Homeselling Strategies-
Sellers can employ certain key strategies to more successfully complete the homeselling process. What are these strategies and as an Oregon homeseller, what is it that you might need to know? As an Oregon homebuyer, it can be helpful to learn strategic insights on the homeselling process from an ‘insider’s’ view.

Strategies that Benefit Homesellers-
There are proven strategies that benefit homesellers. Chief among these is the appropriate mindset, even before implementing a well thought out ‘plan of attack.‘  Experienced Realtors routinely guide homesellers through a ‘minefield’ of common and avoidable missteps in their many forms.

Proactive awareness is one mindset that can significantly benefit homesellers. Examples of proactive awareness include addressing potential problems before they disrupt a home sale. For example, some specific examples include:

1. Making sure required permits for any prior remodeling are ‘finaled,’
2. Replacing leaky gutters,
3. Trimming shrubs that touch the house,
4. Confirming there is no obvious peeling paint, or
5. Replacing windows that have broken seals.
Besides removing such items as a possible source of contention, proactively addressing relatively simple maintenance items helps to alleviate buyer concern. That’s because if a house has numerous obvious signs of deferred maintenance, buyers may wonder about other, less obvious repairs.

Proactive awareness also means you understand homebuyers have options and that as lovely as your home is, some homebuyers may prefer to live elsewhere. This mindset provides a homeseller with psychological fortitude and the advantage of not being crestfallen when their home doesn’t sell the first week on the market.

Homesellers also benefit from strategic thinking. Based on your needs and pricing strategy, for example, this might mean setting up alternative schedule scenarios for homebuying, moving and budgeting,  depending upon whether your home sells in 1 day, 10 days or 100 days. 

Combining proactive awareness with strategic thinking brings the kind of forethought that allows fewer surprises throughout the already stressful process of selling a home. Then, given the reduced stress that comes with having to react to negative news, you’re (1). able to focus on those issues that matter most, (2). spend less time worrying and (3). possibly even enjoy the homeselling process.

Strategy-
The word ‘strategy’  is derived from the Greek word strategia, meaning the ‘office of general, command, or generalship’ and as such is considered to be a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. 

The Certainty of Uncertainty-
As we saw in the Oregon Real Estate Podcast program titled ‘

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Click here or on the ‘play’ button below to hear the audio podcast of this presentation.

The ‘Home Front’
Without being overly dramatic, it’s helpful to realize that as a homeseller, you are in a ‘war’ of sorts. Outright battle? Definitely not. And for anyone selling a home, it clearly helps to maintain a sense of politeness and grace when dealing with potential homebuyers. But we’re about to look at the process of homeselling using the metaphor of homeselling as ‘war.’

Why would the concept of ‘war’ be appropriate for homeselling? To start, homesellers and homebuyers do not have identical goals. In fact, similar to armed conflict, they frequently have goals at direct odds with one another. You can call such business interaction ‘give and take,’ or ‘financial combat,’ or real estate ‘tug-o-war.’ Rather than use swords or heavy artillery, the tools used can be more subtle. Here, metaphorical weapons might include home inspectors, attorneys and a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. The point is that there is sometimes conflict in a home sale. But as with any good book or movie, sometimes it’s conflict that keeps things interesting and moves the plot forward, while underscoring the value of what is being contested.

So on many levels, the process of homeselling includes engagement with buyers who are naturally at odds with some of your desires as a homeseller. Acknowledging this fact will help you to maintain reasonable expectations throughout the transaction. If that becomes difficult, then simply remember that you were once a homebuyer, too.

One frequent Oregon real estate question is ‘What’s an acre worth?’ When you think about it, this question is not so different than ‘What’s a car worth?’ since in each situation there are variables. With a car, the mileage and condition are very important to arrive at an accurate value. Land, too has unique variables. What are these variables and as an Oregon property buyer or seller, what is it that you may need to know?

What follows in not an exhaustive study of determining the value of an acre, but a summary of key factors affecting the market value of acreage property. Spoiler alert: The actual answer to the value of an Oregon acre is ‘it depends.’

Research is Fundamental
There are plenty of places to find estimates on land values, including for Oregon acreages. But unless some specific and fundamental research is performed, such estimates can be meaningless, beyond providing a broad yardstick for comparison between states. Yet, even that can be a misleading endeavor. 

California Dreaming
For example, many think California land is more expensive than Oregon land. Yet an acre of land in Oregon could be worth considerably more than a California acre. How? Select one acre in Canby, Oregon (with a current population of more than 16,000)  and the other acre in tiny Canby, California, (with a current population of less than 500). The simple laws of supply and demand apply, even across state lines. So to begin, demand is a function of value. The larger the population surround a given acre, the greater the demand and hence the higher the price per acre. 

How Big Is An Acre? 

When making the biggest financial decision of their lives, many homebuyers and homesellers understandably ask their Realtor to provide a professional opinion on a range of topics.

Listen to the audio podcast of this presentation by clicking here or on the ‘play button’ above.

Some common questions for Realtors include if adding a bathroom will boost resale value, should wallpaper be removed, if re-painting will help, how long a home has been for sale, if sellers should leave when their home is being shown, or if a home shows better when ‘staged.’ These and many other questions are typically addressed with aplomb by an experienced Realtor.

However, with other, less benign questions, agents are trained not only to be cautious, but simply refuse to answer them. Is it because the Realtor doesn’t have an opinion? Maybe, but maybe not. Often the reason is because rules don’t allow it. 

Federal, State & Ethics…Oh My!
What are these rules that might gag an otherwise conversational, if not super-chatty (or at least engaging) real estate agent to go mum? They include federal laws, state regulations and the Realtor Code of Ethics.  And while there are more than three topics agents are forbidden to answer, here we’ll address three examples of topics Realtors are supposed to be cautious about. It helps to first understand that some of the following forbidden conversations most often occur between a Realtor and clients. However, the specific topic of real estate commission rates can also be especially problematic if discussed between Realtors.

While most Oregon homebuyers use traditional lenders like banks, mortgage brokers or credit unions, there are solid reasons (and a very helpful alternative) for purchasing a home without them. Buyers avoid traditional lenders for a variety of factors and when they do, one mechanism they frequently turn to is known in our area as seller financing.

Listen to the audio podcast of this presentation by clicking here or on the ‘play button’ above.

What Is Seller Financing?
Also called owner financing, seller terms, owner carry, seller carryback, or seller carry, seller financing allows a homebuyer to purchase a property by making an initial down payment, then making direct payments to the seller. While Oregon law has rules in place especially to regulate large-scale property sellers who handle a significant amount of seller-financed transactions (notably commercial firms, such as finance companies), the process still remains relatively simple for Oregon home buyers and sellers who enter into a home sale without using a traditional lender.

The Basics
A key factor that helps to make seller financing an option is if a homeseller has either no loan, or a very small loan remaining on the property to be sold. Having little or no loan on the home being sold means that more of the buyer’s down payment will go to the seller, and not diverted to the lender of a seller’s existing home loan. Most home loans now have what’s called a ‘due on sale’ clause, which means a seller’s home loan must first be paid off upon the sale of a property. The single factor of having no or little loan balance on a property is often the single most limiting condition in determining if seller financing is an option. If the property has either no loan, or only a small loan remaining, this can really open the door to seller financing. 
Playing the Bank
One other factor for prospective sellers to consider when thinking about seller financing is if they’re okay with ‘taking payments’ instead of receiving a ‘lump sum.’ By ‘playing the bank,’ sellers receive payments from the buyer as they are made, not all at once. Some sellers greatly prefer the income

Click here or on the ‘play’ button below to hear the audio podcast version of this presentation.

Easy As 1-2-3
There is a usually a very logical progression to selling an Oregon home and it can be as easy as ‘1-2-3.’ So since the process between buyers and sellers is routinely described as a kind of ‘dance,’ let the music begin.

Fundamentals
To be fair, there are plenty of tasks associated with any real estate transaction, yet the key process that gets homesellers a workable offer can be simplified to three primary steps. Then, once a mutually accepted offer is in hand, the final march to closing the sale begins.

But the fundamentally crucial elements start very early. Curious? Here we go:

1. Online Activity-More than 90% of homebuyers first look online before they even call a Realtor. Just as important, once buyers select an agent, they will continue to view properties online as they ‘winnow the field’ and decide which homes to tour. Then, the power of the local multiple listing system provides a much larger selection of properties to view. 

2. Showing Activity-By the time buyers take their first home tour, they’re typically pre-qualified.  Few homebuyers ever make an offer without this crucial step. If they do, it’s not unusual for sellers to request they get pre-qualified before their offer is seriously considered.