As the news about how much your home equity has increased in just the last 12 months is hitting the masses, homeowners are going to be thinking strongly about selling.
The average home in Snohomish County has seen there equity increase by 19% over the last 12 months. NWMLS Infosparks
If you find your self in that category there are 3 things homeowners need to know in 2021.
TOP 3 THINGS HOMEOWNERS NEED TO KNOW IN 2021 WEBISODE
1. KNOW THE HYPER LOCAL MARKET CONDITIONS
Every market is a little different. It is important that you know what is going on in your local real estate market. Your city, neighborhood or even subdivision.
For Example: At the time of this post Condos is Edmonds are selling on average of 22 days on market while Condos in Seattle are selling on average of 39 days on market.
Every month we prepare a detailed housing market analysis for both Snohomish County and Seattle that you can read here:
If you would like us to drill down a little bit and create a Neighborhood Market Report that will show you exactly how your neighborhood or development is doing CONTACT US
2. KNOW ALL YOUR OPTIONS FOR GETTING YOUR HOUSE MARKET READY
Now more than ever your home needs to be Market Ready Day One. More and more people are looking for homes that are move in ready. It is actually pretty rare that we find buyers that are interested in fixer uppers.
Oftentimes, Homeowners will think that because we are in a sellers market that they do not need to do anything to get their home ready to sell. That is partially true. You will probably end up selling your home but for a significantly lower price and often more hassle along the way.
A good real estate agent will have resources available to you to get the work done that is needed for putting your home on the market. A great real estate agent will handle it for you.
In order to make the most possible amount of money on your sale there are a few things that you should count on doing:
New Flooring (or in like new condition)
New Paint (or in like new condition)
Yard Completely Landscaped
Roof, walkways, driveways, etc, Cleaned or Pressure Washed
Everything in Good Working Order
Windows Clean
Move Out Clean
Staged
Home Vacant
Comfortable Temperature and all Lights Left On
Or perhaps you are in a situation where getting an instant cash offer would be more beneficial.
Either way The Madrona Group has programs and resources available for all your needs. Such as the:
MARKET READY PLUS PROGRAM
With this program you can borrow equity against your home with 0% interest to make minor updates and repairs to your home to get it ready for sale.
Sometimes all it takes is new paint and carpet to make a house shine.
There are some stipulations and restrictions to this program.
How it works:
First, The Madrona Group real estate team will explain to you how the Market Ready Plus+ program can help maximize the salability and value your home and property
We need to make sure that you have 15% Net Equity in your home.
Then, The Madrona Group will recommend enhancements in order to get your home and property ready to go on the market.
Next, sign a 6 month listing agreement with The Madrona Group and complete the application for enhancement budget.
The Madrona Group will submit your application for enhancement budget.
Once your budget is approved, it’s off to the vendor selection and vendor approval.
The Madrona Group will assist you in the recommendation of vendors and the submission of information for vendor and enhancement approval.
Once approved, it’s time for the vendors to go to work. The best part – no money out of your pocket is required! John L. Scott will pay the vendors directly once the work is completed.
Your home is now Market Ready and listed for sale.
John L. Scott will collect payment for the vendor enhancement services on the day of settlement with no interest or fees charged to you.
Examples Of What You Can Enhance:
Landscaping
Lighting
Minor Plumbing
Carpet
Decluttering
Cleaning
Staging
Minor Electrical
Paint
You Can Watch The Video Here: https://www.themadronagroup.com/use-home-equity-to-get-ready-for-sale-john-l-scott-market-ready-plus/
INSTANT PURCHASE PLUS PROGRAM
WE CAN GET YOU A FIRM CASH OFFER WITHIN 48 BUSINESS HOURS
With this program we have the ability to present you with an instant cash offer for a house in Seattle without putting it on the market.
That means:
No Cleaning
No Landscaping
No Staging
No Pictures
No Open Houses
No Night Time Showings
No Waiting For An Offer
Just getting an offer and planning your move out.
How it works:
We fill out a property checklist and along with photos we submit your properties information to the John L. Scott buyers department.
We will present you with a firm cash offer within 48 business hours.
We will discuss the difference between taking the cash offer and putting your home on the open market.
If you accept the cash offer an estimator will perform an in-person home assessment of your property.
If major repairs are needed a credit for the repair costs will be requested.
You decide on a settlement date that works best for you.
You can watch the video here: https://www.themadronagroup.com/instant-cash-offer-for-your-house/
Does either of these options sound like something that you would be interested in? Would you like to learn more about it? CONTACT US
3. EXPLORE ALL YOUR OPTIONS WITH A RESIDENTIAL SPECIALIST TEAM WORKING FOR YOU
Buying and selling homes can be complicated if you don’t have the right team behind you.
From keeping up with all the changing contracts and forms, to staying tuned in to the latest hyper local market data, to knowing how to get your house Market Ready, to making sure that you are getting the best rates and terms on your home loan, to knowing about all the latest programs that are available to assist you in your real estate journey.
During any given real estate transaction you will be working with a ton of different vendors such as:
Escrow Closer
Loan Originator
Stager
Photographer
Cleaner
Loan Processor
Landscaper
Painter
Contractor
Loan Underwriter
Title Officer
Buyers or Sellers Agent
Transaction Coordinator
Home Inspector
Appraiser
Builder
Escrow Signer
HOA
Septic Inspector
Geo Technician
Well Inspector
Sign Installer
811 Dig
Videographer
The job of a great real estate team is to make all of that feel easy.
TOP 3 THINGS HOMESOWNERS NEED TO KNOW IN 2021 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
hey everybody i’m jason fox with John L Scott Ballard the madrona group
hi everybody i’m joe kiser with john l scott ballard the madrona group
today we’re going to talk to you about the top three things that every homeowner needs to know about getting a home ready to sell in today’s market as you know jason you know the market’s really crazy right now it’s actually very limited inventory and it’s creating this very competitive market yeah it’s true i mean basically every offer we turn in right now or every offer we receive on every listing is multiple offer everything and we’re usually competing with anywhere from eight people up to 42. yeah yeah i was just going to talk about that we just got that email the other day that we were looking at a house at 42 offers and things are going well above asking price and yeah and we’re seeing things that you know used to be a little bit out of the ordinary that are becoming kind of uh accustomed to every single offer now like um having extra money down towards low appraisal yeah or people just waving financing entirely and you know that’s why more than ever it’s it’s important to work with a top-notch agent right now to understand the risks that people are putting themselves in to get a home with the way this market is working and like even if you’re not thinking about selling right now as a homeowner i mean i would probably be considering checking out and getting the actual market value of my home i’m curious to know like some of the numbers that we’re seeing are um pretty high you know so i think it’d be a good time to go out there and find out what the value of your home is yeah i think it’s really important you know if you were looking at even numbers from just a couple of months ago it’s been such a swing and the property values have increased so much that as a homeowner it is good to know kind of where you sit and what’s going on with the market because it’s changing so fast one of the common misconceptions might be that well if the market is that hot then maybe i could just throw my house on the market exactly the way it is right but of course you know we know that it’s real important that every house be market ready day one even though the market’s really competitive out there that buyers are really still looking for that move-in ready home you know they want to move in and you know a lot of them are working from home right now and so they need this place that’s ready to go and that’s what’s really making them uh get really competitive and give favorable terms to the seller yeah which is you know what we’ve been seeing right is that a lot of people are moving out of the city towards the suburbs because they’re looking for more space they’re looking for more bedrooms and maybe a home office and they’re looking for yards but when you’re out there doing that looking and there’s um you know not many listings look at people want to see something that they can envision themselves in they can create that emotional tie to and so that means making sure that the house is clean making sure it’s decluttered making sure it’s staged making sure it’s photographed with the very best photographers light and bright fresh paint you know carpet it goes a long ways and that’s really gonna spur on this competition and you know if you weren’t thinking about selling but now you want to sell you know it puts you in a position to where you’re gonna really have a lot of say and you’re not gonna have to take a lot of risk and you’re gonna get the terms that really accommodate your needs if you find yourself in that position where you’re looking to upsize or find some more room or whatever and you go out there and you find that dream house like right now is this perfect time to maximize the value of your sale because we are seeing home prices go up like you know to record highs right now in addition you know when you’re getting ready to buy the interest rates are so unbelievably low that you know our buying power has been increased significantly yeah and we know that most of this actually happens with a dream people aren’t really thinking about buying and then they’re on a sunday drive and they’re you know having a nice easy day and they realize hey this is a really cute neighborhood and see a house for sale i wonder i don’t know how often that we get the call where you know people aren’t really looking but they want to see what it takes to make it happen and so it’s a great time to capitalize on both ends now with the with the low interest money absolutely well as talked about you know it’s best to have a home that’s move-in ready and you know that can be an overwhelming thought you know people spend somewhere upwards of six months to do that it’s money out of pocket and so sometimes that makes people kind of just step back you know but one of the nice things is is that we’ve got programs to help with that in fact we come in we do the work we you don’t take any money out of your pocket up front and we get the house market ready and and time is of the essence right now so to have a contractor come in and be efficient and take that off your plate can really streamline the process and make it easy for you and get you out looking at houses quicker so what you’re telling me joe is that uh you as an agent are going to come in you’re going to find the contractors for me we’re going to find the money to get this done we’re going to get my house market ready so we can get the most amount of eyeballs possible so we can get the highest value for your home and i don’t have to worry about any of it that’s exactly what i’m telling you yeah it’s uh sounds like a pretty awesome program it is it’s a great program and john scott’s worked on it it’s called market ready plus and it’s a john l scott program and it puts you in the driver’s seat to get out there and take advantage of these low rates and get the house that you’re dreaming about yeah so if we got a house that’s uh maybe a little cluttered and here’s one thing big question we get joe what’s uh people are always asking us what should i do to get my house ready right and i think bottom line we’re always going to tell you kind of the same things we’re not looking for major renovations we’re not looking for huge updates you’re probably just not going to get the roi when you take on those big projects probably almost always carpet almost always paint and flooring definitely a good deep clean which we’ll take care of for you definitely getting it clean or decluttered and staged which will take care of you yeah and sometimes there’s even bigger projects you know you might be intimidated there’s a roof that needs to be replaced and we can actually help you with that too really what we’re trying to create is this experience so when a potential buyer walks into your house it feels like home maybe there’s some tweaks and things they want to change but they can come in and it’s clean and it’s inviting and they want to sit there and talk to their agent about it and sometimes after we get an inspection done some things do pop up you know some deferred maintenance and you know things always kind of find a way but the program also is going to take care of that for you no money out of pocket so we can just get this thing ready to sell and uh that’s what the program does for you so you mean as an agent if i hire you you guys are going to come in and take care of all that even through the inspection and it’s not going to cost me money yeah nothing out of pocket it’ll come out at escrow it’ll come out of the equity of the home but we can get it ready to go so that we can get the most amount of people in there and and get it bit up as high as we possibly can and take advantage of this market with some of those fixes you know jason even as a couple of years ago programs like this for sellers just didn’t exist you know if the work needed to be done it was on on the seller’s dime you know and oftentimes that would delay putting it to market um or if it came up in in an inspection and they wanted to move forward it would cost them a lot of money right then and even like the stress of like having to manage all that to find the contractors to put up the money to manage the program you know it’s really stressful and inconvenient so to have a program that you can just sit back and let somebody else take care of that it’s pretty nice you know jason there’s another program we’re really excited about too to roll out you know a lot of people are in a selling position but you know for safety issues they don’t want people in their home or they just want speed efficiency and convenience and and so they really don’t want to go to the open market and invite a bunch of people into their home and in that case we have a program called instant purchase plus so joe we both know that putting a house on the open market having it market ready day one is that’s the best scenario and that’s what’s going to produce the the highest amount of uh sales dollars but um you know you some of our sellers find themselves in a position where maybe that’s just not possible maybe they you know like you mentioned want to feel a little bit safer have less people in the house you know that i could see where a program like that would be real helpful like maybe i just want somebody to come in and offer me all cash yeah you know that happens all the time too you know some people just really aren’t comfortable you know they they can’t let go of the process and just let it happen they’re too stressful of a process for them maybe they’re moving across country whatever the case is that some people just really don’t want to open themselves up to the market like that and they just want the security and the peace of mind of knowing they got a fair price and that they can move out on their terms there’s definitely pros and cons to getting an all-cash offer from an investor but i think it’s definitely something that we should take the time and investigate and check out not all homes are going to qualify you know not investors aren’t looking to just buy every home out there but instead of trying to track down investors and find one that works for your home you know you can contact me and i’ll reach out to the investors and see if your home qualifies maybe if you get an all-cash offer it’s generally going to be a little bit less than if you put it on the open market chances are yes in this market in particular as there’s so much competition out there on the open market you’re probably going to net a higher offer if you were to bring it out to the open market yeah and there are fees involved with this i buyer program but the best thing to do is just give us a call we can go over some of the pros and cons with you and figure out which program works best you know jason then i’m curious with all these programs and everything out there all these eye buyers wall street getting into it this is important today that people still work with an agent yeah that’s a great question joe and one i’m sure a lot of people are asking themselves right now can i just go sign up for this program can i just get my house ready and i think the answer is absolutely um obviously i’m a little bit biased but i think the power of having a great team behind you in this market is super important because one everything is happening so fast right and so it’s so important that we have all of our eyes dot and our t’s crossed but the other thing is is that um there’s still a lot of negotiation involved in this and so i think having somebody that will negotiate on your behalf and fiercely is very important right now yeah and as these programs come at you a million miles an hour it’s important that someone can actually sit down explain the pros and cons of it and really make sure what’s the best situation for you and your family so you don’t make an emotional purchase that maybe wasn’t putting you in the best situation or opening yourself up to liability that maybe you expose yourself because you just weren’t quite sure what was going on so it’s important to be able to look at all the options that’s right and that’s where you know having a team it’s not just the real estate agent but it’s you know if you do decide to buy it’s the lending team it’s the title and escrow team it’s having the power of john l scott behind you not just the madrona group and the um 90 years that of experience here locally in the pacific northwest and just knowing how to navigate this challenging time all the different forms and all the different uh unique situations that we’re seeing today you know jason you started out by saying you’re biased and i certainly am too you know and i do believe now more than ever with all these programs it’s very confusing and so it’s more important than ever to have an agent but don’t take our word for it you know go talk to someone that just went through a transaction whether it’s someone at john scott or they went through it on their own or with a friend or a family member’s agent and just ask if they thought they could have done that without an agent working for them yeah it’s uh it’s a whirlwind it’s stressful it gets a little bit uh crazy out there and so yeah having somebody on your side having a team backing you up right now i think provides a level of comfort that we just can’t really even explain in this video i mean for example the the multiple listing service just revised all the forms because of the liability and the situations people are getting into to get these homes yeah it’s true we’ve never seen so much red they uh when they changed all the forms they showed all the changes they made and these forms are just red red red red and it’s just based on correcting the forms to match the the market that we’re in right now it’s it’s really hard to understate how much change has actually occurred over the last six to eight months yeah i think in six to eight months we’re going to look back and realize like we were in the middle of a huge industry change and you know to be have your finger on the pulse is very important right now yeah and it’s lucky that we do have you know so many agents in our office and so many team members that are out there doing deals doing listings putting this up together so that we can stay on top of every change and always know exactly what move to make well you know jason i think right now what every every homeowner should do is they should know what their home’s worth like now more than ever it’s important to know what their home’s worth and what the demand on their home is it’s it’s an awesome opportunity right now to maybe cash out put a nest egg away for retirement or maybe your house has increased in value so much that you can go and find your dream home right now there’s possibility that wasn’t maybe possible a year ago and maybe we don’t need to live where we’re living and we can still have the same life if we were to move where we want to live yeah which is actually kind of a funny story because my wife and i were looking at listings the other day and we saw a house that we were like holy moly that meets all of our check boxes and we didn’t even think about that possibility until we saw that house and now today you know we’re out looking at houses uh with a view in edmonds that it wasn’t just a few months ago just because we saw a listing and the awesome thing is is that our house now currently is valued at like a hundred thousand dollars more than it was just a few months ago these are unprecedented times do yourself a favor reach out to us let us evaluate your home let’s let’s look at the situation you’re in and let’s see is it time to do something thank you so much for watching this uh webisode with joe and i uh where we talk about the three important things that every homeowner needs to know about the current conditions of the market today we really take pride in bringing you the most relevant and informational pieces that we can and we look forward to continuing to bring that to you in the meantime