How should you price your home?

As a homeowner, you can play an important part in the timely sale of your property. When you take the following steps, you'll sell your home faster, at the best possible price.

In setting the list price for your home, you should be aware of a buyer’s frame of mind. Based on a list of houses for sale in your neighborhood , buyers will determine which houses they want to view. Consider the following:

If you set the price too high, your house won’t be picked for viewing, even though it may be much nicer than others in the area. You may have told your REALTOR® to "Bring me any offer." But in that list of houses, yours simply looks too expensive to be considered.
If you price too low, you'll short-change yourself. Your house will sell promptly, yes, but before it has time to find the buyer who would have paid more.

No matter how attractive and polished your house, buyers will be comparing its price with everything else on the market. Your best guide is a record of what the buying public has been willing to pay in the past few months for property in your neighborhood like yours.

Wyatt can furnish data on sale figures for those "comps", and analyze them for a suggested listing price. The decision about how much to ask, though, is always yours. The list of comparable sales we bring to you, along with data about other houses in your neighborhood presently on the market, is used for a "Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)." To help in estimating a possible sale price for your house, the analysis will also include data on nearby houses that failed to sell in the past few months, along with their list prices. This CMA differs from a formal appraisal in several ways. One major difference is that an appraisal will be based only on past sales. In addition, an appraisal is done for a fee while the CMA is provided by us and may include properties currently listed for sale and those currently pending sale.
In the normal home sale, a CMA is probably enough to let you set a proper price. A formal written appraisal (which may cost a few hundred dollars) can be useful if you have unique property, if there hasn't been much activity in your area recently, if co-owners disagree about price, and any other circumstance that makes it difficult to put a value on your home.
To find out what your Oklahoma home is worth in today's market go to: http://www.wyattpoindexter.com/ and fill out the seller information.

http://www.wyattpoindexter.com/

Are you thinking about selling your home?

Do not do anything expensive, such as remodeling. If possible, use savings to pay for any repairs and improvements – do not go charging up credit cards or obtaining new loans. Remember that part of selling a house is also preparing to buy your next home. You do not want to do anything that will affect your credit scores or hurt your ability to qualify for your next mortgage.

When looking at a house, prospective home buyers often do not really know what to do. So they play with things. They flick light switches. They open everything with a handle. They turn on all the faucets and flush all the toilets. Having nice shiny fixtures makes an impression.
All your sink fixtures should look shiny and new. If this cannot be accomplished by cleaning, buy new ones. If you don’t buy something fancy, this can be accomplished inexpensively. Make sure all the hot and cold water knobs are easy to turn and that the faucets do not leak. If they do, replace the washers.

It sounds like hard work, but it's pretty easy -- even for the inexperienced.

Check to make sure you have good water pressure and that there are no stains on any of the porcelain. If you have a difficult stain to remove, one trick is to hire a cleaning crew to go through and clean your home on a one-time basis. They seem to be wonderful at making stains go away.

Oklahoma Real Estate Marked by Lower Home Prices

The Real Estate market in Oklahoma City hasn't witnessed the scary price appreciation that has swept coastal areas of the country in recent years, even as soaring energy prices have helped boost job levels in the region. The energy market plays a role in job creation in the area because Oklahoma is one of the largest natural gas-producing states in the country. Median home prices in the metropolitan area, which gained world-wide attention when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in 1995, rose 14% between 2002 and 2005, compared with a 22% gain nationally. Fourth-quarter median home prices in Oklahoma City reached $121,700, well below the $213,000 national level. Some economists say markets that offer relatively low-priced housing with economies tied to the energy sector, like Oklahoma City, which is home to such Fortune 500 companies as Devon Energy Corp. and Kerr-McGee Corp., could still get a kick if fuel prices remain high.

For more Real Estate resources: www.WyattPoindexter.com

Most Expensive Zip Codes in the U.S. for 2007

In case you missed it last week, Forbes published their list of the 500 most expensive zip codes in the U.S. for 2007.
07620 (Alpine, New Jersey) and 33109 (Fisher Island, Miami Beach, Florida) tied for the top spot, with a median price of $3.4 Million.
The rankings are based on median sale prices from June 2006 to July 2007 and are dominated by zips in California, Florida, and the NYC metro area. If the rankings surprise you, it is worth noting that, as with all such studies, the methodology determines the results. As the author notes:
Though often shorthand for neighborhoods, ZIP CODES don't change to reflect shifting neighborhood or demographic boundaries. The result? Our list is a bit slanted toward low-density enclaves like Alpine, where there are 333 people per square mile, as opposed to parts of Manhattan, where there are 45,800 people per square mile and a larger variance of home prices.

Keller Williams Launches Luxury Home Division

Keller Williams Realty announced today that it will be launching a new division of the company dedicated to serving the high-end home market. The new venture, introduced at the company’s recent annual Mega Camp event, is the product of more than a year of researching and Masterminding by a group of Keller Williams leadership and associates. “We know that when we listen to what our agents need, we develop the right product for them,” says Mary Tennant, president and COO of Keller Williams Realty Inc. “This program was built by our agents, for our agents. As an agent-centric company, we wouldn’t do it any other way.” Luxury Homes by Keller Williams is a members-only program that gives eligible associates a designation as experts in serving luxury home buyers and sellers. The training component of the program will be provided by industry heavyweight, The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing (http://www.kwluxuryhomes.com), as part of a new partnership between the Institute and Keller Williams Realty. Institute founder Laurie Moore-Moore says, “The luxury home market is out-performing the real estate market nationally, so the timing of the Keller Williams Luxury Homes program is absolutely perfect.” The new program is spearheaded by Dee Shultz, a long time leader in the luxury homes market in Austin, Texas, and she says the new program will allow more KW associates to capitalize on the luxury homes market across North America. “When you look at the luxury homes market – it’s been more stable than the real estate market as a whole, so we want to arm our agents to capitalize on that opportunity,” says Shultz. “We know that this program will provide both a strong support system for our agents currently servicing affluent clients, and a firm foundation for growth to our associates who are looking to key into the market,” she adds.
When the program makes its official debut October 1, KW Luxury Home Consultants will be able to take advantage of new branding and marketing materials, an International Web presence (www.kwluxuryhomes.com) and agent-to-agent referral opportunities, as well as discounted pricing for advertising in targeted print publications including the Robb Report, DuPont Registry, Unique Homes, The Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times and The New York Times.

www.WyattPoindexter.com

Housing market defying predictions of doom

Existing-home sales defied frenzied predictions of disaster by remaining steady throughout the nation in July, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors in late August.
"The market is holding on despite temporary mortgage disruptions," said NAR Senior Economist Lawrence Yun. "Home sales probably would be rising in the absence of the mortgage liquidity issues of the past two months," he said. "Some buyers with contracts have been scrambling when loan commitments did not materialize at the last moment, while other potential buyers are simply waiting for the mortgage market to stabilize. The rise in sales and prices in the Northeast region in recent months is promising because this was the first region that underwent sales and price weakness after the boom. Now, it appears that it will be the first region to climb back, indicating that other regions could follow a similar path," Yun said.

Housing Market in Oklahoma City

Rises in mortgage and interest rates in the past couple of years have caused the recent slow down in the housing market. Nevertheless, the metro area is outperforming many largers cities where homes are losing value, and Oklahoma City's market is at the very least consistent in its affordability compared to other markets. Most experts contend that the home builders are not getting ahead of the somewhat reduced demand, a situation that would cause excess inventory.The fact that Oklahoma City is expanding due to the growth in downtown and the gains in various business sectors figures to help the market, and rates are still at relative lows, despite their recent increases.That leads many economic experts to believe that Oklahoma City's housing market is fairly healthy.

www.WyattPoindexter.com