Delaware Home Gallery Real Estate Video Blog With Jason Morris Jason and Nancy Morris

Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale The cleanup effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is ongoing here in Katy, Texas, where I’ve joined Keller Williams’ relief initiative with many others to lending a helping hand to those in need. As you can see in the video above, it’s a nightmare of a mess. Many folks are unloading everything from inside their houses onto wheelbarrows and dumping the clutter onto the street. The house we’re cleaning out now had a water line that reached four feet up the wall. The whole experience has brought a couple of points to my mind that I want to share with you. “ Donations are still very much needed for the folks down here in Texas. ” First, if you live in an area in Middletown that’s had its flood lines remapped, you should seriously consider getting flood insurance. There are definitely some areas that have been remapped, and not all mortgage companies know about it. Second, remember that any donations are still very much needed for the folks down here in Texas. Whether that’s food, supplies, or money, every little bit helps. If you have any questions about how to donate or how to obtain flood insurance, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I’d love to help you.

What can you expect from our real estate market over the next few months? We’re here to let you know. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today we’re going to talk all about the summer market: what happened, what it means for you, and what you can expect as we transition into fall. There are five long-term indicators that show how our market is doing, along with one short-term indicator. The long-term indicators include: Inventory is down from last year. The rate at which inventory is accumulating is down. The number of closed transactions is up. The median price point is up. The list-to-sale price ratio is up. All long-term indicators point to a strong seller’s market. All these long-term indicators point to us being in a strong seller’s market, but the short-term indicator is different. Over the last seven days, we’ve started to see the number of new listings outpace the number of pending transactions. We’ll keep an eye on this trend to see if it continues. You should keep an eye on it as well. If you have any questions for us about the market or anything else about real estate, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

When pricing your home, it’s important that you stay within the negotiation gap. If you don’t, you could lose out on a lot of money. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale What effect does low inventory and high demand have on pricing in our market? The short answer is it allows you to get a higher sale price for your house than you would’ve been able to last year. There’s something I want to caution you about, though. Every single time I sit down with a homeowner and ask how much they want to pad the price of their house to leave room for negotiation, I get the same answer—10%. In this market, the reality is that you only need to pad the price by a little less than 3%.  If you overshoot your home’s market value by 10% and your margin of error is 3%, that means you’re 7% over the mark. 3% goes into 7% a little more than two times, meaning you’re more than twice your allowable margin of error. If you remember your grade school math when it comes to calculating percentages, you’ll know that twice of what you need translates to 200%. In other words, you’re more than 200% in excess of your margin of error, or what I call “the negotiation gap.” “ If you price your home over the negotiation gap, you’ll likely lose money on its sale. ” When you come in with numbers this high, it drives your home’s time on the market way up because you have to keep reducing the price until it’s back within that 3% margin. On top of that, buyers will assume there’s something wrong with your house because it’s been on the market for so long, so you’re bound to get less money for it than if you priced it within the 3% margin to begin with. If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market, you won’t be able to draw the competition for your house you need to get a good price if you’re 200% over the margin of error. Even if your house looks like a million bucks, it’ll be too far outside of what buyers expect in terms of price. You can save yourself this trouble by working with an agent who can figure out the numbers and help you step into the market intelligently. If you’d like to know the math on your home, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I’d be happy to help you.

While the agent opens the lock box, buyers have plenty of time to take in every detail of your entryway. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Statistics show that your front door is actually one of the few places in your home where you can spend money on an update and get a positive return on your cash when you sell. Why is this? Most homeowners don't even use their front door, preferring the garage door or a side door that's closest to where you park. It's there for show, but it actually gets less attention thanks to how little most homeowners use them. Bugs get into the lamps by your entryway and the glass gets dirty from fingerprints. When you sell your house though, the agent will usually bring buyers through the front door. Why? Most homes being shown have an electronic lock box on their front door so that these buyers can enter the home in the most picturesque way. They come in the front door that might open to a foyer with the light flowing in and a view to the kitchen. It's just the best way to enter a home. “ While the agent opens the lock box, buyers have plenty of time to take in every detail of your entryway. ” Keep in mind that that lock box takes a moment to access. That means the buyer will just be standing there waiting for the Realtor to open the lock box, giving them plenty of time to look at the whole entryway. They'll see all the dead bugs piled up in your lights, the cobwebs around the door, and the dog's nose prints on the glass next to the door.  You want buyers to come in through the front of the house and form a great first impression, and the best way to do that is by making the entryway look brand new. If you have any other questions about preparing your home for the market, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'd be glad to help.

Buying and selling a home at the same time can get tricky. Here’s how you can make the situation easier. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale A lot of people have been asking lately how they can buy and sell a home at the same time. How can you get those two transactions to hook together? Inventory is low right now, so there isn’t much to choose from on the market. This is good news for sellers, but they are still hesitant to put their homes on the market because they aren't sure what they will do when their home sells more quickly than they can buy. There are a few different ways you can manage it. The first option is buying a home with no contingency. This involves either paying for two mortgages at once, paying cash for your new home, or taking out a home equity line of credit to buy. If you make an offer that isn’t contingent on the sale of your home, those are the offers that sellers will take most seriously. If that option isn’t feasible for you, the second best option is to have your home already under contract by the time you make an offer. This way, the seller knows that you are a serious buyer, and you already have a buyer for your home. Then you need to develop a plan B. It could be finding a flexible seller who will allow you to take your time selling your own home. It could also be finding a flexible buyer who will wait for you to make a purchase or let you out of the sale if you can’t. Either way, you should have a temporarily living plan in place as well. Whether it’s living with a family member or in a furnished apartment, it’s good to have a backup situation for every possible scenario. “ You always need a plan B. ” Another option is to assume you will use temporary living and go into it right away as soon as your house is sold. This will let you buy on your own time and you’ll also be able to buy without that pesky home sale contingency. You can shop at your leisure and there aren't as many logistical concerns. As a last ditch effort, you could attempt to find a seller who is willing to work with you and be patient. There aren’t many of those in this market, however, because most buyers aren’t asking sellers to do this. If you don’t fit into any of these scenarios, it will be tough for you to balance things. At the very least, you should get your home on the market before you start looking at homes to buy so you can show sellers that you are serious. Remember, you can always say no to a deal that doesn’t work for you, but you can’t always get a seller to work with you if you don’t have a definite timeline to sell your home. If you have any questions for us or want us to help you work through the logistics of buying and selling a home, give us a call or send us an email and we would be glad to help. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Every year, our spring/summer market goes through two rushes of buyer activity.  Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale When exactly does the spring/summer market start? When is the best time to enter the spring/summer market? Houses sell all year long, but what happens in the spring and summer is a large influx of buyers come from a specific demographic: folks who have school-age children. This subsection of buyers produces two rushes of market activity.  The first rush starts about 45 days before school is out for the summer. Why 45 days? It takes the average buyer about 45 days to get through the underwriting cycle because that’s how long banks usually take to approve a loan. Buyers who want to get their kids settled in at the start of summer will start their home search around mid-April or early May. “ The second rush happens 45 days before the first day of school. ” The second rush starts about 45 days before school gets back in session. This rush comes from folks who want to spend one last summer in their current home and settle into a new home by the time their kids get back in school. The spring rush started a couple weeks ago, so we’re still in it right now, and it should climb all the way into July. Other categories of buyers will be here all year long, though, so don’t make the assumption that houses only sell during spring and summer. If you have any questions about timing the market or are looking to buy or sell a home, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I’d be happy to help.