WHEN SELLERS WONT NEGOTIATE 3 TIPS FOR LAS VEGAS HOME BUYERS
Part of the art of listing a Las Vegas home for sale is to highlight features that will catch eyes in a wide assortment of different groups of prospective buyers. It’s “the more, the merrier”—and very often the ultimate buyer winds up being unlike the typical prospect you would have thought most likely. For prospective buyers searching Las Vegas homes for sale, the same is true: the seller of your future dream home could be anyone. It could be a motivated young professional dealing with an out-of-town promotion, or an elderly librarian hoping to hand the home off to a loving family. Or the seller could be a stubborn, angry tyrant, willing to compromise on nothing. You never know. Sooooo…what can you do (other than walk away) when you’ve found the right Las Vegas home for sale and made a reasonable offer—only to have it summarily rejected? Perhaps even with a ‘you don’t understand the value’ thrown in for good measure? In short, what’s left for you to do when a home seller refuses to negotiate? Some ideas: 1. Let Your Agent Handle Negotiations If you’ve been trying to deal one-on-one with the seller or seller’s agent, maybe it’s time to call for reinforcements. Home buyers with agents don’t need to talk to sellers—and that’s often a good thing! When your agent is doing the talking, emotions have a chance to cool. Sometimes a perfectly reasonable offer has elicited an emotion response simply because it was not presented to the seller in the most professional manner. Always let your agent handle the business end of negotiations; if someone has to look like the bad guy, your agent’s willing to accept the burden. A seasoned agent knows how to effectively appeal to the seller’s most reasonable impulses—making sure that negotiations never fail to spotlight the benefits that will flow to the seller. 2. Find Common Ground for an Amicable Deal Sellers who refuse to budge on their asking price might respond to other negotiation tactics that allow them to rethink their position without losing face. Perhaps the seller won’t take a nominally lower offer, but would be willing to contribute in another way. Perhaps the seller can contribute some money to update the home, pay for the first year’s insurance, or expand the inclusions (perhaps adding in the new appliances they were planning on taking). 3. Know When to Move On Some sellers don’t know how to recognize a good offer—just as some correctly know that a better one will come if they wait. When buyers find themselves butting heads with immovable owners, sometimes it’s best just to walk away and find another suitable home for sale. For buyers and sellers alike, having an experienced Las Vegas REALTOR® on your side provides an advantage that’s hard to pass up. It’s why giving me a call is your strategic first step!
TIPS FOR LONG DISTANCE HOUSE HUNTING
You got a big promotion at work, but there’s one catch: you have to move across the country. Las Vegas homeowners may have mastered Las Vegas house hunting, but doing it in a location that requires travel can be a logistical nightmare—especially when the distance in question is more than an afternoon’s drive. Chin up! Many others find themselves in the same kind of house hunting bind all the time. No matter how unworkable it seems as first, you will find your new home—and there’s plenty of help out there to see that it happens with less difficulty than you’d suppose. Here are some of the ways that make long distance house hunting easier: Research Online If you know little about the area you are heading to, there are many painless ways to get your bearings online. It’s easy to get a sense of what the area is known for, which places are safe, what the local cultural highlights are, and other characteristics that distinguish the area. Almost every town has its site and the Chamber of Commerce site as well, and resources like the City-Data website can flesh out lots of other details. Experienced Agent Your long distance house hunting will require the services of an energetic real estate agent there on the scene. You can ask your future employer for a local recommendation, or use the web to search for stand-out candidates. In addition to a solid track record in the community, the agent you choose should be familiar with the unique challenges that go with out-of-state house hunting. The phrase you are looking for is ‘relocation experience.’ Cost of Living Differential There may be significant cost of living differences between your current location and your new one. Consult cost of living charts (they’re online, too!). When you visit, pick up local store fliers to get a more visceral feel for the current cost of goods and other expenses in your new area. If the numbers shock (in either direction), be doubly sure factor in the percentage differential when you establish your housing budget. Identify Must-Haves Create a concise list of must-haves for your new home. This doesn’t just help your out-of-town real estate agent to find the listings that best fit your relocation needs, it also focuses your priorities. An accurate list can cut down the number of trips you’ll need to take before you zero in on your house hunting target. Make the Most of Visits Every trip will take a lot of energies, but after the home tours are over, stick around to experience what the target neighborhoods feel like at all times of day. If it’s practical, consider renting a room or apartment through a service like AirBnB. It’s a real plus if you can arrange your stay right in a target neighborhood instead of in a kind of a commercial area where hotels are usually located. If you are an out-of-stater about to arrive for a Las Vegas house hunting adventure or a Las Vegas resident with an impending long distance search of your own, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I’m here to offer all kinds of relocation help and advice!
REAL ESTATE MARKETS REGISTER STEADY IMPROVEMENT
Las Vegas real estate observers got some background information last month that seemed to confirm much of what we’ve seen 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 (Las Vegas’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 were 140 million. The population in the “worse off” category was just 24 million. Those positives paint a fairly broad picture of a 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 Las Vegas 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!
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