Costly Mistakes in Marketing Your Property

Once you've done all your homework and listed your house for sale, you are doing yourself harm by not taking an active part in the marketing. Agents should give all copy to the sellers for their review before printing materials or placing ads, and that includes the listing itself in the MLS (multiple listing service) in your area. You know the best features of your home better than anyone and although an experienced agent knows the type of ads that work, the "buzz" words that grab the interest of prospective buyers, there is no-one better than you to know the details of your property.

Let me give you an example of a very costly mistake. Recently a house was listed that was total new construction, built on the original footprint and foundation of a house that was built in the '50s. In the MLS, the year built was automatically added from the tax records and came up as 1950. No amount of description in the remarks and descriptions that the house was built in 2007 can overcome the fact that agents searching for new construction for their prospective buyers will not see your home in the search results! It would have been easy to change the date, but it was overlooked by both the agent and the seller. The items that are automatically filled in when inputting a listing are often overlooked for accuracy and sellers most often focus on the number of bedrooms and baths, upgrades and the written descriptions.

Ask your agent to email you a copy of the listing BEFORE it goes active so that you can go over it carefully. Similarly, your agent should provide you drafts of brochures and print ads before they are actually printed or submitted. Get a list of all websites on which your home will appear and check those as well. It is not unusual when submitting properties to multiple websites that a virtual tour is omitted, a wrong picture is posted, or the copy gets cut off.

Just as you should be extremely particular in how your house shows, you should be extremely particular about the accuracy of all marketing materials. Some websites (such as realtor.com) pick up the information directly from the MLS, however, most others require individual input - and the more times you input information, the more times there is potential for error.

Small mistakes can cost showings - keep in mind that homes are marketed more to agents than to buyers and agents are going to search by very particular criteria - number of bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs, year built, size of lot, school district, proximity of public transportation - so it is important that these be correct!

Hope this was helpful - as always, BE INFORMED and CHECK BACK HERE OFTEN

Great Web Sites to Visit

Yesterday I wrote that I would list some of what I consider to be some of the top web sites - some we use ourselves quite often and others we send buyers and sellers to - all are chock full of interesting information! So, in no particular order, here we go:



http://www.bestplaces.com/ - A great place for some great information. Type in a city and state and you can get most any information about that city - The cost of living, schools, crime, climate, homes, even compare it statistically to where you are currently living or where you are considering moving - or just for the fun of it, find out some interesting facts you may not know!


http://www.terrafly.com/ - There are lots of places to go these days for aerial views of neighborhoods, terrafly seems to take this a little further and connects you not only to a zoomable aerial view, but gives lots of information on the area you are looking at, too.

http://www.zillow.com/ - It seems like everyone has seen or heard of Zillow - it's a quick way to get a ballpark on the suggested selling price of the home. I'm sure you'll find this interesting as well, but keep in mind, there are way too many variables for zillow to really nail a price!

http://factfinder.census.gov/ Billed as "Your source for population, housing, economic, and geographic data" this is a great place to find lots of interesting information!

http://www.mtgprofessor.com This is the most spot-on, easy to follow information anyone considering a mortgage or buying a home should check out!

http://www.reuters.com/ - Don't know where you get your news - there are lots of good sites, but this is a good one for fast breaking and short, concise news reports!

http://www.mapmyrun.com/ - What a great way to find running paths, walking or jogging paths and map them out live on the web!

http://www.kayak.com/ - Lots of places on the web these days to book travel - Travelocity, Priceline, etc., but if you'd like to find the absolute best prices on flights try Kayaking!

And when you're really ready to take off and rest from all the work you've been doing all year long, check out http://www.vacationstogo.com/ for last minute (90 days out) deal on cruises - at the very least, it gives you an idea what the best prices are that you'll find on all the other sites!

So, these are a few of the sites we find helpful and interesting, we've got lots more and I'll add a list each week! If you'd got any you'd like to recommend, please let me know, I'd be happy to share them.

As Always - BE INFORMED and CHECK BACK HERE OFTEN

Anatomy of the cost of Buying & Selling

It's shaping up to be a quiet day in the Real Estate world. First thing up this morning is a review of a HUD-1 statement for a closing later on today. A HUD-1? Yes, that's a form required by law (HUD stands for Housing and Urban Development) that is basically a statement of what all the charges are and where the money goes (and comes from). Both buyer and seller get this statement at the closing.



The purchase price of this home is $490,000 - the amount of the new loan is $392,000, so the purchaser must bring $98,000 to the closing? NO, the buyer must bring $101,758.30 - there are $13,758.30 in closing costs to the buyer, less a $10,000 credit from the seller according to the negotiated contract. This is obviously the sign of a buyers market - very few of the contracts we see don't have some sort of seller credit.



The selling price of $490,000 less the mortgage payoff of $319,048.56 gives the seller $170,951.44. No, actually it gives the seller $124,425.97 - it cost the seller $46,525.47 to sell this house. The 9.47% of the purchase price it cost the seller could have been worse - the seller is a licensed real estate agent and therefore paid no commission on the selling side!



None of these figures take into consideration that there was also a $4,096.40 fee paid by the mortgage company to the mortgage broker - that was paid outside of the closing - a small amount considering the amount of interest the borrower will pay over the life of the loan.



So, let's break this down a little:



On the Buyer side:

$295 - Administrative Fee to Real Estate Company

$325 - Appraisal Fee

$20 - Credit Report

$525 - Commitment Fee to Mortgage Company

$79 - Tax Service Fee

$18 - Flood Certification

$7.50 - Document Delivery Fee

$345 - Processing Fee to Mortgage Broker

$13.30 - Verification of Employment Fee to Mortgage Broker

$4.95 - Mers Fee to Mortgage Company (so they can track the loan if it sells)

$224.76 - Insurance for 3 months

$1,203 - County Taxes for 3 months

$2,458.73 - Reimburse Seller for county Taxes prepaid through 7/1/08

$313.06 - Interest for 3 days (from closing to end of month)

$195 - Settlement Fees to Settlement Agent

$140 - Title Search

$30 - Title Insurance Binder

$25 - Notary Fees

$909 - Lender Title Insurance

$1,030 - Owner Title Insurance

$75 - Courier / Copy Charges

$4 - Wire Fee

$80 - Recording Fees

$2,450 - City/County Tax

$1,225 - State Transfer Tax

$1,518 - State Recordation Tax

$180 - Survey

$65 - Termite Inspection



On to the Seller's Side of the Transaction:

$7,804.30 - State Withholding Tax

$300 - Water Escrow pending final bill

$14,700 - Commission to Buyer's Agent

$5,000 - Bonus to Buyer's Agent

$5,052.90 - 2007/2008 RE Taxes

$195 - Settlement Company Fees

$15 - Notary Fees

$125 - Filing of State Withholding

$20 - Courier / Copy Charges

$125 - Payoff Service Fee

$4 - Wire Fee

$2,450 - City/County Tax

$1,225 - State Transfer Tax

$1,518 - State Recordation Tax

$450 - Homeowners Warranty

Any Questions or Comments? This is what it cost both the buyer and the seller to transfer ownership of this house!

BE A SAVVY BUYER OR SELLER - MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT THESE COSTS ARE AND MAKE SURE YOU QUESTION EACH AND EVERY ONE!

More Later Today!