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Should your house be staged before you sell?

January 16, 2012 By 6 Comments

To Stage or Not to Stage – that is the question!
by Sveta Melchuk

Updated from the Home Staging archives. Originally published on Jun 18th 2007.

Staging a Home for sale will cost you money. Is it worth spending time and effort on it? After all, once the decision to sell has been made, you just want to get it over with as fast as possible, right?

First, did you determine the «right» price for your house? It should be based on certain objective criteria, such as the location of the property, sale price of comparable homes in your neighbourhood and today’s market conditions. But don’t forget the desirability factor…
While you can’t control some of the other criteria, you definitely have a say in the way your property looks, feels and is perceived by prospective buyers. Increase the visual/emotional value of your property and you will increase its desirability, therefore the price and the urgency to buy it from potential buyers. Why? [Read more...]

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The Comparative Market Analysis: CMA

January 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

A comparative market analysis (CMA) is an evaluation tool used by real estate agent’s, based on local listing and sales data, to determine the probable sale price of a property in the current market.

Who can use this information?

Both sellers and buyers alike.
Home sellers can use a CMA to help determine a list price.
Buyers can use it to help them determine the offer price on a property they want to buy.

How accurate is this analysis?

Depending on the quality of the data; the listings used for comparison should ideally be located in the neighborhood, and they should be as similar as possible to the subject property.

Comparative elements:

  • Property Type (condo, two storey houses, split level,etc);
  • Numbers of rooms;
  • Size of the living area and/or building size;
  • Year built;
  • Garage or parking spaces;
  • Basement: finished, semi-finished or unfinished;
  • Other similar features such as: fireplaces, inground pool, air conditioning, etc.

To determine the probable sale price of a property, the CMA will use the recent sales from the last 6 months. If the current market is changing rapidly, six months may be too long a time frame, in this case, 3 to 4 month sales records will be used as a reference.

The CMA should also include information about currently available comparable listings, as well as information about properties that did not sell during their listing period. These are called expired listings.

For sellers, active listings would be your competition once your home is on the market. How you price your property relative to the competition is critical to your home-selling success.

Thinking of selling your home?  Contact us today for a free home evaluation!

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Marketing Your Home: Beyond Signs and Newspaper Ads

November 28, 2011 By 4 Comments

Updated from the seller’s archive. Originally posted in 2007.

This post was one of the first ones to be on the blog, back in 2007. It was an adapted version of an existing article from our company’s marketing material for sellers. The content is still quite relevant. I hope you find it useful too.

If you’re thinking of selling your home, you need a marketing plan. Just like any other product people buy or sell, a home’s value must be communicated to the proper audience to ensure the seller gets the best possible price.

Marketing your home means more than putting up a lawn sign and sticking an ad in your local newspaper. You need to have a complete marketing plan that takes into account your home’s unique qualities, your objectives and details the specific resources available to you.

Your planning should begin as soon as you choose a Realtor, and often even before that. Part of your marketing plan will involve pricing your property, deciding when to list it and what features need to be cleaned or repaired. At this stage it is essential that you are completely honest with your Realtor about the condition of your home, your financial needs and any time constraints.

Once you have the basic information established, you need to get to the “guts” of the marketing plan, or determine how best to let people know that your home is for sale and get them excited about it. You need to keep in mind when you are planning that there are two key target audiences: home buyers and other real estate brokers. You will need different marketing vehicles to effectively reach each audience. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Selling Real Estate

The best time to sell your home

November 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

They always say that the spring is the best time to sell a home. I couldn’t disagree more.

Let me explain:

In today’s market, the average home in Montreal takes around 2 to 3 months to sell – if priced accordingly. You want to be closing in the spring, not listing it. By the time spring comes, you want your home SOLD – and not still for sale, otherwise you’ll be missing the boat.

So what you do is, you list it in the winter: end of January, beginning of February.
That way, all buyers who are looking to move in by the end of June (most rentals end on June 31st) will be able to have ample time to look at your listing, do visits and make an offer and then notarize by May or June.

Now, this isn’t to say that any other season is not good for selling a home. Just that in Winter-Spring is when most of the sales (volume) takes place.

If you’re thinking on selling, the fist step begins with a call. Let’s talk.

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Time to list: Income Property

October 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

You’ve probably heard before that September is the Income Property Month.
And why is that?

Summer time is usually slow in Real Estate, people take vacations, kids are off school, etc. etc. Then comes September. But before we go on, lets rewind a bit, so I can explain why is best to list after the summer.

As you already know, Montreal official moving date is on July 1st each year. Most residential leases end then. So when an income property is listed after July [New leases are signed, old ones renewed, etc], as an owner, you will know exactly how many tenants remained and how many are gone. The vacancy rate is very clear. Then you can price and market your place according to it.

This information is crucial for those looking to invest, because it gives them the certainty of the income expected from then until june of the following year.
It will be clear for buyers to know what they are getting into, whether they want to repossess one of the units, rent the whole building or renovate a few apartments to later increase the rent.

Buyers who are looking into income property for just an investment, they will be happy to know that there are still plenty of new listings that come out in february. So, for sellers the timing is quite flexible: List in September or wait until the winter time. Either way, there will be buyers.

If you are interested in selling or buying an income property, contact me today.

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Condo Open House or Not?

September 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

One of my colleagues has a condo for sale, and he has done a few open houses since he listed the property a couple of months ago. He advertises in the local papers, in the MLS, on the street signs and at the building’s main entrance, so there’s no doubt that people in the area (or looking at the ads) know there’s an open house.

The first one had two to three visitors. The second time had one visitor, and ever since then, every time they held an open house (Sunday 2:00 to 4:00 PM) no one else had ever showed up.

So here comes the question I often ask my peers:

Is it worth doing open houses for Condos?

And the answer, at least in my opinion, varies depending on a few factors.

  1. The building is located in a highly transited residential area. In this case, there will be other properties for sale, with that, other people looking at the units as well, creating more traffic towards one’s property.
  2. Good weather conditions; on a nice sunny day people like going out for home visits. Contrary to that, holding open houses on a (heavy) rainy day, or extremely cold, and let’s not forget to include: when a snow storm its expected, it has been proven to be a complete waste of time. For obvious reasons.
  3. If the condo has been recently listed. The new “unit for sale” will get the buyer’s attention for a Sunday visit. It will be smart to hold a couple of open houses to get the interested parties in – be it buyers or brokers. But in the case that the condo has already been in the market for a while [months], with no offers, there is no point to hold open houses before addressing the more important issues, like say, pricing or marketing, (whatever the case may be)

According to Real Estate statistics, only 1% of buyers come from an open house visit.

I can already hear some saying: “Yes but I had a sale where the buyer came from an open house”. And yes, it has happened to many in the course of their real estate careers. However, this is the exception, not the rule.

So before asking your broker (or telling your client, if you are a broker): “Do open houses every Sunday until it gets sold” You might want to reconsider using [or having the broker use] that valuable time and invest it in other ways to market the property.

Love to hear your comments on this topic. I know many of you won’t agree, and I would like to know why do you think open houses are good to hold in condos.

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Gourmet Appetizers and Open Houses – A Good Combination?

September 27, 2010 By 5 Comments

Photo: Deya Bautista

I follow some industry blogs from the US, and I was amazed at the way some agencies go about organizing open houses, offering a whole range of catered food. Specially in New York, I’ve seen posts from Open Houses that actually offers a menu of appetizers. Gourmet Food in Open Houses. I find the idea fascinating, but I wonder how effective it really is.

In Montreal, we often use the wine and cheese events, as well as catered food for project openings, and/or corporate events, but I have not seen the first single residential listing “Open House” giving away gourmet food. Not yet, anyway.

I’ve had opportunity to visit homes whose agent offered coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits. And that’s as far as I’ve seen. In the summer time I’ve set up open houses with a table full of Italian pastries, juice and lemonade, nothing too elaborate.

When I see the menus from these agencies in New York and L.A offering caviar, beef tartar and other fancy treats, it makes me wonder: does it really work?

The purpose of an open house to show off the home itself and get the visitors acquaintance with the space. It is said, the longer the visitor stays inside the home, the better chances for a sale to happen.
Do these potential buyers stay longer because of the food? I wouldn’t think so. Then again, there must be a good reason why these trend is becoming more and more popular in certain cities.

Have you attended an open house serving food? Did you stay longer because of it?
I’d love to hear your comments!

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