Q: Does Your Home Have an Odor?

If your home has an odor, buyers will be turned off. Here’s how to fix it.

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You can’t sell what you can smell. You know what I mean; we’ve all walked into a home and immediately thought, “Wow, what is that smell?” It could be a funky odor, the source of which you can’t pinpoint, or maybe it’s something identifiable like cigarette smoke or burned cooking scents, for example. Many people I’ve worked with have instantly had a negative reaction to scents when walking into a home. 

If your house has a smell and you want to sell it, take action now. Work on the walls and carpets to eliminate odors that will turn off buyers. It’s a good idea to clean your air ducts too. The best thing you can do is try to make your house have no smell—make it neutral. Masking the odors with air fresheners or cookies doesn’t last very long.

If you’re considering selling and want some ‘professional smellers’ to come in and let you know if your home has a scent, we’d be glad to do it, free of charge. We’d love to help you prepare your house for the market. If you have further questions about this or any other real estate topic, reach out via phone or email. Can’t wait to smell—I mean, see—ya later! 

The Strategic Way to Lower Your Home’s Price

Need to lower the price of your home? Here’s how to do it.

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If you’ve decided to lower the price of your home, by how much do you reduce it? The answer depends.

If you’re in a non-luxury price range, a drop of about $5,000 is a good place to start. This is significant enough to attract buyers’ attention. Anything less than that won’t make much of a difference. Remember, though, to make sure the price drop lands the new price between the major $25,000 price points ($525,000, $550,000, $575,000, etc.). 

It’s better to be preemptive and make a price reduction now so buyers see the value and don’t come in even lower.

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If you’re in a luxury price range (upwards of $1 million and $2 million), your price drop should be  $25,000, $50,000, $75,000, or even $100,000. This may seem like a lot, but the alternative—sitting on the market for even longer, waiting for a buyer who will probably make a lowball offer—is worse. It’s better to be preemptive and make a price reduction now so buyers see the value and don’t come in even lower.

As always, if you have questions about this or any other real estate topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to speak with you.

What Do Fishing and Your Pricing Strategy Have in Common?

Believe it or not, fishing is a great analogy for the way in which you price your home. Here’s what I mean.

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Have you ever been out fishing and thought about how the principles of it very much apply to the way you price your home?

My guess is probably not, but I’m here to tell you that the art of fishing is a lot like the art of correctly pricing your home. Allow me to explain.

If you’ve ever made the mistake of pricing your home too high, you probably know what it’s like to receive little interest from buyers and be left with no other choice than to make price reductions. Conversely, if you’ve listed your home slightly below its market value, you’ve probably received lots of attention and maybe even sparked a multiple-offer situation.

Your success as a seller has a lot to do with your pricing strategy, and given this hot seller’s market we’re in, pricing your home right is all the more important. We at The Anderson Group see fishing as an appropriate analogy for how we help our sellers set their home’s price: When you put good bait in the water, you get multiple fish swimming toward it and biting down on the bait. As you reel in your catch, you know you’ve used irresistible bait because you’ve captured the fish hook, line, and sinker.

We advise our sellers to price their home meaningfully and enticingly right from the beginning, so that when buyers see it, they won’t hesitate to offer full price or even above your asking price. And you could have a multiple-offer situation on your hands.

When you put good bait in the water, you get multiple fish swimming toward it and biting down on the bait.

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We’ve found that the key to proper pricing is to set your asking price slightly under market value. That way, buyers see it as good bait and immediately bite down, instead of nibbling at it before swimming away because your price is too high.

If you have any questions or would like to learn how our pricing strategy works in greater detail, please reach out to me and my team. We look forward to talking with you soon!

Why Sellers Are Losing Offers When They Should Be Winning Them

We’re in a hot seller’s market, but sellers are still finding ways to lose out on deals—here’s why.

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Despite the fact that we’re in a hot seller’s market, sellers are actually losing offers when they should be winning them. They could be entertaining multiple offers and still find a way to botch the deal.

How is this possible? There are three primary reasons:

1. Waiting too long to respond. In other words, they take their time and, if they’re not satisfied with one offer, they assume they’ll get multiple offers.

2. Not knowing what to do when they do get multiple offers. They don’t know which offer to choose, so they make different demands to different buyers in order to escalate each offer, but all that does is turn buyers off. They’ll start to feel used, decide you’re too unreasonable, and drop out of the running.  

A lot of sellers are missing out on some great offers, so remember why and make sure you’re not one of them.

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3. Not allowing the negotiation process to happen correctly. They’ll get a buyer under contract, but if that buyer then asks them to fix some items during the inspection process (a damaged roof, broken water heater, etc.), they won’t agree to fix any of them. Again, they just assume they’ll get another offer, but once that buyer walks away, there aren’t any more.

Whether they’re screwing up the deal in the beginning or near the end, a lot of sellers are missing out on some great offers, so remember these mistakes and avoid them to keep yourself from falling into that same fate.

If you have any questions about this topic or how to strategically align yourself to sell quickly and for top dollar in our Denver market, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.

What Motivates You to Sell Your Home?

Today I want to discuss a question I often pose to home sellers: Why do you want to sell your home?

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Many clients come to us saying that they need to move because their family has grown,  they got a new job, or they’re simply not happy in their current neighborhood. But we know that there are often deeper reasons for moving, which, in our experience, often boil down to three things: lifestyle, relationships, and cost.

Can you afford to go somewhere new? Do you really like the neighborhood? If you move, will your daily lifestyle match your ideals? These questions are all things to consider before making a move. 

What if there was a way that you could borrow the money you have in your current home to go out and buy a new home, and then turn your current home into a rental?

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And as you’re thinking of selling your house, also consider whether now is the right time. Could you buy a new home without selling your current one? What if there was a way that you could borrow the money you have in your current home to go out and buy a new home, and then turn your current home into a rental? This way, you could still achieve the lifestyle you want, you could still maintain relationships with your friends and family, and what’s more is that you could still afford it. If there was a way to do that, would it make financial sense to do so, and if it did make sense, would that option interest you?

Surprisingly, people don’t often think about the option of holding onto their current home when they’re deciding whether or not to purchase another. But in many cases, not only is doing this possible, but it’s also a great play: By turning your current home into a rental, you create equity, passive income, and real estate holdings.

If any of this sounds intriguing and you’d like to learn more, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I’d be happy to sit down with you and discuss all the options you have.

What Kind of Return Can You Expect From Upgrading Your Home’s Decks and Doors?

Decks and front doors can both bring a high return on investment when properly upgraded.

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As we’ve discussed in previous messages, the relationship between cost and value when it comes to home upgrades is hugely important to buyers, sellers, and homeowners alike. Today, we’ll be talking about two home features—decks and doors—as they relate to this concept.

To illustrate why these features matter, allow me to share the story of my last home purchase.

A few years ago, my family and I were in the middle of buying our current home. At the time, the back yard was an absolute mess. The deck, in particular, was in need of a major upgrade. It had this unsightly square paneling, was poorly designed, and was far too small. The moment my family moved in, I knew that this deck was the first thing I wanted to change.

We ripped out the deck and replaced it entirely. The new deck we installed was a massive improvement. It was much larger, much more durable, and much better looking. We receive compliments on it all the time. It really is a showpiece. But what about its cost-to-value ratio?

Buying a second home and opening it up for short-term rent when you’re not there is a great way to pay the mortgage and even receive cash flow.

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All told, this deck would bring a 91% return on investment if, or when, we sell this home. 

Moving on, upgraded front doors can also bring a return in the 90% range. I still haven’t upgraded my own front door, but I would definitely like to. A front door plays a massive role in your home’s exterior appearance. It often serves as a first impression, so it needs to look good and have a lot of character.

The thing to remember about making these or any other upgrades is that they should enhance, not overwhelm, the rest of your home. Everything you do to a given property should work toward a cohesive overall look and feel.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

3 Ways to Help Your Closings Move Along Faster

All home sellers want a quick closing. Here are three tips to help you get there.

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What slows closings down and what can you do as a seller to help them move along faster? Here are a few tips to help you speed up your next closing:

1. Answer things quickly. If you get an offer, you may think that it’s wise to wait a few days for more offers to come in or let the seller sit on it. I recently learned that’s not the best idea. I listed a property that got a full-priced offer on the day it was listed. Instead of waiting for multiple offers, we decided to take the cash offer, which also allowed my sellers to stay in the home for 60 days after closing. They made the right decision by accepting that offer. They could have gotten a higher price, but probably wouldn’t have been able to get as good of terms. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to close within 1.5 weeks

2. Get information to the buyer in a timely manner. They might have questions about a radon mitigation system, insurance reports, and other repairs or warranties about the home. Get those things to them quickly.

Having a sense of urgency is key when selling your home.

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3. Respond quickly to inspection, appraisal, and document requests. Don’t let you be the reason that things don’t get done. If we worked with you, we would make sure to have all this documentation and scheduling done in advance if things get done.

All in all, having a sense of urgency is key when you’re selling your home. If you’re slow with things or have some delays, it could derail your closing altogether.

If you have any questions for me in the meantime about selling your home or about anything else related to real estate, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Don’t Make These 3 Costly Mistakes When Listing Your Home

If you want to sell your home quickly and for top dollar, price it right, advertise it right, and make it presentable.

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There are three costly mistakes some homeowners tend to make when listing their home that you should avoid:

1. Overpricing. When you ask too much for a house, it usually sits on the market because nobody will pay for something they don’t see the value in. I typically price houses right at or just below their market value. Think of it this way—if I’m fishing and I put the right bait in the water, I’ll get a lot of fish to bite. If I put old, dried-out bait in the water, I won’t get any bites. It’s the same with pricing a home—if you list it at a price that’s very attractive to a lot of people, you’ll attract a lot of offers for it and potentially sell it above its market value.

2. Not advertising the home enough. If you don’t advertise your home enough, you won’t get any fish on the line either. Putting a sign out is one way to go, but in our digital age, you can do so much more. That’s what we specialize in—we can get a listing on to thousands of different websites, including Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin. We pay money to be on those sights so we can advertise your home to as many people as possible. We also shoot many different types of video and photography for our homes.

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If you don’t advertise your home enough, you won’t get any fish on the line either.

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3. Not making the house presentable. If buyers step into your house and it’s not presentable or it doesn’t live up to its portrayed value, its value will drop. To continue with my fishing analogy, not making your house presentable will cause fish to steer clear of it.

From the time a buyer sees your home’s price to when they see its advertising to the moment they step inside its doors, all three of these factors need to be consistent. If you price your home right, advertise it right, and present it right, you’ll sell quickly and for top dollar.

If you have any other questions about selling your home or you have any other real estate needs, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.

3 Steps to Make Your Home Stand Out to Buyers

There are three essential steps to follow if you want to sell your home for top dollar.

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In order to successfully sell your home for top dollar, there are three must-do steps to follow:

1. Boost your curb appeal by painting. Curb appeal is the first thing that people notice when they come to visit your home. One of the cheapest things you can do to add value to your home is adding a fresh coat of paint. If you have an old, worn-out base color without any flow, we can repaint to give your home an entirely new feel.
2. Revamp your landscaping. Seed your lawn to fill in dead spots, and add vibrant plants to give your yard a splash of color.
3. Clean and declutter the interior. Minimalism is a big trend right now in interior design, so in addition to cleaning, also remove extra stuff from the home. This will make the place feel more open and allow the viewer to imagine themself living in the home.

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One of the cheapest things you can do to add value to to your home is adding a fresh coat of paint.

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In addition to these steps, we also have resources to help you stage the property. We provide this service for almost 50% of the houses that we sell. The Anderson Group can help you make your property, inside and out, look bright, fresh, and clean to appeal to any potential buyers coming through

If you have any questions about preparing your home for sale or anything else to do with real estate, feel free to reach out to me. There’s nothing more important to us than your success.

Is It Wise to Sell Your Home on Your Own?

Selling your home on your own might sound tempting, but us Realtors are here to protect you and make you the most money possible on your home sale.

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Should you sell your house on your own?

Let’s say you have a great property and decide that, because the market is so hot, all you have to do is yell outside your door and someone will come by your house. 

Unfortunately, selling a house doesn’t work that easily. If you do that, you might attract somebody, but not necessarily the right somebody. It pays to sell your home the right way—the professional way. Sure, it’s easy to put a sign in the yard and have people say they like your house, but it’s another thing to get to closing. You can court as many people as you want, but it’s another thing to get married. 

To sell a house, you have to be experienced in real estate and know the legal ramifications of signing a contract because as a seller, once you sign on the dotted line, there is not much you can do to get out of the contract. Do you really want to sign on that dotted line and know everything that’s implicated in that contract? In most cases, the answer is no unless real estate is your full-time job. 

Secondly, what’s the experience going to be like along those dates and deadlines? From the first inspection to the title work to all the buyer requests and everything in between, there’s a ton of stuff that can happen that can hurt you along the way. Why not have a professional hold the weight of all that legal responsibility on their shoulders? We’re here to protect you. 

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We help people save money because we help make them more money than what they could’ve made on their own.

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On a final note, we help people save money because we help make them more money than what they could’ve made on their own. We’re also able to find the right buyer who could buy your house with cash or very few loan setbacks. 

It’s like I always ask my friends: Who would you let babysit your kids? Only the best, right? The same logic applies to real estate. I have to trust these people, and I won’t let my buyers partner with someone who can’t take the sale all the way to closing. 

Our whole job is to make your life better because of real estate—not worse. 

If you’re thinking about selling your house, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help.

How We Can Find a Match for Your House

As real estate agents, one of our specialties is playing matchmaker for home sellers who don’t want to put their home on the market.

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“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.”

That’s a famous line from the movie “Fiddler on the Roof,” and it’s the life we Realtors live. Our job is to play matchmaker. Once we find a match, we then become like wedding planners. It’s a fun circle of life we live in, and being a matchmaker is something you can take advantage of. 

If you have a house you want to sell but don’t want to put on the market or have it be known that it’s for sale, you can let us know so we can find a buyer for that house. Part of the joy of having so many clients and being in the business for so many years is having a healthy reserve of buyers possibly looking to buy homes in your neighborhood. 

I’d love to play matchmaker for you, so if you have a house you want to sell and you’d like to see if I can find a buyer for that house, give me a call and we’ll put your house on our “pocket listings” list. When we find new buyers, we’ll match the house, cross reference it, and see if there’s someone we can play matchmaker with. 

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I’d love to play matchmaker for you.

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If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you.

Photography Mistakes That Can Ruin a Home Sale

Selling your home requires a lot of attention to detail. One area that often gets overlooked is photography, but it’s essential to selling for the most money possible.

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The market continues to be hot in Denver. With so many people out there trying to sell their home for top dollar, I wanted to give you some advice on how you can better accomplish your goals in this market. 

One of the biggest areas we see mistakes from sellers in is with the pictures they put on their home’s online listing. I was recently listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast where he was talking about how the No. 1 thing you need to do as an author is have a good book cover. 

That lesson translates to real estate through online photos. Your home’s sale isn’t all based on its location and features. When it comes down to it, those are going to be the most important factors, but its online photos play a role as well.

Here are some things you should most certainly avoid when choosing and taking your home’s online photographs: 

1. A lack of photos of the neighborhood and surrounding area
2. Lack of a photo of the front of the house
3. Lack of a photo of the backyard or area directly behind the home
4. Photos that aren’t in chronological order (front door, entryway, kitchen, bedrooms, basement)
5. Photos that are too dark
6. Photos that are too bright
7. Photos that are too low of quality
8. Dirty, messy, or cluttered rooms

A big takeaway here is that the more you leave out, the more buyers are going to wonder if you are hiding something. Don’t hide anything and make sure you get good, high-quality, well-lit photos of every area of your home.

The key is to eliminate the negatives above and transform your house into a presentable home that can be looked at quickly and easily by buyers when they are browsing through listings. Video is a new frontier, but an increasingly important part of this process as well. 

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The more showings you get, the more offers you will receive.

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The deal killers can start early on if the photos of your home online aren’t attractive enough to buyers. The more buyers you can attract, the more showings you will get. The more showings you get, the more offers you will receive.

If you have any questions for us or need a recommendation for a good home photographer, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Don't Let Your Listing Go Cold

The number of days your home spends on the market is more important than you might think. I’ll go over why you should avoid letting your listing go cold today.

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When you’re selling your house or buying a new one, why do days on market even matter?

Just like food at a restaurant, you don’t want a house sitting around too long. The first 24 hours of a house listing are the most important. In fact, if you don’t get any showings within 72 hours, something has caused buyers to overlook your property. 

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The first 24 hours of a house listing are the most important.

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There are exceptions, such as a home that is further out or more expensive. However, if you have a home in the average price range in Denver, about $500,000, and you’re on the market for more than three days without any showings, something went wrong and you’re listing has gone cold. 

Days on market matter for the same reason the time it takes to get your food at a restaurant matter. If it get’s cold, you don’t want it. 

In order to sell your home successfully you need to price it correctly, show it properly, and market it aggressively. In fact, I suggest you price your home a little under market value, creating a buzz and a demand for your home. 

At the end of the day, people will think something is wrong with your house if it sits on the market for too long and goes through a bunch of price reductions. 

If you have any other questions, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

To Be or Not to Be Present for a Home Showing-That Is the Question

Today we'll discuss why you shouldn't be present at the first showing of your home, despite how tempted you may be to stick around and tell them everything you know about the home.

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If you're selling your house, you might be wondering if you should be present when a buyer sees your home. After all—who knows the home better than you, right?

Here's my answer: The very first showing on that property needs to be a clean slate. In other words, you should never be present for that first showing.

You should never be present for that first showing.

You can get the home primed for the showing by making sure the house is fresh, the lights are on, the countertops are clear, and maybe even by lighting some candles for a pleasant smell. But you shouldn’t be home during it.

A buyer might want to come back after the home goes under contract for the inspection. If they want you to make repairs as a result, then, that’s the best time to see them. Why? At that point, they're under contract. After they've submitted an inspection notice, you meet with them and talk about the inspection items and all the things you've done to make the property great. You want to draw out all the things they may not have seen or that the inspector may not have seen.

At that point, you can sell them on how awesome the property is. If you do this up front, however, you could lose them, because what they're looking for is totally different than what you're trying to sell them on. There simply isn't enough rapport built to make that interaction work that early in the transaction. You want to wait until after the inspection.

I hope you found this topic informative and helpful. If you have any questions I can answer or you're thinking about buying or selling a Denver home, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to speaking with you soon!

3 Keys to Preparing Your Home for the Market

Getting your home ready for the market involves focusing on three key areas: the curb, the entry, and the back of the house. 

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What do you need to do to your house prior to listing it on the market? 

A lot of people ask me this question, and many others freeze up before putting their house on the market because they simply don’t know what to do in terms of getting it ready. When you prepare your home for the market, you need to focus on three key areas.

The first area is the curb, or your home’s “curb appeal.” There are many things you could potentially do to improve how your home looks in a photograph, from landscaping to repainting or planting some new flowers. You can also try something more substantial like replacing your garage door or repairing your roof. When you’re taking photos, remember to take off all the window screens.  

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There are many things you can do to improve your home’s curb appeal.

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The second area is the entry to the home. What does the home look like when you walk inside? Extend your focus in this area to include the kitchen and the master bedroom. These areas are far more important than the rest of the interior because they’re the ones prospective buyers pay attention to when they’re walking through the house.

The last area to focus on is the back of the house. Consider this the second part of your overall landscaping due diligence. This area is considered a retreat, so it needs to look as impressive as the front of the house. Does it need new paint or new flowers as well? 

If you’re thinking about listing your house in the near future, focus your preparation on those areas. We would be glad to come out to your house and take at look at it if you need help.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!