Listing Your Metairie or New Orleans House after It’s Been on the Market

Listing your house in Metairie or New Orleans after it’s lingered on the market for a while can bring surprisingly quick success…with the right tactics. The truth is, if a home hasn’t sold in today’s market, there is usually an identifiable reason. Here are some tips that can reverse what happened when listing your house the first time failed to strike pay dirt:

·         Compare prices of comparable homes that have sold in your neighborhood, and use those as the benchmarks. If your area listing was priced to allow 10-20% for negotiating room, that’s the likely culprit. Consider listing your house at 1% to 5% below your competitors—it’s a proven way to get more feet through your entryway.

·         A well thought-out marketing strategy with multiple advertising channels can be a necessity in a competitive area. Discuss taking advantage of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube with your real estate agent. Is there a way you as a homeowner can help? Consider holding mid-week open houses in the evening hours so visitors can drop by on their way home from work. Being extra flexible and accommodating can make the difference in getting qualified buyers through the door.

·         If you are listing your house for a second time, you will want to make any deferred repair and cosmetic décor change you may have put off the first time ‘round. The vast majority of today’s area buyers are looking for a home that’s 100% “move-in ready.”

·         Patience is never more critical than when negotiating a price for your home. Refuse to be put off by offers that are lower then what you were expecting. You don’t need to accept such offers—but rather than just rejecting them, consider offering incentives (such as paying the buyer’s closing costs, or a point on the mortgage) when the price difference is too great. Other ideas: offer to pick up moving expenses, or include excluded appliances in the bargain.

When a home doesn’t sell the first time around, finding details you can change to encourage a better result is the kind of positive approach that works most often. You should also be conscious of the fact that the market is constantly changing. Reduced interest rates alone may sell your home faster—just as higher rates may require adjusting your price or adding more incentives. Being informed and prepared when a prospect comes along will put you at a competitive advantage.

If you’re considering listing your house in New Orleans or any of the surrounding metro areas, and want an agent with the vision needed to get your home S-O-L-D, call me today!

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.

Metairie and New Orleans Short Sales Succeed by Staying On Top of Delays

According to the National Association of Realtors^®, across the nation, short sales and foreclosures account for about 10% of all home sales, down from 15% this time last year. For bargain-hunters who wish to take advantage of one of the remaining Metairie and New Orleans short sale opportunities, declining numbers can be a double-edged sword. Fewer opportunities mean a sharp eye and more nimble footwork is likely to be required—but the shrinking market has also coincided with less competition from institutional buyers (whether as cause or effect is anyone’s guess).

From the seller’s perspective, completing a Metairie or New Orleans short sale can be the most welcome result from a difficult situation—usually resulting in the least problematical future credit and financial fallout. For that reason, once having secured lender approval, Metairie and New Orleans short sellers are eager to do what is needed to see the sale through to completion. They are ahead of the game when they enlist the expertise of an experienced Metairie or New Orleans Realtor who knows what to do when the time factor drags on…and on!

Since there are limits to how responsive institutional lenders will be to the timing needs of the participants, it usually takes proactive involvement to encourage a Metairie or New Orleans short sale buyer to stay in the game. Most strategies incorporate psychology in one way or another—sometimes obvious, sometimes not.

Setting a deadline for lender approval is one of the more straightforward ways. The short sale addendum was made standard in many states during the height of the last wave of distressed sales after many overwhelmed or uncooperative lenders failed to respond to buyer offers. The inclusion of drop-dead timing deadlines removes the feeling of being in limbo from the process. It tends to encourage buyers, who feel more empowered when they see approval deadlines in place.

Experience teaches that lenders who know a motivated buyer is on the line are more likely to approve a short sale, particularly if a buyer is paying with cash. At the same time, buyers who feel a sense of ownership and control during the approval process are more likely to pursue the contract no matter how time-consuming it turns out to be. Contacting the loss mitigation department regularly for updates on their approval progress is one way to prevent a deal from slipping through the cracks.

Buyers who require a dependable closing schedule—or who lack inherent flexibility—are unlikely to weather bureaucratic delays gladly. One way to soothe jangled buyer nerves is to prepare in advance a market analysis that demonstrates in black-and-white what a great deal they’re getting. Likewise, if the buyer is taking out a mortgage, a side-by-side printout of two amortization tables—one for a comparable MLS listing at full price and one for the short sale— can buy some extra patience. Meanwhile, at all times while doing as much as possible to hang onto a buyer, adept short sellers keep their property attractive and well-maintained. There’s no downside to that!

 These are some tried-and-true tactics for driving a short sale through to completion. If you are looking for success on either side of a local short sale transaction, I hope you won’t hesitate to give me a call!

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.

Ending Metairie and New Orleans Mortgage Turndowns via Credit Report Action

For anyone who has looked into to buying a Metairie or New Orleans home several times—but kept getting discouraged every time because of a negative credit report—read on!

You probably already know that you are not alone—but so what?—it’s small consolation, especially when you consider how much financial ground you lose every year you continue to pay rent (the entire amount of which has zero tax deductibility). Many people mishandle credit in their teens and 20s, not knowing how it can come back to bite them when credit reports determine their credit worthiness. In Metairie and New Orleans, we see the fallout in the form of mortgage application turndowns or discouraging interest rate proposals.

But that just makes it all the more important that you stop letting past errors continue to keep you from getting the loans and rates you want. You can choose to take action now to clean up that credit score. Not only will it speed the moment when you become eligible for the significant benefits of home ownership—the actions you take now will serve to set you in the driver seat when it comes to credit management. You will become aware of any apparently minor oversights that can depress your credit score for years to come. It will put you ‘in the game’ of credit report management, instead of continuing to be a passive outsider.

Steps Metairie and New Orleans consumers can take now:  

Review your credit file for accurate information

The credit reporting bureaus’ job is to report the most accurate information possible, but in the past the Federal Trade Commission has found that 5% of reports have at least one mistake. Get your current credit report from any number of services (start with a free one: you can always subscribe to a paid service later). Check all the accounts and verify that the amounts reported and the account statuses are correct. If a creditor reported your information incorrectly, file a dispute through the credit bureaus’ online sites to get the inaccuracy fixed. The same FTC report says that 13% of consumers who reported an error saw a boost in their credit score.

Get old negative accounts removed

Credit reports carry negative information like missed payments or a collection account for seven years, but are required to delete it after that. If an account is lingering past the seven year mark, use the dispute tools available on credit bureaus’ websites to mark the account as too old for reporting. Note that the seven-year time period is calculated from the date of first delinquency, not the date the account was first opened.

Talk to collection companies about their input

Even when you pay off collection accounts, that history continues to hurt your credit score. Some lenders look solely at those details when starting the process, so even paid collections can disqualify you for a loan. Instead of dealing with this frustrating problem, while you are negotiating with collection agencies to pay off a debt, ask that they put in writing that they will remove their report as part of their part of the bargain for your satisfaction of the debt. Some agencies will and some won’t (but it can’t hurt to ask).

Once you have acted, and begun to see the negatives dropping off your current credit report, your path to local home ownership will open up markedly. Then it’s time to give me a call!  

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.

Creating Metairie and New Orleans Listings That Stand Out from the Pack

If you had to come up with a single characteristic that the most effective Metairie and New Orleans home listings have in common, there are several good candidates:

 A really well-crafted listing catches your eye with superior photography, for sure. But that’s not possible with every property. Good photographers know how to select the best angles, use light effectively, and eliminate distracting details (or at least downplay them). But since all homes aren’t equally photogenic, there are built-in limits to how even the most skillful listing creator can count on visuals to make a listing stand out.

Careful attention to detail is common in superior listings. The best Metairie and New Orleans listings don’t skimp on the details, or on brief adjectives that further enhance them—especially when they serve to differentiate a home from the pack. You can test this for yourself by scanning through some of today’s listings in Metairie and New Orleans. The best ones often have one or two relatively insignificant details that give a property character; that make it memorable. “Spacious walk-in closet” may not be nearly as important as “completely remodeled kitchen,” but for a certain number of prospective buyers, that can turn out to be the one detail that strikes a responsive chord (and creates a mental note to check this one out!).

Descriptions that employ proven advertising principles almost always make superior Metairie and New Orleans listings. One standby: arouse curiosity (headline writers are experts at this). An example might be “Brick barbecue center.” ‘What the heck is that?’ prospective buyers will ask themselves. Even if outdoor cooking isn’t even on their list of priorities, they might not be able to resist scheduling a home tour to find out…and sometimes a buyer is created!

But if I had to pick the one single characteristic most likely to be found in truly effective local listings, it would be this: The best Metairie and New Orleans listings in some way tell a story—add character to the cold facts. They stand out from other listings by engaging more of the reader’s imagination than others which are merely an illustrated bunch of data.

The ‘story’ may be a phrase that hints at a property’s interesting past: its historical origin or that of the neighborhood; a prominent previous owner; or an unusual construction history. For a fixer-upper, the story might be an expansive invitation to imagine how a creative Do-It-Yourselfer will be able to transform the property. For a luxury listing, the story might be an appeal to experience the full array of lavish trappings as the suitable reward for the accomplishments of a lifetime. The story may be fleshed out or merely hinted at by a well-worded phrase—but when listings contain the elements of a story, they add memorability.

Creating a stand-out listing is only one of the many elements that go into a successful Metairie or New Orleans home-selling campaign. I hope you will give me a call when it comes time to get your own home into the hands of a new owner!

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.

Real Estate Market Recovery—Glass Half Full; Getting Fuller!

Metairie and New Orleans real estate observers got some background information last month that seemed to confirm much of what we’ve been seeing for a while now. Mid-term election politicking is now safely behind us (for a brief while, at least), but in the run-up to the elections, this was a comprehensive real estate canvass that yielded some comparisons of note. It was called the 2014 Election Housing Scorecard, released mid-month by RealtyTrac. The idea was to rate how national real estate conditions had fared in the two years since the previous national election. The answer: better off.

Think back just a couple of years, and it’s not hard to recall the period following the bursting of the housing bubble, when it was hard to find anyone with a cheerful attitude about investing in residential real estate (New Orleans and Metairie’s included). It may have been intellectually certain that those deflated prices wouldn’t last forever—but even so, it took hardy resolve to step up and buy into such an outwardly unstable market.

That was then; this (as they say) is now—and by mid-October, the Housing Scorecard ‘s findings were in. By something like five to one, the majority of Americans now live in a housing market that is better off than it was two years ago.

The scope of the study was broad: residential real estate markets in 1,547 counties were evaluated based on affordability, median home prices, unemployment figures and foreclosure start rates. What the study found was largely positive.

A full 811 of the analyzed markets—or 52%—rated as "better off." Only 176 markets (11%) rated as "worse off." The remaining 36% were tossups. The total combined population in the "better off" markets was 140 million. The population in the "worse off" category was just 24 million.

Those positives paint a fairly broad picture of the recovering real estate market. Other statistics show that foreclosures and short sales recently hit their lowest level since the start of data collection in 2011. Add to that the sales numbers released in October showing existing home sales in America at their most robust in a year, and with Metairie and New Orleans mortgage rates still down in historically low territory, and it’s easy to agree with Reuters’ opinion that the housing market recovery is gradually “getting back on track.” If you are of a mind to take advantage of the rising market, I hope you will stop by or give me a call! 

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.

Taking Ample Time to Choose Your Metairie or New Orleans Buyer’s Agent

“Hello there! I noticed you admiring this stunning open house. How would you like to sign with me as your Metairie or New Orleans buyer’s agent, and find your dream home?”

The appropriate answer for this question depends on what leads up to it—first off, whether you have already decided to enlist the services of a Metairie or New Orleans buyer’s agent. It’s a good decision, but even if you have—and this agent seems well-mannered and likeable— at this point, the answer real estate professionals would recommend is, “Give me your card—I’ll get back to you.”

The reason not to jump at the first offer is the same as why you wouldn’t agree to buy the first house you visited without first looking around the neighborhood. So why do so many people sign up with the very first agent who says hello? It probably comes from some simply being unfamiliar with buyer’s agents and their industry.

You want to team with a buyer’s agent who is educated, quick-thinking, experienced, and most of all, thoroughly familiar with the current real estate offerings in Metairie and New Orleans. Before teaming up with anyone, there are a few questions to be answered:

Is this agent licensed?

The agent’s card should show a valid real estate license number (if not, in the immortal words of a certain Cuban bandleader, they’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!). You can verify that the licensee is currently active on the state website, or you can go to the ARELLO (national database) to confirm the information. Having a real estate license is the most basic requirement you require for legal as well as practical reasons.

Does signing with this agent obligate you to use other recommended services?

Sometimes a buyer’s agent works in tandem with other associated home-buying service providers (like home inspectors or mortgage brokers). There’s nothing wrong with recommending professionals they know to be trustworthy—but using them should never be a requirement. You want to keep your options open for identifying good prices and services, so recommendations need to be that…and only that.

Does the agent have a good recent track record in Metairie and New Orleans?

It’s not enough just to ask the agent about his or her track record, although you certainly should have that discussion. Ask if you can speak to a recent client to get an appraisal of their experience. That’s key, because having a full staff and plush offices may be attractive, but they’re just window dressing. What you are after is the service a buyer’s agent actually delivers. And don’t be reluctant to check the web for the agent’s online reputation, although that’s less reliable. You want to get a picture of the full scope of this person’s skills and credentials. If the agent doesn’t seem to measure up, move on to another candidate.

Signing with the first Metairie or New Orleans buyer’s agent that you meet, like choosing the first name that turns up in an online search, is a first step that’s likely to be in the wrong direction. Doing a little extra research to find the right candidate will pay off in time and effort saved later on! 

Questions about buying or selling a home?
Call Terez B. Harris 
504.297.2619






View Homes For Sale in Metairie
View Homes For Sale in New Orleans

Terez B. Harris
Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group

(504)297-2619

www.TerezHarris.com
TerezHarris@kw.com


Search the MLS! 
(multiple listing service)


Search Terez's Active Listings!

See what your neighbor's home sold for...

See What Your New Orleans Home is Worth!

See What Your Metairie Home is Worth!

Metairie For Sale By Owner? 

 New Orleans For Sale By Owner?

      

Terez B. Harris   Terez Harris NOLA Realtor Group   504-297-2619   www.TerezHarris.com
Keller Williams Realty New Orleans 8601 Leake Ave. New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-0100

Each office independently owned and operated. All brokers and agents licensed in the state of Louisiana.