Pasadena CA Real Estate

I love helping home buyers and home sellers around Pasadena with their real estate needs.  My passion, though, is helping sellers market and sell their homes for the highest possible price and in the quickest possible time.

An unfortunate real estate trend for me personally in this real estate market is that I have been walking away from listings.  It seems like there are a lot of unreasonable sellers in the Pasadena market place recently.

I had 3 listing appointments over the last two weeks and decided NOT to work with any of these home sellers.

Here are the top 7 reasons for me NOT to list your home:

1. Unreasonable sales price:  It seems that there are a lot of uneducated or oblivious home sellers in Pasadena.  Let me say this - NO REALTOR EVER SETS THE PRICE FOR A HOME!  A final sales price is a function of the real estate market.  It's what a home buyer is willing to pay and a home seller willing to accept.    There are clear real estate market statistics and indicators that drive the suggested price of a Pasadena home.  I do not make them up.  I can not change them at will.  Multiple Listing Service and companies like Altos Research can provide comprehensive market statistics.  OVERPRICING a home will only ensure that your home will sell for much less than what it is worth.  I refuse to take a home listing that is overpriced and offer home sellers false hope.  There are enough real estate agents out there that are willing to do that.
   • READ MORE:  Pasadena Real Estate Market Report
2. Sellers refusal to Stage their home:  Homes that are not staged properly will not sell for the highest possible price AND they will sit on the market, and sit on the market, and sit on the market.  Did I make my point yet?  I do not want to waste my time or the seller's if they are unwilling to stage their home.
   • SEE MORE:  Staging!  It Works!

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In the previous post, Sell Your Pasadena Home in 30 Days or Less, we discussed the basic formula for selling your home.  There are three parts to your selling success:

1. Preparing your Pasadena home for sale.
2. Determining a price for your home.
3. Deciding how to market your Pasadena home.

Today, I wanted to go into a bit more detail on the type of marketing and advertisement methods that are available in today's Pasadena real estate market.

We talked about the importance of bringing "eye balls" to see your home.  Exposure is of utmost importance in getting the highest possible price for your home and selling it in record time.  The more people that see your home, the more opportunity you have in selling it well.

To fully market your home today, it is imperative that you put the power of the internet to work for you.  Internet, not only, exposes your home to the immediate real estate market consumers, but it also is an extemely powerful tool which will bring buyers that are thinking of relocating to Pasadena.

We already know that we need to have your home listed in the local Multiple Listing Service.  Please note, that in Pasadena there are several Multiple Listing Services (MLS).  We have ITEC which is part of Pasadena Foothill Association. And, there is IMRMLS, which is part of Arcadia Realtors Association.  Please make sure that your Pasadena home is listed in one of these MLS services.  If it's listed in one, it's listed in both through the magic of new computer programming that was recently implemented.

If you have a realtor friend who is working out of the area, who will be listing your home for you.  Not the best idea, but that's a different post.  Please ensure that your real estate agent contacts one of these MLS services and enters your home there. 

MLS Listings are very different.  How do you make your Pasadena home stand out?

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So you're thinking of selling your Pasadena home.  Great!  You've come to the right place.   This is the first post of a multiple series on how to sell your Pasadena Home. 

Yes... you can use the services of a Pasadena Real Estate Agent.  Or, you can choose to sell your Pasadena home by yourself.  Either way, Pasadena home sellers have to follow a home selling process.

Prepare your Pasadena Home for sale:

Before you consider advertising or marketing your Pasadena home, you need to make sure that it's in market ready condition.  That involves several steps:

• Go through each room of your house and be honest with yourself about the items that need to be repaired or replaced.  Come on... you know what I mean...
• Order a pre-inspection by a California licensed real estate home inspector.  You can get a list of Inspectors from CREIA , California Real Estate Inspection Association or just give me a call and I'll recommend a few.  Buyers will do it the moment they open escrow.  Why be surprised later or give the buyers and additional negotiating power, especially in today's real estate market. 

READ MORE:  Save Thousands of Dollars with Home Inspections.

• Get rid of clutter.  Clutter is translated to thousands of lost sale dollars.  Trust me on this.  I've seen it time after time. 
• Take down most if not all of your family photos.  Buyers want to picture themselves in the house, not YOU, the seller.
• Take a look at the outside of your house.  Does it need paint?  How is the landscaping?  Will buyers be able to get to your front door without tripping over tree roots or toys left outside.  Is the front door painted and welcoming?  Are there cobwebs covering the entry?
• CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN - now that you've made the necessary repairs, start cleaning furiously - windows, floors, carpeting, BATHROOMS (yes... go to the extremes - take a q-tip and run it around the base of your toilet - what do you find?)  Make your home SPARKLE!  As you clean, just tell yourself that you're cleaning for $s!
• Hire a Stager.  When I sold my own house last year, I hired Nicki Rothwell of GetStaged2Sell to stage my house.  Staging is absolutely critical in today's real estate environment.  If your house is staged it will sell faster and for more money - guaranteed!

READ MORE:  What is Staging

READ MORE:  Make a Great First Impression

Determine a Price for your Pasadena Home:

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Okay, a quick Quiz:  What sells Pasadena Homes?

1. Location, Location, Location!
2. Correct Pricing!
3. Condition and Staging!
4. Sales Words Used in the Multiple Listing Service!

Huh?  Words sell homes?  That's something new...

Well, experienced and successful Pasadena Real Estate agents have known this for quite awhile.  Now, there's an article in The Seattle Times by Ann Brenoff that discusses just that.

Words matter. Wars have started over words. Civilizations have collapsed because of them. And, it appears the speed with which a house sells can be determined by them. Ann Brenoff

So, how can home sellers use words to give them the edge in selling their Pasadena house? 

A study done by a Canadian professor, Paul Anglin, after analyzing more than 20,000 home listings, found that sales words not only affect the speed of home sales, but also the PRICE of a home sale.

Certain words can make your home sell faster and for more money.  So roll up your sleeves and let's look at this together.

Words that help sell your Pasadena home faster and for more money are:

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It's always interesting to see what homes sell for as compared to the home's asking price. 

When I start working with a new buyer, I recommend that we set them up to receive home listings directly from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) inclusive of homes that go under contract and homes that just sold. 

Why?  Because getting information on home sales show how quickly these homes sell and for how much.  It's the quickest and easiest way to get a pulse on the real estate market.

So far, San Marino real estate home sales for the month of July are at 9 homes sold.

On average, these homes sold at 97.97% of asking price.  That's pretty good considering the average price per square foot for these San Marino homes is $611.22 and they were on the market for 57 days on average.*

This month, there was a bit of a multiple offer war for the property at 1522 Wembley Road: 

It originally came on the San Marino real estate market at $1,598,000.  It just closed escrow (SOLD) at $1,668,000 at a whopping $725.85 a square foot (compare it to the $611 average for the rest of the sales.)  It also sold in about two weeks!

Why was this home so special?

The location was great - it was in the Huntington LibraryDistrict of San Marino minutes from Lacy Park.  This home was beautifully staged and nicely updated. 

Congratulations to the Sellers and the new Buyers!

Interested in More San Marino Real Estate data? 

ALSO READ:  San Marino Real Estate Market Report

* ITEC data as of July 29,2008