The Savvy Synopsis

When buying or selling a home, determining a proper price is an important part of the process. How does the price compare to what your neighbors got for their home? Should you make a lowball offer? Angie shares her thoughts while answering three questions from the mailbag this week.

You always want the buying or selling of a home to be a financially beneficial decision. So, what should the price be when you’re selling? Or how much of a bargain can you find when buying?

When you consider selling your home, you might look to see what the neighbors have been able to sell their home for. What if your home is on a smaller lot than the neighbors? Will it be significantly lower in value? Look at the tax value of your land vs. the tax value of their land for some guidance on pricing of your home. There are a lot of other factors that go into play, including how the lot is laid out, the location in the neighborhood, and the quality of your lot and home. Your Realtor should be able to help guide you in pricing your home correctly.  

If you’ve already moved out of your home or maybe it was a rental beforehand, having some staging can really add some extra helpful visuals. Perhaps not a full staging of all furniture, but having a few items can make a difference and help you sell your home for what it’s worth. Virtual staging is another option which allows potential buyers to see what the home looks like with furniture.

When a home has been on the market for a little while, you might think about making a lower offer in order to try to get a bargain as a buyer. What’s the worst that can happen, right? Be careful about making a lowball offer because you don’t want to offend them. Sure, you could make another offer but they may decide to turn that one down too if they feel you would not be a good buyer to work with. Remember, you don’t know the situation of the sellers and often selling a home can often be a sentimental and emotional experience.

0:46 - Mailbag: How much should a home sell if it’s a on a smaller lot?

5:03 - Mailbag: How do you sell a vacant home?

7:24 - Mailbag: Is it a bad idea to make a really low offer on a home?

8:58 - Three weeks on the market is not a long time.

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The Host:

Angie Cole - Contact - Call: 919-538-6477

Show Transcription:

Note: This is an automated transcription. Please forgive the robots as they tend to make some (a lot of) mistakes...

Speaker 1: (00:02)
It's time for the savvy real tour podcast. I'm Walter Storholt alongside Angie Cole, the owner and broker in charge of a Cole Realty serving you throughout the triangle, teaching you about the ins and outs when it comes to buying or selling a home. You can find the team online by going to eight Cole realty.com that's a C O L E [inaudible] dot com or by calling nine one nine five seven eight three one two a that's (919) 578-3128 and now it's time for one of the top realtors in the triangle, Angie Cole and the savvy real tour podcast. If you've got a question again, don't hesitate to send them into us a Cole realty.com and we might feature it on a future show. Our first stop today is going to be in Durham for a question here from Pat. Pat says, we want to sell our home soon. Angie, all our neighbors have sold for about 300,000 but our lot is about a half acre smaller than the rest of our neighbors. How much less do you think we'd get for our home if all else was even?

Speaker 2: (01:02)
That's a great question. Um, pad I, I, a lot of times I have people that say, Hey are you know lot is three times the size of most of the neighbors, so we should probably get three times what they get for their home, right? And I'm like, Hmm. Absolutely not. So if your lot is about half of this size or half acre smaller, I would definitely say that you will get a little less for your home. But honestly it's not going to be significant. I'm kind of a rule of thumb. It's always good to go and look at the tax value of just your land versus the tax value of their land. And look at the difference in that. Typically, even though it's a half, you know, maybe you have a half acre, they have one acre. The difference in the overall value is probably not that much. You know, a of a range. And I think that can give you some good guidance on maybe the difference in actual pricing your home now taxes or that tax value does not strictly determine, you know, what you will get your for your home, but showing just a little bit of that difference in what your land is worth versus theirs, I think can give you a little bit of guidance. So yes, your home will go for less, but it's not going to be significant. So don't be, don't be too concerned.

Speaker 1: (02:11)
Yeah. So really good question though, Pat. I think it's tough to play that comparison game a lot of the time when you start analyzing all these different little nuances, but there's still a lot of information about your home that we don't know here and that can really influence things

Speaker 2: (02:25)
well, any then, you know, land, right? I mean, I've seen, you know, a quarter of an acre be more usable than a half of an acre. You're thinking of for square footage of a home. It really depends on the layout. You know, for example, I went to a listing appointment the other day and it was in a culdesac, which most people love culdesac lots and it was a course, a pie shape, but with the size of the lot, they had an absolutely no backyard. Like the only room of York space was actually just a little bit on each side. And so for most people, you know, although Oh, it's a col-de-sac lot, normally that'd be very attractive, you know, that's going to be a setback

Speaker 1: (03:00)
for them whenever it's time to sell. Um, so it's really determined also about the layout of the land as well. That's a great point. I know that I'm typically, you know, if I'm looking for a home, not interested in a just personal preference, you know the a lot on a busy street. So even if it was the square footage that I really liked or the, the lot sizes, something I really, you know, was looking for a, I probably would cancel it out just because of that. And I know that's, that hurts a lot of folks who are in that situation. Sometimes I was just going to use that for an example. So say that, um, Pat's home is half acre smaller shops, say a half acre lot but is on the interior of the neighborhood and then you have, you know, someone else who maybe got 300,000 for their home on an acre lot, but they're right across the street but they back up to the busy road.

Speaker 1: (03:44)
I bet if you know, you probably will actually get the same price for your home. If not, you might even make a little bit more just because the, you know, the location of their home can be a setback. So we need to come out at four listing presentation, do a walk through, you know, look at your, your overall, you know, yard as long, you know, and also your home. And then from there we can give you an idea of where we think you should be listed and what you would sell for. As always, the quality of the variable is just as important as the quantity and a lot size is certainly in that category as well. So great question, Pat. We really appreciate that. One, and it sounds like you would definitely be a person who would be a great fit for a complimentary listing consultation.

Speaker 1: (04:25)
If you're thinking about selling in the near future, like you mentioned, and you've got some of these nuances that you're not sure, Hey, the rest of our neighbors, we've got one big difference about our home. What kind of effect is that going to have? You need some boots on the ground, so give Angie a call or text and you can set up a time for her team to come out and take a close look at your property. (919) 538-6477 she'll go over all the details that you need to know to find out what's the great list price to utilize for your home. (919) 538-6477 is the number that's 919-5386TY-47TY-7 and always [email protected]. Another question here from Gerard Gerard is over in Raleigh and says we're going to sell our home soon and it'll probably be vacant as we're already packing. For our move. Do you have any tips for how to sell a home that's vacant?

Speaker 1: (05:14)
What things do we need to know? Once again, I feel like it can boil down to the floor plan and what we suggest from there. But whenever it comes to staging or selling a vacant home, um, we have some different options. So one being we can bring our stager in there and she can do what's called like a sprinkle or a fluff. And so that spring in just a couple of staging pieces in just to add some color so it's not so vanilla, you know, we really kind of steer away from bringing full furniture into a house just in our market. It's not needed and it can get to be very costly for the seller. So that's typically not the guidance that we give to fully stage rims. So do a light sprinkle. Another really neat thing that we can do to, um, that I've actually become a really big fan

Speaker 2: (05:58)
of it is doing virtual staging. Now I've seen some virtual staging that has looked horrific. It looks like the furniture is floating. That's not what we do. So I have a, an amazing contact who can virtually stage some of the rooms for me. And so the internet presence is really driving the traffic to your home because the pictures look amazing. It can show you a how furniture could be laid out in a space, especially if maybe we have an awkward, uh, layout of a live room or bedroom. Doing that. Virtual staging can go a long ways. And then although you get out to the home and of course the furniture is not there, pictures can really, really help. So once again, I highly advise that we do either a sprinkle of staging or we do the virtual staging and then above and beyond that, make sure that whenever you move out that you get your home professionally cleaned. I know my idea of cleaning versus having a professional cleaner come through and clean is different. You know, we need someone to get down there and, you know, wipe down our baseboards, clean our windows, seals really, you know, get all the grit and grime off of the appliances. Um, because once again, that can really help to sell your home a lot quicker when it is just spic and span.

Speaker 1: (07:08)
Yeah, it's a really great question Gerard. Thank you for sending that one to us as well. We have a, we had to sell our home vacant and it worked out great cause it was a little bit smaller homes so it just made it feel that much bigger without any furniture in it. So it's not a bad thing necessarily. Don't take it that way at all. All right, we got another question here from Clara and uh, we're hopping over to Benson for this question and Clara says there's a home we're thinking of buying. It's been on the market for three weeks, so it obviously hasn't gotten a ton of traction. I want to make a really low offer just to see what happens, but my husband thinks it's a bad idea, but I don't see what we'd lose. What's the worst that can happen? They say, no, that's no biggie and we can always make another offer. Right.

Speaker 2: (07:50)
Uh, Ooh. I feel like there's a lot in this whole, this question. Um, yeah. Okay. So first of all, what's the worst that could happen? Yes, they could say no, but what's really the worst that could happen is even though you revise your offer, they could come back and still say no because you've already offended them. In a sense. You do have to remember that whenever it comes to making an offer on a home, you know, that's a seller's home and this whole move and transition could be very emotional for them. Um, a lot of memories, you know, maybe it's a move they don't want to make and maybe they're forced to, you know, who knows what their situation is. And so making a very low ball offer is not only offensive financially, but it can also be very offensive because to most sellers, their home is their pride and joy.

Speaker 2: (08:36)
Right? And there could be a lot of sweat equity put into that home once again, a lot of memories. And to them their home is, you know, there's not even a price at the home's worth, if that makes sense. So be careful on just making a low ball offer. Also, you mentioned the host, but on the market for three weeks, it really depends on area, the price point, you know, location. But you know, three weeks is not a long time. Um, especially in the triangle we have seen, you know, especially being around the holidays, things have slowed down, right? But overall the market has shifted a little bit and homes are just not flying off the market within a day. Now, some still are, but it's not as strong as a market as what we were seeing earlier in, you know, 2019 and 2018. So a home that's been on the market for three weeks does not mean that it's overpriced.

Speaker 2: (09:26)
But that's where an agent who is representing you should be stepping in and giving you guidance. So showing you comparable, showing you what the home is worth, giving you guidance on what type of offer to make. So you know, Clara, if you don't have an agent, you need to call our team. We definitely need a chat, give you some advice. And if the home is overpriced, we'll lead you down the right direction of making an offer. And fight that point for you, but be cautious on just making a really low offer to kind of feel things out. Because I've had sellers in the past where buyers have made that low ball offer. Even though they came back and they increased it significantly, the sellers were already burnt and I couldn't even try to talk sense into them to say, Hey, we could probably work this out. They were like, no, no, no. These are unrealistic buyers. They're going to be a headache to work with throughout the process. I don't want to,

Speaker 1: (10:15)
so just kind of look at the pros and cons of doing that. You've been listening to the savvy real tour podcast. I'm Walter store Holt alongside Angie Cole. She's the owner and broker in charge of Aiko Realty here in the triangle, and if you have questions for Angie, we invite you to go online to a Cole realty.com listen to past podcast episodes on the website, read the blog and all the great information including the option to find a home right there on the website. That's a Cole realty.com and you can also call Angie with your questions. (919) 578-3128