To stage or not to stage--the answer is yes for real estate listings to sell~

I just looked at the new listing for my young friend's home in West Seattle and saw immediately the value of good staging. It had been listed for a few months with no results. I was happy to refer her to a great Windermere agent who has done a beautiful job getting her place ready to be seen, loved and sold.

Since I hadn't been to the house, I had to compare the before and after photos. The first agent simply pulled out his camera and shot the rooms the way they were, clean, tidy and lived in. When I looked at his photos, my eye was distracted, the rooms looked unbalanced and unappealing. What a difference with the new listing. The Windermere agent staged the house with the furnishings already there, moving things around and adding color. All of a sudden I can see how warm and beautiful the rooms are with designer paint and great woodwork (amazing--those things were there before but I hadn't noticed.) The kitchen looks sparkling and inviting with tall pots of forsythia and artfully placed accessories. The master bedroom looks serene and stylish, with a bedspread I hadn't even noticed in the "before" shots.

I suspect the staging didn't cost a thing, but a good agent knows just what to put away and what to place on a shelf or counter to make a house "sing." Since close to 90% of buyers in the demographic likely to buy this home will see it first online, it's crucial that the pictures are beautiful, tell a story, and invite a visit! Seems like this is going to be a success story. I just heard from her agent that the broker's tour was a huge success and they had three showings yesterday.

PS~ The photo in this blog entry is not my friend's house, but from one of my listings after I had staged it to sell. I worked most of an afternoon rearranging their wonderful possessions, moving furniture, rehanging paintings, putting away toys and clutter and adding color to make the home's details pop. The living room seemed to double in size with some simple adjustments. We sold this one the first week.

Green building and home improvement can mean greenbacks to you~

Homeowners often ask me what they can do to maximize the value of their homes for resale. My usual answer is to do the things you will enjoy or benefit from first.

President Obama's stimulus package has given us a reason to invest in our homes in a way that will help save our planet , making our houses more efficient, and that will give you cash back to help pay for the work. An article in The Christian Science Monitor clearly lays out the advantages of updating now.

Stimulus Plans Brings Green Home Improvement Tax Breaks
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Energy-saving systems for the attic, basement, and in between have effectively gone on sale, courtesy of the United States Congress.

Here's the link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0223/p13s01-wmgn.html. (I'm indebted to Sustainable Bainbridge for calling my attention to this article and posibility.)

The home improvements that seem best for Bainbridge Island are installing a heat pump, replacing low-e windows, adding insulation top and bottom, and perhaps changing out an inefficient water heater. I'm going to look into that last one myself; water heaters typically last about a dozen years. While I'm at it, I'm going to have the plumbing changed to install a recirculating system so I don't have to run water down the drain waiting for it to heat up.

Obama's package raises the ceilings on tax credits available, so there is real money possible, which will make the effort involved worth doing. The CSM article also gives links to other sites that help with navigating the system. Note, that the credits are valid only this year and next.

The property tax blues--making sense of Bainbridge Island real estate taxes~

My friend and former client emailed me yesterday concerned that her property assessed value is much too high. She wondered if I could help her appeal it. With the bills for property taxes arriving, that's a question lots of folks are asking.

My friend's simple question has sent me on a short but fascinating journey into the web pages and pdf forms of the Kitsap County Assessor's office.

Here's what I've learned:
One, the state has charged the counties to assess your property at 100% of market value.
Two, the assessment for your property was done last year. You pay taxes in 2009 on the 2008 assessment made before the notices go out in June of 2008.
Here's the kicker: Three, The 2008 assessment value is based on sales closed in 2007!

Your assessment and the subsequent tax payment lags behind the market by two years. You're sitting in your house or condominium watching prices drop around you, and you get your tax bill. "No way, Martha," you say, "could we sell this place today for what they say it's worth." Maybe you could and maybe you couldn't, but that doesn't really matter. The issue is, what could you have sold it for in 2007 (at the height of our market)?

The two year lag served us well in times of rising prices. Now, not so much.

Here's the final kicker--in the pants, that is. The time for appealing your assessment is long past. You are allowed 60 days after the Notice of Value was sent out in June 2008--August 2008 was the deadline.

If you feel your assessment is terribly out of line, take a look at the Notice of Value you'll get this coming June. Anyone can go to the county assessor's web page: http://www.kitsapgov.com/assr/appeal/appeals.htm to find all the information you need to begin the appeal process next year. There's a link under "Sales" to all the recorded sales in specific areas and for different types of properties on Bainbridge Island (and the rest of Kitsap County.) Keep in mind that appeals for your 2009 assessment will need to cite comparable properties that sold in 2008.

My guess is that properties that are reassessed in value next year will see a drop, because we've seen a drop in the prices for the last eighteen months.

If you would like help compiling sold data to mount an appeal this summer, I'd be happy to be of assistance. Just give me a call or drop me an email.

Land on Bainbridge Island~

My folks always believed in the value of land. I grew up on a farm that had been in the family since my great-grandfather homesteaded it in the 1800s, and I watched its value appreciate in my lifetime in an incredible fashion. "Take care of the land," my dad always said. "They're not making any more of it." True words unless you live where accretion makes you its lucky beneficiary--remembering always that Nature gives and can take away.

Here on our island rock, that's not likely to happen. The trees grow taller and the ocean's force is mostly tempered. Every so often the eastern cliffs along Puget Sound grow a little steeper, but satellite maps show clearly that we've been here since glaciers scraped their way south. (That's why our hills and valleys tend to run east to west. If you want a flat walk, head north or south.)

The value of vacant land on Bainbridge Island isn't doing very well right now, however. That's consistent with the trends, of course, but land is particularly struggling. I did a price analysis on some property this week, and decided that we've had so few sales that the only way anyone can gage the value of a piece of land is to see what shakes out in a negotiation.

The driving force for land sales on Bainbridge has always been builders looking for a place to build their next custom or "spec" home. For now, those days are over. Builders are unable to sell what they have built, and they aren’t buying land. The MLS shows over 40 homes currently listed on Bainbridge in various stages of construction. Some houses are being sold as is, only partially completed, and several more are being offered as presales. Other builders have put renters into their unsold properties.

A buyer for vacant land or new construction could do very well right now. Prices are low and dropping, and one builder is even offering to pay a buyer's mortgage for the first year.

Someday they'll be building more homes, but we still aren't making any more land. It seems like a good time to buy.

Ten days to a new home: real estate tips on Bainbridge Island~

I learned this week what is possible in real estate when you have a good team, collaboration and great communication. Motivation helps, too.

Conventional wisdom is that it takes between 30 to 45 days in escrow to successfully close on a house. This month I had a client who had sold their home, and for personal reasons needed to shorten the time to buy their next house--and we needed to simultaneously close on both houses the same day.

We did it! We went from "mutual acceptance" on the offer to closing in just 10 days. Here's how that was possible. The listing agent had already drawn preliminary title, and it was new construction, so the Seller didn't have to move out or find a new place to live. My buyer and I had done our homework looking at potential homes-they had narrowed their choices to 2 or 3--and were already familiar with the market. They didn't need a loan, and they used an excellent local mover (Hill Moving--giant shout out to them!). We had a great escrow company in Pacific Northwest Title, with Julie Hohenstein coordinating both closings with great efficiency and communication. We were able to get an inspection completed within days of mutual acceptance. (In busier days, it can take almost 10 days to get an appointment.) Things could have gone even faster if the Seller had had the home pre-inspected prior to listing, which I advise my clients to do.

The point is that in today's market, it's not always prudent to try to buy a house until you have yours sold. It takes courrage to sell your house without a clear idea where you're going to end up. But, if you've done your homework, as soon as you have an agreement to sell it's possible to write a "Pending Sale" offer on your new home and proceed quickly to closing. Know the marketplace, have a good team lead by an experienced agent, and preapprove any financing with full documentation for a smooth and even fun transition. It might be head-spinning and exciting, but it's very possible.