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Simple Things to Get Your Home Ready to Sell

Getting ready to sell a home involves a lot more than just the home. There are also emotions, schedules and other things to consider. Here are some tips to help you in getting ready for the day you hand over the keys to the new owners.

Remove Old Items

Over the course of time most people accumulate lots of things that are no longer needed. It is fairly common for folks to have clothes that they no longer wear, old books and magazines and other items. Go through the closets, cupboards and other storage areas to get ride of all the unnecessary items. Make sure to get things off the kitchen and bathroom counters too.

Separate Yourself from The Home Emotionally

Now is the time to make the decision to say goodbye to the home. It is important to realize that the memories and emotions you have from living in the home will always be a part of you. Moving away from the home is merely separating yourself away from the structure. Imagine how the new owners will enjoy the home and be able to make their own happy memories.

Get Things Organized

Since potential buyers will be coming through the home and inspecting every possible area it is a good idea to get everything as organized as possible. If you need some ideas, here are a few suggestions:

* Put spices in alphabetical order

* Arrange all coffee cups to face the same direction

* Put shoes in order

* Place dishes in nice stacks

Remove Personal Decor

Remove the photographs and items that may have your surname or initials. People who will potentially buy the house want to be able to imagine their own belongings and decorations in the new home. By having generic items in the house it will be easier for people to see themselves enjoying their new abode.

Take Care of the Little Repairs

Give potential buyers a great first impression by making sure all of the little items are handled. This includes

* Replacing light bulbs

* Applying oil on door hinges

* Add new filters to the air conditioner

* Tighten or repair any water leaks

* Fix any holes that may be present in windows, doors or walls

Add More Storage Space

It can be a good idea to find a nearby storage rental agency and get a contract on a small unit. The extra space can help you remove some of your belongings to make the home seem larger. Removing empty bookcases, taking out extra leaves in dining tables and extra chairs can free up space throughout the entire home. It can also be handy for storing seasonal items that you may not need when you are ready to move.

Once you have cleaned up the home and organized everything it will be much easier to sell and start your new life in a fresh new home.

The Golden Era of REO Came and Went with Nothing More than a Whisper.

Since 2008, I have been hearing that banks and lenders are going to flood the market with REO inventory and spark a “gold” rush of sorts in real estate. In fact, I distinctively remember huge parties and networking events around this whole “REO Tsunami” idea however, what we have learned is history repeats its self.

At that time, I like many others, wondered just exactly what was going to happen to all the REO inventory we knew the bank were holding. I like many others asked around and gleaned as much information as we could and ultimately I saw two different schools of thought forming.

The first school of thought or the Tsunami crowd was throwing lavish networking events, hosting charities parties and even organizing education conferences around this whole crowd mentality that the banks and lenders were going to inundate the markets with non-performing assets. I was never a part of this crowd but, honestly…..I did start asking “what is going to have to happen to all this inventory?”

The second school of thought was a more controlled response where the banks and lenders were going to trickle the inventory on the market. The argument here was, banks and lenders aren’t able to flood the market because it would collapse the American economy. Now, this sounded more reasonable to me and this was the camp I was in however, I knew that in the back of my head, somehow, someway, inventory was going to have to move but, I just didn’t know when.

2009 – 2012, agents across the country saw banks clamoring for their help to unload REO inventory. We could put an application in with a non-traditional REO disposition channel and be approved for listings in a couple weeks and in some cases a couple days. Now, granted, getting in direct with organizations like Fannie Mae or HUD was still a nightmare and impossible for most, none the less, the REO Agent ranks started swelling with over puffed up agents claiming to be local experts and before you knew it, every city was swollen with rank and file amateurs selling REO. I remember one large…very large, national outsourcer tell me that they DNU’d (Do Not Use) categorized more agents in 2008 than they accepted applications.

During this time, many could argue we had a “REO Golden Era” but the truth of the matter is, it never lived up to the hype….or better yet, it never lived up to what many of us saw was actually happening in our markets. Just because we had a record number or REO agents out there selling a record number of REOs, we still had homes setting on the market, with no agent sign in the yard, just setting vacant, abandoned and on the banks books as a non-performing asset. In fact, it was so rampant that many of us, myself included really was starting to believe a REO tsunami was definitely on the horizon however, it never came.

Instead of a Tsunami, we got a short sale bonanza or in some areas a property management nightmare. Those professionals who had been around the block in the 80’s knew we would never see a tsunami and they were right….are right however, like I said earlier, it left us all wondering just exactly what was going to happen with all this inventory. What we didn’t know was that the largest holders of REO inventory, HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Etc… was going to end up as political punching bags and political puppets for the attempted socialization of the American housing industry. Instead of letting the free market run it’s course, we found ourselves at the mercy of politicians who used the crisis to help re-elect liberal or progressive politicians that promised housing reform. This housing reform was just a guise to put in public welfare policies which would keep people in homes longer even though, it was incredibly obvious these homeowners were never going to be able to keep the home.

Finally, the tsunami will never come because of the push to property management. Many politicians are starting to see the writing on the wall and are realizing that these banks just can’t keep people in the home for an indefinite amount of time and because of such, they now have to rent these homes to the same people who can’t pay the mortgage. Well, at an extremely reduced rate, that is.

You end up with a market place that is overly burdened by government / political influence and that is creeping along (regardless of lame stream media reports) because it’s directly tied to unemployment rates. You end up with high fraud levels because distressed homeowners have no idea what is all happening and turning to less than reputable agents or predators to save their homes and worse of all, you end up changing the homeowner mentality from one of “homeownership is a privilege” to “homeowners his a right”. Once this fundamental transformation of the real estate industry is complete, we will have another entitlement program in this country….housing.

TARP Hurting More Than Helping

Per The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program…..

“Unless and until institutions currently views as “too big to fail” are either broken up so that they are no longer perceived to be a threat to the financial system, or as structure is put in place that gives adequate assurance to the market that they will be left to suffer the full consequences of their own recklessness, the prospect of more bailouts will continue to fuel more bad behavior with potentially disastrous results.” Jan 26, 2011 Quarterly Report of SIGTARP

To read the report to Congress yourself, visit this link….http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports.shtml

So, what exactly does this mean to you?

Ultimately, what the Inspector General is saying is the government needs to get out of the business of preventing business from failing otherwise, we only have really 2 options. We either break up the business and not allow them to grow beyond a certain point or we some kind of assurance that they will be protected from failure.

Ok, so…..let’s drill this down a bit. I don’t really know how many of you want to see our government preventing business from growing, I know I don’t want to see this. Isn’t the American Dream built on the concept that the sky is the limit. Aren’t we as American exceptional because we don’t harness our free society and allow government to tell people, business that they can’t grow too big. Don’t oppressed people come to America to seek freedom, liberty and free markets where they can succeed based on how much work they put into their endeavors? Limiting the size of our free markets isn’t free by any definition. In fact, it’s communism.

What about assurances……wouldn’t it be nice that you could start a business and be assured that you can’t fail? As sweet as that may be, let me assure you, it would create a business environment of fraud, corruption and out right consumer abuse on a unprecedented scale like we have never seen. I don’t need to tell you this, you know this. Whatever happened to the idea that the greater the risk, the greater the potential return however, the greater the potential loss………….isn’t this a law of economics? What kind of people think a world where business can make whatever decisions they want and the tax payer would be there to bail their corrupt asses out every time is a good thing?

Let me just say it once again, GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTIONS, GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.

Because the last prediction I wrote last week was such a success, I thought to myself, why don’t I blog a bit more about my predictions so, here it is.

I predict that 2011 may actually end up seeing the highest number of foreclosures in our nations recorded history.

Reason # 1: Lack of substantial job growth.

 I do believe that with the extension of the Bush tax cuts the Federal Government passed a couple weeks ago, our Government instilled some…….just some…..confidence in the business community to spur a very modest growth. You have to keep in mind, the extension of the Bush tax cuts was a tax hike prevention or, in other words, the business community is at a wash, one way or another. To elaborate a bit further, the business community had already been working under the cuts with no growth so, an extension of the cuts isn’t going to do much to grow the economy because, it really doesn’t change the underlying systemic fundamental problems. I am not saying that we should have allowed the tax cuts to expire because if that had happened, we would have made problems worse by raising taxes on everyone in a distressed, possibly depressed economy. I am for the cuts but, I don’t believe they are going to make that big of a difference because, the true problems are not addressed. The cuts were nothing more than a lesser of 2 evils.

Reason # 2: 5, 7 and 10 year ARMS (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) adjust in 2011.

During the height of the sub-prime mortgage bubble, we saw people getting  5, 7 and 10 year ARMS. Take 2011 and count back  5 years and you get 2006, the early days of the bubble build up, 7 years back you get 2004, when sub-prime lending was really breaking out of it’s shell and of course, 10 years back, 2001 when people hadn’t even heard of sub-prime lending. My point is, in 2011, 3 different types of very popular sub-prime, bubble building ARMS are going to reset, this is more resetting than we have every seen during this crisis. I can’t even imagine the carnage.

Reason # 3: Government Home Retentions Programs Prevent a Real Estate Bottom.

HAMP is the single greatest home retention failure of this Obama White House. 75% or more HAMP participants default out and end up in foreclosure however, what HAMP does do is buy these people time. In some cases a year or more. So, John Smith, homeowner is 3 months behind, applies for HAMP which takes an additional 2 months to get preliminary approval, John pays his preliminary discounted mortgage regularly for 5 months and then defaults off, 6 months for the bank to catch up with the default and file foreclosure paperwork and 3 months to foreclosure and evict, then 6 months before the home hits the market. Add it all up and you get 25 months or 2 years before a home hits the market from the time the homeowner defaults. So, look at it this way, Government has contributed 2 years worth of underlying inventory to an already 3-5 year inventory of distressed property simply because Government wants to save people’s homes in the name of reelection. This is bad no matter how you cut it.

Reason # 4: Energy Prices will Rise to un-precedent levels.

It was just 2 days ago that BP (British Petroleum) announced that they are re-working their 2011 budget with the premise that gas prices in the US will rise to $5.00 a gallon. Fuel cost effects every aspect of our daily lives. It’s not just how much you pay at the pump. It’s how much it cost the truck delivery man to deliver the goods to your local grocery store. Over 90% of the goods you buy at a grocery store get there from a truck and that truck can only get there when it fuels up its tanks. If that fuel increase goes up on that trucker we can expect to see prices for individual goods to increase as well. A absolute correlation between prices of goods and price of logistics is fact and this is a law of supply and demand that can’t be broken.

Reason # 5: Risk of inflation becomes a real concern in 2011.

Instead of speculating about inflation, 2011 will be the year we actually start talking about what percentage inflation will rise. Increased trade deficits, continual devaluing of the US Dollar, continual movement towards a green agenda and, high federal debt will move inflation up. This will be done in order to stem off a collapse of the dollar because of continual devaluation.

Reason # 6: Credit Tightening.

As a direct result of the foreclosure fall out that I predict will occur in 2011, we will see an increased credit tightening. Now, personally, I don’t see this as a bad thing, I am of the opinion, a home is not a right, it’s something you earn and if you can’t earn it, you don’t deserve it. None the less, since the Community Re-investment Act, this country has been on a drunken binge of “everyone deserves credit” and it had everything to do with our real estate bubble however, times are changing and banks are going to have no choice but to tighten credit standards so they can reduce their risk for losses. This will increase housing inventories and work towards a further across the board housing price drop but, it gets us closer to a bottom and the ability to rebuild.

Reason # 7: Unforeseen National Crisis.

It was once told to me that luck favors those who are prepared and bold. Unfortunately, this Country as a whole is not prepared and our threshold to make big bold global decisions has all but disappeared since the Obama administration has taken a apologetic, appeasement stance on the World stage. This has done nothing but embolden our enemies and provided safe havens in countries that are less than cooperative. I can’t predict an unforeseen national crisis but, I can imagine a “what if’ scenario and it’s not pretty. The best I can say here is that we should be preparing for the worse and hoping for the best but, that is most definitely not happening with most Americans, let along our Government.

In conclusion:

Any one of the above reason I listed is enough to truly hurt the housing industry. If you couple all of these things together in one hit, it stands to reason, can the housing recovery even take place in 2011. My opinion is no, a housing recover won’t take place in 2011 because if we were to resolve any one issue, we would still have 6 others threatening the recovery. In other words, the housing industry has too many uncertainties, Government influence and, was much more devastated by the Community Reinvestment Act and sub-prime lending than anyone wanted to really tell the American public. I hope for the best but, I have prepared for the worse.   

I really don’t know why this is so hard for so many to understand.

The Government doesn’t make money, it takes money. All the money it spends comes from taxes and that money comes from you and me. I should say, it’s taken from you and me.

When the Government decides to spend enormous amounts of our money on stimulus programs all they are doing is moving resources from one area to another and creating a temporary shallow relief, if it does anything at all. For example, remember cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, bank bailout, summer of recovery and the latest the housing tax credit. All of which, did no permanent correction or fix to this economy. After this many attempts, what is it going to take for our leadership to understand…..it’s not working, STOP!

Let’s focus on the recent housing tax credit. Did you see the reports the month after it expired, existing housing sales dropped by 27%, in one month! The worse home sales decline on record, since we started keeping records from 1968. In mid August when these terrible numbers came out, we saw reports that asked, “Has the Housing Recovery Stalled?” I got one thing to ask, Seriously?

A stimulus isn’t a recovery. A stimulus is nothing more than a temporary shallow fix so, if in the mean time you aren’t implementing solid economic strategies that instill confidence, fix corruption and allow business and individuals to make as much money as they can, recovery will never happen.

Today we learned the unemployment numbers rose to 9.6%. Let’s get down to brass tax, if people don’t have an income, people can’t keep or buy homes. Folks, unless the Government gets serious about creating jobs, foreclosure will be around for a long time.

How does anyone create a job?

Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Tax Payer need to be confident enough to invest in their communities by opening up a sandwich shop, a bike retailer, a coffee house, a “you fill in the blank”.

Confidence is key to our housing recovery. Business owners need to know what their expenses are and more importantly that they aren’t going up. This Government has got all of us asking, how much for Obama Care, how much for the next bailout, how much does Barney Frank want to spend, don’t forget, Nancy Pelosi wants some to. Who is going to go out, and put their life savings in an environment where the bottom line is hazy at best?

OK, so I have been struggling with good formating for photo slide shows, mixed media, video to present my listings for sale in a variety of online applications, socail media and postings. I think this is a big thing for many Realtors right now.

I finally found a great little photo slide show editing tool, mixing in video is my next step, it also has GREEN SCREEN and mixed media applications. It is low cost and easy enough for 2nd graders to teach me all about it and show me how it is done. They made a cute sample slide show for me about fake homes for sale and even took one of my listing photos off my web site and used it in their sample.

Now, if I can figure out how to post on REOPRO .... and of course the best options are when I can post the slide shows, mixed meadia automatically in multiple great on line social media areas.

I go to classes, seminars, study online stuff for HOW TO. But the secound graders have really taught me something great!