How is the real estate market doing?
Both home buyers and home sellers ask that question all the time.
Do you truly care about whats going on in Phoenix, if you live in Pasadena, CA? Do you care about how the market is doing in Pasadena, if you live in San Marino, CA?
As a real estate broker, the answer is yes... I care. As a seller or buyer, I couldn't care less.
I just sold my house. It is located in San Gabriel, but has San Marino schools. The first thing I did when I was thinking of selling my house, is to learn what was going on on my street. How many homes were on the market now? Who will be my competition?
I wanted to know which 7 to 10 homes will I be competing against. I got into the car and visited all the homes. I knew how much they were priced at, how long they've been on the market and what kind of upgrades they had.
Now I knew my market and could price my home correctly to sell.
The market in my mind was the 1/4 mile radius around my home, preferably homes with San Marino schools.
This local market research, along with getting prepared by following a few simple steps like:
- Getting a Physical Inspection - which allowed me to anticipate issues up front and address them prior to listing my home.
- Curbside appeal - the exterior was painted and a landscape artist was invited to stage the front and side of the home.
- Staging - my stager extraordinaire, Nickie Rothwell of Staged2Sell, used both my existing furniture and brought in additional furniture and accessories to make the home stand out.
- Marketing - well... that's my forte - heres a quick sample of the personal home website, Realtor.com Featured Homes, numerous blogging platforms, emails to top agents in the neighborhood and targeted buyer mailings, amongst other things.
