The Holidays are a Great Time to Sell!

Sometimes sellers decide to take their homes off the market for the holidays. This is a mistake!

Any buyers who are looking right now are very motivated. They might have just become preapproved and are anxious to get started. If your house is on the market, they will see it and your house may be the perfect one for them! Take it off the market and they will miss it.

As a seller, you can decorate your house for the holidays (but don't clutter it). Light a fire in the fireplace for ambience. Bake cookies and leave them on the counter. Play holiday music! It's a great time to sell. Sure, you're busy, but go out during a showing and look at the lights in neighborhoods, go see a movie, or go to a local coffee house for a latte or hot chocolate.

Remember that "curb appeal" is still important in the winter. Dig out the old dead annuals from the window boxes and replace them with greenery and battery operated mini-lights. Put electric candles in the windows that will come on automatically at sundown. My favorite decoration is to wrap up big moving boxes with wrapping paper, tie ribbon around the boxes -- the kind that you get in big rolls at Michael's - and place them on your front steps. Shine a spot light on the boxes and your door. Hang the wreath and you're all set! When we lived in Grand Isle, people complimented us on our oversized presents on our front steps. The scale was just right for our big house!

So, while it's hard to keep the house picked up during the holidays, do your best, because the buyers are out there, they are motivated to buy, and it just might be your house they fall in love with!

Home Inspections

We recommend that any home that is purchased go through a home inspection with a professional inspector. The cost is approximately $400 and given the cost of your investment, this is a small sum. There may be extra costs involved for additional inspections that we will discuss at the end.

A professional inspection takes about three hours depending on the size of the home. Multifamilies take longer and cost more because there are at least two "properties" to inspect. The inspector will look at the home from top to bottom, inside and out, and especially focus on the major aspects of the home: structural, mechanical, and electrical. He will also teach you about the workings of the home so you understand how to maintain your future home.

The inspector will tell you how old the roof, the furnace, and the windows are (approximately) and tell you when you might anticipate replacing those items. He will test appliances and flush toilets while running the water in the sink to see if the water pressure diminishes.

The building inspection is not designed to find small issues to use as renegotiation. It is designed to find major defects which the home owner might not know even exist. It is also designed to find safety issues such as ungrounded outlets, no GFCI outlets in the kitchen, bathroom, basement or garage.

At a recent inspection where we were representing the seller, the inspection showed a loose electrical receptacle. We thought this was a loose outlet that was not seated properly in the outlet opening. When the electrician came to repair it, he could not find a problem. The outlet was properly installed. We called the agent only to find out they were referring to the outlet cover. The screws were loose. A butter knife... a screwdriver.. or a long fingernail could have secured the screws in the outlet plate. The inspection is not designed to focus on issues like this.

Have inspections caused deals to fall through? Yes. Sometimes the issues are great and the seller is unwilling to address them or to give a concession on the sales price. We had an inspection where the furnace was at the end of its life and to replace it when it died would cost nearly $8,000. The seller said the furnace was currently in good working condition. The inspector said it could stop working at any time -- and there was only one plumbing company that worked on these particular boilers. The buyers wanted a concession. The seller said no. The contract was terminated and the sellers eventually found another buyer.

More often though, there are small repairs that need to be made and the buyer and seller find a way to make the deal work. Buyers want to buy and sellers want to sell. It is our job to find a way to bring parties together in a win-win arrangement. That is our goal and that is out usual outcome.

What other inspections need to take place? We usually recommend a radon test. Check out this link from the epa site http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/hmbyguid.html

If the house is on a well, we recommend water testing for potability. Rural development loans require several water tests. http://healthvermont.gov/enviro/ph_lab/water_test.aspx

If the house is on a septic system, we recommend that the system is pumped and shown to be in satisfactory condition. This is not a test that a home inspector does but can be done separately by a local septic company. http://www.epa.gov/owm/septic/pubs/homeowner_guide_long.pdf

Getting to the Closing Table

You've decided you want to buy a home -- condo, single family, multifamily -- the process is the same with some variations.

We start by searching for the right home. When that is found, we write an offer and if the price, terms and conditions are acceptable to all parties, the offer is signed and becomes a contract. We usually have a house inspection by a professional inspector and if the inspection is good, we move forward with the transaction. The contract has been sent to the bank, the bank orders an appraisal, puts together all financial information and produces a commitment to loan the money.

A few days before closing, the buyers' attorney will tell the buyers how much money to bring to the closing. This should not come as a surprise to the buyers as they will have been given a "Good Faith Estimate" by their lender at the beginning of the loan process. On the day of closing, the buyers and sellers meet at the closing table. Typically, what happens in this area of Vermont is we meet at the buyers' attorney's office. The buyers' attorney is representing the lending institution but typically acts as a representative of the buyer also. The sellers can hire their attorney to be present but the attorney is not usually there.

The attorney goes over the HUD Settlement statement with the buyers and sellers to make sure the money that is exchanging hands is correct. There is a buyers' side and a sellers' side. The bottom line on the buyers' side is the amount they have brought to closing. The bottom line for the sellers is the amount they are taking home after the closing is over.

After everyone agrees on the HUD Settlement statement, the buyers start to sign a pile of closing papers with their attorney. They will sign the note that promises to pay back the loan. There are many disclosures that the bank will provide. The buyers will also either give over a bank check for the amount they are to bring to closing unless the money has already been wired into the attorney's trust account. After all the paperwork has been signed, the sellers produce the deed to the property that has been written by the sellers' attorney. It is signed and handed over to the new buyers.

Keys are given from sellers to buyers and now we have new homeowners! The process takes about one hour barring any complications. At the end, everyone is happy (well, usually!) and we REALTORS feel great because we were able to facilitate the buyers and sellers coming together in a win-win transaction. It is really an honor to be a part of such an important part of people's lives!

Recent Rural Development Loan

We represented a buyer who bought a home in Fairfax on a Rural Development (RD) loan. She was able to finance 100% of the purchase price AND get closing costs from the sellers. Keep in mind that all negotiations are specific to a property and that a sales price is specific to what a seller will sell a house for and a buyer will pay for the house.

The buyer and seller agreed on the price, terms and conditions. We did a building inspection and there were minor repairs that needed to be done. But the house had one major problem that we knew ahead of time would come up in the appraisal. In RD loans, safety is all-important. This house had a sliding glass door to... nowhere. I mean, it was to somewhere, and that somewhere was an eight foot drop. There used to be a deck there, but now there wasn't.

We determined from the lender that if the seller put up an adequate barrier, that would suffice. The seller put up an attractive lattice barrier but it was not high enough. A carpenter put in a board at the top of the slider and screwed it in place. That door was not opening.

The bank hires an appraiser to determine the value of the house for the bank and to also evaluate the condition. He was satisfied with the sliding door repair.

What did not satisfy him was the vinyl in the kitchen that was torn and missing in areas. He did not like the leaking sink in the bathroom, and he wanted GFCI outlets in the kitchen and bathroom. He especially didn't like the peeling paint on the exterior. We understood the electrical repairs and leaky sink. The appropriate tradespeople were hired and the repairs were made. The seller reluctantly scraped and painted the outside. But the missing vinyl? The buyer was going to replace the entire floor as soon as she closed on the house, so she didn't want to spend money repairing missing vinyl.

The solution that worked for everyone was a bit ridiculous: the ripped pieces were cut out so there were missing 12x12" square areas. The completely missing areas were trimmed neatly to make open square areas. Then peel and stick 12x12" tiles were put in the missing spots. The main color of the kitchen floor was yellow so they put in yellow peel and stick tiles. Unfortunately, they ran out before finishing. So, we stuck in black tiles! Black and yellow tiles -- it looked like the Yellow Brick Road! Ugly, but the appraiser was satisfied.

In an RD loan, the appraiser is not only appraising the property for value compared to recent sales and other properties on the market, but is creating a report indicating what repairs must be done to satisfy the lender. The buyer gets a safe house and the lender knows the house has gone through stringent requirements. But sometimes the requests seem ridiculous, like covering the openings in the kitchen floor in this house.

We are happy that RD loans exist. In this case, the buyer did not have enough for an FHA downpayment which is 3.5% and she did not have sufficient cash for closing. The buyer and sellers came to agreement on price, terms and conditions that worked for everyone. The buyer is thrilled with her new home and the sellers loved that she loved the home they had owned for years.

Even if she moved in with a yellow and black kitchen floor.

Post Tropical Storm Irene Appraisals

Many properties under deposit and past the appraisal process recently had to be reappraised - a reinspection, really -- to determine that the properties were not damaged in Tropical Storm Irene. Given the pictures of Vermont devasatation in newspapers and online, it's understandable that banks would want reassurance that the properties they were about to lend money on were in good shape.

In most cases, the appraiser went back to the property and did an exterior inspection to see if the location was near a body of water and if the exterior looked to be in good condition. This did not take long but appraisers were doing inspections for many properties in addition to their current work load. In most cases, we had to delay closings until the inspection could be completed and underwriters sign off on the inspection.

With more stringent guidelines for lending in general, closings are taking longer. Underwriters are often out of state and are not aware of subtle differences in Vermont requirements vs other states. (For instance, we don't have termites in Vermont but they want to see termite inspection reports.) Buyer and sellers (and their agents) have to be patient with requests for different verifications. And recently, we've had to be patient and leave time for last minutes snags. Like flooding!

All the properties we had under deposit during the storm have closed, but we are now suggesting that closings are scheduled farther out than in the past. If we can move the closings up to earlier dates, that is much better than asking for extensions.

Should I Pack Away My Photos When Selling?

Sellers want to know whether they should remove personal photos when selling their home. Many REALTORS feel all photos should all come down because buyers want to picture themselves in the new house, not the current owners.

Here's my opinion: Leave some pictures so the buyers know it's a wonderful family, or couple or individual selling. Let buyers know a little about you through your photos. Buyers want to konw if this is a happy home and your picture can show that. But don't make your home a gallery of every photo ever taken.

When buyers walk through a home, if there are photos on the walls, photos in frames on living room tables, bedside tables, on refrigerators, etc, it's too much for a variety of reasons. One, it's distracting. We stop at every wedding picture and think, oh, what a lovely couple or worse, I don' like the color of those bridesmaid dresses! Or at each baby picture we stop and say, "what a cute baby." We see pictures of every trophy won and we try to read what it was for. We wonder whether we know the owners or their children. Basically, it disrupts the flow of the tour and we are looking at the photos and not at the home. Everyone once in awhile there is an inappropriate picture.... and being human, we make judgements. Those judgements can subconsciously transfer over to the home.

Secondly, buyers DO want to picture themselves living there and too many seller photos establish the home as the sellers' home, not their possible new home. Too much history to erase, they can't picture themselves living there, can't picture making memories of their own.

My suggestion is to keep the photos that are your absolute favorites and put them on one table in the living room or den. Pack the rest in boxes. Take a cross section of the ones that mean the most to you. The buyers will stop once and glance, get an idea of the kind of good house karma that exists through your photos, and move on to see the the rest of the house.

The bonus? You've already packed one box and are that much closer to moving!

Lead Your Buyer Through Your House by Staging Outside to Inside

If your house or condo is for sale, remember that first impressions are very important. Buyers talk about curb appeal -- they look at your house from the curb and you have about 10 seconds to make a good first impression. When they open the front door and walk in, you have another 10 seconds. Make those seconds count! You want to lead your buyers through your house with your staging.

Now that we are almost at the first day of autumn, here are some ideas.

Most houses and condos have a walkway from the drive to the front door. Put a pot of chrysanthemums on either side of the walk way. Put pumpkins and/or gourds on the steps going up to the front door and put at least one more pot of flowers. At this time of the year, you can get some inexpensive flowers at Home Depot or Lowe's. To get great flowers that are full, try Claussen's in Colchester Village.

On the door, place a wreath of autumn silk flowers.Wreaths are not too expensive at Michael's but if you are crafty at all, they are easy to make. Buy a ring of grape vines and two strands of silk leaves. Wrap the strands around the front of the grape vine wreath and secure with thin wire, or wrap them in a spiral around the wreath. Add a couple of dried seed pods that are on picks that stick into open spaces on the wreath. And voila, all done! Hang it on the door.

If you have a large house with columns, you can get corn stalks and attach them to the columns on either side of the front steps. The pumpkins can be placed at the bottom of the corn stalks. Be careful not to overdo the stalks. They can look corny (oops, no pun intended!) if you put up too many.

As your buyers walk in the door, place a small table that has a couple of chunky, fall colored candles, some more gourds and some dried corn. Have fun!

On the dining room table is another place to decorate a little. Again, small gourds or baby pumpkins, cranberry or burnt orange candles in holders, a couple of scattered silk leaves. These leaves come in a bag and nice to drop on the table. Place a bowl of candy corn for buyers to eat and put a simple sign that says, Please eat the candy!

Total investment with pumpkins, silk garlands, flowers, etc, will be less than $75 and well worth it.