Benefits to Employing a Real Estate Agent to Sell Your Home

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Unless you’re an expert in the field, you would normally call a professional to fix any malfunctioning systems in your home, like plumbing or electrical work. Wouldn’t you want the same level of care and expertise when it came time to sell?

Whatever your reasons for wanting to sell your house, it never hurts to seek a professional opinion. After all, this is one of your greatest investments! When you move on to a new adventure, you’ll want an experienced real estate agent to help you close one chapter of your homeownership history and begin the next.

Getting a second opinion

Just like with any other aspect of homeownership and maintaining your property, you want to make sure you always have the most informed person on the case when you’re selling your home. Most often, that means hiring a seasoned real estate agent to give you feedback and to add a professional point-of-view during every major decision you’ll have to make. At the end of the day, you’ll be looking at the sale in terms of what works for you in the moment, but an agent will be able to see the bigger picture because he or she has seen similar situations time and again. With an informed second opinion to supplement your own, the sale of your house should go over as smoothly as possible, with everyone’s best interests at heart.

Using a middle-man 

Let’s face it – not all of us are meant to go head-to-head in a bidding war, or to negotiate with the best. Selling your house doesn’t always look like this, but it can come close! Having a trained real estate agent in your corner can only benefit you in this arena. When you hire the best, you don’t have to shoulder the responsibility of the back-and-forth that sometimes ensues; instead you get to share that task with someone who’s been educated in the best methods of resolving potential conflict.

Accessing insider information

If real estate isn’t your area of expertise, selling your home by yourself can seem daunting. There’s a learning curve involved, and while you’re fielding property questions, buyers’ requests, and legal documents, you can’t always accommodate without missing out on the best deal for you and your house. Luckily, your real estate agent is a wealth of information, and just waiting to answer your questions and lend you a hand! When you have all the insider information at your disposal, it just makes sense to let the real estate agent do what he or she does best, so you can focus on your own to-do list along the way.

Whether you’re ready to begin the selling process, or need a bit longer to consider, the highly qualified Intracoastal Realty team is here to help! Contact us to find out what our real estate agents can do for you.

Setting the Stage

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When trying to sell your home, you want to make sure its best features are on display without going over-the-top or downplaying anything that could sway a potential buyer. Obviously, the exterior of a house is easier to show off in spring or summer, when the sun is out and your grass is a pleasant shade of green. But even when winter is still keeping the plant life to a minimum, the experts here at Intracoastal Realty have a few ideas to combat any lingering winter chill.

Keep everything accessible

There’s a reason the term is “spring cleaning.” But, in order to put your house’s best foot forward and get it sold, you might have to bust out the gardening gloves a little earlier than planned. The very first impression you can give is of your home’s exterior, so make it a memorable one – and in a good way, too. Clear the walkways, establish comfortable paths between shrubs and other plant life that will be returning in the spring, and in the case of snow or ice, be sure to shovel the sidewalk and steps when a potential buyer is coming over.

Timing is everything

Some homeowners like to spruce up the outdoors with some decorative lighting, even before and after the major holiday season. You can use this to your advantage if you’re trying to sell your house when the branches are more than likely bare. Strands of twinkling lights and strategically placed adornments can fill up the empty space left once the leaves fall, and go a long way in making your home look and feel warm and comforting, even when the temperatures outside say otherwise.   

Play to your strengths

Let’s face it: every house has its flaws. The advantage to selling yours in wintertime, though, is that if it’s a matter of a small yard or otherwise awkward terrain, you can go ahead and address these drawbacks openly with potential buyers while still having plenty of room without encroaching foliage to point out the positives. Take a walk around the property with your real estate agent and take stock of the pros and cons, then discuss the best ways to present them to those that come for a viewing of the house. With the right agent, any interested parties will promptly get both sides of the story, without you truly risking the sale in favor of disclosure.

No matter the time of year, putting a house on the market is always going to be a challenge. With experienced agents like those at Intracoastal Realty, you can be sure that you have someone to walk you through every step of the process. Contact us today to get started!

New Year, New Home?

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By this time in January, most people have gotten a decent start on all of the resolutions they vowed to keep in the year to come. Among all of your aspirations and plans, did you think to consider a long-term goal of moving into your dream house? If you begin the process soon, and team up with a capable realty agency like Intracoastal Realty for some professional assistance, you shouldn’t be too far away from getting settled.

Expectations

As with any achievable goal, setting your sights on a new house should begin with establishing reasonable expectations. Maybe instead of aiming for a 2018 move, you decide to take it easy on your budget and your schedule and make this the year you prepare yourself and your current home for a change of pace in 2019. If you know you’ll need to relocate for a job or a new education program, you might resolve to look for a new home only within certain areas so as to ease your daily commute.

Step-by-step

The key to executing any long-term change is to set milestones for yourself. They keep you on track and focused, while also giving you little accomplishments to celebrate. When it comes to buying a home, you’ll want to have a checklist of sorts for budgeting, paperwork, and everything in between. Luckily, we can help you with all of that!

Stay positive

Depending on the circumstances, your timeline, and what you require in a house, the process to find and purchase a new residence that fits you and your family can be a long one. The very best advice we can give for jumping into the next few steps is to remember to stay positive, even when there are setbacks or difficulties. Here at Intracoastal Realty, we work with you to try and minimalize complications, and to sort through them as they come.

If 2018 is your year to land a new home, let us guide you through the ins and outs of the housing market here on North Carolina’s coast! Contact Intracoastal Realty to get started on your resolution today.

Selling Your Home, It’s a Business Decision

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Blog Courtesy of Bobby Brandon, Broker/REALTOR® at Intracoastal Realty

Don’t Let Emotions Get in the Way!bobby-brandon-pp

When you purchased your home, you more than likely did so with lots of emotion, which is very normal. For example, you looked at homes with your real estate agent and narrowed it down to the two homes you like the best. Your kids probably ran through the house selecting which room would be theirs. You might have liked the backyard because that is where your family dog would get to play and be safe. You might have even like the kitchen space because it is large enough to have friends over and spend fun times together. Or this might have been the area of town that you had always wanted to live, etc.

These are all examples of emotions playing into the buying process. But now you are selling that same home. Once again, you are facing surfacing emotions. Hopefully, you have had a lot of great memories in the home you have spent so many years in and it might be a little hard for you to leave it. But a word of caution, when selling you should put your emotions to the side. It is now a business decision, and it all comes down to money.

Letting emotions get in the way is NOT a smart business decision. For example, you have negotiated with the buyer back and forth, and finally received the price you want. Now you and the buyer are fighting over the ten-year-old curtains in the home. You had it in your mind that you wanted to take the curtains with you, but this could be a deal breaker. As part of the negotiations, the buyer is asking for your grill, and you have your heels dug in NO. This minor conflict is the only thing that is stopping you from selling your home, obtaining the price you want and moving to the area in which you want to live. You could lose the entire deal over a $500 gas grill.

These are all examples of making an emotional decision verses a business decision. I have seen deals lost when emotions get in the way. I have seen deals go south over curtains and grills. Once the buyer has walked, the seller realizes what a bad decisions they have made and what it cost them in “winning the fight” (emotions). So remember, when selling, it’s all business!

For more information on buying and selling homes, go to www.BobbyBrandon.com. Bobby’s Team can provide expert advice and insight into current homes and land for sale in New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender County.

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Infographic: Change In Home Sales By Price Range

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Recently, this infographic was shared outlining the changes in year over year homes sales based on price range.

Change-In-Home-Sales-KCM

To highlight some of the data:

  • Home Sales are up year-over-year in the top 4 price ranges and only slightly below last year’s numbers in a fifth.
  • A lack of distressed property inventory has led to a slow down in sales in the under $100K price range.
  • As home prices continue to rise, there will be less homes available for sale in the lower ranges

This data was collected from NAR 1/2016 and reflects a comparison for home sales in 2015 nationally as prepared by the National Association of Realtors.

We compared these numbers to our local markets in New Hanover and Brunswick County and here is how our home prices measure up to the national averages.

For New Hanover County only, when comparing 1/1/14 through 12/31/14 to 1/1/15 through 12/31/15:

  • Home Sales are up year-over-year in all 5 price ranges, which is outperforming the national average.
  • For the $100-250K and $500-750K price ranges, home sales are seeing a double-digit percentage of increase
  • For the $250-500K and the $1M+ price ranges, home sales have increased more than 25% when compared to the prior year
Change in Home Sales By Price Range New Hanover

When comparing 1/1/14 through 12/31/14 to 1/1/15 through 12/31/15 for the entire region of WRAR (Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors):

  • Home Sales are up year-over-year in all 5 price ranges, which is outperforming the national average.
  • The $100K and under price range is showing the smallest increase with less than 1 percent.
  • For the $100-250K and $750-1M price ranges, home sales are seeing a double-digit percentage of increase.
  • For the $250-500K and the $500-750K price ranges, home sales have increased more than 20% when compared to the prior year.
  • In the $1M+ price range, home sales have increased greater than 30%
All of WRAR Change In Home Sales By Price Range Single Family Home 01.2016

When comparing 1/1/14 through 12/31/14 to 1/1/15 through 12/31/15 for the entire region of BCAR (Brunswick County Association of Realtors):

  • Home Sales are up year-over-year in all but one price range where the home sales price was under $100K
  • For the $100-250K and $500-750K price ranges, home sales are seeing a double-digit percentage of increase.
  • For the $250-500K and the $750-1M price ranges, home sales have increased greater than 30% when compared to the prior year.
  • In the $1M+ price range, home sales have increased greater than 120% over 2014.
Change in Home Sales By Price Range BCAR 1 2016