Thursday, January 25, 2018 / by Paul Wolfert
By: Paul Wolfert - "The Move-Up Expert"
When you're getting ready to sell your home, you want to make sure you can get top dollar for it.
Because who wants to get "bottom dollar" for anything? Not me.
You’ve probably cleaned everything multiple times, you’ve cleared out extra junk, and you may have even staged the place so that it looks "picture perfect".
So are you ready? Not quite.
Before you list your home, there are a couple of inspections that you should probably do.
I'll make this list short and sweet. If you'd like the full list of what to do before selling, click here for my full PreSelling Checklist PDF.
1. Roof 'O Rama!
When was the last time you scooted up onto your roof? For most people, the answer is "never".
Well, you should do it, or have it done before a buyer hires an inspector to lug his gear up there. Finding out you problems beforehand is always better than the alternative.
If repairs are necessary on the roof or in the ...
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Monday, June 5, 2017 / by Paul Wolfert
By: Paul Wolfert - "The Move-Up Expert"
From time to time it can be fun to scour the latest “Top Ten” lists of cost-conscious ways to increase the value of your Michigan home.
Some make more sense than others. Upgrading bathroom vanity cabinets appears on some of the house value lists, for instance—but those lists were probably whipped together in a hurry since the return on investment is admitted to be 66%. When an investment returns two-thirds of its cost, it’s hardly competitive. For Michigan homeowners preparing to sell, vanity cabinets don’t belong on the action list.
The best idea lists are the ones which show ROI: the return on investment. Here’s a new compilation, offered purely as food for thought (since the “return” number for any individual case can’t actually be verified)—
Yard improvement, AKA Landscaping. Return on investment registers at a hefty 303% according to the NAR® (and even 400%, per This O ...
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Monday, May 15, 2017 / by Paul Wolfert
By: Paul Wolfert
I call it SLAM: an easy to remember abbreviation that can help any of my Michigan house hunters quickly rip through listed houses for sale. Any house that scores high in each area is investigated on a deeper level (we go check it out with our eyeballs).
The four parts of the SLAM list:
Schools. The eventual resale value of a candidate property isn’t usually given much consideration early on—but should be. A major issue when it comes to resale is the neighborhood’s school district rating. Schools head the SLAM list because—especially for those who don’t have school-aged children—the quality of a property’s school district is easy to overlook. It can also be an indicator of other community quality issues.
Location. It’s the key element that can’t be adjusted, improved upon, or glossed over—and it’s the reason why “location location location” is the cliché that won’t go away. ...
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Monday, March 27, 2017 / by Paul Wolfert
By: Paul Wolfert
When it comes to the reality of pricing a home in Michigan, it’s natural that buyer’s and seller’s points of view reflect their different roles and objective.
In a way, they’re mirror images of each other.
From the seller’s point of view, pricing their Michigan home starts out from the reality check of the “comps”—the prices registered in recent comparable neighborhood sales. From there, the pricing decision revolves around the tradeoff between maximum asking price versus the desire for a speedy sale.
Even if there's no time pressure at all, serious sellers will still set the asking price below a level that indicates disregard for current market realities. Rather than communicating “this place is worth more than what people are willing to pay,” overpricing only serves to needlessly put off buyers and their agents.
If time pressure is an issue, experienced sellers will peg the asking pr; ...
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