Tuesday, October 18, 2011

October Real Estate Update as we enter the 4th Quarter of the Year

This is a National perspective from our friend Terri Murphy who shared this information with us in a recent podcast on tips for sellers. She mentioned there are some interesting changes on the home sales front. Existing home sales INCREASED in August even though we are still impacted by tighter credit and appraisal issues. Add to that the regional disruptions by Hurricane Irene, NAR reports that we actually saw monthly gains in all regions. Total sales that included single family, townhomes, condo’s and co-ops rose 7.7 percent and are 18.6 percent higher than August of 2010.


Terri also shared that when we look at PENDING home sales, we see a slightly different picture. The numbers for properties that are pending, but not closed slipped a bit in August, but are higher than a year ago according to the same report by the National Association of Realtors. There are some positive market fundamentals. And the NAR chief economist says they may be the result of sales that were delayed in the preceding months. But we still enjoy great low rates for favorable affordability. And Joe, we see a rise in rent which of course motivates more buyers and investors to absorb foreclosed properties.

So with great low rates, and good pricing and high motivation, it’s a great time to buy and sell. But we do know that properties that are staged sell faster and for more money. The Korn Team has had a record summer selling properties in the Greater Kansas City area. They are helping seller's stage their homes to get top dollar given the current market conditions.

In the past 2 months, the Korn Team actually helped 2 seller's sell their property (in the 300k price range) who had been on the market for 6 months and the other, 1 year. We simply helped them restage their property, put a better marketing plan in place, and sold them both in under 30 days. That is after they had been on the market with not much activity. There really is no reason your showings should be slow, or that you should be on the market for 6 months. Let us help you show you how to position yourself in the market to be one of the next properties to sell and stage your home so you can win the buyers over when they see you home. You can schedule a one-on-one marketing evaluation strategy plan for your property by giving us a call at 816-224-KORN (5676) and if you would like to hear our latest podcast on staging tips, visit http://www.kornteam.com/ and click on our podcast icon on the left side of our webpage.