My House, My Rules
July 26th, 2010 categories: Home Seller Information | views
I remember my parents saying “My House, My Rules” a lot when I was a kid. It was their common response to my questions of “why can’t I eat in the living room?” and “why can’t I put my feet on the coffee table?” and “why do I have to take off my boots by the back door?”
The other day when I was out with clients showing homes in Spring Texas, I felt as if I had been transported back to my childhood. But this time instead of my parents it was the sellers saying “My House, My Rules”. The sellers didn’t say exactly that but it was pretty darn close. As they said “Take off your shoes at the front door.” My clients responded like a couple of rebellious teenagers and refused to take off their shoes.
What the sellers had forgotten was their house is on the real estate market. And when your house is on the market, your house is no longer your house. It is a product. A product that you are wanting to sell. And if you want to sell that product you need be able to make buyers see themselves as owners of that product. The best way to do this is to make them feel comfortable viewing it. These sellers did the exact opposite. As my buyers immediately felt uncomfortable viewing the house.
Maybe its the sellers customs to take off your shoes upon entering a home or maybe they just had the carpets cleaned. Both are good and understandable reasons as to why the sellers wanted us take of our shoes.
But I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Seller, when your house is on the Spring Texas real estate market it is NOT about you. Its about my buyers and about making them feel comfortable in your home. When my buyers are uncomfortable, we head to the next house on our list to view. Buyers have plenty of houses to choose from. Don’t eliminate your house from their list by saying “My House, My Rules”.
Read also:
- Top 5 things you can do to sell your house faster
- How to increase your list price and attract more buyers
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Do you know if your house is for sale?
July 24th, 2010 categories: Home Buyer Information, Home Seller Information | views
About 10 years ago it was easy to know if your house was for sale. And if you weren’t 100% sure all you had to do was take a quick look oute the window. If you saw a real estate “for sale” sign in your yard, your house was for sale. But fast forward to today and it’s possible that your Spring Texas house could be listed for sale on numerous websites without you knowing.
The reason it is listed for sale may be because you have been a victim of a real estate scam. But the more likely reason is because the status of the listing was not changed when either you purchased the home or you took the home off the Spring Texas real estate market.
Your house could be listed for sale on YouTube , Google, Craigslist.org, OLX, Facebook, Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, your real estate agent’s site, or numerous other real estate sites. The reason your house could be wrongly listed as for sale on a site when it’s NOT for sale is due to the site’s source of data for its listings.
If the real estate site uses our local Houston MLS (multiple listing service) as their date source, then the information is fairly accurate. I won’t say 100% accurate because a house could be sold but still be showing as for sale because the listing agent has not updated the listing in the Houston MLS.
Numerous Internet sites and real estate sites receive their listing data NOT from the Houston MLS but directly from individual real estate agents and from syndication sites. When a house is sold or taken off the Spring Texas real estate market, these sites are dependent upon their data source to update the data. The problem is the real estate agents and the syndication sites do not update the data. Resulting in houses being represented as for sale that are NOT for sale. The solution is for these sites to work out an agreement with the Houston MLS to receive a feed of its listing data. But that won’t happen because the feed agreements cost money.
If you want to find out if your Spring Texas house is listed for sale, google your address. If you discover its listed for sale and its NOT for sale, contact the listing agent and ask them to remove the listing.
- How accurate is the Zillow’s Zestimate for your home?
- Do all real estate websites have the same Spring Texas homes for sale?
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Spring Texas on Money Magazine’s most affordable places to live
July 21st, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas | views
Listed at #5 on CNN’s Money Magazine’s list of most affordable places to live is our very own Spring Texas. The fact that our little city of Spring Texas made it on Money Magazine’s list of Top 25 most affordable places to live came as no real surprise to me. As I have known for some time that my dollar stretches a little further in Spring Texas. Plus it’s on my own list of Top 20 reasons to live in Spring Texas.
Why did Spring Texas make the list of most affordable places to live? It’s because of our low cost of housing. Unlike other parts of the U.S. that have no more land for residential development, Spring Texas still has land available. New residential developments have kept supply balanced with demand and housing prices low. See for yourself how reasonable homes are by searching Spring Texas homes for sale.
But housing is just part of the equation in determining the affordability of a city. To determine the true affordability, you need to crunch the numbers by using a cost of living calculator. Go ahead and crunch away and when you are ready to move, give us a call. We will be happy to find you a great new place to call “home”.
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Spring Texas Real Estate: Market Report June 2010
July 17th, 2010 categories: Spring Texas Real Estate Market Reports | views
What’s going on with the Spring Texas Real Estate Market? It can be summed up with one word “SLOW”. The usually busy summer selling season is anything but that with year over year pending sales being down 30%. Sales for the month were down a much smaller percentage than pending sales due to the lingering effect of the federal home buyer tax credits. Buyers had to be in contract by April 30th to meet the tax credit deadline but they had until June 30th to close on the home. Thus tax credit sales that were pended in April are showing up in June sales figures.
The Spring Texas real estate market has changed from last year’s balanced market which is considered to be 6 months of inventory to a buyers market. Buyers have plenty of homes to choose from with 24% more active listings this year than last.
Sellers are feeling the increase in competition. And the Spring Texas home sellers that need to sell their homes this summer are responding with price decreases. Begrudingly some sellers have decided to play the follow the leader pricing game. Other sellers are reevaluating their plans and are considering pulling their house off the real estate market until it improves.
If you are a buyer, the time to strike is now. You have plenty of Spring Texas homes to choose from, interest rates are ridiculously low in the mid to upper 4% for 30-year home loans, and home sellers are competing for your business. By late fall, I predict we will see the return of a balanced market. But until then buyers its your turn to call the shots.
Want more numbers? Check out past Spring Texas real estate market reports.
The data represented is from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the Houston Association of Realtors MLS for single family existing homes in Area 13. Area 13 covers the geographic boundaries of East – I45 to West – Hwy 249 to South – Beltway 8 to North – Spring Cypress. A good portion of the houses in MLS area 13 have a Spring Texas mailing address
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Where’s the best Pizza?
July 12th, 2010 categories: Dining and Entertainment | views
There are numerous criteria in which you can judge pizza including its … crust, style (NY, Chicago, deep dish, brick oven), toppings (variety, quality, quantity, distribution, proportion), value, and the atmosphere its served in.
Where’s the best pizza in the Spring Texas area? In my opinion, the best all around pizza is served at Grotto’s.
Grotto’s pizza is baked in a brick oven and the result is a crisp yet soft crust. Crisp enough to have some crunch while yet soft enough that you need to fold the pizza for the first couple of bites to prevent the toppings from falling off. The toppings are evenly distributed and balanced so that one ingredient doesn’t over power the rest.
During Grotto’s Happy Hour which is Monday – Friday 3 – 7 pm the pizzas are $6 which is an excellent value for a high quality pizza. The happy hours prices are only honored in the bar area. The atmosphere is friendly and upscale. But if you are looking for a place to have a romantic, quiet dinner this is not the place. As the restaurant can get quite loud during peak dining times.
In the Spring Texas area, we have enough pizza joints both chain and local establishments to satisfy whatever your personal criteria are for the best pizza. You can find out the favorite pizza of other Spring Texas residents at Yelp.
Due to the FTC regulations requiring bloggers to disclose any freebies or payments they receive for reviewing products I include the following:
Disclosure: Grotto’s has not paid me to write this post about their pizza nor have they promised me free pizza or drinks.
Read also:
- Who has the best cheese fries?
- Where to get great oysters on the half shell
- Who has the best Mexican food in Spring Texas?
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Home size declines; buyers demand for 1 story homes increase
July 10th, 2010 categories: Home Buyer Information, Home Seller Information | views
The National Association of Home Builders announced that builders are listening to buyers preferences and constructing smaller homes. After nearly 30 years of increases, the size of new single-family homes built experiences its first decrease.
The nationwide average of 2,438 sqft for homes built in 2009 is about a 100 feet smaller than the homes built in 2007. The homes built in 2008 were about the same square footage as 2007.
Several years ago, Spring Texas home buyers wanted the biggest house they could afford. This was especially true if the buyers were relocating to Spring Texasfrom out of state. It was around the time Hurricane Rita came through in 2005 and caused utility prices to increase that buyers became more concerned about the heating and cooling costs of the 4,000+ sqft McMansions. Buyers began to question whether they really needed a 4,000+ sqft home. The demand for the larger Spring Texas homes started to decrease while the demand for smaller homes began to increase.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s data, for years the percentage of 2-story homes being built has continually increased while the percentage of 1-story homes has decreased. But starting in 2006, the trend has been reversed as more buyers are demanding 1-story homes. We are experiencing the same trend of increase demand for 1-story homes in the Spring Texas real estate market. With the baby boomer population continuing to age, the demand for 1-story homes will continue to increase.
Read also:
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Are people moving in or out of Spring Texas?
July 7th, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas | views
In 2008, over 10 million people moved from one county to another. Movement into a city creates demand for housing driving real estate prices up. Dramatic movement out of a city can cripple real estate markets causing housing prices to free fall which is what happened to the Detroit MI real estate market.
The interactive mapping tool from Forbes shows people movement in to and out of counties across the U.S. Unfortunately, it does not show movement on a city by city basis so we can’t view movement in and out of Spring Texas directly.
The red lines are people moving in and the black lines are people moving out of Harris County.
Note: The data is from 2008 and it comes with limitations as it only reports inter-county moves for more than 10 people.
Over the last several years, I have helped numerous people from California, Florida, and the East Coast relocate to Spring Texas so I wasn’t surprised to see people moving from those areas into Harris County.
Read also:
- Cost of living calculator – How does Spring Texas compare to where you live?
- Top 20 Reasons to live in Spring Texas
Watch:
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Lack of Communication
July 5th, 2010 categories: Home Seller Information | views
When I sit down with prospective sellers, one of the things I want to find out about are their prior home selling experiences. Were their experiences good or bad and what made them good or bad? Sometimes the sellers have had great experiences and were very satisfied with their listing agent’s performance. Other times the seller’s listing agent failed miserably and came nowhere near meeting their 
expectations.
When the listing agents failed miserably, the main reason was due to lack of communication. The sellers said “after we signed the listing agreement, we did not hear from our real estate agent until it was either time to renew the agreement or we had an offer on the house”.
Technology has made the ability to communicate easier by providing us with more ways to communicate. But none of this technology does us any good if we do not use it. If you asked the listing agent why she didn’t communicate with her sellers, she would probably say “Until I get an offer on their house, I have nothing to tell them”.
As a Spring Texas Realtor, I believe communication is extremely important which is why I email my sellers a weekly update. The update covers the areas of 1) Marketing - in this section, I report on the marketing activities that were performed during the week. 2) Showings – in this section, I discuss the last week’s showing activity and the showing feedback. 3) Competition – in this section, I discuss the Spring Texas real estate market identifying the new homes their listing is competing against for buyers and homes that have gone under contract. I also report on anything else that could potentially impact the sale of the sellers of home.
In addition to the weekly update I provide, my sellers also receive the Prudential Gary Greene Online Sellers Advantage (OSA) report. The OSA report provides sellers with online buyer activity and is further explained in this YouTube video.
Does communication take time? Absolutely. Is it worth? I believe so. Because I have not had a seller yet tell me to stop sending the reports.
Read also:
- Automatic email notifications and missed opportunities
- Realtor.com iPhone APP and your Spring Texas home’s listing
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A tour of HEB Vintage Market
July 2nd, 2010 categories: Shopping | views
Discover Spring Texas shopping with a tour of HEB Vintage Market located at the intersection of HWY 249 and Louetta.
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Is now a good time to refinance?
June 30th, 2010 categories: Home Buyer Information | views
With the interest rates for 30-year home mortgages at 50 year lows, NOW may be not only a good time but a great time to refinance. What’s in store for mortgage interest rates? According to the Mortgage Bankers Association you should expect interest rates to steadily rise.
Bankrate.com provides a great free refinance calculator that calculates your payback period in months. Your lender can provide you with the current mortgage interest rates but if you wanted a rough estimate you could plug in 4.5% for the interest rate on a conventional 30-year loan or 4.25% for a FHA loan. At least this is what the mortgage interest rates were last week.
After you have determined the payback period, you need to ask yourself how long you plan on staying in your current Spring Texas home. If you plan on staying longer than the payback period, then call your lender because now is a good time for you to refinance your home.
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