Getting the price right is the most important issue in determining the sales time of a home.  If it isn’t priced right it will not sell, period.  But even if the price is right there is a final step to take that will put you a notch above the competition.  We call it staging your home.  You are setting your house up so that potential buyers can feel themselves moving in. 

Most people in Wasilla and Palmer do not stage their homes, so this will help put you over the top. 

You need to de-clutter mercilessly.  You are no longer making the home comfortable for yourself or for anyone, for that matter.  You are setting the home up like a model home.  If you’ve gone into a model home that is staged well, you will notice that it has furniture, but not too much furniture.  The table may be set but there aren’t any dishes on the counter or in the sink. There may be a book on an end table but only one book.  So get rid of all the extra furniture, all the extra dishes, all the extra clothes, all the extra books.  Pack them nicely in boxes and stack them in the garage, or better yet, put them in storage.  You are going to be moving anyway.

De-personalizing allows someone else to feel at home.  Even though we all have photos of loved ones on the walls, momentos of adventurous hunts hanging over the fireplace, small pictures of all the cousins, aunts, and babies stuck to the fridge with magnets, they now need to go.  Anything that reminds buyers that this is YOUR  home and not THEIRS needs to be taken down.  Pack it up, you are going to be moving anyway.

Neutralize.  I think I have shown close to 6,000 homes since I have been in real estate.  I have yet to show a home with wall paper without a buyer commenting on it.  And the comment is never positive.  Wall paper is so personal  that it will almost never please the next buyer.  Take it down and paint the wall.  And while you are painting, repaint the green and purple bedroom that your pre-teen insisted upon.  It is best to repaint the whole interior some neutral color. 

If you have anything else in the home that is not a very neutral color replace it.  Most sellers say they would rather allow the buyer to pick their own colors and replace at closing but that is a mistake. 

Most buyers will not even buy your home if the colors cause them to have an emotional reaction. Choosing a home to purchase is first and foremost an emotional decision.  If a home doesn’t feel right the buyer will walk away.  They will usually name something about the home that wasn’t right but the real reason is that they could not feel at home in the house. 

It is much easier to mentally move in to a home that is staged well.  The buyers will sit on the sofa and just try to imagine themselves living there if you have obeyed the three laws of staging.  

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Let?s take another look at market statistics to see what we can learn.?

As of today there are?328 homes on the market between Sutton to Big Lake to Settlers Bay.?I took out the?brand new homes and condos.? ?Those homes range in price from $75,000 to $2.5 million.? The median price for the homes is $245,000.? But this is the most important number?these homes have been on the market for an average of 119 days.? That?s right, these homes that are on the market right now have been there for an average of?almost 4 months!?

Now lets look at the houses that have sold in the last?4 months.? Since?September in this same area?265 houses have sold.? The median sales price was $195,000.? But here it is?the houses that actually sold in the last four months were only on the market for 68 days.? So the average days on the market for houses that sell is only 68 days.?But the average house on the market right now is almost twice that.? What is the difference?

The big difference is price.? People that wanted to sell, priced their home to sell.? People that wanted to sell only if they get a certain price ended up just putting their sign on the house, and it?s been there for 4 months.? Many of them used these methods to price their home.? Obviously, this doesn?t work.?

Some homes are just so unique that it?s difficult to get a good value comparing to what is on the market.? On those few homes it is best to get a very experienced realtor to help.? Use someone you trust and work with them.? They will honestly tell you how they are arriving on a price and work with you and the market to sell your home.

But most homes in the valley can be priced close enough to the market to sell.? Of the homes that did sell in the last 4 months, the sales price was 95% or more of the asking price.? That shows that it is very important to price it within 5%? of the market.? With a good selection of inventory, buyers are not even making offers on house priced 10?15% over market price.? An experienced realtor can help you find the correct price.? You should list the house at that price and expect an offer very close to the price.

I have been selling homes full time?in the valley for 16 years.? I average more than one sale a week? Call me, I can help you find that magic number.?My cell is 232?7900, and when you call it?guess what?? It?s me that answers, not a receptionist. Or you can email me marty@valleymarket.com

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It’s 17 degrees below zero at my house right now, and I’m in Palmer, the banana belt of Alaska.  I just checked  weather underground and the forecast for Fairbanks is a low of -40 tomorrow.  This is coming off about 2 weeks of snow every day.  I think Anchorage currently is ahead of their record snowfall.  At least the sky is clear and the mountains are pretty

At this temperature you don’t need an infrared camera to tell where your house is losing heat.  Just go outside and take a good look.  Do you see collections of frost in different areas?  Those are causes by either air leakage from inside your house, or by warmth leaking out of the house because of insufficient insulation.  Either way you are contributing to global warming by warming the outside rather than the inside of your home. 

Take a good look at those frosty spots.  If they are just under an eave of a cathedral ceiling, or just around the outside of a door or window that means air is leaking at those spots.  You need to seal those areas with insulation, foam, or caulk.  If you use foam around a door or a window make sure it’s not expandable foam or it could cause the frame to deform.  All that warmth going to the outside can be quantified in dollars spent on your heating bills.  Air leakage can also cause moisture to collect inside your walls since it usually starts condensing before actually hitting the cold outside air. 

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• Neal Fried was in Wasilla today giving a great presentation regarding the Mat-Su economy to the Valley Board of Realtors. Neal is an economist for the State of Alaska. He has a talent for making statistics seem interesting.   He is excited about research.  I was excited about his statistics. All the charts are courtesy of Neal Fried, click on them to enlarge.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. The population in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough continues to grow even though other population areas are shrinking.  The chart to the top left illustrates that.  The valley continues to show healthy growth even though Anchorage actually experienced negative growth.  The state as a whole also saw negative growth as the yellow column shows.
2. Job growth in 2006 was slower, but still healthy.  The four years previous to 2006 showed job growth of over 1,000 new jobs per year but 2006 saw only 646 new jobs.  Fried’s guess is that 2007 will be similar to this year in job growth.
3. Housing affordability has decreased. This has been the case nationwide.  Prices of homes have increased to the point that it now takes 1.9 workers at an average Valley income to afford the average home in the valley.  However, since Anchorage wages are higher it only takes 1.4 Anchorage workers to afford that same home.  That is the reason we have so many Anchorage workers living here.  In fact, 35% of our work force commutes to Anchorage.  In addition, another 10% work elsewhere in the state. 

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In a previous article we looked at Five Common Methods To Determine Price. In this post I will discuss how to come up with a price that will actually result in a sale. After all it?s your price, your condition, and your location that determines whether your house will sell at all. You have no control over your location since you are already living there. Condition is important and we will talk about it in the future. Any property will sell if it is priced right. The answer to your marketing time is PRICE.

I mentioned to a group of realtors last week that pricing a home is more of an art than a science. Now, after 15 years of marketing real estate in Wasilla and Palmer I make a myriad of adjustments in determining the correct value of a home. If a home could be priced with strict mathematical adjustments it would be easy to digitize. But computerized valuations will never be able to make accurate value assessments in rural areas where we observe such a variety of properties.

Lets look at a few of the adjustments needed to accurately determine value.

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In a market with ten months or more of inventory it is extremely important to correctly price your home.  If it is even slightly overpriced it will most likely prevent it from selling.  Remember, ten months worth of inventory doesn’t mean that your home will sell in ten months.  It’s not like we will run out of inventory in ten months so that your home will sell because it is the last one on the market. 

What happens is that homes are always entering and leaving the market.  The homes that are priced to sell move fairly quickly and are replaced by others.  The overpriced houses can sit on the shelf forever without a sale.  In Wasilla and Palmer, (not the whole core area), the median sales price for the 1,005 homes sold in 2006 was $225,000.  The median asking price currently is $259,950.  Any home that is priced $35,000 too high is going to be on the market for a long time.  In fact, if a house with a market value of $225,000 is actually put on the market at that price, it will likely sell in 60 days or less.  However if the same house is marketed at $260,000, it will likely take a year or more to sell it if the owner doesn’t lower the price. 

Five common methods to determine the price.

1. Some people choose the price of their home based on the amount of money they want to walk away with.  To them, it doesn’t matter how much the house is worth, they need a certain amount in their pocket and that is how they determine the price.

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