Selling Nightmares and Lessons Learned

Ever have a nightmare you can't seem to wake up from? Every time you close your eyes you continue to have the same bad dream. Well, it happens in real estate too. I've just roused myself from 2 of the most trying and frustrating listings I've ever had. The first situation occurred when a vacant house I had listed for 4 months was signed over to a relocation company. The sellers turned off the electricity without telling me and the relocation company failed to notify us we needed to turn on the electricity in our company name. After receiving a phone call requesting a showing of the home one Tuesday afternoon I arrived at the house and immediately noticed an odd smell. Only it wasn't so odd once I began sniffing out the source of the smell.
After 8 inches of rain the previous week the basement had about 36" of standing water or what I like to refer to as an indoor pool. Black fungi (mold) was growing up the staircase and the prospective buyer was slowly backing up to the front door where he eventually turned and ran down the driveway. Lets just say after 5 days of pumping by a local Service Master and numerous calls to the relo company I was neither surprised or saddened when the house was re listed with a different company and I was very nicely terminated. Lesson learned: Don't trust the Relocation Company or the seller to remember to inform you when the lights are turned off and try to do vacant house checks more than once a week, especially in the rainy spring.

Bad dream #2. After a year of working with a seller to get her home sold for the price she wanted we finally had a contract that was fair but not quite the dollar amount the seller wanted as a new roof was required ( no surprise) for the house. The first time buyer hired a roofer whom my seller agreed to pay $8,000 at closing for the new roof. The roofer started removing the wood shake shingles on a Wed. afternoon and I got a phone call from the buyers agent on Thur evening telling me that the roofer had ceased working as he had not realized that there was no underlayment on the roof under the wood shingles. He was needing $3,500 more dollars to do the job. Needless to say with 1/2 of the roof removed he had us over a barrel and on Friday morning I called him to tell him that we had to have the roof finished. An agreement was reached between my seller and the buyer where as they would each pay $1,500 of the cost and the roofer would eat the other $500. That Friday evening my seller gave the roofer a check for $1,500 so he could buy the extra wood and pay his workers for working that weekend. Of course it rained that night and wonder of wonders the roofer had failed to follow thru on his promise to tarp the house that Friday night and rain soaked the ceilings of 5 of the rooms in the house. By Tue. when the roof had not had any work done on it I called the company that the roofer worked for and was informed that this company did not do roofing and that while the roofer was the owners son he did not work for them when he did roofing jobs. To make a long, sad story short the owner of the company finally had to hire another roofing company to complete the job, the roofer had to pay almost $1,000 to a contractor to fix the ceilings and the house closed almost a week late which meant that the utilities were turned off on the org. closing date and there was not electricity at this home for several day. Since both of these situations occurred during the same 2 1/2 week time frame I immediately began to think about the sump pump being turned off at house #2 and of course it was raining. Fortunately for my seller we were able to find a friend who had a generator and run the sump pump off of the generator for a few days until the buyer got the electricity turned on in his name. The house finally did close, with a new roof and after much screaming by the owner of the company who had to cover for his son the bill was paid and the ordeal over. Well, maybe over as my seller is considering going to small claims court over the whole ordeal. Lesson learned: Never let the buyer hire his own roofer and always use a company you are familiar with. If at all possible convince your seller to replace the roof before a contract is on the house so your seller is in control of who does the work and how the bill is paid.

Selling Real Estate can be a fun and rewarding career but it is also very stressful and can keep you up nights. Of course with nightmares like this going on staying up nights can be a good thing.

Remodeling Cost VS Value

My latest issue of The Residential Specialist Magazine had a small article on the cost vs value of several remodeling projects. As an avid " do it yourselfer" I love to watch all those do it yourself shows that instruct us on everything from curb appeal to replacing the tile in my bathroom. While I was working the Wichita Home Show 2 years ago I had just analyzed the latest NAR Cost VS Value information and was surprised to find out that the most cost efficient remodels had to do with exterior jobs. Our booth happened to be next to several siding company booths and I decided to get a siding education while on duty. At that time a siding remodel in our Midwest area was recouping about 114% of the cost when the house was sold. The numbers today are still strong. In Remodeling magazines 2007 Cost vs Value report 5 of the 6 projects that earned cost-recovery rates of more than 80 percent were exterior improvements. The top improvements included 1) upscale siding replacement with fiber cement materials 88.1%, 2) Wood deck addition 85.4% 3) Mid range vinyl siding replacement 83.2% 4) Mid range wood window replacements 81.2% and 5) Upscale vinyl window replacements 81%.

On the other end of the scale Home-office remodles re-couped only 57%, and a mid-range sunroom addition only brought in 59.1% of the cost paid.

Looks like my plans to side the house this summer will still be an attractive selling point if and when I decide to sell.

Who would of thought?

Today, its a new day! Where did I hear that before? Well, it sure is a new day for me as I begin my new blog. For a not so sharp techie I'm hoping to do a good job of sharing information on the local real estate market and how real estate affects ( some would say runs) my life. I hear so many different news stories about the sorry state of the market and how families everywhere are losing their homes to the lenders who made them very questionable loans that I just had to comment on the difference between the National market trends and the actual Local market.

Believe it or not all real estate markets are local. What happens in California or Nevada does not necessarily reflect what is going on in Kansas. To hear the nightly news one would think that home prices are falling here in our area and the poor consumer just can't find a loan to purchase the home of their dreams. I've spoken to several lenders over the last few months and all seem to have the same take on the local lending outlook. Yes, the guide lines have tightened up on credit purchases but a good buyer with a decent credit score is still able to obtain a loan with a very good interest rate. From what I've been told the rates are now around 5% for a 15 yr. fixed rate mortgage and 6% for a 30 yr. fixed rate.

I've been watching the houses for sale in my area and while I do see a large number of homes on the market right now I also see that homes which are priced correctly (within the existing market value) and are maintained in a top notch manner are selling within about a 4 month time frame. Does that mean that sellers are getting top dollar? Not every time. Anytime the market is overloaded with inventory prices tend to go down to an adjusted market value. Its the old supply and demand adjustment. With the local market more than holding its own we can look forward to a solid selling market once the usual spring "pick up" season begins. I for one am grateful that Kansas has not had the 15 or 20 % appreciation rates for homes these past years. One more GREAT reason to live right here in the heartland!