It’s the most wonderful time of the year… to sell a house? There’s always that question whether or not you should keep your house on the market for the holidays. You figure that potential home buyers will be preoccupied with buying gifts, planning parties, cooking meals, and visiting relatives; the last thing on their mind is searching for and purchasing a new home, right? For this reason, many home sellers choose to temporarily remove their home from listing, then wait until the new year to relist.

Before you hold off on listing your home until the new year, consider the benefits of listing your home for sale during the holidays, such as:

• Many home sellers either hold off from selling or take a break from selling during the holidays. Inevitably, the amount of listings on the market drop down, which means less competition for your home. With less competition, you could potentially sell your home faster, for more money. Once the market comes back up in the spring time, a lot of sellers will list their homes all at once for lower prices, which may drive the whole market down.

• Home buyers are generally the most motivated during the holiday season, greatly aiding sellers. Although there will be less buyers looking at homes this time of year, the buyers who do look are more serious about closing. “While the traffic is down, the buyers who are out there — when it’s soggy and dark at 4:45 p.m. — they’re not just poking around for the fun of it,” said Billy Grippo, a broker for Windermere Cronin and Caplan Realty Group. “They’re wanting to buy a house.”

• Looking back on statistics, interest rates tend to drop the most at the end of the year. “If we look historically at interest rates, cyclically we’ve seen drops every December through January,” says Rich Hayden, senior loan officer for Home First Mortgage Corp. “While rates are now at all-time lows, we could dip even lower,” he says. Tyler agrees, “Interest rates have to come up sometime but it won’t be during the holidays.”

• Many people purposely choose to purchase a home before the new year to receive a tax write off. Home buyers who close before the end of the year could be eligible for tax credits, such as deductions for home mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and PMI premiums.

• Large companies normally transfer employees in January. Those relocating usually need to buy a house right away and simply cannot wait.

• In the winter months, homes typically show better. The decorations, smell of cookies baking, and a roaring fireplace all give your home a “warm and cozy” feeling. Just make sure you don’t cover up your homes best features with too much holiday decor. Stick to tasteful and simple decorations and learn proper staging techniques for the holidays.

• A lot of companies give their employees time off work for the holiday season, which means potential buyers have more time for showings.

• While all the malls and retail stores may be packed, Lenders and title companies aren’t as busy and can process loans faster. “November and December are historically slower months in the mortgage business, so things get done faster,” says Brad Walbrun, a mortgage consultant for A and N Mortgage Services.

• Most become so consumed in buying gifts for their friends and family, that they completely overlook all the holiday sales and specials on home appliances and hardware. Remodeling, decorating, appliance installation and other home services become more available and at less of a premium.

• Late spring and summer are usually thought of as the best times to put a home on the market because buyer demand builds steadily through spring. If you sell your home in the winter,  you’ll have your pick of tons of houses for sale in the spring time.

Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean the whole housing market comes to a freeze during the holidays! Buyers.. start a new year in a new home!

Be sure to contact your real estate agent to learn how to make the selling process as painless as possible.

These days, it seems as if everyone is growing more concerned with protecting the environment and going green; especially home buyers. Because of all the great benefits of owning a green home, there is an increasing demand for eco-friendly, green friendly homes in the housing market. According to a recent survey constructed by McGraw-Hill, “70 percent of buyers are either more or much more inclined to purchase a green home over a conventional home in down housing market.”

The benefits of owning a green home are innumerable: green homes are safer for your health, much cheaper and easier to maintain, and better for the environment. Buyers are looking to make that switch to gain peace of mind, and to drastically cut utility expenses.

How can a green home benefit the home seller? Being able to state your home is eco-friendly is a huge draw for buyers, giving your home a leading edge in the tough housing market competition. Buyers are also willing to pay more for a home with energy saving additions; the Earth Advantage Institute has determined that homes with third-party environmental certifications (such as a LEED certification) sell for 30 percent more than conventional homes without such ratings.

Avoid getting stuck in the stagnant housing market! If you want to sell your home faster, consider making these green changes:

Home solar panels are able to convert thermal energy that is produced courtesy of the sun, into real electricity. Solar electricity can be used to power anything in your home from your TV to your kitchen appliances. Although the investment is expensive, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, solar panels can potentially boost home sale prices by 3 to 4 percent.

Lighting accounts for 20% of all home energy use. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL’s) use 75% less energy than traditional light bulbs. Replace old light bulbs in permanent fixtures to add value and boost your homes efficiency.

To lower heating and cooling bills, buyers look for walls and roofs that have adequate insulation. Uninsulated walls can lose up to 33% of a homes heat, drastically increasing energy costs. For bonus points, consider insulation made out of alternative materials, such as Cellulose, which is mostly made out of recycled newspapers.

Check for air leaks and apply new caulking and weather stripping around doors and windows where necessary. This will not only improve your homes appearance, but will also lower heating and cooling costs.

If your home has single-pane windows, consider replacing them with double-pane windows to reduce heating and cooling costs up to 25%.

Typical household paint may contain upwards of 300 known toxic chemicals (half of which have been linked to cancer) and a total of more than 10,000 total chemicals. These toxic emissions linger in the air for years after any paint job is complete. Volatile Organic Compounds are the worst offenders in the paint chemical category. VOC-free paint is free of the noxious odors that are usually associated with painting; resulting in safer, healthier air quality.

Not only for their beauty, eco-friendly buyers are opting towards bamboo flooring and cabinets also for the endless sustainability. Hardwood trees can take up to 80 years to reach the height and density large enough to harvest, whereas bamboo reaches its maximum height in less than a year, and becomes dense enough to harvest within four to six years. Like a grass, bamboo quickly regenerates and can be cut without harming the plant.

The kitchen can make or break a home sale, especially if the appliances are outdated. Besides the aesthetic appeal, modern appliances have a distinct advantage: energy efficiency. Energy efficient appliances that hold an Energy Star label have been found to use up to 50% less energy and water than older, standard models.

In order to obtain maximum water conservation, replace your old toilet with a dual-stage flush toilet. Stage one, a low volume half flush, is for liquid wast. Stage two performs a full tank flush to wash away solid waste.

According to the EPA, letting your faucet run for five minutes uses as much energy as it takes to keep a 60-watt light bulb lit for 14 hours. By installing low-flow shower heads and faucets, water consumption associated with bathing will decrease by up to 70%, and you’ll also use less energy heating up the water.

To add to your homes curb appeal, plant native and drought resistant plants that require less water and maintenance.

Even if your home already has a heating and cooling system, ceiling fans can maximize its effectiveness. In the summer, they can pull the warmer air up and away, and in the winter, push warmer air down.

For more information on selling or converting your eco-friendly home, contact your real estate agent and visit U.S Green Building Council for specific guidelines and resources.

How many times have you sent out a feedback request on a showing and the agent just never responded? It seems like a simple form to fill out, but in reality, there are those few agents that still need a little reminder, whatever the reason may be. It’s even worse when your seller blames you; “I hired you to help me sell my house, but you’re not even asking for feedback!”

With Showing Suite’s real estate software, when the realtor feedback form isn’t filled out, we will automatically send out a followup feedback request for you, as many times as you have indicated (the default setting is to send it 3 times). Once the request form has been sent out and there still has not been a response from the showing agent, a “non-response” email is generated and sent to you and your seller. There is a default email in the system that you can also customize. The default states, “Although we made 3 attempts….” That way, the seller can see that you’ve tried on several occasions to get the showing feedback from this agent, but they just haven’t provided any response.

And if you thought your favorite showing software couldn’t possibly get any better, you might be surprised to learn that we are again improving! We are constantly thinking up ways to make our product work best for you and your business, and are about to release version 4.4. What does this mean for you? Your Showing Suite account is about to be enhanced with helpful changes to the features you have already come to love.

The latest feature enhancement we are working on for you is a change to this all-important realtor feedback non-response email. Currently, the only downside to the non-response email sent to your seller might be that they see the same email several times and it has an automated feel rather than a personal touch. We have solved that with the upgrade!

Take a look at the changes we have in store…

Feedback Non-Response Email Options

Instead of immediately sending the non-response email to the seller, we’ll send the non-response directly to you with options on how you want to handle the non-response notification. When you get the email from our real estate software program, you will now have the following options available within the email:

Now your sellers will say, “I hired you to help me sell my house, but you went above and beyond my expectations!”

These changes to the non-response emails are just a few of the enhancements that await you in the 4.4 upgrade to our showing software suite. For a basic list of some other changes you can expect to see, click to read our 4.4 Upcoming Release blog entry.

Open houses are a great way to attract potential buyers to your listing. However, that is not the only reason to hold an open house. Think of it as a way to promote not only your listing, but yourself as well. Anyone that walks through the door should be thought of as a prospect. Keep them well-informed and happy throughout the event and you may get a new client from it.

Here are some pointers for an effective open house event.

So you have done everything you needed to do, and you’ve gathered everything you need to have at the open house. Now what? Promote! Posting in newspapers, in your MLS notes, and putting up signs is a great start, but that will only get you so far. You need to extend your reach and your Showing Suite account can help.

Using the e-Blast feature I spoke about earlier this week is one way to get an open house announcement out to agents that have previously shown your listing. Additionally, you can use the Followup tab in your account to create and send open house announcements to any contact in your database, regardless of whether or not they have shown your listing.

For more information about how to create and send Home Followup material such as property flyers and open house announcements from Showing Suite and get the most out of our real estate software, log into your Showing Suite account and click the Help link at the upper right corner. Then, click Followup from the list of article topics to the right.

There are only 26 days until spring. Are you ready? While winter is usually a cold time for home sales, you can still sell off that once frozen inventory. For a strong finish to the winter season and a running start at spring, talk to your sellers about reducing their asking price. Even a small price reduction can generate a renewed interest in your listings, and Showing Suite can help.

With any paid Showing Suite account, you have the option to e-Blast all agents that have previously shown your listing to notify them of the price reduction.

Showing Suite’s e-Blast feature is not only a useful tool for listing price reductions; since the e-Blast content is customizable, you can use it for other listing-specific changes, like “back on market,” “recently upgraded,” “agent bonus,” and many others.

We hope that by using this valuable feature in your Showing Suite account, your listings will see more traffic and sell faster, giving your real estate business a jump-start on the spring sales season!

It’s no secret that having a Showing Suite account makes you more marketable during a listing presentation and the automated feedback requests available with every Showing Suite plan mean that your listings sell even faster. But are you taking full advantage of the features available in your account?

All Showing Suite plans, except our Lite plan, have the added bonus of Seller Login Accounts. Your sellers can log in with their own unique user ID and password to view showing feedback on their homes at any time, from any computer with internet access. You can even put the Seller Login link on your personal website! This is a great way to bring more attention to your own site as well. After all, we’re in the business of helping your real estate business too.

10 quick steps to set up this feature:

That’s it!

Example: Customizable Seller Login Screen

Don’t know your seller’s login information? Simply go to your ShowingSuite.com account and click the Listings tab. Locate your seller’s listing and use the yellow Actions button to click on Seller Details. The login username and password are located here. You can even send the seller an email with this information by checking the box labeled Send Seller a Welcome Email, then click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Having the Showing Suite Seller Login link on your website will not only draw more traffic to your site, but it also means that your sellers have a single place to go for all their real estate needs.

John Boe

Read More…

Just Released Today: Showing Suite version 4.3, and we’re pretty excited about it!
Find out what has changed:

	Design and Layout Changes All of the links in ‘Action’ menus are now underlined. We added orange arrows to the dashboard to denote that you can expand and collapse the different categories.
	Listing Sync Wondering where your listings are? We’ve added an “I don’t see my listing(s).” link on the Listings tab to help you troubleshoot why you may not see your latest listings inside your account. You’re no longer required to enter your seller’s information as soon as new listings are imported. If you have listings that are missing seller information, the system will continue to prompt you when you first login, however you’re free to continue to use your account without any interruptions. Best of all, we’ve added a “No Seller” option for your vacant properties (or land) so you can assign the listing to yourself and get rid of those pesky notifications! If you update your MLS details and add a MLS that’s provided by ListHub, the system will automatically send you an email that outlines the additional steps to setup your ListHub.net account to work with your Showing Suite account.
	HomeFeedback There’s a new “Select All” option so you can easily send an e-blast to ALL of the contacts that have viewed a particular property. Showing Agent’s information has been removed from the print version of the Seller’s stat reports.
	Showing Sync Missing a few showings from your lockbox? Try clicking the ‘I don’t see a showing from my lockbox.’ link on the Showings tab to make sure your account is properly setup to sync showings from your electronic lockbox. The View/Edit Showing Sync Settings page has been given an interface-lift so you can now: Search for listings by MLS or address or even search for a specific lockbox #. If you use SentriLock, then you can switch views to display all lockboxes, assigned lockboxes, or unassigned lockboxes. Choose how many lockboxes (or listings if you use Supra) are displayed per page to help with page loading times if you have a lot of data to display.
	Seller Accounts Sellers now have a day, week, and month calendar view within their private seller console.

Is your home not selling?

Figuring out the exact reason why your home isn’t selling can be a difficult task if you have a list of reasons working against you.

Fact of the matter is you cannot simply place a “For Sale” sign in your front yard or have your real estate agent add your listing to the MLS and expect a home to sell. There is a fine art that is applied to every home sale… the home must be appealing to buyers, from presentation to price.

Have you placed your home for sale only to watch it stale on the market? Here are 5 of the most common reasons why houses don’t sell and could very well be why your home isn’t selling:

1. The Home is Overpriced
   Listing a home over market value is one of the main reasons a home doesn’t sell. Listing your home at a price that is appropriate for current market conditions from the start is crucial since your home will have the most activity as soon as it hits the market. Therefore if you intend on listing at an unreasonable price you will be missing out on the best opportunity to sell. Don’t make this common mistake!

    

2. The Presentation is Off
   Have you ever gone into a messy home and immediately wanted to leave? The same rules apply when buyers visit and if your house fits the bill than I can assure you this is one of the reasons why your home isn’t selling. Give the home a thorough cleaning and make sure the home is properly staged before placing it on the market.

    

3. Ineffective Marketing Tactics
   Advertisements for your home should be placed in the paper, on Craigslist, populating on sites that buyers frequent a lot like Realtor.com, Redfin.com, or Roost.com. Mailers should be sent along with emails to potential buyers – the whole nine. If this hasn’t been done then it’s no wonder your home isn’t selling – nobody knows it’s for sale!

    

4. Bad Condition
   While some people don’t mind a fun fixer-upper, nobody wants a complete dump. If your home appears to be one of the latter, it may be why the home isn’t selling. If the home is just in need of some new paint and carpeting, why not take care of that?  You may also want to weigh the option of making other necessary repairs in order to get the home sold.

    

5. You Aren’t Listening
   Finding out why your home isn’t selling is as simple as following up with a buyer after a showing and your agent should have some sort of real estate feedback system in place to make sure you know what buyers think of your home. Not only that, but you and your agent should be looking for items that repeatedly come up to make sure any issues are dealt with before they have a negative impact on your home selling efforts.

As you can tell there are a few things you will need to take into consideration if you’re trying to figure out why your home isn’t selling. Make sure that your home is in good repair, properly staged, priced correctly, aggressively marketed, and that you’re utilizing a real estate feedback system to collect the opinions of buyers to look for clues. That way your home will have the best chance of being sold.