Make Sure Your Home Stands Tall in a Competitive Market

By Ruben Gonzalez Jr

Prudential California Realty (DBA)

Home sellers today must convince a new era of buyers returning to the market that their homes stand for value and quality.

The time-honored open house event remains a terrific way to expose your property to many consumers and gain distinction from the competition. While your real estate professional will advertise and manage the event, it is up to you to ensure that your home is seen in the best light possible. Remember, you only have one chance to make a first impression, so approach your open house event as your property’s showcase. Here are several ways to make your property shine, inside and out.

Start with the outside. Do a visual check of the front of the house from across the street. Does your property have curb appeal? It should look inviting, with a trimmed lawn and flowerbed and a freshly painted front door. Polish door handles and knockers and replace worn items such as a rusty doorbell. Consider adding a new doormat and flowering plants at the entrance. Don’t forget to wash your windows and clean any oil or rust spots from the driveway.

Be sure to inspect the side and back yards. Add some flowering plants to the back as well. Clean and rearrange the outdoor furniture to look inviting. Put away gardening tools, and tidy around the grill area.

Now focus on the inside of the home where cleanliness, space, smell and lighting are vital. First get your house in tip-top condition by cleaning and clearing away clutter. Steam clean and vacuum the carpet. Make sure your floors are waxed and shiny. Touch up nicks on walls and make sure the porcelain sinks and tubs and metallic fixtures shine.

Be conscious of any lingering odors such as smoke, pets or strong-smelling foods. You may need to air out your home prior to your open house event. Consider grinding fresh lemons in the garbage disposal. And don’t forget to empty all trash containers.

Look at your countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms and the tops of your bureaus. Do they seem cluttered? Clear away and store as much as possible. You want your home to seem spacious.

Next, set the mood. Let your prospective buyers picture your home as their own. Rearrange the furniture so that rooms look more spacious, or consider removing furniture and accessories.

Lighting is also important to creating a desirable atmosphere. Bright lights provide a cheerful environment and make a small space appear larger. Pull back all the drapes and open the blinds. Turn on all the lights. Make sure all light sockets have fresh bulbs. Use softer lights for rooms in which you want a warm, cozy feeling.

Don’t forget little touches such as fresh flowers, lighted candles in the bathrooms, new logs in the fireplace, or a bowl of fresh fruit on the kitchen counter. You may even want to set your dining-room table with color-coordinated table settings.

Home buying is steeped in emotion. Sellers shouldn’t rely on buyers to use their imagination; they must capture buyers’ imagination. Remember that buyers may see seven or eight homes in a single day. The most memorable home will be the one that seemed the brightest, the most spacious and the most cheerful.

Ruben Gonzalez can be reached at (562)507-0754 or E-mail. 

Prudential (dba) is an independently owned and operated member of The Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc., a Prudential Financial company. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Home Buyers, Start Your Engines

If you were thinking of buying a home, start looking.

The latest data from the housing market shows that sellers, after months and years in denial, are finally giving in to reality and slashing prices.

There is a distance still to go. There may even be a lot to go. But the process, long delayed, is now well underway.

The National Association of Realtors on Tuesday released its long-awaited report on prices from the first quarter. The price drops were startling.

In many of the former hot spots, from Florida to Nevada to the Californian "Inland Empire," single-family home prices plunged by 20% to nearly 30% in a year.

Even more remarkable was how far prices had fallen just from the previous three months. In greater Las Vegas, for example, single-family home prices are down about 20% compared to the first quarter of 2007… and about 9% compared to last fall. In certain parts of California, the quarter-on-quarter declines are more than 10%. And there are similar pictures from Boston, Mass., to Tucson, Ariz., to, well, lots of places in Florida.

Nationwide, the decline from the previous quarter was about 5%, says the NAR. And this, ultimately, is good news. We know prices have to fall. The sooner it happens, the quicker the market can clear. We may not be at that stage known on Wall Street as "capitulation," but there is more than a whiff of it in the air.

Far too many people in the real estate market have spent far too long insisting that denial is just a river in Egypt. They refused to accept there was a bubble on the way up, and refused to admit it even on the way back down. (There's a few still out there: Last week I got an angry email from a broker who blamed the whole slump on "the media".)

It is simply remarkable how slow this bubble has been to deflate. That, bluntly, is part of the problem.

In the Las Vegas area, for example, NAR data shows single home prices peaked in early 2006. Yet by the middle of last year, when everyone and their Aunt Sally already knew we were deep into the biggest housing bust since the Great Depression, prices had only been cut by around 4%.
No wonder sales volumes collapsed and the number of unsold homes skyrocketed.
You can imagine what fantasies the sellers were clinging to. "Well, two years ago this home was worth half a million bucks."

The problem: So what? It doesn't matter what prices were three or two years ago. We were in a bubble. Market psychologists call this "anchoring", because people anchor their expectations to the past, and it's a fallacy.

Just five years ago, the same home sold for $270,000 and 10 years ago just $200,000. Are those relevant anchor points too?

Fact: Even though Las Vegas single family home prices are down about a quarter from their peak, NAR data shows they are still nearly 45% above their levels in early 2003.
The picture is similar in other former hot spots.

It remains to be seen how much further prices have to fall.
As always, quality and scarcity command a premium. But remember that a burst bubble is still a burst bubble and everything is affected.

Cisco Systems is a top quality technology company with real profits, but its shares still fell about 80% in the dotcom crash.

There is no desperate rush to buy real estate. (The best way to play the real estate crash was to buy the homebuilding stocks when they bottomed out in January, as written in this column at the time.)
But sellers have at least returned to the bargaining table. If you are in the market for a home, it is time, cautiously, to take a look and, maybe, see if you can play, "Let's Make A Deal."

Copyright: By Brett Arends, The Wall Street Journal

Buyers it's time to start shopping around, especially you first timers!!! As I mentioned before inventory is high, interest rates are low and FHA is going STRONG... Don't miss out on a great opportunity, FIND YOUR NEW HOME!!!

This Sunday, May 25, I will be holding an OPEN HOUSE at 800 Pacific Ave #305 between 12 - 4pm. Great buy @ $179,500! Scroll down to view slideshow of property.

See you around the neighborhood

OPEN HOUSE IN NORWALK 3/22 12-4PM