Renee and I have been pet lovers for a long time. We’ve had many dogs, cats, and birds over the years; Renee even breeds Andalusian horses! We are keenly aware of how tricky it can be to sell your home and keep your pets happy. Today, I thought I’d go over six essential tips for home sellers with pets.

1. Check your home insurance. Although you know that your pets would never hurt anyone, they may scratch or bite potential buyers whom they mistake for intruders in their home. Make sure that your homeowners insurance covers you, just in case this happens. However, some insurers don’t cover anyone who owns what they consider a vicious breed, such as a pit bull. If they do provide coverage, it could be more expensive for certain breeds. Ultimately, it’s best to keep dogs out of the house during showings, but if you can’t, make sure you’re covered.

2. Prepare your yard. Buyers will walk around your yard and their stroll could be ruined if they see or step in dog poop. Make sure to clean up before each showing, and double-bag that waste so that buyers don’t encounter any unpleasant smells. If your dog is a digger, make sure to fill up any holes in the yard. Replace ugly patches with new sod or grass seed and walk your dogs around the block to keep your yard in pristine condition.

3. Remove odors. This is one of the biggest challenges that pet owners face. It can be difficult to erase years of piddle from rugs or hardwood floors. Consider hiring a professional cleaning service to take care of your carpets, rugs, and flooring. Since you live there, you might not think your home smells, but ask someone you trust to tell you the truth.

A professional cleaning service can remove pet odors from your home.

4. Clean up the hair. Pet hair looks messy and can trigger allergies, sending potential buyers sneezing and wheezing out the door. Vacuum and dust your home before showings. Consider investing in a Roomba. We have one scheduled to go out and pick up all the hair a couple of times a day, and it works pretty well.

5. Hide the evidence. Pets tend to come with a lot of stuff. Put away leashes, water bowls, sweaters, toys, and chew bones. Stow everything in a cupboard or closet. Move the dry food container to the laundry room or mudroom, and put pet beds away.

6. Take your pets with you or crate train them. If you leave dogs and cats at home during showings, you need to either crate them or confine them to a special area of the house. Give them an interactive or long-lasting chew toy to pass the time. Let the listing agent know so they can make a note in the MLS alerting buyers' agents that pets will be in the home during showings. If you can, though, set a playdate for your pets and get them out of the house during showings. Check out the dog park or visit a friend’s house.

Now, pets can get anxious and confused when their daily routines are changed. Talk to your vet so they can help you ease that transition for the pets. Not only can they help your pets while you sell your home, they can also prepare your pets for moving to a new home.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

When you buy a home, don’t work with the real estate agent selling the house. You need to work with a buyer’s agent for a successful transaction.

If you were getting a divorce, would you go to your spouse’s attorney for advice and counsel? Of course not, that would be ridiculous!

The same principle applies if you’re a buyer looking for a home. You shouldn’t take counsel and advice from the seller’s agent, who has a statutory duty to suck as much money out of your wallet as possible.

Here's how you know the difference between the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent: you hire the buyer’s agent before you ever start going out and looking for homes. Consider everyone else your competition.

A buyer’s agent will protect your best interests during the transaction.

To learn more about the home buying process, visit IGotSmart.com and click on home buyer seminars. If you have any other questions for us, please don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Two decades ago, I left a six-figure, Fortune 500 company position and started a career in real estate. I needed a change because I was heading in a direction I didn’t really want to go down. I wasn’t happy, but I was afraid to make the change because of certain things I would be losing—benefits, paid vacation, tenure, etc. As I looked back at the various jobs I’d held over my lifetime, though, I realized that each one was better than the one that came before it, and between each transition I had felt the exact same anxiety.

It was scary, but for me, do you know what was even scarier? Regret. It’s not your job circumstance that defines your future—it’s your choices. What you choose is what you get. 

A mentor of mine named Nido Qubein once said, “For the timid in our society, change is always, always frightening. For the comfortable in our society, change is always threatening. For the confident among us, change is opportunity.” He taught me that all meaningful change comes from within. Most of us don’t want to change until the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.  

What you choose is what you get.

He wasn’t advocating change for the sake of change because that doesn’t ensure improvement. Improvement, though, is always the result of something that you change. Statistics show that 60% of Americans are just one paycheck away from bankruptcy. This means that most people are merely enduring the job they have instead of doing what they love. They’re trapped by fear, as I once was. Whether you’re in a job that pays well and makes you unhappy job that’s or a job that pays poorly and makes you unhappy, it’s not your current circumstances that define your future. It’s your choices. What you choose is what you get.

When you have a job, you have a ceiling. When you have a career, such as in real estate, you have unlimited income potential. Not only that, but you have more time to do the things you want to do. Real estate isn’t for everybody; it’s hard work. In fact, 85% of the people who get into real estate get right back out within 18 months. I believe, though, that there are tens of thousands of people out there that would really be successful in real estate- they just don’t know it. 

While you might assume that the majority of the real estate business revolves around showing homes and sitting inside open houses, most of the discipline involves learning and knowing legal stuff. Once you master that, it’s all a matter of marketing yourself and marketing the inventory you have access to. The difference between a successful real estate professional and an unsuccessful real estate professional usually lies in how they were trained and mentored at the very beginning. That’s the secret to the success of my own team.

Kick some of these thoughts around in your mind. When you’re ready to give me a call, we’ll find a time so that we can chat and find out if a career in real estate is really for you.

Today we’re proud to introduce the newest member of the DiBello Real Estate Group, Aaron Wilder.

Before coming on board with us, Aaron had been looking to make a change for quite some time because he wanted to get out from behind the desk and start working directly with people. After considering a number of options, he chose real estate. As luck would have it, he and his wife Cindy were clients of ours and had been discussing the possibility of getting into real estate.

That very night, he received an email from our own Sam DiBello asking if he’d ever considered getting into real estate. They then got together over the next few weeks, and Aaron was put through a series of interviews and tests to ensure that he would be successful.

He’s already working with 22 clients...and having a ball!

Now, after much education and training, his business is exploding. The average Realtor sells less than five homes per year. He’s already working with 22 clients . . . and having a ball!

If you have any questions for Aaron or would like him to contact you regarding all your real estate needs, send an email to [email protected] or call (425) 466-4663.

Today we’re proud to introduce the newest member of the DiBello Real Estate Group, Aaron Wilder.

Before coming on board with us, Aaron had been looking to make a change for quite some time because he wanted to get out from behind the desk and start working directly with people. After considering a number of options, he chose real estate. As luck would have it, he and his wife Cindy were clients of ours and had been discussing the possibility of getting into real estate.

That very night, he received an email from our own Sam DiBello asking if he’d ever considered getting into real estate. They then got together over the next few weeks, and Aaron was put through a series of interviews and tests to ensure that he would be successful.

“

He’s already working with 22 clients 

. . . and having a ball!

”

Now, after much education and training, his business is exploding. The average Realtor sells less than five homes per year. He’s already working with 22 clients . . . and having a ball!

If you have any questions for Aaron or would like him to contact you regarding all your real estate needs, send an email to [email protected] or call (425) 466-4663.

Many real estate conversations these days center on housing prices and where they might be headed. That is why we like the home price expectations survey. Every quarter, Pulsenomics surveys a nationwide panel of more than 100 economists, real estate experts, and investment and market strategists about where they believe home prices are headed over the next five years. They then average these projections from their experts into one single number. The results of the latest surveys are in, and here’s what they are saying.

“

Home values will appreciate by

4% over the course of 2016.

”

Home values will appreciate by 4% over the course of 2016, then appreciation will taper down to 3.4% in 2017, 3% in 2018 and 2019, and drop to 2.8% in 2020. The annual average appreciation over the next five years will be 3.2% nationally. The greater Seattle area will see even higher appreciation than this, but these are the likely national projections.

Cumulative house appreciation projections slowed a bit from 25% to 24.7% by 2020. The most bearish experts in the survey are still projecting cumulative appreciation of at least 9% by 2020.

The bottom line is this: individual opinions make headlines, but we believe this survey is a fair depiction of future home values. If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Here in the greater Seattle area, we are seeing a lot of first-time home buyers spending $500,000 to $2 million on their very first home. Most of these buyers are millennials. What is the smart way to attract millennial home buyers to your property?

First, find your home’s best angle. While baby boomers may want a 2-car garage, a large kitchen, and extra storage space, millennials have their own wish list. This generation is looking for something different than their parents. They want open floor plans, single-story or split-level home styles, media rooms, and hardwood or tile floors.

You need to market your home to millennial buyers.

Secondly, you need to sell your neighborhood. For many millennials, the neighborhood they live in matters just as much, if not more than the house they live in. They are looking to meet a specific need. Also, be sure to show off environmentally friendly features. It is no secret that this generation is environmentally conscious.

Your home should also be clean and modern. Modern homes are popular with this crowd. However, your home does not need to be brand new or designed by a minimalist architect to appeal to this generation. Some simple home staging or an open house could be all you need to get an offer.

Finally, target online advertising. To find millennial home buyers, you need to put ads where they will find them! Think Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, and Instagram. Millennials are picky about where they get their information, and your agent needs to be truly cutting-edge when it comes to online information about your home.

If you have any other questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you.

What methods will help you discover the value of your Seattle home? Ranked from easiest to most difficult, there are four ways to do this.

1. AVM estimates: These are algorithms to estimate a home’s value based on a wide range of data. However, they’re not very accurate. They’re no better than the quality of their data. For example, Zillow is off by as much as 20% about 70% of the time.

2. Comparable Market Analysis or a CMA: This is the most competent, perfected method available. Unlike the AVM, an experienced real estate professional conducts this report.

“

Never buy or sell a home

without first receiving a CMA.

”

3. You can calculate your own home value: This is challenging because reliable local data is difficult to find. However, you can find information at firms like DataQuest and CoreLogic. However, avoid falling for deceptive websites that call themselves the MLS. Those are broker websites masking themselves as the MLS!

4. Appraisers: They can provide you with a home value. However, 10 different appraisers can come up with 10 different values.

These are four ways to determine your home’s value. Never buy or sell a home without first receiving a CMA and property history!

Are you thinking about buying or selling a Seattle home? Give me a call or send me an email. I can answer any questions you might have about real estate. Talk to you soon!

If you’re stuck in a dead-end job or you’ve been looking for a career change, I want to meet with you. You can make an exceptional living as a real estate professional, especially if you’re looking to start now. I quit my job as an executive 23 years ago to join the real estate profession, and I haven’t looked back since.

Forbes recently ranked the top sales jobs in America, and real estate broker came in at number 5. The secret to a successful and profitable career as a real estate broker is the training and mentoring you receive at the very beginning. This is what we specialize in. We have opportunities in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, and we’d love to hear from you.

Give me a call at 877-IGotSmart (877-446-8762) or visit igotsmart.com to learn more. I look forward to hearing from you.

Today we are answering a question we often get, “Can I sell my current home and buy my new home at the same time?” 

The short answer is yes. Of course you can! However, it’s complicated because it depends on what the market will bear. Here on our team, we have a special program called the simultaneous closing program.

With this program, we can help get your current home sold, while giving you all the time you need to find your next home. Then, you can close both homes simultaneously. This will help you avoid the need to have temporary housing between the two.

If you have any questions for us, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you!