Soon little goblins from all around your neighborhood will be coming to your door asking for candy by saying “trick or treat”. There may be more to than you think if you are in the market to sell your home. Let’s take a look at a few tricks and treats that may help you to sell your home more quickly than you may have thought you could. Of course a good Realtor is the way to go but you and your Realtor can talk about these ideas and decide which tricks and treats you want to use to sell your home.

• For some reason buyers are a little scared of the number 9 in your asking price. The last thing you want to do is to frighten your potential buyers off by using the number 9. We have all seen this tactic in the local stores where items are listed for sale at a price of $9.99 or $12.99. Instead of using the number 9 in your sale price why not just round up to the next number to make the number nice and round and to avoid turning away buyers that may have otherwise been interested in your home. For instance instead of listing your home at $199,000 go ahead and list it at $200,000. When your sale price ends with a 9, it looks like you are trying too hard to give a bargain and buyers are not particularly looking for a bargain deal when buying a home.
• Another trick and treat that may help you sell your home is to stay away from a lot of aromatherapy. While aromatherapy is a good thing, it can confuse and even turn off some potential buyers. When potential buyers are looking at your home they are affected by not only what they see but by what they smell as well. If you happen to have a person tour your home who hates the smell of vanilla and you have it piped throughout your house with candles or other smelly goods you may lose that buyer that easily. A good rule of thumb is to go for a fresh clean scent such as pine sol or something similar. You can fill a sink with water and put a dash of pine sol in there to help your home smell nice and fresh.
• If at all possible, stage your home. Homes that are staged tend to sell more easily than those that look extremely lived in. Folks want to imagine their own family living in your home, not see how you and your family live there.

Hopefully these tricks and treats for selling your home will help keep you from frightening off potential buyers.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Photo credit: Real Simply 

With all of the hot weather lately folks are starting to stay inside where it is nice and air conditioned.  With all the extra time you are spending inside these days, why not get started on some home improvements so that you can get your house ready to put on the market!  Below are a few ways you can get started on home improvements both inside and out.

• A fresh coat of paint inside your home is a great way to improve the way your home looks and get it ready to put on the market. Try to keep a neutral theme if you can when painting because you want others to be able to see themselves living in your home and not the other way around.  You will likely be amazed at just how much difference a fresh coat of paint will make to your home.
• Panting your front door a color that pops is a great way to get awesome curb appeal. Many folks will love your home simply because it has a red door and it stands out above all the others in the neighborhood.  Use a pop of color on your front door to your advantage when trying to sell your home!
• Pressure washing your home is a great way to make it shine if your home is vinyl siding. You may have lived in your house so long that you forgot what color your siding actually is until you pressure wash it.  This is another way to have great curb appeal when you put your house on the market.
• If your house has columns at the front it may be a good time to replace them or at least give them a fresh coat of paint. Over the years columns tend to expand and crack and make the house look older than it actually is.  Give your home a facelift by taking care of issues like these before you put it on the market.
• Refinishing your hardwoods is another way to make your home look its best. You can do this yourself or you may want to choose to hire someone to do it for you.  Either way, refinishing your hardwoods is a great home improvement idea!

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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A study by Edelman Berland reveals that 33% of homeowners who are contemplating selling their house in the near future are planning to scale down. Let’s look at a few reasons why this might make sense for many homeowners, as the majority of the country is currently experiencing a seller’s market. In a recent blog, Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, highlighted the advantages of selling your current house and downsizing into a smaller home that better serves your current needs. Ramsey explains three potential financial advantages to downsizing:

1. A smaller home means less space, but it also means less time, stress and money spent on upkeep.
2. Let’s assume you save $500 a month on your mortgage payment. In 30 years, you could have an additional $1–1.6 million in the bank to get you through your golden years.
3. Use the proceeds from selling your current home to pay cash for a smaller one. Just imagine what you could do with no mortgage holding you down! If you can’t pay cash, aim for a 15-year fixed rate mortgage and put at least 10–20% down on your new home. Apply the $500 you saved from downsizing to your new monthly payment. At 3% interest, you could pay off a $200,000 mortgage in less than 10.5 years, saving almost $16,000 in the process.

Realtor.com also addressed downsizing in a recent article. They suggest that you ask yourself some questions before deciding if downsizing is right for you and your family. Here are two of their questions followed by their answers (in italics) and some additional information that could help. 

Q: What kind of lifestyle do I want after I downsize?

A: “For some folks, it’s a matter of living a simpler life focused on family. Some might want to cross off travel destinations on their bucket lists. Some might want a low-maintenance community with high-end upgrades and social events. Decide what you want to achieve from your move first, and you’ll be able to better narrow down your housing options.”

Comments: Many homeowners are taking the profit from the sale of their current home and splitting it in order to put down payments on a smaller home in their current location, as well as a vacation/retirement home where they plan to live when they retire. This allows them to lock in the home price and mortgage interest rate at today’s values. This makes sense financially as both home prices and interest rates are projected to rise.

Q: Have I built up enough equity in my current home to make a profit?

A: “For most homeowners, the answer is yes. This is if they’ve held on to their properties long enough to have positive equity that will be sizable enough to put a large down payment on their next home.”

Comments: A study by Fannie Mae revealed that only 37% of Americans believe that they have significant equity (> 20%) in their current home. In actuality, CoreLogic’s latest Equity Report revealed that 72.6% have greater than 20% equity. That equity could enable you to build the life you’ve always dreamt about. 

Bottom Line

If you are debating downsizing your home and want to evaluate the options you currently have, meet with a real estate professional in your area who can help guide you through the process.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Whether you are selling your home or you are looking to buy a home, there are a few things that you need to know to help your home inspection go as well as it possibly can.  Home buyers need to know that the house they are buying is in good shape and home sellers need to be on the up and up when selling their home. When it comes to home inspections there are a few tips that can help the inspection go smoothly and the process be as stress free as possible.

• If you are selling your home and you have a home inspection on the schedule, do your part to make it easy on the inspector by getting your pets out of the house while he or she is doing the inspection. Your home inspector may love and adore animals as much as you do but your pets being under their feet during the inspection will not make the job any easier.
• During a home inspection, typically the potential buyers are inside alone with the inspector and they may want to look around to take one last look at things before making a final decision. If you want to make a good impression on those potential buyers, you may want to clean up the clutter you have left laying around.  Believe it or not clutter can cause a potential home buyer to walk away without making an offer.
• As a homebuyer don’t freak out if the home inspector comes up with a list of things that need to be taken care of in the house. You need to realize that most houses have some sort of upkeep or maintenance that needs to be taken care of and that inspector’s are known for being nit-picky.   Realize too that most everything can be fixed.  Even the dreaded mold and radon.  Realize as well that home inspectors cannot predict the future and won’t be able to tell you how long something will last; they will just be able to tell you that it needs attention.

Hopefully these tips will help you out the next time you have a home inspector coming to your home, whether you are selling or buying.  Remember that the home inspector is there to help you not to harm you or to ruin your dreams.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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As a seller, you will be most concerned about ‘short term price’ – where home values are headed over the next six months. As either a first-time or repeat buyer, you must not be concerned only about price but also about the ‘long term cost’ of the home.

Let us explain.

There are many factors that influence the ‘cost’ of a home. Two of the major ones are the home’s appreciation over time, and the interest rate at which a buyer can borrow the funds necessary to purchase their home. The rate at which these two factors can change is often referred to as “The Cost of Waiting”.

What will happen over the next 12 months?

According to CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index, prices are expected to rise by 5.5% by this time next year. Additionally, Freddie Mac’s most recent Economic Commentary & Projections Table predicts that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will appreciate to 4.5% in that same time.

What Does This Mean to a Buyer?

Here is a simple demonstration of what impact these projected changes would have on the mortgage payment of a home selling for approximately $250,000 today:

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Every homeowner wants to make sure they maximize their financial reward when selling their home. But how do you guarantee that you receive maximum value for your house? Here are two keys to ensuring you get the highest price possible.

1. Price it a LITTLE LOW

This may seem counter-intuitive. However, let’s look at this concept for a moment. Many homeowners think that pricing their home a little OVER market value will leave them room for negotiation. In actuality, this just dramatically lessens the demand for your house (see chart below). Instead of the seller trying to ‘win’ the negotiation with one buyer, they should price it so that demand for the home is maximized. In that way, the seller will not be fighting with a buyer over the price, but instead will have multiple buyers fighting with each other over the house. Realtor.com, gives this advice:

“Aim to price your property at or just slightly below the going rate. Today’s buyers are highly informed, so if they sense they’re getting a deal, they’re likely to bid up a property that’s slightly underpriced, especially in areas with low inventory.”

2. Use a Real Estate Professional

This too may seem counter intuitive. The seller may think they would net more money if they didn’t have to pay a real estate commission. With this being said, studies have shown that homes typically sell for more money when handled by a real estate professional. Research posted by the Economists’ Outlook Blog revealed that:

“The median selling price for all FSBO homes was $210,000 last year. When the buyer knew the seller in FSBO sales, the number sinks to the median selling price of $151,900. However, homes that were sold with the assistance of an agent had a median selling price of $249,000 – nearly $40,000 more for the typical home sale.”

Bottom Line

Price your house at or slightly below the current market value and hire a professional. That will guarantee you maximize the price you get for your house.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!

A new paint color in your home can do wonders for your mood and and choosing the right paint color can do wonders for helping to sell your home. Paint colors can change your mood from happy to sad to relaxed or even make you angry. Why not do your part to make selling your home as easy as you possibly can by choosing the right paint colors. Below are some color ideas to get you started in the right direction.

• Blue is a nice color for a home if you are looking for a peaceful feeling. Many people choose to paint the walls in their bedroom blue so that they will be more able to get a good night’s sleep. Some people like to paint a spa blue in their bathrooms to make it have a spa like feel. You can’t go wrong with blue paint when it comes to getting your home ready to sell.
• Another color that gives a good tranquil feeling to everyone who enters your home is green. Green is associated with nature and nature is typically peaceful. You can use green in almost any room of your house where you want to feel calm and peaceful. Some folks use light green paint in their bathrooms while others use darker earth tone greens in their family rooms.
• Yellow is a good color to paint in your home if you are interested in selling it because it makes folks feel happy and joyful. What better feeling would you want your prospective buyers to feel than joy and happiness as they enter your home. Typically yellows are used in hallways or large foyer areas. It is best however to stick with soft yellow colors and not get too carried away by attempting such as a mustard yellow color. Yellow paint done in the right way will appeal to most people.
• Be careful with painting grey in your home if you are trying to sell it because sometimes although you may be going for a warm inviting feel you may end up with a cold harsh feel and that is not something you want your buyers to pick up on. Grey done right can be very relaxing and inviting. Perhaps talking with a paint expert at your local hardware store might be a good idea before using grey.
• Brown is a typical staple color in a lot of homes. If you choose to paint beige which is a light form of brown in your home, you will likely find that it can be very warm and inviting to guests or potential buyers.

I would suggest not using orange or red in your home as a new paint color if you are going to be putting your house on the market anytime soon. These colors tend to make people feel anxious and or angry. Painting your home in a few new colors is a perfect way to get it ready for a great showing! Happy selling!

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!

If you are considering selling your home in the next few months now is the time to get started on some home improvements so that you can get your house ready to put on the market! Below are a few ways you can get started on home improvements both inside and out.

• A fresh coat of paint inside your home is a great way to improve the way your home looks and get it ready to put on the market.   Try to keep a neutral theme if you can when painting because you want others to be able to see themselves living in your home and not the other way around. You will likely be amazed at just how much difference a fresh coat of paint will make to your home.
• Panting your front door a color that pops is a great way to get awesome curb appeal. Many folks will love your home simply because it has a red door and it stands out above all the others in the neighborhood. Use a pop of color on your front door to your advantage when trying to sell your home!
• Pressure washing your home is a great way to make it shine if your home is vinyl siding. You may have lived in your house so long that you forgot what color your siding actually is until you pressure wash it. This is another way to have great curb appeal when you put your house on the market.
• If your house has columns at the front it may be a good time to replace them or at least give them a fresh coat of paint. Over the years columns tend to expand and crack and make the house look older than it actually is. Give your home a facelift by taking care of issues like these before you put it on the market.
• Refinishing your hardwoods is another way to make your home look its best. You can do this yourself or you may want to choose to hire someone to do it for you. Either way, refinishing your hardwoods is a great home improvement idea!

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!

You may think that it might be impossible to sell your home while you and your children are living in it, especially if you have a lot of small children. Selling your home doesn’t have to be a major headache as there are many tips and tricks to get the job done even with the little ones running around making messes everywhere. Let’s take a look at a few tips on how to sell your home despite the “little people”.

1. A good idea to get your kids involved in the process of selling your home is to get them to take care of any clutter they may see around the house. It doesn’t necessarily have to be clutter they created, just any kind of mess that may be lying around will do. Kids love to feel helpful and what better way to help them feel helpful than to get them to help. If you have older kids you can perhaps motivate them with a bit of cash to get the job done correctly.
2. You and your kids need to make a plan for when someone comes to tour your home so that you can all get out of the house together and have something fun to do. When you have a last minute showing you and your children will easily remember that plan and head out together to wherever you have already decided upon. A good place to go if it is summertime or springtime is the local park; if it’s cold the library might be a good option.
3. Have your children be in charge of packing their own rooms away for the future move. They can easily pick through their toys and pick out the ones they don’t play with as often and go ahead and pack them away in boxes. This is also cool to do because once you finally make the big move it will feel like Christmas to them when they open the boxes filled with toys they had forgotten they had.

Whatever you do, try to make the packing and moving as low key as you possibly can, for your sake as well as your children’s. Kids can sense when you are upset or stressed about something and then they can upset and stressed. Do your part to make the transition of selling your home as smooth as possible.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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In today’s market, with homes selling quickly and prices rising, some homeowners might consider trying to sell their home on their own, known in the industry as a For Sale by Owner (FSBO). There are several reasons this might not be a good idea for the vast majority of sellers. Here are five of those reasons:

1. There Are Too Many People to Negotiate With

Here is a list of some of the people with whom you must be prepared to negotiate if you decide to For Sale By Owner:

• The buyer who wants the best deal possible
• The buyer’s agent who solely represents the best interest of the buyer
• The buyer’s attorney (in some parts of the country)
• The home inspection companies, which work for the buyer and will almost always, find some problems with the house
• The appraiser if there is a question of value

2. Exposure to Prospective Purchasers

Recent studies have shown that 89% of buyers search online for a home. That is in comparison to only 20% looking at print newspaper ads. Most real estate agents have an internet strategy to promote the sale of your home. Do you?

3. Results Come from the Internet

Where do buyers find the home they actually purchased?

• 44% on the internet
• 33% from a Real Estate Agent
• 9% from a yard sign
• 1% from newspaper

The days of selling your house by just putting up a sign and putting it in the paper are long gone. Having a strong internet strategy is crucial.

4. FSBOing has Become More and More Difficult

The paperwork involved in selling and buying a home has increased dramatically as industry disclosures and regulations have become mandatory. This is one of the reasons that the percentage of people FSBOing has dropped from 19% to 8% over the last 20+ years. The 8% share represents the lowest recorded figure since NAR began collecting data in 1981.

5. You Net More Money when Using an Agent

Many homeowners believe that they will save the real estate commission by selling on their own. Realize that the main reason buyers look at FSBOs is because they also believe they can save the real estate agent’s commission. The seller and buyer can’t both save the commission. Studies have shown that the typical house sold by the homeowner sells for $210,000 while the typical house sold by an agent sells for $249,000. This doesn’t mean that an agent can get $39,000 more for your home as studies have shown that people are more likely to FSBO in markets with lower price points. However, it does show that selling on your own might not make sense.

Bottom Line

Before you decide to take on the challenges of selling your house on your own, sit with a real estate professional in your marketplace and see what they have to offer.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!