Ted Kramer's blog

Seller Wants and Needs

I’ve previously discussed the process in which a Buyer can distinguish between wants and needs when looking for a new home. A Seller also may be a buyer if s/he plans to purchase another property, so the buyer analysis of wants and needs also applies to the seller in its other role as buyer.

Typically the first thing a seller thinks about when contemplating the sale of a property is getting the highest price in the shortest amount of time. Those are not necessarily the most important factors to consider, however. A seller’s analysis of wants and needs should start with the simple question: Why do I want/need to sell my home?

Arlington Housing Prediction for 2011

It’s that time of year again when all the news outlets, pundits and others make their predictions for 2011. Not to be left out, here is my completely unscientific, seat of the pants prediction for the residential housing market in Arlington in 2011.

First, a brief look back at 2010. The December numbers have not come in yet, but for the year ended November 2010, even though the total number of closed sales and the total dollar volume of sales decreased from the previous year, both the median sold price ($500,000) and the average sold price ($548,000) were up over 7%. (All real estate market numbers in this post are from Real Estate Business Intelligence, a MRIS company.) During 2010 we had the first time home buyer credit and record low interest rates, dropping in the 4^th quarter below 4% for 30 year conventional loans.

Financing for Home Buyers

In my last post I discussed the importance of sellers determining how much they owe on their property as a first step in determining their equity and how much flexibility they may have in pricing their home for sale

In this post, I’ll discuss the importance of figuring out how much you can afford to spend before you waste your time looking at properties you can’t possibly buy, or trying to find a decent home in a lower price category when you can actually afford to spend more.

Financing for Home Sellers

Whether you are a buyer or seller of a property, there are 5 critical steps that you need to move through: 1. Financing; 2. Wants/Needs; 3. Research; 4. Negotiation; 5. Closing.

First, I want to address financing considerations for Sellers. You may think that only buyers need to worry about financing since sellers are the ones who will receive a check when they close on their sale and usually don’t have to come up with any funds to make the deal work. In order for a home sale to be stress free and successful, a seller needs to understand his/her own financing to make a knowledgeable decision about whether to sell, when to sell and how much to sell for.

The Five Critical Steps in Buying or Selling a Home

In any real estate market, buyers and sellers will go through a process as they attempt to position themselves to purchase or sell a home. The process can be complex and frustrating. However, if buyers and sellers use a systematic plan, they can minimize their time and effort and reach a successful result.

In my experience dealing with both buyers and sellers over the past 10 years, I have found that there are five critical steps that buyers and sellers need to take to be happy at the end of the process. Of course, the way you work through each of these steps will vary significantly if you are a buyer or seller. Sometimes you are both a buyer and a seller and that simply means that you need to go through the steps looking at two potential transactions from different sides.