FOR SALE by Terez B Harris NOLA Realtor Group: November 2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

For Metairie Homes for Sale, Some Feature Plusses May be Minuses

There are many generalizations that can be truly instructive for homeowners with local homes for sale. The undeniable importance of “location, location, location!” is a good one; de-clutter! As a main order of business is another…as is the wisdom of researching neighborhood comparable.

Anybody with homes for sale in Metairie can usually visit the National Association of Realtors^® website for useful nuggets of that kind of information. However, one article that appeared there last week seemed to me to be less than real estate gospel—although it was thought-provoking. It dealt with features that might make some homes for sale harder to sell; features that most people might assume would improve rather than curtail a home’s appeal.

The article named seven otherwise “awesome” features that the author, Jamie Wiebe, thought belonged in that category.

First was a school next door, for the main reason that traffic tie-ups deter many buyers. That’s a pretty common complaint, yet even the author had to admit that younger buyers might see the advantage of having school within walking distance. This one is a tossup—but having school a block or two away would have to be a plus!

Next came middle-of-the-action location, meaning homes for sale on busy streets, because while “you might be intrigued by the activity,” future buyers might not. That’s true of any home for sale and any feature, of course; but it’s probably true that there is some degree of risk that the current popularity of being able to walk to frequent destinations (rather than drive or use public transportation) might fade over time.

More possible minuses were assigned to multistory homes for sale (which might be avoided by older prospects shunning stairs); big backyards and small backyards (fear of yardwork for the former, lack of privacy for the latter); a swimming pool (admittedly, a must in warm climates); and tile flooring (difficult to remove). That last one is where local readers with Metairie homes for sale might realize that citing these ‘drawbacks’ is not a uniformly useful exercise, since potential buyers who appreciate the beauty and easy maintenance of tile flooring might not be giving much weight to how difficult it is to remove. And come to think of it, people who garden might actually be willing to pay more for homes with big backyards! Just as people who hate mowing might…etc.

But we shouldn’t be too critical of the author’s approach. It’s always a good idea to consider the pros and cons of how a property will be greeted by the public. And the seventh feature is one I think every Metairie real estate professional will agree is questionable: over-the-top renovations. The risk of striking some prospective buyers as ostentatious is possible, but the higher probability is of pricing yourself out of the market.

Part of what I offer is marketing that emphasizes a property’s most marketable features in an unarguably positive light. Give me a call if you are interested in going over how your own home is likely to fare in today’s November market!

Want to know your homes value? Click here: Smart Home Price

Terez B. Harris

Keller Williams Realty New Orleans

504 975 1033

TerezHarris@KW.com

TerezSellsNolaHomes.com

8601 Leake Ave., New Orleans, La 70118

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Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Metairie Agent Investigates Home Prices ‘Starting at $115 Million’

I’ll admit it: the tease was irresistible. There was no good reason why I should take the time to read on, even though it was near the top of the Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate section. This was not likely to be the kind of relevant background information that would be useful in my daily Metairie real estate dealings.

But the tease was not something I could just skim past and forget. The words were dangling there on the screen; almost a dare:

“Where Home Prices Start at $115 Million.”

It wasn’t just the $115,000,000 home price that aroused curiosity. After all, this was the WSJ Real Estate section—where there are almost always stories about properties somewhere or other in the world with asking prices that numb the mind. It was the idea that there could actually be anywhere on Planet Earth where home prices start north of one hundred million!

Think of what the comparable reports would look like!

Now, I was fairly certain the answer wouldn’t be Metairie —home prices here tend to be considerably more modest. But the way the tease was worded, it seemed likely they were talking about somewhere in the U.S., because the home prices were in dollars. A whole lot of dollars.

Before clicking on the READ MORE box, I tried to guess the answer. Somewhere in Silicon Valley? Downtown Manhattan? Connecticut? Palm Beach? None of these seemed likely, if I recalled earlier articles about the haunts of the famous and newly down-and-out who are having to give up their mansions (often because they are scraping the bottom of the barrel, down to their last $10 million). Those estates usually have home prices in the $ single million range. I decided there must be some gimmick, wherever it was.

So I gave up and clicked:

Los Angeles.

Bel Air, to be precise—“in a new development.” And the gimmick is that this is a three-home development, “The Park Bel Air.” And it seems that none of the homes is actually built yet. These are spec homes in an 11-acre development “currently under construction.” Asking home prices do start at $115 million “and go up to $160 million, with upgrades and custom furnishings.”

I spent a minimum of time musing over what kind of upgrades would bring in the extra $35 million, and skipped down to the part where, elsewhere in the L.A. area, there is a spec home with an “unprecedented” asking price of over $500 million. The head of a New York-based appraisal firm was quoted as saying, “It’s almost as if there is no shame in wildly overpricing a listing anymore.” And down there near the very end, the article admits that there is only one thing missing from the phenomenon. Buyers.

This November’s Metairie home prices are certainly bargains—particularly when compared with The Park Bel Air’s. There are other advantages, too: they are actual homes that are already actually built, instead of just planned. Give me a call: we can actually go visit them!