Kansas City Real Estate Podcast with Adam Butler

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation The idea behind Zillow’s Zestimate feature is to give you an estimate of your home’s value. While we truly believe that Zillow is generally a great real estate resource, we recommend being careful about the Zestimate feature in particular. The Zestimate gives you a very vague idea of what your home is actually worth. In most areas, they are only within 10% of the actual value 50% of the time. So, if you have a $500,000 house, half the time Zillow will tell you it’s worth somewhere between $450,000 and $550,000. That’s a huge range, and half the time Zillow will not even put your home value inside it! If you want an accurate idea of how much your home is worth, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to provide you with a free market analysis so you can get a clear picture of what your home is really worth! Give us a call or shoot us an email at any time. We would love to hear from you!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation Today I’m relaxing poolside at one of my client’s houses that we’ve sold, and not worrying about the foundation at all - no different than what most people are doing during the summertime. Worrying about things like water infiltration and keeping the proper grading around your foundation so it doesn’t seep in is something people usually do in the springtime. I will tell you, however, that this is a mistake. What I mean by that is if it’s a really dry summer and the soil around your foundation doesn’t get the proper moisture, it will shrink. When the dirt shrinks, small gaps in the ground can emerge that can move your foundation and generate cracks and other damage that can be expensive to repair. Just because it’s summer and there’s not a lot of water doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to be worried about. It only takes a teeny bit of shrinkage for a foundation to move and give way to a hairline fracture. Make sure the soil around your house stays moist. If we get two or three weeks without rain, put your sprinklers on the ground and drag the hose around. Adding a little water to the dirt so your foundation can't move will be money well spent. To prevent cracks in the foundation, make sure the soil around it stays moist.If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I would be happy to help you!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation Interest rates are down, and they have been for a while. Everyone was expecting rates to go up, but they actually dipped further the other day in the wake of the Brexit! What does that mean for you? It’s a great time to buy a home. Even though the market is still pretty hot, it has started to slow down a bit, and you won’t see rates this low again for a long time. If you’re trying to get into your first house, buy an investment property, or upgrade, it's a great time to lock down these low rates. Typically, rates tend to jump up after elections. They should remain low for the next couple of months, but by next year we will definitely see rates in the 4% range. Now you can still get a home with a 3.5% interest rate. You can even get an investment property to generate a little passive income each month. If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation A couple days ago after the big rainstorm here in Kansas City, quite a few of our clients called us with water problems because their sump pumps failed. Make sure you check your sump pump. Go down and test it. You never want to have water in your basement, especially if you have a finished basement. That can be a very expensive fix. Even if your basement is unfinished, you will have to disclose that information if you sell your home later on. More rain is coming, so make sure everything is in order. If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation Today, I want to go over something incredibly important. Spring approaches and we’re expecting a ton of rain in the surrounding Kansas City area. Many people forget to examine the grading around their foundation. It’s incredibly important to have one inch of fall per foot for six feet. That way, water will run away from your house and hit the ground to saturate itself. You’ll notice a bad example, with a negative slope, is in today’s video. You can bring in bags of dirt and reposition the structure. Otherwise, rain water can creep into your home if it’s not draining properly away from your property. On a cosmetic note, I’m going to raise up the stone bed on the side of the home to level it out. It looks better leveled than on a slope. In the second half of the video, you’ll notice the finished product. I was able to raise the grading around the house with new soil I brought in. I created a great, nice slope. I added a splash guard to the discharge pipe. I still need to work on the downspout, but it’s almost done. As you can see, I leveled out the area and made it more visually appealing. Overall, it took me about fifty bags of soil, which costs around $70. Consider this video as a reminder to please check your home’s grading before the rainy season begins! This can prevent serious and costly water damage later on. Don’t let water into your basement this year.  If you’re thinking about buying or selling a Kansas City home this spring, give me a call or send me an email! I’d love to serve your local real estate needs.

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation Today I just wanted to talk for a moment about the importance of landscaping. Spring is right around the corner, and if you want to sell your home for top dollar, fresh landscaping makes a world of difference. A buyer’s first impression is always going to be the outside of your home. You want to make the best first impression possible, so you want to keep that landscaping up-to-date, with fresh mulch added to the areas that need it. In the video above, I’m using a big military truck to pull out some pesky shrubs. You don’t need to go that far, but if you do have something big you need to get rid of, my truck and I can help. Landscaping is so important to your home’s value, it can not be overstated. If you have any questions for us, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to speaking with you!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation Today I want to just give you a quick update on the KC real estate market. Right now, we are in a great seller’s market. Sellers are getting top dollar for their homes, and buyers are chomping (or clucking, as you see in the video above) to get the best homes.  Many buyers in the KC market are looking to take advantage of low interest rates, leading to an increased demand for homes. If you’ve been thinking about selling sometime in the near future, now might be your best time to do so for quite a while.  The market is good, rates are down, and we’d love to help you out if you’re thinking of buying or selling this year. If you have any questions, just give us a call or send us an email. We would love to help you out!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation I'm in Dallas, Texas today and people are buying homes left and right. I've been trying to help my brother find a place around here, but we've been losing out on some homes. It's a tough market for buyers, but a great one for sellers. I mention this because our market in Kansas City is very similar. The market is doing very well right now for sellers. If you've been thinking about selling but are planning on waiting until spring, don't. Inventory is low, and there are a ton of buyers out there looking for the perfect home. If you are ready to get the ball rolling on your home sale, now is the time to do so. The low inventory will drive your sale price up, and you'll be ready to buy when the market floods with listings in the spring.  If you have any questions for us, or are looking to buy and sell in Kansas City, give me and my team a call or send us an email. Talk to you soon!

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; height: auto; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation   We're coming to you from our client appreciation event out at the Cider Mill. It was a lot of fun, and it's just our way to say thank you to our clients for letting us take care of them and trusting to do a great job. We work our hardest to do our best for you! This event was a ton of fun. There's all kinds of food: hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, and hamburgers. There's also so much to do out here. The corn maze is a blast! Thank you all for coming out to this event and for letting us help you with real estate. We look forward to speaking with you soon!

Buying a Kansas City home? Get a full home searchSelling your Kansas City home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation We're very pleased to announce our Fourth Annual Fantasy Football League for all of our clients. Last year we had about 20 people in the league, and this year we would like even more people to join. Every year seems to get more competitive than the last, and the prizes that we're giving away will also continue to improve. We had tickets to Chiefs games, iPads, cash prizes, and more. We're planning on having a draft party in late August, and there will be beer and pizza! You won't want to miss out.As always, if you need assistance buying or selling real estate in Kansas City, please don't hesitate to contact me! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}