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I did this “Home Selling Tips” video to tell home owners how important pictures are when selling a home. Of course it all starts with hiring the right Realtor. So I also go over a couple basic tips for making sure you hire a very good agent.
If you have any questions about selling a home please give me a call.
Don't just walk into a real estate agent's office expecting to get all the service and information you need. You have to do your homework. Lance Mohr explains what you should look for before you hire a buyer's agent in Tampa or anywhere!
Hi, my name is Lance Mohr and I am a real estate agent in the Tampa Bay area, and I want to give a couple of tips to home sellers.
Number one is to start off when you are hiring a real estate agent please do your due diligence. I talk to sellers all of the time and I would say at least 50-75% of them never use the real estate agent that they bought the home through because they were upset for one reason or another. And a lot of times sellers will hire a real estate agent and they don’t do any research or they listen to the agent with smoke and mirrors. So let me give you a couple of tips and a couple of things you need to just look at when hiring an agent.
The first thing is see how they show the home. What do they do if someone calls them up and wants to make an appointment to see the home? I’m not talking the home buyers, I’m talking other real estate agents because I’ve got to tell you it is an epidemic in Tampa and I cannot speak for other areas.
I know I used to be in Dallas it was great. People take things very professionally out there; business sense. In Tampa they don’t. It is like the Wild West, it is unbelievable. Last week, I went to show a buyer seven homes. I could not get in appointments or have appointments on four of the seven. I was tracking agents down. I was calling them three times. I was texting them twice. I was emailing them twice. I was not hearing back from them; it is absolutely unbelievable and I felt sorry for the seller. The seller probably has no idea they are wondering why no one is looking at their home or it is getting a few showings it is because their agent or agents are not returning any phone calls. When you hire an agent do this, make sure and don’t let them give you the BS and blow smoke.
I don’t mean to be blunt but that is exactly what they do. “Oh, I like to talk to all the agents and I like to set all the appointments.” That’s absurd. Most agents who do that and don’t use an appointment setting service like CSS, I call them up and I say, “Hi, I’d like to look at your home.” They say, “Great, it is good to show.” They don’t get my name. They don’t get my phone number. They do no follow-up to see what real estate agents are saying about the home. It is absolutely unbelievable. So I would get them whoever it is whether they want to hire a company like CSS or eShowings they are very inexpensive for a real estate agent to hire and they are very professional.
So if I am a real estate agent and I want to call up and I want to show a home if I call an agent they could be tied up for a half hour, an hour, four hours, some of them unbelievable say I will return your call within 24 hours. Some of them never even return the phone calls.
I’ve had calls I’ve been waiting for the agents to call me back for a month or year. It is unbelievable. So make sure they do that. If I call up a company like CSS or eShowings, they answer the phone, they make the appointment, they call the home owner, it is good to go. If the home owner cannot show it they call the realtor back and ask them to reschedule but they are there at the fingertips. I mean you wouldn’t call a doctor and have a doctor wait and wait for the doctor to call you back.
The second thing is just pictures. It is unbelievable the pictures that real estate agents take and home owners like yourself you let them get away with this stuff. I cannot believe it. Everybody knows a picture is worth a thousand words and video is worth a million. I am looking at some of these homes. I am showing luxury buyers 4, 5, 6, and 700,000 homes and the pictures are horrible.
For Pete’s sake bring a professional photographer in. Pay 100 or a couple of hundreds of dollars and if they don’t have the confidence that they are going to sell your home then maybe you shouldn’t give them the listing. I don’t want to just sit here and blame real estate agents but as a home owner you are hiring these agents. Do some due diligence. If you want to make an educated decision get educated. Hire someone and by all means if they say no I like talking to the agents that is a cop out. They are too cheap to pay the money. One of two things they are either completely unprofessional or they don’t have the money to pay the company to set the appointments. Either way you shouldn't hire them.
So those are just a couple of tips. I hope this helps. I don’t mean to be blunt about it but home owners you really ought to pick up your “A” game in this market because these real estate agents out there I’ve got to tell you I don’t even want to get into it but most of them are useless. They are going to do whatever they are going to do. They are going to put the home on the market. They are going to go to bed every night and pray it sells and that is their whole marketing.
The last thing I will just say this as a side note, get a written marketing plan. If they don’t have a written marketing plan they are going to give you, they don’t have a marketing plan. And if they don’t have a marketing plan, don’t work with them. Best of luck to you and I hope these tips help.
Check out many of our real estate videos right here on Tampa2Enjoy to find more home seller tips and advice, or visit and subscribe to our Tampa2Enjoy Real Estate YouTube channel. Ready to sell or buy your home? Contact Lance Mohr and his real estate team and get expert advice and service.
For most homeowners, the kitchen is the heart of every household. Practically, a lot of homeowners spend a lot of time in their kitchen rather than in their living room. The kitchen is not only the most used room in the house, but it also brings the most weight when the time comes for you to sell your home. Potential home buyers, for the most part, prefer to invest in homes with furnished and majestic kitchens.
Remodeling a kitchen is by far one of the best and most effective ways to improve your home’s overall value and aesthetic appeal. As the name implies, kitchen remodeling enhances the look and appearance of your kitchen. On top of that, it improves your kitchen’s functionality and purpose. Remodeled kitchens not only look more appealing than their older counterparts, but they are more efficient as well.
A kitchen remodeling project, however, is a costly endeavor for any homeowner. For the most part, remodeling a kitchen would cost more than a thousand dollars. Luckily for you as well as other homeowners, there is a cheap way to remodel your kitchen.
When remodeling a kitchen on a tight budget, the first thing you have to do is to come up with an overall kitchen design. With the help of the internet and home remodeling magazines, look for kitchen ideas that best suit your kitchen space, home design, and personal preferences. Aside from photos of outdoor kitchens on magazines and the internet, you can also get inspiration and ideas from the kitchens displayed in showrooms and stores. If you have found a kitchen that you like on a store or showroom, take note of it and make sure to take pictures of the kitchen design.
Once you have a kitchen design, the next thing you have to do is to start planning on your DIY kitchen remodeling project. Once again, the internet can be a good reference for you to learn how to plan a kitchen remodeling project. On the internet, you will find a lot of blogs, community forums, as well as websites that contain information on how to plan and build kitchens. Aside from helping you create a layout for your kitchen, these online sources also contain essential tips on how to reduce your kitchen remodeling expenses. With these online sources, you will find a lot of insightful suggestions and pointers that will help you land the best deals for kitchen fixtures, cabinets, floor tiles, and other components of your kitchen.
Inspect your kitchen and take note of the components that need to be replaced. By doing so, you will be able to save a fair amount of money from your kitchen remodeling. To create the beautiful kitchen that you can be proud of, you do not have to replace all its components. If a fixture or component is not broken, then there is no need to fix it or replace it.
Head down to the nearest DIY store, go to the kitchens department, and buy the components needed for your kitchen. After that, go back home, and slowly install these components on your own. If you opt to install these parts on your own, you will get to eliminate labor costs, resulting to bigger savings.
If you have any questions about your homes value click here for Tampa home prices.
According to research, some home sellers are monitoring home prices really carefully, waiting to see how real estate prices will fair in value before considering selling their home. But they might as well be missing the perfect opportunity. Why is that? As a known fact, the perfect time to start marketing a home depends on when the homeowner purchased their current home. Homeowners who invested in real estate during the slow market-rate period may consider stepping up and selling in this year.
Consider These Factors
Since they purchased estates when the market was near ground bottom, these homeowners supposedly have built up good equity that can be used toward purchasing a new home. Waiting to see whether home prices appreciate will not have an advantage given that other estates that they might have their eyes on and want to purchase will also be appreciating at the same pace. These homeowners are actually missing out. Selling your home just to move into another, does not necessarily mean you have to wait for the market price to go up to be getting the best out of the deal. The price of the move-up will actually increase much faster than the home you are leaving behind.
Aside from that, mortgage rates are said to increase a couple of notches in the next year alone, increasing the costs of financing your next home.
Knowing what your home is really worth is the main trick to price your home. If you price your home correctly, it will sell without fail. Instead of wondering if your home will sell, you should be asking yourself, “am I willing to sell my home at the best price possible?”
One aspect that most people tend to forget is that time is a very crucial factor that can affect your actual selling price. How much your home is worth now, can be a total different story a few years later.
Here are some things to avoid when pricing your home:
• Do not pay too much attention on listing prices.
• Do not set your price competitively.
• Don’t let sentimental value cloud your judgment when pricing.
• Don’t rush in picking an agent that quotes the highest.
The main factor that can help you sell your house at its deserved price is to determine its true market value. How? Well, here are 3 interesting methods that can do just that.
Appraisal – This is the process of determining the properties true market value by letting appraisers inspect your home, comparing selling factors and attributes with flaws to other similar estates in the area.
The only downside of this is; the value set by the appraisal can be affected by the experience of the appraiser. Although this is not such a major factor, it is still something to keep note of.
Comparative Market Analysis – A real estate agent will research similar homes in the market that have been sold in the last couple of months, comparing them to yours thus basing the price on the search results.
Example: Let us say your property is a luxury home in Tampa FL, the listing agent will then search different prices of luxury homes that have sold in that same area with similar perks as yours, and those figures that come up will then be used to determine the value of your property.
Similar to appraisals, the downside of this is different agents may come up with different figures. It all depends on whom you choose to work with and on how much you trust the individual.
Automated Valuation Techniques – This is an automated method where you can utilize an online program to search information on different other homes similar to yours that are on sale. The information then is processed and compared to public home sale records, property distinctions and demographics that can determine the estates value.
Since this is all automated, fast and pretty reliable, using this technique has its downside. The program does not take into account different factors that can in-fact affect the overall value of your home.
Keeping in mind these factors can help you set a price that you home truly deserves.