REAL ESTATE

Real Estate in Today’s Marketplace

Written by Robert

You decided that you want to sell your current property. You thought, why should I spend money unnecessarily,

I can just sell my property myself, but can you in today’s market place with so many foreclosures and short sales throughout the real estate market nationwide. Your home is probably the largest investment that you have. Without the professional guidance and assistance of a Realtor you may find that selling your property yourself may entail numerous complications and issues. Realtors abide by a strict code of ethics and generally pledge to promote and protect the interest of the party that they represent as well as having a fiduciary responsibility to the other parties involved in a transaction. It is important to ask yourself if you are really saving money selling your property yourself if you do not have enough knowledge regarding selling and marketing your property to the general public. You may determine that working with a professional real estate agent is a lot less expensive than you may have thought.

Real estate agents evaluate the current market conditions within your area, showing you the properties that are currently available as well as those that have sold and closed escrow within the past 6 months or less. They also use the tax records as well as the Multiple Listing Service to evaluate the pricing structure. Market trends are continually changing, so the values within your immediate area change as well, and foreclosures have affected the market values within many neighborhoods nationwide. You do not want to price your property too high for the current market or too low. Unfortunately foreclosures have forced the values down within many areas. Marketing your property within a difficult market is also challenging. Pricing is just one aspect of real estate, others include forms of advertising. What type of photographs are best to put in an ad for on line advertising. In the current market is it best to use social media to advertise your property, or various real estate web sites, and what about print advertising is this still a valuable medium in toady’s market place?

If you decide to try and sell your property yourself, how are you going to show the property, open houses or by appointment? Many times we find in the industry that open houses are not the best way to market a property. You need to be available to show the property to prospective buyers and this may include night time and weekend showings, so are you going to be available during all of these times to meet prospective buyers? Real estate agents generally place a lock box on a property giving access to the other agents to show the property to prospective buyers. This enables them to have flexibility with the showing times and of course the agents should always let the seller know that they plan to show their property and give them an approximate time that they can expect them to be at their property to show it and leave their business card at the subject property as well for follow-up about the property.

With the current economy you are putting yourself and your property in jeopardy by not knowing who the individual is that is coming into your property if you hold an open house yourself. The individuals that you are allowing into your residence have not generally been pre-qualified by a lender. A lender spends the time to evaluate the income, credit worthiness and current financial obligations of an individual and basically informs them of what price range property they can afford as well as the monthly payment that they can afford. The lender evaluates their ratios and also discusses various loan programs with the client so they understand what they are getting themselves into when they purchase a property. The lender also will explain to the buyer the various point structure sometimes associated with a loan, such as discount points and origination points as well as additional fees required to obtain a loan. The lender will also follow the loan process as it progresses including the appraisal and making sure that the property appraises for at least the sales price as well as having all the documents prepared for the closing.

There are many additional steps in preparing a property to close escrow and in some states they involve the use of real estate attorneys and in other states they use title and escrow companies instead of an attorney. Funds need to be collected and documents prepared prior to the close of escrow. This is where the use of a title and escrow company is important for they contact the current lender and ask for loan balances and the pay off statement as well as handling many additional aspects of the closing process for both the buyer and the seller.

In a short sale or foreclosure situation there is major involvement with the financial institutions that the sellers loan was originated with. Also many issues may arise within these particular facets of real estate, that an individual seller may not know how to handle themselves, without proper legal representation or a real estate professional who has the knowledge and expertise to handle these types of transactions and have them close escrow.

In summary it is really important to consider whether you have enough knowledge in the current real estate industry to be able to list and sell your property yourself. You may determine that working with a professional Realtor may be the right decision, for they may be able to actually get the job done in an efficient and less stressful manner than you trying to do it yourself.

About the author

Robert

Robert loves the sea and dreams of getting a home with a beachfront. He used to be a Data Scientist in a multinational company but left his job to follow his passion for writing.