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Is buying a home in New England a good investment?

March 7, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa 4 Comments

Is buying a home in New England a bad idea?

Most people that are buying a home plan to hold onto it for longer than a year, which makes this market an attractive market to buy in because in the long run, the value of your home will increase, which is what makes location important when choosing where to buy home. The last few years have not been great for the housing market and many home owners have been jittery but the question you should ask yourself is: why am I buying a home? Is the value of this home going to appreciate over time? Homes are not like stock, they are usually a long term investment. homeowners who purchased a house in New England in the early 1990s can still sell for a higher price – house prices since 1991 have appreciated by an average of 105%

The last year may have felt brutal for most homeowners but the data shows that New England homeowners faired better than most in 2010.

According to the Federal Housing finance Agency home prices declined in most states during 2010; declining by 0.8% overall. Only 4 states (North Dakota, Alaska, District of Columbia and West Virginia) showed overall appreciation in house prices in the last year within the USA.

Although Massachusetts home values did not appreciate, the depreciation was negligible; single family home prices depreciated by 0.1% overall and the state ranked 5^th in house appreciation index.

The price of single family homes in New England dropped by 1.11% in 2010 and depreciated 11.39% overall since 2005, with the worst depreciation in home prices occurring in 2008. This means that most homeowners who purchased a house in the last 5 years have seen the value of their house drop by an average of 11.39%. Despite the small drop in prices, the New England housing market did better in 2010 than all the other regions, in particular the Mountain, Pacific and South Atlantic regions. However, in the last 5 years home values in the South Central Region have appreciated by 7.27% in the South Central Region and 0.39% in the East South Central Region.

I would love to know your opinion on buying a home in New England, please share your comments below

Filed Under: Economic Outlook

Cohasset Housing Market sees improvement

March 2, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa 1 Comment

Total home sales up 18.75% in Cohasset, MA

According to statistics from the MLS PIN total property sales (single family, condominiums and multi family homes) in Cohasset increased from 80 homes sold in 2009 to 95 homes in 2010; representing an 18.75% year on year increase. Despite a slight drop in total properties listed on the market, total market volume increased by 15.66% to $77,424,425. Average days on the market have decreased significantly by 23.58% to 162 days, reflecting that homes are sold faster, whilst median price increased 9.92% to $720,000, suggesting that buyers are starting to feel comfortable purchasing higher priced properties. Although Cohasset’s real estate market did better last year; Hingham sold 280 homes with lower days on the market (115 days).

Learn more about the Cohasset market

Join us for our Spring Homesellers Seminar to learn more about how the market is doing and to speak to our panel of attorneys, appraisers and mortgage brokers

Date and Time: March 6, 2011 at 11 am – 12.30 pm

Location: Minot Lightkeepers’ Residence, 15 Lighthouse Lane, Cohasset, MA 02025

Image by Flickr user pdbreen

Filed Under: Home owners, Homebuyers

5 questions to ask your Realtor before selling your home

February 24, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa 1 Comment

As Spring draws nearer, many homesellers are thinking of selling their homes and this means that they will have to talk to realtors and determine if they are the right fit for them. Here are some questions to ask your realtor before listing:

1) Tell me about yourself and your background

You want to know about your Realtor – how long they have been in business or what they did before this and how well they know your neighborhood. But you also want to know about who they are as people, this is someone who will learn about some very personal things about you as they sell your home and you need to know the kind of person they are and what they stand for; you need to trust them and feel comfortable with them.

2) How will you determine the price of my home?

How much is the house? This is what many consumers are asking. Pricing is a big part of marketing – a house that is overpriced can scare away prospective buyers and may take longer to sell so pricing correctly from the start is critical. Your Realtor should work with you by looking at current market trends and doing a comparable market analysis.

3) How do you plan to sell my house?

Do not be afraid to ask your Realtor for a 2 page marketing plan. You want to know how someone plans to get information about your house out there. You need to have an offline and online marketing strategy with dates for each medium - newspapers, open houses, radio, Facebook advertising, national real estate sites etc. Remember people need to know about you to come see your house and buy it.

4) What brand exposure will your company give to me?

This is a similar question to the one on a marketing plan except you are asking about the company’s brand and what additional marketing support it can give you online where homebuyers from all over the world are constantly searching the internet for example Remax has an average of 2.6 million visitors monthly.

5) What are the average days on the market for homes in this neighborhood?

This question will give you a basic idea of what to expect on average from your real estate agent and will also help you plan for the future. If you home is well priced and well marketed it is safe to assume that you will sell within the average time period.

Image by Flickr user Andréia

Filed Under: Home owners Tagged With: before selling your home, how much is the house, questions to ask your Realtor

What’s stopping you from selling your home?

February 22, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa 1 Comment

The baby boomer generation is retiring and their children are moving out to go to college or get married and this makes the market very interesting. They no longer have the need for big homes and are looking for smaller space, to be in a tight knit community or to just go traveling (my perpetual fantasy).

But the baby boomer generation is faced with some unique problems when it comes to selling their homes:

1) The kids could come back home or are back home

Born between 1982 and 2000, they are known as generation Y but are also called the boomerang generation because they are moving back home to wait out the recession, build savings and pay off student debt. Whilst I have not moved back home I have a few friends whose parents are stuck from selling their homes because they are worried about what will happen to their kids. The world has changed; college fees average at $40,000 a year, multiplied by 4 that is $160,000. This is the debt that Gen Yers are looking at when graduating from college, and as can be understood not many of them are excited about adding a mortgage to the debt. Of course there are many other reasons why kids come back home – rising costs of unemployment, increase in living expenses and stringent mortgage rules that make it hard to buy a house.

At the end of the day homeowners and homesellers still need to consider the cost of maintaining a house and if you can afford it that’s great but if you cannot you can either:

Charge your kids rent and stipulate how long they can stay
Depending on the number of kids you can sell your current home and buy a smaller one or a condo
You can sell your current home and together with your kids rent the next one, this can free up some cash from your current property

2) The mortgage value of the house is more than the market value

Unfortunately in this market this is more common than we would like to admit – many people that bought houses when the market was “hot” during 2000 and 2006, are now facing this situation. My recommendation is to call real estate agents and ask for a comparative market analysis and if need be even asking about short sales. Also call your lender and determine exactly how much you need to pay off. Once you have a comparative market analysis and know exactly how much you owe you can determine when to sell and what your next step will be.

One thing to consider is that this economy is slowly changing but it will take a long time before it gets back to where it was before.

3) Not knowing what’s next

The truth is we are human and sometimes we have no clue what the next step for our lives are. We know we need to sell for a multitude of reasons but we do not know what next we need to do and where we will live. In this case do your homework: talk to real estate agents, put together a list of neighborhoods and ask your agents for a marketing plan of your home.

What are your concerns when it comes to selling your home? Please share in the comments section below.

Image by Flickr user milos milosevic

Filed Under: Home owners Tagged With: baby boomers, boomerang generation, generation Y, homeowners, homesellers, selling your home

Design to sell: Sell your home in less time at a higher price

January 27, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa Leave a Comment

One of the things that every homeseller should ask an agent is for a marketing plan to sell your home. I would go as far as asking for a written marketing plan or schedule so you know what to expect in the process.

The first thing you should ask a listing agent is if they think your home needs to be staged and if they work with a home stager. Home staging is an important act of marketin because nobody wants to buy an ugly house. As a homeseller you want your home to sell as fast as possible. Home staging is not just about decorating your home, it is about making your home more attractive to homebuyers. Research shows that home staging can reduce a listing’s time on the market by one third to half and could increase price by 10-15% more than if your home was not staged.

The best way to stage your home is to use a professional home stager because they know how to arrange furniture in an attractive way, how to present the outside and show space in its best light. Some listing agents will provide a home stager as part of their service and others will recommend one for you. Fees can range anywhere from $500 to $7,000 depending on the home stager and your market. To find a professional home stager you can ask your listing agent and if they do not have one you can also contact people in your neighborhood who have recently sold homes and find who they recommend.

Some things you can do to make a home stager’s job easier and faster:

• Declutter - clutter makes your home look and feel small, which does not make a house attractive
• Clean your house and your yard – I know this seems like a no-brainer but I have recently seen a home on sale that badly needed some cleaning
• Repair and paint your house– Nobody likes to se a house where things look broken or run down so take a few minutes to repair all that needs repairing and to apply a fresh coat of paint to rooms that need it
• Let light in – Very few people like dark spaces unless they are depressed

Filed Under: Home owners Tagged With: decorating your home, design to sell, homebuyers, homesellers, staging

3 Ways to use affirmations to build a profitable real estate business

January 26, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa Leave a Comment

I have always been a big fan of the power of positive thinking and I am a great believer in the law of attraction. If thoughts are things then every time you think a thought you create a reality which means that your bad thoughts about your real estate business are affecting your success. If you are walking around with the notion that this is a bad market or that things are hard then this is the silent underlying message that you are sending to your clients. Why would homesellers use you as a listing agent if they can sense that you are not confident?

It is often hard to fight limiting beliefs because we see them as facts supported by our reality. Take some time to imagine for a second that we are all creating our reality with our limiting beliefs, which are deeply ingrained into our subconscious. The best way to fight these beliefs is by simply reprogramming our subconscious and the best way to do this is to use affirmations, which are positive statements repeated consistently over a period of time (at least 30 days).

Repetition is the key to success with affirmations. If you repeat something long enough, you will begin to believe it. How can you use affirmations to build a profitable real estate business?

1) Use affirmations to break bad habits holding you back

What bad habits are holding you back from listing more homes or selling more homes or just doing more in your life? It could be a bad habit of procrastinating or mismanaging your time.

2) Tie your affirmations to your business goals and objectives

Start using affirmations to help you reach your goals and meet your objectives and to make the impossible possible. If your goal is to do one listing presentation a week, you can affirm this.

3) Use affirmations to improve your skill sets

What are the skills that you need to improve your business? What skills do you believe you lack as a listing agent? It could an underlying belief that you are not good at negotiating or maybe you don’t think you are good at business. Once you have this figured out you can create affirmations to counter it.

Examples of affirmations to use in your real estate business:

I now achieve my goals in an easy and relaxed manner
I am a successful entrepreneur and am enjoying a _______income a year
Money flows to me easily and freely
I manage my money wisely

Please share your thoughts on affirmations in the comment section below:

Filed Under: Advice for agents Tagged With: affirmations for real estate agents, law of attraction, power of positive thinking, thoughts are things

5 tips for consistent real estate blogging

January 19, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa Leave a Comment

Most real estate agents say that blogging takes a lot of time and like most bloggers, they lose steam halfway through the process. Like most things, when it comes to blogging it is best to have a strategy in place on how to keep blogging consistently:

1) Decide how often you want to post

There are some bloggers that can post a great article everyday day and even others that can post 3 times a day but let’s be realistic, if you are a really busy real estate agent posting an article a week may be the most you can do and that is fine. You want to have fun blogging and do not want to burn out.

2) Take a day to relax where you do not think about the blog

I am not only a business coach and entrepreneur but also a writer and when I started blogging I went to town and blogged everyday for a whole year. When I was not writing, I was thinking about the blog. A year later I was burned out and it took me 6 months to recover and another 6 months to get to where I was writing consistently. My point is real estate blogging is important to show your knowledge and expertise and also market yourself but it is also a small part of your business as an agent.

3) Have a content strategy in mind

Decide beforehand what you are going to write about, who you are going to link to and what keywords you would like to be known for – keep a list of potential blog posts that you like so that you do not always have to sit there racking your brains figuring out what next.

4) Have an “ask Suzie” section to your blog and blog about your area of expertise

Sometimes it helps to have correspondence with your readers so if you have an ask Suzie section where you answer a real estate question every other week. This also helps you understand what it is that homebuyers and homesellers are interested in finding out and it will also keep you consistent because your readers and those questions hold you accountable to deliver a blog post.

5) Video blog

Sometimes I prefer doing videos to writing because I can express my thoughts better when I speak than when I write. Videos do not have to take that long or be super professional for people to connect with you. A camera or a phone will do. You could also do video interviews of people in the towns you deal in and ask them questions about the town.

Please share your tips on blogging consistently with use in the comments

Filed Under: Advice for agents Tagged With: area of expertise, real estate bloggers, real estate blogging

What is your real estate business strategy for 2011?

January 4, 2011 By VangileMakwakwa Leave a Comment

What is income goal for the year? Do you know how many houses you have to list or sell to reach this goal? Do you have a strategic plan in place to make this goal a reality? We all know the proverb that states that “those who fail to plan. plan to fail.” This is as true in business as it is in life. Real Estate agents who approach their business without a plan in place are courting failure.

Business planning for real estate agents 101: A business plan does not need to be a long winded document. I am in favor of the 5 page business plan where you:

decide what your annual income for the year will be
how many houses you have to sell or list a month and a week to reach that income
what strategies you can employ to list these houses and sell them.

For example:

If you want to earn $150,000 this year and you make an average commission of $10,000 per sale (you have to sit down and determine the average commission of homes in your neighborhood):

1) You will have to sell 15 homes to reach that income.

2) This is works out to 1 home a month and 2 homes for 3 months of the year.

3) To reach this goal you may have to send out emails to past customers, call your database, cold call and mail expired listings etc

Please share your income goal with us in the comments section below

Filed Under: Advice for agents Tagged With: business planning for real estate agents, business strategy, real estate business, strategic plan

Is buying a home in New England a good investment?

Cohasset Housing Market sees improvement

5 questions to ask your Realtor before selling your home

What’s stopping you from selling your home?

Design to sell: Sell your home in less time at a higher price

3 Ways to use affirmations to build a profitable real estate business

5 tips for consistent real estate blogging

Top 3 content ideas for realty websites

What is your real estate business strategy for 2011?

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