Brand new homes often aren’t in the budget, or even available in certain areas, which makes finding a totally renovated or updated home in any price range appealing to many buyers. While some people might cherish finding a house that needs updating, and becoming a weekend warrior taking endless trips to the home improvement store, most buyers would prefer to buy a house where someone else already put in that effort. So, when you’re on the search for a home and find one with a brand new kitchen, updated bathrooms, and a fresh coat of paint on every wall, there’s a good chance you and every oth ..read more

How cool is it that you can literally just walk on into someone’s house and stroll around every single room while they’re not home? When you really stop to think about it, open houses are quite a privilege! With that in mind, as you can imagine, there are certainly some unwritten rules of etiquette you should follow. While there’s no formal rule book, for the most part minding your manners at an open house boils down to plain common sense: Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want someone doing in your house if you were allowing strangers to roam through it. Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of ..read more

A lot of people think that the Internet has made it so much easier to sell a house, and have a difficult time understanding why they should still hire a real estate agent and pay them commissions. It’s understandable when you only consider the aspects of selling a house that boil down to buyers and sellers finding each other. The internet has certainly made that part simpler. There are plenty of ways for sellers to use the internet to make it known that their house is for sale to potential buyers, without having to rely on real estate agents and their access to the multiple listing services ..read more

After the often long process of searching for the perfect home, successfully getting it under contract, and getting everything done that needs to get done before closing day, the last thing you want is any issues in the final hours before strolling through that front door like you own the place. Unfortunately, there’s always a chance for some surprise issues to pop up on closing day. Most closings go off without a hitch, but every now and then, life decides to throw a curveball. Don’t worry, there’s no need to panic! Your buyers’ agent has probably seen every single thing that could happen on ..read more

Buyers often wonder how long it’ll take to find the perfect home, so they can plan when to start their home search in earnest. Well, according to the National Association of Realtors®, the short answer is that it typically takes about 10 weeks for a buyer to find a home, based upon the most recent data. That might sound like no time at all, or it could seem like an eternity, depending upon how urgently you need to find a home. The reality is, buyers often take as much time as they have to work with. For example, if you’re not in a rush and time is on your side, you might take way more than 2 ..read more

You’ve probably heard all sorts of things in the news regarding the recently proposed settlement that the National Association of Realtors announced regarding a court case over how real estate commissions are paid. Unfortunately, many of the things you’ve heard probably aren’t completely (or even remotely) true, because they’re coming from people outside the industry, who don’t truly understand it themselves. Here’s a breakdown of 9 misconceptions about the real estate settlement, to help you separate fact from fiction: 1. Remove our logo and share this meme with your branding 2. Remove our ..read more

The old saying about “location, location, location” — and how those are the three most important things when buying a home — certainly has its merits. Location plays a huge part in the value of a property… not only when you buy it, but also how much you can get for it in the future, and how easily you can sell it. So the location of one property versus another is likely to be a topic of conversation you and your real estate agent will have when you’re house hunting. In addition to the actual location of a property, there are probably some other location related things your agent has to conside ..read more

You fell in love with a house. You made an offer. It was accepted! Your mortgage process is going smoothly. The appraisal justified the price you paid. Everything is going perfect… …and then you had the home inspected, and the report made it sound like the place is falling apart, and it’s a house only a bulldozer would love. Hold up, before you end your love affair with the home of your dreams due to home inspection concerns, you should know that home inspection reports aren’t meant to be seen as a “pass” or “fail” assessment. There’s nuance to a home inspectors report. Inspectors will often m ..read more

Headlines can be so misleading. The news is supposed to be objective, but it’s gotten more and more tainted by sensational headlines meant to get people to click on their links, stay tuned to their TV station, or buy their newspaper. So it’s no surprise that the latest headlines about the recently proposed settlement over the real estate commission lawsuit have been creative and loose with the facts. Changes are coming, but how much they’ll change is yet to be seen. Yet the media is making it sound like buyers’ agents will no longer exist, and commissions will be cut exactly in half, even thou ..read more

Many folks in the media have recently been writing sensational headlines declaring an end to buyers’ agents and the “standard 6% commission.” The minute you say that, everything else you write has to be questioned, because it’s inaccurate and misleading to the public. Let’s get into it… For starters, the vast majority of real estate agents probably think twice about using the word “standard” to describe anything in life, let alone real estate commissions, just to be on the safe side. Agents aren’t allowed to even say words that suggest there’s a standard commission, let alone conspire with ea ..read more