Let us look at the Sunnnyvale Real Estate market from July 2008 to January 2009. The inventory dropped from 187 to 150. A month of July 2008 was sold 62 homes and January this year sold only 28 homes. The average Sunnyvale homes dropped from $851,510 to $676,263  The mediam price dropped from $875K to 579K. Those numbers told us the market is slowing down. It takes longer to sell a home.

Grace Keng, Silicon Valley real estate agent,  member of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors (SILVAR) and memberships in the National Association of Realtors, (NAR),
the California Association of Realtors, (CAR) and PhD of Realtor - Certified Residential Specialist (CRS).

 If you are selling a Silicon Valley home. It is very importment to price your home based on the current real estate market not the market of 6 months ago. The seller who chased the down market could cost you. I suggest the seller to follow the simple steps:

1). The 1^st step find out what is the current silicon Valley real estate market?

2). The 2^nd step price the home accordingly.

3). The 3^rd step do everything you can to make the house sellable. Do you have a dripping faucet? Overgrown trees? Or pet smell.

I use the CDNX image of the Canadian Venture Exchange from www.zealLLC.com represent the stock market goes up and down just like real estate.

  Yes!

Before we know the October is here. It is time for sellers to decorate the home to reflect the fall season.

1. Place a fresh fall color plant box or flower pot near the front entrance . Clean up the deck and patio. Rake the leaves.

2. Add a fall wreath at the front door.

3. Add new fall color pillows on sofas and chairs. Add a warm tone throw or accent piece on the coffee table.

4. Add fall scents  (pumpkin or apple spice favor) candles to the living room . Don’t leave candles lit when you are not there.

5. Fresh up you decor to break up the dull and dark days coming such as adding an area rug or changing your bedding. Place an extra woolly blanket at the foot of the bed.

6. Have some new luxurious towels or just hang them for the showings. Change your shower curtain, liner and matching bathmat.

7. Don’t forget to clean up the windows and regular maintenance

There is an article of “But even real estate in the best Zip Codes are spending longer on the market than in 2007″ from the businessweek.com. The author said that “Houses in Sunnyvale, Calif., home to companies such as Juniper Network (JNPR), AMD (AMD), and Yahoo! (YHOO), are typically on the market for 66 days, making it the fastest selling real estate market in the country. That’s the good news. The bad news is that listings a year ago in the affluent Silicon Valley suburb normally sold after just 31 days on the market. “

I know the single family home takes less then 66 days to close, so I did a Sunnyvale real estate market research and I found out the four facts of Sunnyvale real estate from August 2007 to August 2008.

It takes us that it takes a lot longer then last year to sell a home. It has less homes did get sold. The inventory increased 22% and median sold price dropped 7%. The real estate market source is from www.reil.com

What short sale is:

• When the owner cannot make the monthly payment and a short sale is when a bank or mortgage lender agrees to discount a loan balance due to an economic hardship
• It is pre foreclosure situation.
• The owner’s hardship could be divorce, job loss, sickness, bankruptcy or combination the financial problems all together.
• The owner’s credit will hurt badly, but it is better than a foreclosure.
• The short sale is a long process. It could take 2 – 3 months easily. The closing rate of short sale is improving from 12% January 2008 to mid-year about 40%.
• The short sale is avoidable if the lender offers a loan modification to the owner.

What short sale isn’t:

• Not all the short sale is a bargain. It really depends. Buyers beware. Again location, location, location. Hire an experienced real estate agent to help you buy home.
• It isn’t a way for the owner walk away the loan free without trace. This owner’s credit score will be damaged.

Why the short sale happens:

• It all begins with the owner cannot make the monthly payment.
• The owner pays option ARMS there is no equity build up.
• The owner purchased with 100% financing (another no equity).
• The owner refinanced 100% or above 100% without equity.
• Owner’s economic situation is upside down and the owner missed payment.
• The home was bought over price and it is devalued.
• The owner cannot refinance anymore.

“Short sale” becomes a buzz word nowadays but what is that?

According to About.com the short sale is

A short sale occurs when a property is sold and the lender agrees to accept a discounted payoff, meaning the lender will release the lien that is secured to the property upon receipt of less money than is actually owed.

For example: In 2004 said Lisa bought a townhouse in Campbell for $344Kwhen the market is up in either 2005 and 2006. Liza taps into her equality. She borrowed $425K from the home. Something happened she cannot make the payment. The lender filed the notice of default and the lender requests she to pay. Lisa sells her home on the market for sale as $380K. The lender receives less then what was loaned out.

There are a few steps to short sale a home:

1). Contact lenders: To find the exactly what you need to get out the loan and home.

2). Do everything the lenders needs:

That the owner need to provide a personal financial hardship letter, proof of income and assets, Preliminary Net sheet etc.

3).The accepted offer. You have to hire the realtor to sell the home.

4). Submit the offer to the lender and wait for the lender to accept this offer.

The whole process could take up to 2 to 3 months to finish a short because backlog the lender and or asset managers to handle the demands. In the beginning of 2008 the success rate of short sale was about 12%. Now it went up to 40% because the handlers are more experience to do so.

Clutter-free interiors allow potential home buyers to see all of the home can offer — resulting in a shorter sales and a higher selling price. The fewer items there are in a home, the easier it is for a home shopper to visualize the space of their own.  I pick up some good declutter tips from the PODS. Over 80 % real estate agents agree with de-clutter homes helps the sells but only 30% of the listing agents were actually de-clutter their listings.  Some sellers are serious about selling you should go over with your home to de-clutter them.

Offer these easy decluttering tips to home owners:

1. If an item hasn’t been used in three months, box it up and take it offsite.

2. Limit items in closets and drawers to make them seem more spacious.

3. Remove excess and or worn furniture to create more room. The old files, books and memorabilia should be stored away from the house. You could rent the a mini storage to store them.

4. Remove excess and or worn furniture to create more room.

5. Pack away off-season clothes. Buyers value storage. Don’t just stash items in the basement or the garage - take them offsite.

6. Remove excess items from decks, driveways and the yard, including kids toys and pool supplies

7. Park away additonal car or cars you don’t drive often.

Don’t foget to maintain the de-cluttered home during the home is on the market to sell.

Saratoga Villa sold in 11 days (photo fromwww.reil.com) 

 Often times someone will ask me: “Should I sell, don’t sell, purchase, don’t purchase?” “When is the best time for our Real Estate Market?”  Let us look at the real estate stat from the www.reil.com                 

The 2007 1^st Q  inventory: 3368; Closed sales: 2244; average days: 48 days; sold price $1 million. The 2008 1^st Q inventory:5522; Closed sales:1386; average days: 57days; sold price $988,720.It shows that the current inventory has a 70% dramatically increase from 1^st quarter 2007 to 1^st quarter 2008. The closed sales trend has a 20% dropped which has a steady drop and the average days on the market increased 20% and the average sold price has dropped 1.23%. If we use rate of selling it will takes 4 quarters to sell all.       The medium priced homes of Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, West San Jose, Sunnyvale and parts of Santa Clara, are still actively selling and often with multiple offers.  Properties with good schools are selling quickly with equity! The higher end homes like that 4 million dollars over 5000 square footage Saratoga villa in listed on Feb 27 2007 sold in 11 days for 3.75 millions with all cash. On the other hand, there is home at Cashdan Ct in Santa Clara.   It was sold July 2006 for $725K and January 2008 was on the market for $690K and now it is asked for $559K.  I think it is absolutely the best time to buy some of foreclosure homes which was much lower then one or two years. The current buyers have much better position to pick and choose. At the same time the sellers need to be more patient.

There is a saying that “Fail to Prepare: Prepare to Fail”  is #1 rule for the job interviewer. It is exactly same true for home sellers. It is time to sell the homes. It is the show time!It is time for the seller , real estate agent and or home stager  works together to prepare it to be SOLD! Please show the best side of your home. From the study of

I like the article of the best staging tips  from Staging Rants & Ravings for example:

1. START WITH THE  ENTRANCE – No matter you are on a job interview, or going to the first date or selling your home… first impressions matter.  So clean it up, touch up the paint, add plants and flowers… in general, make the buyer feel welcome. Here’s HGTV’s TIP#1 entitled: Make An Entrance.
   
2. CLEAR OUT ALL CLUTTER - Look at the counter tops, cabinets, closets, garages, basements, and attics as storage spaces. So clear it out. Here’s HGTV’s TIP#2 entitled: Conquer Clutter.
   
3. LESS FURNITURE IS EQUAL TO BIGGER HOUSE - A room full of furniture can feel as cluttered as an accountants desk top during tax season. Clearing the furniture could free up a lot of room you have not noticed. Here’s HGTV’s TIP #3 entitled: Less is More.

The staged homes sells faster, increases the net value, more buyers will like it and increase the possiblity of seller to receive the mutiple bids offers. From the HomeGain report of the Home Sell Maximum Guide 2008 the top three areas to improve are: Lighten & Brighten, De-Clutter, and the Landscape front and backyard. If you are in the market to sell home, please insist on preparing 1st before you put your for sale sign.

Comment posted by Real Estate Blocks » Blog Archive » What Is The #1 Mistake Sellers Make? Part 2
at 3/25/2008 9:28:51 PM

[…] PREPARATION of a home for sale brings in buyers. Grace Keng has an excellent post on what home sellers need to do to prepare their home for sale.  The links […]

Comment posted by val
at 3/25/2008 9:14:35 PM

I agree completely. Staging a home is so important, especially the front door. Sellers should as a matter of routine in selling repaint the front door, and add color as needed to draw attention to the entrance. This is a wonderfully well done post, with excellent links.

        Seller puts his home home on the market. He thinks his home must be the best of best. This is the Taj mahal and the buyer sees just one of the 10 homes we viewed today.

       An overpriced turkey is a hard sale. I wrote an offer for an home went through 242 days on the market, 2 real estate agents and  $70,000 price dropped. Sorry Dude… You have priced it out of the market. I think the #1 seller’s mistake is to overprice it.How do we guess the correct market price? Your realtor can run a Comparative Market Anlysis for you.

The little people inside of seller may said:” My dear agent… I want more $$$.” Let us assume today I am going to sell a beautiful apple today. I want to label this to be  $200 USD beause I want more money. Am I gonna get my money? I don’t know let us try. I wait and wait for the right buyer to buy and I hope the market will support my price. I Polished my apple daily.(Clean the home and use the best furnitures to decorate it). I increased the agent commision to be  20% of my profit ( may be that will attract more buyer’s agent show my home). I put alot of signs of “$200 Apple for sale”. (I asked my agents to put advertising everywhere and run open house every weekends). Three monthly later all the $2.00 apples sold but I don’t get an offer. It must be my agent’ fault so I  to lower the price and change my agent also. What a waste! We can apply the fair trade concept to either  apple or house. To price it right is just the beginning…

I just found another blogger share the same opinion about the #1 mistake the home seller can make from the realestateblocks.com .