We at The Moss Haedrich Team are blessed to have lots of really nice clients. Whether they find us here on our blog…on one of our other websites…or come to us as referrals, as many of our clients do, I’m convinced our clients would win all the gold if somebody held a Nice Olympics.

Which brings me to last Sunday evening, when my cell phone rang at 9:00. It was a client, and – as anyone in real estate will tell you – when a client calls you at 9:00PM on a Sunday it’s typically not to say how swell they think you are.

This client was calling to say they were locked out of their home. They had been gone for the day in Pennsylvania…their home had a couple of showings in their absence…and apparently someone had unwittingly locked the door from the garage into the house. Could I give them the lockbox code to get in?

Well, no I couldn’t because – as you may know – our lockboxes in Anne Arundel county require a special electronic key. No problem, I assured them: I’ll just update my key, drive over and open the door. I didn’t dawdle: they have young children. I once did, also, and I knew that after a long drive the novelty of sitting outside your locked house singing yet another round of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall would wear thin quickly.

I arrived, let them in, and – after exchanging a few quick regrets – was gone in about 2 minutes.

And that would have been that – all in a Realtor day’s work, you know. Except for the fact that our client stopped by our office this week, unexpectedly, to express his gratitude for driving 20 minutes to let his family in on a Sunday evening. He then handed us a gift card to our favorite restaurant.

I can’t tell you how touched we were by this expression of gratitude.

Real estate can be a demanding business. We help navigate our clients – buyers and sellers – through transactions that can be complicated, protracted and emotionally draining. Managing frayed nerves, raw emotions and disappointment come with the job.

As does – on occasion – a great big unexpected thank you.

]]> http://annapolishomedigest.com/2010/02/27/when-clients-go-above-and-beyond/feed/ 0 http://annapolishomedigest.com/2010/02/20/15-random-thoughts-for-annapolis-homebuyers-and-sellers/ http://annapolishomedigest.com/2010/02/20/15-random-thoughts-for-annapolis-homebuyers-and-sellers/#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:32:49 +0000 Ken http://annapolishomedigest.com/?p=606 A Crash Course for Active, Soon-to-Be or Wanna-Be Buyers and Sellers of Real Estate

1. If in doubt, paint it.

2. Buy below your means.

3. If you’re shopping for a million dollar plus home on the water in the Annapolis area, you’ll probably drive by many less-than-million-dollar homes to get there. Just the way it is.

4. Homes do not sell themselves, no matter how beautiful they are.

5. Buyers don’t care if you’ve already fixed, painted or repaired 98 items out of 100. They only care about the 2 you didn’t.

6. Buyers will over-estimate the cost of home repairs by a factor of 10. Do them yourself before you list your home and save 90%.

7. Everything you do right prior to selling your home will reduce your days on market by a factor of 10.

8. Hire a Realtor who will tell you what to do right.

9. If you’re a seller, or potential seller, we already know you’re not giving your home away.

10. If you’re a buyer, you should know that they’re not giving their home away.

11. Cosmic law: If you aren’t totally onboard with the sale of your home, The Universe will not bring a buyer. We’ve plenty of proof.

12. It’s only a good idea to hire your best friend or relative to sell your home if you have plenty of best friends and relatives to spare.

13. If you’re sitting back waiting for the market to rebound before you sell your home, you better have a very comfortable chair.

14. Smoking odor in your home is a seller death sentence.

15. Biggest, truest real estate cliche: The first offer is often the best.

You – or someone you know – has a home for sale and you’re wondering why it’s just languishing there on the real estate vine while other homes are being plucked off like ripe fruit by willing buyers.

There might be any number of reasons why, and it’s time you identified them and got your home IN – not just ON – the market. Maybe watching this video will help.

If you have any questions at all about Annapolis area real estate, or would like to offer feedback about this video or any post on this blog, feel free to call me, Ken Haedrich, at 410-507-7222. Or send me an email at kenhaedrich@gmail.com. Thanks for watching.

(To view the video, click on the link that immediately follows, then click on the video’s play button.)

Are you selling your Annapolis home, or at least thinking about it? If so, I’ll bet you’re wondering about open houses…whether or not they work (something I’ll talk about in an upcoming video)…and the dreaded Nosey Neighbors.

Frankly, you needn’t be concerned – at least that’s what we tell our sellers. Watch this video to find out why.

If you want to talk to me – Ken Haedrich – about the nosey neighbors, selling a home or buying one in the Annapolis area, just call me at 410-507-7222 or email me at KenHaedrich@gmail.com. We have a great team and we’d love to help you.

(To watch the video, click on the highlighted link that immediately follows, then click the video’s play button.)  

I was reading a trade publication the other day and came across an article with a very similar title to the one above. It doesn’t beat around the bush, and that’s a good thing: the market is too competitive right now for bush beating. I’ve cribbed the 5 “things”, but the observations are mine.

#1. Odors. If your home has off odors, you’re a dead duck. Odors have essentially the same irritating effect on buyers as an alarm that goes if when they enter and never stops until they leave.  You may not even smell the odors anymore, which is why you need an outside opinion. Do whatever it takes to eliminate the offensive odors – replace carpet, clean air ducts, etc – if you expect a sale.

#2. Cleanliness. Your home should look like you could eat off the floor, not as if you just did. There are no shortcuts here or places to hide because buyers will open every cabinet, look behind every door, in search of dirt. The best few hundreds bucks you spend when you sell a home might be hiring a professional cleaning crew.

#3. Clutter. Clutter and cleanliness go hand in hand: where you find one, you almost always find the other. Pack up the clutter, rent a storage unit – you’re moving anyway, right? – and get it down to just a few things on every surface and wall. Your home should emit a sense of calm, not chaos. Chaos confuses buyers, and confused buyers don’t buy.

#4. Sellers at Home. Imagine, if you will, a waiter who hovers at your table when you’re out on a date. That’s how buyers feel when sellers stay in their home during a showing. Doesn’t matter if the buyers and their agent say it’s fine if you stay. They’re lying.

#5. Unfinished Projects. Buyers want to imagine The Good Life in your home, a life of leisure. The last thing they want is to inherit a list of projects you never got around to. Trust me: the house down the street doesn’t have any unfinished business and it’s priced better besides. That’s what you’re up against.

Finally, none of the above matters if you’re home is overpriced for this market – which is the main thing buyers don’t like about your home. But if that’s the case, they probably didn’t even bother to make an appointment in the first place!

Shameless plug: If you’re thinking of selling your Annapolis home – or buying one in the area - give us a call. We can help you avoid these 5 mistakes, among many others, and have a great real estate transaction. We can be reached at 410-507-7222.

If you’ve sold a home recently, you know all about Feedback.

Feedback is the stuff buyers and their agents have to say about your property after a showing – the good, the bad, the indifferent.

Agents being busy – and this being the electronic age - feedback flies back and forth between agents in e-mail snippets. We’re lucky if we get a complete sentence from a showing agent. A paragraph is the equivalent of a novel.

Feedback can be useful – if ten would-be buyers complain about pet odors, you know you better do something about it.

It’s also a barometer of the market at any given moment in time, and a clear reflection of buyer behavior. Here – with very little exaggeration – is a sampling of feedback we’ve gotten recently. 

• • Showed buyer 18 condos this weekend. They’ve decided to buy a farmhouse with 10 acres on the Eastern Shore.
  • They loved the house – it made their Top 15 list.
  • Clients have decided to write an offer on the home if it is still available when they get back from Hawaii this summer.
  • Clients loved the home. They thought it was spacious, bright, had good flow, a nice yard, killer kitchen and master. Met all of their criteria. They want to keep looking.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. I say closets are the window to a homeowner’s soul. Show me a home full of chaotic closets and I’ll show you a buyer that sees red flags. Orderly closets – things arranged nicely and lined up with near military precision - sends a message that the owner is disciplined, a good steward of their home. Buyers like that.

Sellers sometimes need a little help hatching a pre-sale closet strategy. Some need more than a little. A former client had a special closet where he tossed all of his shirts onto the floor at day’s end. The pile came up to your waist. He’d pull one from the bottom of the pile each morning. It was like a giant shirt compost heap that kept getting turned every few weeks. We explained that while this arrangement might make perfect sense to his bachelor peers, it might prove a little off-putting to those with less rugged sensibilities. He eventually got it.

Your Doors Are a Good Place to Start 

They should not squeak, fall off the hinges or tracks when you open them, or have dangling knobs - all of which are more common than you’d imagine. Please fix them.

Next, thin, throw away, and donate – whatever. Embrace the reality that hoarding clothes several sizes too small won’t alone make you skinny again. Be ruthless: if your closets are bursting at the seams, buyers will automatically assume they’ll never hold all THEIR stuff. Go crazy with organizers and storage boxes. Patch and paint closet walls.

Treat kitchen cabinets and pantries as if you were expecting Martha Stewart AND the health inspector to stop by at any moment. Ditto your medicine cabinets. Stash all prescription drugs in a safe place: the public has an uncommon curiosity about your ailments. In short, give your closets as much attention as you would your living areas.

Bottom line: great closets won’t sell an overpriced home. But they’ll create a very positive impression that could sway a potential buyer your way in a close contest.

 Talk to Annapolis area homebuyers these days and you’ll often hear this: I don’t want just a deal. I want a steal! Realtors expect this sort of brash talk from seasoned investors, but more and more we’re hearing it from young couples, first time homebuyers, grandmothers and other nice people who often trip over the words, like they’re reciting a script that’s at odds with their deeper desires.

This inner conflict is understandable: after all, isn’t the nightly news a regular smorgasbord of home sale nightmare stories? Aren’t there steals now in every town in America?

Maybe – but that’s not the point. Shopping only for steals – and overlooking the otherwise good deals – tends to create inner conflict, distort priorties and become a single-minded exercise in the absurd. I know agents who have shown 40, 50 or more homes to steal shoppers who simply can’t pull the trigger on a home purchase because there might be a better deal hiding around the next bend. Buyers are now getting buyers’ remorse just thinking about buying. It’s driving both the buyers and their agents bonkers.

Better Judgement is Often The First Casualty of Steal Home Shopping

It reminds me of a young man I knew who used to be too frugal for his own good. He bought only the lowest priced shirts off the clearance rack – not because they were stylish, comfortable, fit well or otherwise served his needs, but because they were cheap. Consequently he ended up with a closet full of shirts that were so hideous they embarrased even my young children when I wore one to the dinner table, let alone in public. (The last of them went to Goodwill about 20 years ago – the shirts, not my kids.)

Homebuyers Risk Much When They Leave Better Judgement at the Front Door. A Home Should Be Many Things, and Well-Priced is Just One of Them

A home should be comfortable, pleasing to the eye, and well lit. It should have reliable mechanical systems, be convenient to work and play, if possible, and in an area where the new owner can easily imagine the next chapter of her life. It should have trees and bushes you love, enough lawn for that puppy you’ve wanted, a place to work on your ATVs and other toys, a picket fence or winding flagstone path, a great elevator, coffee shops within striking distance. In short, it should be what you want it to be.

Know what you want in a home and go find it. A good agent will make sure you get a great deal. Be willing to make some tradeoffs; most homebuyers will. But don’t sell your homebuyer’s soul for the sake of a steal: those few bucks you save on your monthly mortgage will be little recompense for your unrealized home dreams.

Trust me: if you’re looking for a great deal in the Annapolis real estate market, we have plenty. Just email me at kenhaedrich@kw.com and tell me what you’re looking for. I’ll send you a list of everything that meets your needs, and we’ll go from there.

This past summer we listed a home that was very nice indeed. Price: $1,200,000. It went under contract in 19 days, and sold a few weeks later for a price that the owners found quite acceptable.

Aside from our usual aggressive marketing, how can we account for such a good offer and fast sale? After all, the home did have a few quirks…some dated features…and wallpaper I wasn’t crazy about.

But sell it did, and here’s why: the home’s uniqueness – its overriding special features. In addition to a very private and nicely landscaped yard, the property had its own tennis court, large in-ground pool, and deep water dock just 5 minutes by boat to the Severn River.

There were other highlights, but the point is this: because the home was a unique package, it could compete in the market on its unique features – features that the buyers knew, or rightly assumed, they’d have difficulty finding in another property. Whether you’re selling real estate, art, or antique cast iron mechanical banks, uniqueness motivates buyers to act more quickly for fear of potential loss.

Contrast That With a Home Located in an Annapolis Subdivision…

…say 50 or 100 homes, perhaps 4 or 5 models to choose from, your usual upgrades. Ten or 12 percent of the subdivision is for sale. How will those homes compete with one another? On price. Absent starkly contrasting features or amenities, similar homes – in a market like the one we’re in - will almost always compete on price. Fear of potential loss diminishes when buyers perceive that supply is more predictable.

Buyers for such homes are being very patient in this market, watching competing homes leapfrog one another into the best price position before snapping them up. (Word of caution to buyers: if you do fall in love, don’t wait to make your play. There’s a good chance someone else has fallen in love with it too.)

And if you’re a subdivision seller? Your best hedge is to do everything you can to make your property stand out as unique among equals: be the cleanest, most freshly painted, best landscaped, least cluttered, and most inviting. And If you want to hear how we make all of our listings stand out as unique, email me at kenhaedrich@hotmail.com and I’ll email back.

So there we were, previewing a home for a client who wants to buy somewhere on the water in Annapolis. Walking in the front door, my attention was instantly seized by a Presidential citation on the fireplace mantle – one of many citations. 

Clearly, the person who lived there was proud of the fact that his tenure in the Secret Service had been officially recognized by the Oval Office.

I was smitten, too! Had the owner flown with the Prez on Air Force One? What sort of heat did he pack when he was on duty? Did he wear those cool shades and earpieces like they do in the movies? It was fascinating to consider.

And a complete waste of my time, with respect to why we were there: to see if this home was a good match for our Annapolis waterfront buyer.

The point? If You Want to Sell Your Home, Then Depersonalize It

You want buyers looking at your house, not a museum of personal photos, collectibles, family history, stuffed animal trophies and other distracting items.

Sellers will sometimes bristle when they hear this advice. They think we’re discounting things that are a source of personal pride, beloved pieces of their family heritage. We’re not. We just know that buyers find them distracting, like one big YouTube video they can’t turn off long enough to figure out if your home is right for them.

Of course, it’s impossible and unnecessary to remove every vestige of personality from your home, so don’t even try. But do strive for a measure of neutrality.

Pack away 90 percent of the family photos. Put your lustreware collection in storage. Repaint the pink bedroom your granddaughter always loved with a blank-canvas beige shade that’s more modern and easy on the eye.

Remember that you want buyers to see your home as a mirror that reflects their dreams and potential, not as a gridlock of personal statements that brings the imagination to a standstill. That’s the way you get offers.