GemOfTheWeek.com

Snooping time with nosy Gladys Kravitz!

Join me in checking out how much are people paying for property in your town.

Here are the latest property transfers:

Westport

Fairfield

Easton

Weston

Ridgefield

WIlton

Norwalk

I have not had any clients looking to rent a house in a while and in the last few weeks I have had a few. On top of that, the leases on two of my investment properties have come due and I did a market analysis to find out what they are worth on the current market.

All I can say is…WOW! I was sorely underestimating the value of my properties!

I have shown my clients a couple of properties in the same rent price range as one of my houses and those houses don’t even begin to compare to my house. They were old and not kept well. They each had an old, worn, cold feeling. My little house is bright and sunny and well fixed up, both inside and out. I was shocked that they would ask the same price as I did for such an inferior property offering.

Additionally, I showed a rental that was very similar to one of my other properties, but this house had a rent that was significantly higher than the rent that I charge (23% higher!) The house I showed was very well kept with a beautifully done kitchen and newer, renovated baths. The “fit & finish” of the house was at a higher end than my rental BUT, my house is bigger (almost 10% bigger) and each of the bedrooms in my rental will hold queen size bed…not the case with this higher-priced house.

I think, as a landlord, it was good for me to not only assess local rents on the MLS while sitting at home on my computer, but it was invaluable for me to see the actual properties themselves. It showed me that, in one case, I can charge more than I am charging and, in the other case, it showed me how I can marginally improve my property to garner a significantly higher rent.

If any of you out there are interested in buying real estate as an investment, contact me because I am happy to share what I’ve learned.

Rental properties can be a great investment!

Source: Greater Fairfield County CMLS,  HOUSES Sold = Single Family, Multi-Family, Condo/Co-Op

My husband is convinced that HGTV is, in part, responsible for the collapse of the housing market a few years ago. He says that, because HGTV made house flipping and home improvement look soooo easy and wrapped everything up with a perfect bow in 30 minutes, many do-it-yourself-ers rushed into projects they were thoroughly ill-equipped to handle.

They bought houses to flip and took on projects that failed and, in general, ultimately added to the overall malaise of the post-bubble housing market. As a Realtor, after viewing hundreds of houses, I can tell you I have seen my fair share do-it-yourself-ing done bad and gone wrong.

Personally, my feeling is there were quite a few parties culpable for the “bubble burst felt ’round the world”. A toxic mix of greedy bankers, delusional appraisers, uninformed mortgage folks and, yes, those too-quick-to-believe-the-hype Realtors. Not everybody behaved “erroneously”, just enough of them to bring it all down.

I would also like to point out that A&E and Bravo do their fair share of flipping shows as well. How do I know? I watch every last one of them

There’s a well-known saying in real estate that “bathrooms and kitchens sell a house” and, let’s face it, there is nothing better than a well done bathroom. Seems like designing a bathroom would be easy. Right? You know what you need to include…a toilet, a sink or two, a shower, maybe a tub too. How hard could it be?

Well, after reading the article below, I realized it’s harder than it looks! This article gives the average space requirements around a toilet. The size of a solid backsplash on sink. The height of a proper shower-head.

Who knew there was so much to take into consideration!

Read the article here, it’s very informative.

Image: Wettling Architects

My mother always used to mutter an expression from the poet Robert Burns that is so true…”Oh, to see ourselves as others see us.” Basically it means we only see things from our own perspective and don’t really consider how others may view us and our actions. This really hit home for me recently.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know I was recently going to sell one of my rental houses. Because of the amount I paid for the house, coupled with the money I put into fixing the house up after I bought it AND given the price that I think, as trained real estate professional, it would fetch in the current marketplace, I decided to sell it as a “for-sale-by-owner” just so I could break even on the money I originally invested in the house. A Realtor commission would have meant the difference of breaking even or losing money.

That decision made sense to me…I clearly know how to sell real estate. Since I am licensed by the State of Connecticut to do so, representation became less necessary. If a doctor has a cold, does he go to another doctor for treatment? If a mason wants a new patio, does he hire someone else to lay the brick? The answer to both of these is a resounding NO! That is one of the perks of any selected occupation…in those moments when you need your own services you are all set. Would I try and treat myself medically? No. Would I try and install a patio? Not in a million years! Would I try and sell my own house since this is something I do for others every day? You bet.

I was testing the waters at a lower price by using Craig’s List, Zillow and this blog…a smaller pool of buyers than the MLS (or so I thought!) My plan was that if I saw no interest in the house in those limited venues, I would raise the price a bit to accommodate an agent commission and then I would put it on the MLS where many more people would see it. We never got to that point because we ultimately decided not to sell.

Well, in those couple of weeks the house was listed, we were inundated not only with requests to view the house by actual buyers, but also by requests to show it by Realtors. Seems many of the Realtors had clients who had seen the house on Zillow or Craig’s List and asked the Realtor to show it to them…much to the chagrin of those Realtors.

Every time a Realtor would call me to make an appointment to show the house, the conversation was almost always accompanied by a lecture on how “I should know better!” “How dare I cut Realtors out of the process!” “Didn’t I know that the Realtor community is small and this will get around?” I will say, most of the agents that called where Realtors who had been in the business for quite some time and wanted me to know that “they knew better” than I (a young whippersnapper agent of 4 years) what was the appropriate protocol and this was most certainly NOT the appropriate way to sell my house. The whole time they were talking I am thinking, “Are you kidding me?” Why would I NOT use the modern day tools available to me to get my house sold in a financially self-pleasing manner…it’s my house and my money for crying out loud!

When I took a poll among some trusted colleagues, it would seem that all the “younger/newer” agents agreed with my methodology, while one or two of the more (ahem) “seasoned” agents answered with a “well, I’m not sure”. Perhaps a generational difference?

From time to time, I read a blog called Young House Love. It seems the young couple that writes the blog decided to sell their house themselves to save on the Realtor commission. When I read it, I immediately took umbrage and then just as immediately laughed at myself for doing so. I had just done the exact same thing, so why shouldn’t they? Well, I guess I can make the argument that they are not trained professionals AND because they had multiple bids, I did not feel they played their offers appropriately. Instead of having the buyers submit their “highest and best” offer once they knew they had multiple offers, they merely took the best one that had been originally submitted. Perhaps they would have been able to put a few more shekels in their pocket if they had asked each buyer what their best offer was, but then again, maybe not. A trained agent probably could have advised them a bit on the art of negotiation. And believe me, it is an art. In fairness they did ultimately sell to a buyer who was represented by an agent and they did pay that Realtor a commission. It still made me chuckle at myself, since I was in their place a few weeks prior and completely switched my tune when it wasn’t for my own self benefit.

Oh, to see ourselves as others see us!

Image: The Quote Factory

We went over to one of our rental houses yesterday to do some quick fertilizing after all the rain. While we were there our tenant came out to say hi. In the course of the conversation he asked if we’d ever consider putting in a patio in the back yard. Just something small where he could keep his grill and throw a few lawn chairs. My husband and I talked it over and decided it would be a nice addition to the house that would probably be an added bonus to any future renters as well.

When someone says patio, my mind immediately congers up a nice bluestone affair. When I mentioned bluestone, the tenant looked immediately excited and asked if that wouldn’t be too expensive. Honestly, I hadn’t thought of that. In my world, patios are just bluestone. What else could they be? We talked about it for a minute and then my husband noticed that one of the neighbors had a patio made completely of brick. As I looked at it, I quite liked it. The burst of red color looked really nice next to their house.

Hmmmmm…red or blue…not sure which way to go here? I will have to investigate which is easier to maintain because in a rental house that always trumps price and style!

Image: Merchant Circle, Lowes

Snooping time with nosy Gladys Kravitz!

Join me in checking out how much are people paying for property in your town.

Here are the latest property transfers:

Westport

Fairfield

Easton

Weston

Ridgefield

WIlton

Norwalk

Mortgages play a HUGE role in what I do for a living. They are probably the most important element of any house purchase. They are not only important at the time of the purchase and but they will also affect a homebuyer for the next 30 years over the life of a loan.

That said, I really do not know the specific ins and outs of a mortgage. I know the basics and that’s it. Truthfully, I am one of those financial dum-dums…I do not have a head for it AT ALL. I spent over 20 years in advertising where I encountered very little “financial talk” and that was a-ok by me.

As a result, I have surrounded myself by wonderful mortgage people. I have a list of about four mortgage specialists that I recommend to my clients. I know that, if they work with any one of those four people, my transactions will go smoothly and my clients will be very well cared for. Usually a house purchase is a person’s biggest investment and that’s nothing to fool around with or take lightly. I trust these people so much, I have used them myself for my own personal mortgage transactions.

As I have suspected all along, I am not the only one who glazes over when nitty-gritty mortgage “talk” starts. According to an article on CNNMoney, a third of all buyers have no clue about mortgages.

I have tried to put together a couple of links that may help explain how mortgage work and some of the key terminology you will be most likely to hear. If you are in the market to purchase a house, it may be worth a few minutes of your time to give them a quick read. Good luck!

What are mortgages - more detailed

What are mortgages – less detailed

How interest rates work

Mortgage glossary

Image: Google Images

Source: Greater Fairfield County CMLS,  HOUSES Sold = Single Family, Multi-Family, Condo/Co-Op