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The future Aldie, Virginia location of RE/MAX Agility.

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This is the day everything changed. We had to be undercover for weeks until our official announcement. Big thanks to Peter and Ed with RE/MAX For their support. (at Denver, Colorado)

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Your House Smells

You’re selling you home.  You’ve lived there for years and it smells like home.  To others, it smells like a dumpster fire.  Let’s get on it and get it fixed.  I don’t mean spraying air freshener and putting up vanilla stick-ups. 

Have you ever cleaned your HVAC ducts?  If you have to think about it, you haven’t.  Get them cleaned.  It’s not that expensive.  You could replace carpet and paint your entire home and the ducts if they are dirty, the home could still smell.  

Carpet and padding.  If they in good shape, get them cleaned.  Your hard wood floor too.  All flooring.

Paint.  Walls can trap odor.  A fresh coat of paint makes everything better.  It’s like giving your home a bath.  It’s cleaner and it looks better.  

Last tip.  Don’t cook things in your house that is strong smelling while you are trying to sell it.  You never know what someone has a strong dislike for.  Baking cookies don't hurt.  If you're a buyer, and every time you see a house they are baking cookies.  Something smells.  It’s like people that wear too much perfume.  They’re hiding something.  

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How Real Estate Contracts Die

As a real estate broker, I see many types of transactions.  I see the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The good takes place on the transaction in the beginning.  The buyer is excited they have a contract in a market where things are crazy and they don’t have to look anymore.  The seller is happy because they don’t have to show their home to any more buyers.  Things seem great.  Then people start acting badly.  Then they get ugly.  The deal falls apart, and the parties blame their agents.

Know that most of the issues in a transaction can be prevented before they ever start.   Let’s discuss a couple of most common issues that kill transaction in our current market. 

Overvalued Properties.  That’s right.  Your market if you’re the Washington D.C. Metro Area or Northern Virginia, your property is over valued.  Over the last few years, we have had steadily increased in property values and the inventory is short.  Buyers are having to get aggressive and they are making offers to sellers hoping that they get accepted over other buyers making offers.  They are paying in most cases over the comparable home sale values.  Since the buyer is paying the seller what they consider “market value”, the buyer is going to expect the seller to repair and correct any issues they find on the home inspection.  This is the first challenge as the home inspection is being done normally in the first 10 days following the contract being ratified.  The seller feels like it’s a seller's market and that they shouldn’t have to do anything.  The most common responses from the seller will be the following:  It was like that when I bought it.  Followed by, it works so I shouldn’t have to replace it.  Ending with, we had multiple offers and I can just go back to one of the other buyers.  This situation becomes toxic very quickly.  The two parties are going to throw rocks at each other the rest of the transaction.  This could have been avoided if the seller had a home inspection before listing and made necessary repairs. If the repairs are too expensive, sell the property as is and disclose the issues.  It’s not worth having several contracts die before you do what you should have before listing.  

Short appraisals.  If the market is hot, the appraisal will start to fall short.  Since changes in lending laws due to the real estate financial crisis some years ago, the process has become murky at best.  The loan officer nor the buyer can talk to the appraiser.  Someone in the bank's office is assigned the duty to call the appraisal company through a third party.  Changes, if needed, are slow if possible at all.  Appraisers don’t like changing their appraisals even if they are wrong somewhere.  Having errors and corrections moves them down the list when appraisals are ordered.  If the seller has multiple offers, they don’t feel like they should have lower their contract price.  The buyer when making the offer decided that they use the contingency for appraisal to allow them to over offer and negotiate later.  This problem happens every day.  Agents tell their buyer, don’t worry.  The appraisal contingency will save us.  The seller will have to lower the price if it comes in short.  Not so.  The seller may say to the buyer pound sand.  Move forward or void.  There is a solution.  In the making, the initial offer, talk about what happens if it comes in short.  Did the seller have an appraisal done before listing?  Do they already know there is going to be a problem?  The listing agent may ask that the buyer guarantee a set amount of money they will pay if the appraisal comes in short.  I’ve done this when we have 20 offers and I know we’re over the value.  Let’s say the property gets appraised at $500,000.  The contract price was $525,000.  The buyer may in advance guarantee up to $10,000 in cash to cover a low appraisal.  The seller would be guaranteed at least $510,000.  A buyer can also make their earnest money on the contract no refundable so that the seller at least can cover a mortgage payment in the event the buyer backs out.  Be creative, but be transparent. 

Home inspection.  The buyer does hire a home inspection company.  The inspector comes out does the inspection and creates an 80 item list of things to repair.  The seller had a contractor look at the house before listing and feels like the inspection is excessive and asking for things that are not required by local building codes or financing.  The buyer is convinced by the home inspector that they should replace systems or items that are working because of their service life expectancy, should be replaced.  This is common.  The water heater is 10 years old.  It’s works, has no obvious issues, and even looks like new.  The buyer says my home inspector says they last only 12 years and the seller must replace it.  Seller says no, it works so I’m not replacing it.   LOL. The joys of selling real estate.  Understand that if you as a listing agent disclosure the ages of the systems when listing, put notes on equipment that buyers and buyers agents can see, and have a conversation with the buyer’s agent before having your seller accept the offer you can avoid this all together.  If I’m listing a home and I know that the water heater is older, the roof is older, and the appliances are older, I can take steps to keep the old replace everything or give me a credit problem.  It’s simple.  Mark with a black marker the dates on all systems.  Get a roof certification from a roofing company.  Get an HVAC service.  Have a plumber look at the water heater.  Then give all the receipts to the buyer’s agent when writing an offer and explain that the seller isn’t replacing or crediting money solely based on the ages of the respective systems or equipment.  Then during the home inspection, the buyer already knows if it works, it works.

There are many other issues and I could write all day long about the silly things that parties to a transaction do or what the agents aren’t doing.  The moral of the story is, hire a true professional with real experience.  Have a plan and be transparent.  Know that you’re dealing with people and if though we know we’re right doesn’t mean the other person doesn’t have the perception that they’re right.  Just work things in advance, ask questions, and have an agent that knows not just the process but also the outcome of the wrong choices.

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