Posts Tagged ‘Real Estate Agent’

HOME STAGING 101 – JUST THE FACTS

Posted on: April 1st, 2020 by Chris Scott

Your home is one of the biggest investments in your lifetime. Home staging will help you get a better return on your money. Most buyers are looking for a move-in ready home and home staging helps them visualize this instantly. Besides, it makes your home look like a model home without you having to lift a finger.

Let’s look at some of the facts from the experts regarding why home staging is so big right now and why so many sellers are opting for this.

  • the National Association of Realtors says for every $100 invested in staging your home, the potential return is $400. That is four times the return for your investment.
  • homes that are professionally staged spend 73% less time on the market (Real Estate Staging Association)
  • 85% of staged homes sold 6-25% more than un-staged homes (homestagingresource.com)
  • 68% of staged homes sold for at least 9% more than un-staged homes (homestagingresource.com)

Let’s look at the following scenario:

Imagine you have an unstaged home priced at $500,000 that has been sitting on the market for a few months. You start getting worried and decrease the selling price by 5% — or by $25K. Your home now sells for less and your house is a stale listing. Buyers think there maybe be a problem with the house as it has been sitting for a while. You get frustrated and then decide to go with a separate home staging company at more cost to you again.

When a house first goes on the market, this is the time when there is a lot of interest from buyers. Once that first wave of interest passes, time can be your enemy. We are experienced in what a home needs to sell.

Our Chris Scott Real Estate Team believes that:

  • Timing is extremely important
  • Most activity is when it is first listed
  • A listing has the greatest opportunity to sell when it is staged properly

We want you to have your home staged so that you are competitive with other staged homes on the market. Staging works and it has proven itself time and again. We want every client to have the best version of their home and we feel everyone deserves this service. We offer a professional home stager service to all our clients. If you have any questions on how home staging will sell your home, do not hesitate to contact our Chris Scott Real Estate Team. We will provide a free evaluation of your home and make suggestions on how we can stage your home and get it quickly on the market.

Click here to check out our Staging Transformations!

 

BEFORE AND AFTER

 

WHAT IS A BULLY OFFER?

Posted on: October 18th, 2019 by Chris Scott

What is a bully offer?

Every day I look through the hot sheet from the Ottawa Real Estate board. It is a list of all new properties to the market. One thing that almost every one of them has in common is that they were holding offers. This means the seller is waiting till a certain date and time to review offers. The idea is that they will have lots of showings between the list date and offer date. The hope, of course, being that the seller will have multiple offers to choose from. There are some buyers who do not want to wait until the offer date. That is where the term bully offer comes from.

The bully offer:

I prefer the term pre-emptive offer. Essentially the buyer makes an offer right away and before pre-determine offer presentation. The offer is usually at a premium price and often with no conditions. Example: House is listed for $400,000 and the buyer makes an offer for $450,000 on day 1. This would get the seller’s attention right?! The idea is to make the seller think twice about waiting until their pre-determined date.

A few other things to consider:

The Realtor is often in a tough position here as well. They have a form 244 signed with their clients explaining that there is no conveyance of offers until the specific date. If the Realtor then presents this offer it is in breach of the pre-signed paperwork. Further, other agents who showed the property or have scheduled showings on the property need to be kept in the loop on any change of directions. Our team has been on both ends of bully offers and there is a lot of things to navigate here for sure.