Home Inspection Property Zip Code
Home Inspection Property Zip Code
When you're looking for help buying or selling property, it's important to remember that the term's "real estate agent" and "Realtor" are not synonymous. Realtors can provide an extra level of service, and to be a Realtor you must be a member of the National Association of Realtors. The equivalent organization in Canada is the Canadian Real Estate Association. Both are non-profit trade organizations that promote real estate information, education and professional standards.
The National Association of Realtors also has earned a strong reputation for actively championing private property rights and working to make home ownership affordable and accessible.
NAR and CREA members adhere to a strict code of ethics founded on the principle of providing fair and honest service to all consumers. Realtor business practices are monitored at local board levels. Arbitration and disciplinary systems are in place to address complaints from the public or board members.
This local oversight keeps Realtors directly accountable to the individual consumers they serve. Real estate licensees, who are not Realtors, work solely under state/provincial licensing regulations.
The various designations are a symbol of achieving and maintaining advanced levels of education in real estate sales and marketing. Look for the Realtor or "R" logo when shopping for real estate assistance, for assurance of ethical standards and commitment to the community.
A Realtor is a licensed real estate agent who is a member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) a membership organization of some 720,000 real estate agents in the United States. A licensed real estate agent does not have to be a member of NAR to practice real estate.
In real estate, a broker has earned a broker's license. Many brokers own their own real estate office and are "brokers of record," with other real estate agents "hanging their license" under the broker of record.
Some people find an agent through a family member or friend. This is often a reliable approach. But you might not always find the most compatible assistance this way. And in a transaction as important and intensive as buying and selling a home, that can be critical.
Regardless of how you get an agent's name, it might be worth interviewing at least a couple before you make a final decision - or at least arming yourself with some criteria to go over with any agent who has been recommended to you.
If you're looking for an agent to list your home, be wary of anyone who suggests they can get an unreasonably high sales price. Ask for information that supports their conclusions. An agent might use a high listing price to secure a contract, only to seek a lower price later, after little traffic is generated at the initial price level. Meanwhile, you've lost what can be the most critical time period in selling a home - the first weeks immediately after it's listed.
Is the firm a local firm or a large National Agency? The common perception is that bigger is better. But is it? In today's real estate market place, all agents are effectively independent REGARDLESS of their affiliation. When you list your home with an agent, it is very likely that you are relying on their expertise - NOT the collective expertise of their company. In addition, in today's competitive market place, agents are almost always willing to co-broke in the sale of a home, again regardless of affiliation. Further, Independent brokerages like Heisler and Associates focus exclusively on their local markets, and are successful without TV and radio commercials, relying on their reputation alone for future business. Almost all of the best agents are either completely or almost completely independent.
Ask about an Agent's communication style. How often can you call them? How much feedback should you expect to get on a weekly or monthly basis? Do they use e-mail as well as the phone? Most people find selling their home to be a stressful process. Parts of it certainly can be stressful. At Heisler and Associates, we try to meet every customer's communication style. We make every attempt to return calls and e-mails promptly - with accurate, straightforward information to help you make decisions.
Check on experience, education and productivity. As with most professions, experience pays in real estate. Experienced agents know the market and the marketing process. They'll have the best chance of quickly and smoothly helping you to buy or sell your home.
Designations - such as the Graduate Realtor Institute (GRI); Certified Residential Specialist (CRS); Certified Relocation Professional (CRP); and Leadership Training Graduate (LTG) - suggest an expertise and commitment that goes beyond just earning and maintaining a real estate license.
The number of transactions an agent is handling monthly or yearly is going to give you an indication of how committed the agent is to the profession. Is the agent a part-timer who's just dabbling in real estate sales - or is the agent a full-time professional whose livelihood depends entirely on an ability to successfully and repeatedly close real estate transactions?
If you're a buyer - does the agent offer buyer agency? More and more buyers are deciding they want full contractual representation on the same level as the seller. Be sure to discuss buyer agency with any agent you're thinking about working with.
Does the agent know the market? Is the agent active in soliciting business in your neighborhood? Do you see the agent's yard signs around the neighborhood?
And a final point: Does the agent seem primarily interested in sharing expertise and market knowledge in an honest and straightforward manner? Or does the agent seem more interested in telling you what you want to hear - or spend a lot of effort trying to market additional products and services? The worst time to secure the services of a "yes-man" or an agent who seems to have a bit too many irons in the fire is when you're entering a transaction involving something as expensive as your home. You need straightforward, reliable information - even if it's not necessarily flattering regarding the home you're selling - or very encouraging regarding a home you think you might want to buy.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of selling a home is listing it at the correct price. It's one of several areas where the assistance of a skilled real estate agent can more than pay for itself.
If the listing price is too high, you'll miss out on a percentage of buyers looking in the price range where your home should be. This is the flaw in thinking that you'll always have the opportunity to accept a lower offer. Chances are the offers won't even come in, because the buyers who would be most interested in your home have been scared off by the price and aren't even taking the time to look. By the time the price is corrected, you've already lost exposure to a large group of potential buyers.
The listing price becomes even trickier to set when prices are quickly rising or falling. It's critical to be aware of where and how fast the market is moving - both when setting the price and when negotiating an offer. Again, an experienced, well-trained agent is always in touch with market trends - often even to a greater extent than appraisers, who typically focus on what a property is worth if sold as-is, right now.
When working with a real estate agent, it's critical that you have full confidence in that agent's experience and education. A skilled, knowledgeable agent should be able to explain to you exactly why your home needs to be priced at a certain level - compared to recent listings and sales of homes similar to yours.
Experienced agents also know exactly what the current pool of buyers are looking for in relation to particular styles and price ranges of properties. A skilled agent can recommend changes that will enhance the ability to sell of your home, thus increasing the price - and/or decreasing the length of time before a sale.
Some of these changes may be cosmetic, involving literally no expense on your part. It might be as simple as moving out some of your furniture and adjusting window coverings to best display desirable qualities of the home. Other changes might demand an investment, but the cost will likely more than pay for itself in the final sales price or timeliness of the sale.
It's critical to keep all these aspects of pricing in mind, regardless of who you choose to list your home.
There are two reasons for pursuing major home improvement projects:
A. You want some new features in a home to improve your family's quality of life, but you don't want to leave your current home.
B. You want to make your home more marketable to maximize return (or minimize loss) and speed up the sale process.
In the right market conditions, a project might fit into both categories. Other times, though, the two approaches will conflict:
In situation A, the project is perceived as a necessary or worthwhile improvement to your family's lifestyle. Say you have two or three teenagers in the family and the morning bathroom situation is completely out of control. It doesn't matter if an additional bath generates a 150 percent return on investment or actually decreases the value of the home (unlikely, unless you're a completely incompetent do-it-your self person with a bizarre design sense). The economic impact just doesn't matter. If you have the money for a new bath and you don't want to move - you add the bath. It's that simple.
Or say you're a barbecue fiend and the only feature missing from the dream home you've just purchased is a sprawling backyard patio with a natural-gas grill custom-built with flagstone and river rock. Again, return on investment just isn't going to be a critical question. The improvement becomes more comparable to purchasing a depreciating asset that you feel is a necessity for your lifestyle - such as an automobile. When the barbecue aficionado adds a deluxe patio to a home that's already the most expensive property in the neighborhood - perhaps destroying the entire backyard in the process - there's a good chance that very little of the cost will be recouped in a subsequent sale.
An even better example might be a pool. If you're a person who simply has to have one - fine. Put in a pool. But it's probably worth checking with a real estate professional first, just to make sure you fully understand that adding the pool might actually lessen the property's value and make it more difficult to sell should you later decide to move. That's the reality in many markets. That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't do it, especially if you're planning to live in the home for the rest of your life. It just means it's worth knowing the cost and ability to sell impacts at the front end - even if they're not going to deter you from pursuing the project.
The "type-B" home improvement project is pursued primarily to increase the property's ability to sell. In turn, this often increases your return on investment. A good real estate agent can advise you of possible improvements that will attract more potential buyers and also pay for themselves either through increasing the home's value or through shortening the time it takes to sell the home.
Here we're typically talking about projects such as: painting - either because the existing paint is in bad shape or is an unusual color; replacing carpets - again because of age, color or style; repairing or resurfacing a cracked driveway or sidewalk; re facing kitchen cabinets; and trimming or removing overgrown or unattractive landscaping.
While spending several thousand dollars on your home right before you sell it might not sound very appealing, it's not uncommon for the right work to more than pay for itself in a higher selling price and shorter marketing time.
Consult with an experienced real estate agent to learn what improvements will make your home more marketable in comparison to similar properties that are now - or recently have been - on the market in your area.
A decade ago, environmental issues were rarely a part of the typical real estate transaction. Today, however, it's common for inspections relating to environmental concerns to be part of most sales contracts.
In many states, seller disclosure regulations will reveal knowledge of certain toxic substances on a property. Typically, though, it's up to the buyer to pursue environmental inspections and tie any findings to the purchase offer.
Home inspectors who primarily focus on structural integrity and working systems might not be qualified to conduct specialized inspections for radon, asbestos and lead paint - substances that in recent years have emerged as the most common environmental concerns for home buyers. Testing for these substances typically requires a specialists who will charge a fee beyond the basic cost of a general home inspection.
As with any other inspection issue, the estimated expense of remedying a toxic substance situation may have already been factored into the home's listing price. Other times, the outcome of an inspection might become a negotiating point.
