Month: March 2017

You can’t get Peanut Butter out of a Jar with a Banana

Peanut butter and Bananas go together like PB & J. Unlike  jelly, a banana is pretty good all by itself. On my desk is a banana and a jar of creamy peanut  butter.  Although a banana has many fine attributes, scooping peanut butter is not one. Without a tool strong enough to knife through peanut butter, the two shall never meet. Within arms reach are items MacGyver would easily use to bring the two together. I want a snack of peanut butter and banana. The two will be merged.

A savvy real estate agent will find ways to bring people  together. She will find  get done what can’t be done, by using what’s sitting there in plain sight. Because she knows if she forces some good thing to do the job it’s not capable of accomplishing, the banana breaks. What do you have at your finger tips to spread peanut butter on a banana?

 

 

The Pinterested Homes Phenomena

Pinterest is a cool ap with unlimited interesting ideas. OH, I just got it! You PIN INTERESTing ideas—pinterest. This morning I had another a-ha! moment in real estate. A trend is going on and I think it’s a product of Pinterest. I call it Pinteresting a house.

A Pinterested home is one where an eye catching photo of a renovated interior room is the main photo for an older home. These photos are of new bathrooms with cool fixtures, renovated kitchens with tile backsplash and granite counters, or some interesting fixture. Nothing else about the house is interesting. A Pinterested home has some of these not so interesting features: Old HVAC systems, roofs worn beyond their life expectancy, poor windows, plumbing issues, outdated electrical systems. What I think is being done is more than lipstick on a pig kind of sprucing up. I wonder if home buyers are being distracted from the real expensive issues by the cool renovated bathrooms?

 

 

It’s About the Net to Seller, Not the Price

There are always  gimmicks. Buyer markets gave us the Appraisal Contingency – Escape Clause, and the Buyer-Gets-the Last-Word Inspection Contingency. Seller markets spawned the Escalation Clause.  Insecurity morphed the Escalation Clause into a watered down, useless jumble of nonsense. (I’ll beat any offer price as long as I get to see the offer, and then I get to deduct a laundry list of expenses from the price, and maybe I will agree to amend our price, but I don’t have to pay this amount if the appraisal doesn’t match our price, and then….)

All of the gimmicks look like good ideas until you, ah well, look at them. People who hire smart real estate brokers as Buyer Agents get their Offers accepted by steering clear of the gimmicks. The savvy Realtor® out thinks the competition by seeing  knowing the objective of the Seller is really the Net to Seller, not the Price Offered. I believe the Wisconsin Offer to Purchase (Residential, the Condo Offer, and Vacant Lane Offer) are boiler plate forms where costs paid by Seller are pre-determined. To increase the Seller’s Net without increasing the price, financially capable Buyers will take on the Seller’s typical expenses (some may be tax deductible—see your accountant), and save themselves thousands of dollars in interest and higher property tax bills over the years of owning the home.

This weekend when you write your offer try this: Think like you are in cooperation with the Seller, not in competition. The Offer has at least 8 areas you can modify to improve the love your offer receives from the Seller…and none of them require sappy letters and photos of your kids. If you haven’t committed to a Realtor® yet, before you do, ask them what ideas they have to help you get your offer accepted. Commit to the professionals who know how to make the Offer work for you AND the Seller.