yard is the first thing visitors will see when they pull up. Make sure your lawn is already mowed, with the grass clippings blown or swept away.
Trim any bushes and remove any low hanging tree limbs that need removal.
If your house has vinyl siding or a brick exterior, this is the perfect time to give it a pressure wash.
This is doubly true for walkways, steps, and driveways. Removing a few years of grime and mildew can make your home stand out!
Don’t neglect the back yard, either. Visitors will certainly look there!
Put away any tools, children’s toys, lawn care equipment and other clutter. Outdoor furniture is a plus, but make sure yours is clean and doesn’t have any mildew or standing water in it.
If mosquitos are a problem in your neighborhood, light a few citronella candles in discreet places so they don’t harass your guests.
Leave!
This may go against your instincts, but most buyers are far more comfortable speaking with an agent, without the homeowner present.
Even if they don’t buy the house, they can often give your agent useful feedback that they might not give you directly.
Give your selling agent a complete rundown on anything they need to know, and let them work their magic.
If your home is a lake home, a selling agent who specializes in lake property can be a huge help with the lake-specific aspects of this process. Visit the Find a Lake Agent page on Lakehomes.com to find one in your area.
And be sure to check out our lake home specific open house article for additional advice and tips.
Every real estate market, in any economy, has a number of homeowners dismayed about their home not selling. These houses just sit on the market. They become stale inventory, frustrating the home seller, real estate agents, and even buyers (yes, buyers).
Over the last three years, I’ve had the very unique opportunity to travel to a number of states and have multi-hour, face-to-face conversations about local real estate markets with scores of real estate agents. Some work with our brokerage, many with other brokerages.
These agents may work in urban, suburban, or rural markets. A lot of these agents work in my niche of real estate: lake homes and land. However, I have also spent a very significant time with agents who focus on typical primary residential homes.
The Two Reasons for a Home Not Selling
One topic I find interesting to discuss is the number of homes listed for sale for long periods of time, longer than should be expected. What factors lead to a home not selling? Here is something I’ve learned, something that is very consistent across every market.
There are ONLY two reasons for a home not selling in a reasonable amount of time. Only two. Either:
1. The home lacks proper market exposure and/or
2. The home is not priced appropriately.
That’s it. Every other issue will fall as a subset of one of these two reasons.
Lack of Proper Market Exposure
One reason for a home not selling is it has not been marketed correctly. The homeowner and their agent are trying to sell a secret! If the potential buyers of this property don’t know it exists, the price is irrelevant. You can’t even give away something if no one knows about it.
By “not marketed correctly,” I don’t necessarily mean not marketed at all. The home must be marketed to THE RIGHT prospective buyers.
For instance, a “For Sale” sign in the yard may look great but the neighbors and their friends are rarely going to buy that home. How do you reach the buyer who is somewhere else than around the corner?
Lack of precision marketing is one of several reasons why For-Sale-By-Owner homes are typically much slower to sell. These homes may not be on the local MLS (Multiple Listing Service) which feeds a host of real estate websites. Even if the home is listed in the MLS, there may not be enough other marketing efforts to break through the thousands of homes typically for sale in each market.
While in a few markets an open house may be a viable marketing tool, this typically makes the seller feel happy but often does little to find the right buyers. The same can be said about much of the local print advertising.
What Creates Proper Market Exposure
The most productive marketing in today’s world of real estate is online marketing coupled with strong agent presence. By online, I’m not limiting this to a Multiple Listing Service and websites like Zillow and Realtor.com.
I’m talking about very focused marketing for homes directed at the correct potential buyers.
This targeted marketing uses an understanding of the age, financial status and motivation of the right buyers for each particular home.
Highly targeted online marketing can include specialty websites, targeted online ads, and targeted and boosted social media engagement. And these are rarely free, even if it is just the significant time required to present the home and community correctly to the targeted buyer population.
Want to sell a home? First, make sure the most likely buyers can easily learn about it.
Home is Not Priced Appropriately
When I say a home is not priced appropriately, I don’t necessarily mean that it must be the lowest price in its local market. (Although rare, I’ve seen instances were even underpricing created problems. But that is a story for another day).
Instead, an appropriately priced home will be seen as reasonably priced when all other factors are considered.
Those factors include house condition, neighborhood, school system, local real estate market conditions, location, lot size, traffic, next-door neighbors, house age, nearby culture/restaurants/shopping/parks, historical significance, public services and a host of other items.
If there are problems with the home, smart pricing can overcome those issues. No matter how bad the issues are with a home, pricing can still make the home appealing to someone.
Let’s consider a home for sale with reasonable market exposure.
If that home has been on the market for a period as short as two weeks without much buyer interest, the market is speaking. No, correction… the market IS YELLING! The market is letting the seller know the home is not appropriately priced. Period.
Buyers Understand Prices (Better than Most Sellers)
Today’s buyers are savvy. They research online, they watch home prices, and they know an overpriced home quickly. You WILL NOT fool these buyers into even touring a significantly overpriced home. Their time is valuable and house hunting starts at home (or, admit it, at work) on the Internet.
Even if you do fool buyers into coming to see an overpriced home with careful photography and crafty descriptions, if the home is much less than the buyers expect, you will piss them off for wasting their time. They will feel deceived and likely never make an offer.
Buyers are often much better than sellers at understanding the reality of homes not selling. When setting the price of a home, the smart seller will work hard to think like the informed buyers, avoiding the emotional (and false) price justifications.
The Danger of Starting High then Cutting the Price
A home seen as overpriced will be left by buyers to soften… or rot.
Even if price drops begin, this signals to the home buyers they can continue to wait. They know more price drops will be coming (even when the seller has not realized it yet).
As more time passes, even with price cuts, the home now develops a compounding problem. “What’s wrong with it? Why has it been on the market for so long?”
A high number of “Days on Market” can lead even newly interested buyers to avoid the home, regardless of price, out of doubt or fear of an unknown issue.
Repeated price cuts also suggests to buyers that the seller is willing “to make a deal.” So when buyers finally do decide to make an offer, they will often make a very low offer, genuinely expecting the seller to continue price cutting.
Over time, multiple price drops signal that price cuts are (finally) acceptable to the seller, so buyers will expect another big price cut before they buy. And the seller has themselves to blame for the home not selling, as they repeatedly helped train the buyers to think this way.
Even in markets with a large number homes that are not selling, many buyers can and will wait until the market prices adjust downward.
Sellers who believe they are smarter than the market (that is, smarter than the buyers) often win the “prize” of keeping their house (and its associated expenses) for even longer.
How To Get a Home Sold
There are many factors that can help sell a house quickly and for a satisfactory price.
The key is that, when all things are considered, the home is directly marketed to the correct potential buyers and the price makes this house one of the best values in that neighborhood.
If you use a real estate agent, don’t just pick a friend or a friend-of-a-friend. Evaluate them. Find out how they really will market the home. See if they know who the likely buyer will be AND how to reach them. Your agent should have a process, a success history, and be able to communicate all of this very clearly.
Forget the emotional “logic” of house pricing. Use current market data about SOLD homes (not list prices) to set a price the buyer will believe is reasonable.
Want a higher price for your home? Then do real improvements to increase the real and perceived value. Make sure the home and yard is in great condition, clean, well-staged, smells great, and feels bright. Be sure the right buyers know all this through accurate and truthful marketing. Hire an agent who can target market and is up-to-date on marketing techniques.
Even when done right, finding a home buyer for your home can take some time. Increase the odds of a timely sale by pricing appropriately and marketing directly to the right buyers.
Greater Challenges when Selling a Lake Home
Niche property, such as lake real estate, can make the market exposure and pricing challenges become even more obvious. The buyers for such property are rarely local, so exposure to the right buyers in other cities and states is critical.
Furthermore, lake home and land values vary more than in typical residential real estate markets. This makes it very hard for home owners (and inexperienced lake agents) to determine the correct marketable price.
If you have a lake home or land you are simply considering selling or your home is not selling, you may need more expert help. The nation’s largest lake-focus real estate company, Lake Homes Realty, has agents in many lake markets. These lake real estate agents and brokers can give you market-specific advice and expert guidance.
A Lake Homes Realty agent can also help you determine if now is a good time to sell and provide unique information about the current market price expectations. They have access to technology to help your home be found by buyers from other cities and states (as many buyers for lake real estate are not local). You can learn more at Selling a Lake Home.
Whether a home is located downtown, in the suburbs, in a rural market or in a specialty niche like lake real estate, the reasons a home does not sell are rarely complicated. The right buyers have to know about it AND the property has to be priced within the market’s current and real expectations. Period.
Trying (or rather pretending) to sell otherwise is usually a waste of time and, typically, money.
DOWNLOAD NOW
