Home Staging and Preparing Your Home For a Successful Sale

Curb Appeal

Today’s buyers are “instant gratification oriented.” The majority are shopping for square footage, convenience, and a home that is “move-in ready.”  Before you begin the process of marketing your home for sale, take the time to do an outdoor assessment and compare your curb appeal to other active listings on the market in your price range.

It will be worth your time and return on investment to trim the shrubs, remove any dead trees, bring in plenty of fresh mulch, potted flowers, a wreath on the door and a welcome mat! Does the paint need touched up outside? Is there any rotted wood that should be replaced? Are the windows and screens cleaned? Does your lawn show a buyer a “pride of ownership?”

The Front Door

My professional Home Stager calls the point of entry, “The Three Second Sale.” Believe it or not, a buyer often knows the minute they walk in a home if it is the right home for them.

So ask yourself, when entering the home, is it airy? Is there a pleasant odor? Is the entry crowded with furniture and coats, or busy with dated wall paper? These are some of the details I will guide you through during this process.

Home Staging

It is my professional opinion that even the finest of homes can benefit from some level of staging and de-personalizing. “The way we live in our home and the way we sell our home are two very different things.” As a seller, one of your best selling features is your square footage, so show it off and pre-pack the unnecessary items. (Pre-packing now will make your move a lot smoother in the long run as well as promote a faster sale).

A neutral color pallet on walls and floors is very important to todays consumer. Furniture placement, art and accessory placement are equally important believe it or not. We’re not just selling a house, we are selling a lifestyle.

 

Does the physical condition of your home communicate a calm and welcoming environment or does it communicate a tired feel and a need for cleaning and updating?

Less is always more

If you are in the beginning stages thinking about selling your home, I will be happy to meet with you in person at your home to go through a room by room assessment. "Preparing today will ensure for a successful sale later." www.castettergroup.com 

The Secret to A Successful Home Sale

This post is a guest blog from a recent client who sold her Avon home with The Castetter Group.


We recently put our house on the market and I was terrified. Terrified because I have two young children (ages 4 and less than a year) and keeping the house "show ready" with the littles running around wasn't going to be fun. Also, we had the smallest house in the neighborhood, so it was going to be a challenge finding the right buyer.

I knew logically I had no reason to be so scared. It's a sellers market right now. Inventory is low, so our chances for a home sale were high!

We sold our home after just 7 showings spaced over two weekends.

Several months before we put our house on the market, we invited Chris Castetter over to discuss ways to make our home ready for sale. We wrote down his suggestions and got to work.

Believe me, we didn't love spending money on a home we were trying to get rid of, if you will. We got new carpet and updated all of our kitchen appliances. New refrigerator, new stove, new washing machine and new vent hood. We took down all of our family photos nailed to the walls, fixed the holes and repainted several spaces. We also had some light fixtures to change out.

It wasn't cheap, but we sold our home quickly and we got a good return on our investment! We were very pleased with the offer we received.

The secret to a successful home sale is listen to your realtor. Most people want a "move in ready home" that isn't going to require any additional maintenance once they take possession. Sure, it was work, but now we aren't going to have to worry about being saddled with two mortgages.

We are so pleased with the work The Castetter Team did to help us sell our home quickly! We highly recommend them if you are looking to buy or sell!

Qualifying For A Mortgage When You're Self-Employed

Since the economy has started improving, a large segment of the population are earning income through self-employment, freelance or contract work. Business owners, self-employed taxpayers qualify for a whole host of tax breaks that reduce their bottom line and consequently, their provable income. 

Since the mortgage industry bases credit-worthiness on provable income, using W-2 forms and tax returns, qualifying for a conventional loan may prove difficult for many self-employed would-be homeowners.

Conventional lenders

Since conventional lenders follow prescribed formulas in proving income and credit-worthiness, most mortgage underwriters only look at the after-tax and post-deduction income, resulting in a far lower provable income than most entrepreneurs or self-employed workers believe expresses the reality of their situation. In a few cases, certain lenders allow specific deductions to be added back into your income including some one-time investment expenses, depletion or deductions for business use of your home. But for the most part, qualifying for a conventional loan is much more difficult for the self-employed buyer with an irregular income.

Alternative lenders

While a conventional loan (salable to government-controlled agencies such as FannieMae and FreddieMac) may not be an option for you, some investors see an opportunity and are funding smaller lenders that offer loans outside these restrictions. For these loans, the risk is higher, so to hedge their investment, these loans typically have a higher interest rate and require a down-payment of at least 20 percent and sometimes more, or a large portfolio, or really great credit.

The bottom line

If you’re newer at the self-employed lifestyle but know you want to buy a home in the near future, you’ll need to start now to position yourself to qualify. Here are the best practices to incorporate into your business and personal life to set yourself up to be approved:

• Be organized: Keeping organized and accurate business and financial records supports your income claims. Most lenders will request a couple years (or more) of tax returns to prove your average monthly income. If your first year was low (this is true for most), give yourself three years or more to back up your income claims. Lenders take the net income from two years and divide it by 24 to get an average, so if in your first year you had only two or three sporadic clients and now you have 10 or 12 regular clients, that additional year will allow you to increase the verifiable income your lender uses.
• Keep track of your earnings: Use an accounting system that can give you earnings or revenue statements, expense reports, profit and loss statements and a balance sheet. If you’re looking for simple workable accounting systems, a couple to check out include QuickBooks online and Freshbooks. Either of these systems is created for the non-accountant give you access to a variety reports, support and useful information.
• Work to improve your credit score: Your credit score may seem out of your control—after all, some companies only report your bad habits and not your good ones—but there are some areas you can take charge of. Your payment history makes up more than a third of your score. Position yourself to make payments early and on time. Another thirty percent of your score is based on the amount you owe compared to the amount of credit you already have, and other loans such as school and vehicle loans. That means if you have a credit card with $5,000 available and only owe $250 on it, you’re at just 5% of your available credit and you’ll receive more points in this area, but if you have a credit card with $500 on it and you owe $250, you’re at 50% of your available credit, so expect that scenario to negatively impact your score. In other words, pay off what you already owe. The rest of your score is a mixture of the length of your credit history, new credit accounts and the mixture of types of accounts you have. Contrary to some popular practices, closing your oldest accounts when you open new ones is a bad idea. The older accounts that are in good standing offer you more points than a newer account.
• Report your payments: If you don’t currently use credit (i.e. have no loans or credit cards), but you consistently pay your bills like rent, electricity, insurance or subscriptions, consider utilizing one of the alternative reporting services to prove you make your payments on time and consistently.

Don’t wait until you want to buy a house to start getting your financial house in order. If may take several months to up to two years to create a provable paper trail for yourself.

Home Prices Continue To Climb: Up 4.9% On Average in 2015

Chris Castetter, (F.C. Tucker) reported September 2015 home sales were down 6.8 percent for the nine-county central Indiana region compared to September 2014, but up 7.9 percent year to date. Fewer homes were on the market last month compared to September 2014, showing a continuing trend toward a more balanced market. Average year-to-date home sale prices, meanwhile, climbed 4.9 percent to $185,536.

All nine central Indiana counties experienced varying declines in inventory. Morgan County experienced the biggest drop at 18.4 percent, or 101 fewer active listings when compared to September 2014. Shelby County reported the smallest change, with 1.6 percent fewer listings in September 2015 compared to the same time last year. On average, inventory in the nine-county area declined 9.2 percent compared to September 2014.

Tucker’s data indicates eight counties experienced slightly higher home sale prices than in September 2014. Year to date, Madison County led the way with an 11.7 percent uptick in prices. Hancock County’s average sale price increased 8.8 percent to $168,788, while Hendricks and Marion counties also saw gains above 7 percent. Boone County had the second highest average sale price of all nine counties at $271,190, and was the only county to experience a decrease of 3.6 percent in September 2015.

“Residential real estate sales and listings are still very active,” said Jim Litten, president of F.C. Tucker Company. “The region is 7.9 percent ahead of last year’s pended sales at this time, and that’s a sure sign we’ve ended the third quarter on a strong note. And, as average sale prices continue to rise, the incentive to list a home is still high.”

In September 2015, 2,276 homes pended, down from 2,442 in September 2014. Boone and Hamilton counties experienced the largest drop in pended home sales at 31.7 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively. Morgan County experienced the largest gain in pended home sales at 36.2 percent.

Of the pended home sales in the region last month, two were priced at $2,000,000 or higher; six were priced $1,000,000 to $1,999,999; 50 were priced $500,000 to $999,999; 224 were priced $300,000 to $499,999; 343 were priced $200,000 to $299,999; 1,020 were priced $100,000 to $199,999 and 631 were priced at $99,999 or less.

Pended Single-family and Condominium Home Sales

With approximately $3.4 billion in annual sales, F.C. Tucker Company is Indiana’s largest independently owned comprehensive real estate firm with more than 40 offices and more than 1,500 sales associates throughout Indiana and select markets in Kentucky. Less than one percent of all real estate firms have the longevity of F.C. Tucker. Founded in 1918, the company’s family of businesses includes a full range of real estate services—mortgages, title insurance, relocation services, a full line of insurance products, auctioning and homeowner warranty products. F.C. Tucker has earned a reputation for its exceptional service, experienced sales associates and “Golden Rule” commitment to its clients and employees.