Keeping Your Home Secure While It’s on the Market

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Home For Sale photoAdmittedly, listing your home for sale can be a stressful, and often disruptive life event.  One of the concerns that home sellers may have is keeping their home secure and safe while it’s on the market, and open to the public for showings.   Therefore, here are some tips to help you maximize keeping you and your family safe during this time.

First, while prepping your home for sale, take some steps to maximize your family’s privacy.  Remove anything in your home that contains private information such as personal photos, items with your family’s names on it, your children’s school information/team sports, and any financial information about you and your family.   As a corollary to this, also go through your home and remove (and secure) valuable items that you may have on display.  For example, items such as valuable musical instruments, jewelry, electronics, guns/gun safes, and artwork, are items that may be enticing to those with nefarious motives.

Another area to consider is items that may tip off people in your home that you will be absent for extended periods of time, such as calendars with upcoming vacations clearly marked.   And, do you have any medicine (especially narcotic pain medicine) in your medicine cabinets?  Prospective buyers do open these, to check out storage capacities, so be sure to secure these items before showings.   Finally, don’t leave extra keys out in the open (for your home, your vehicles, etc), or any key codes displayed where people can see them, or any extra remotes for your home’s garage.

Taking a few small steps to secure your home’s belongings as well as the security of your family will help to make this often-stressful time a bit less difficult to navigate.  Having this peace of mind will prove to be invaluable in the long run.  I’d be happy to give you more tips that are specific to you, and your individual situation.

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Staging Your Home for Sale During the Holiday Season

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As we are approaching the holiday season, you may be wondering how to handle staging your home for sale during this time.  Some schools of thought counsel against displaying holiday decorations as they may be too distracting for the buyer, while others encourage the use of holiday décor to inspire holiday cheer and goodwill.  We advise navigating a middle-of-the-road approach between these two ideas.

granite luxury kitchen photoWhen it comes to prepping the exterior of your home for sale during the holiday season, curb appeal is still very important.  So be sure your windows are sparkling clean, your driveway and front walkway have been power-washed, and your landscaping is as neat as a pin.  With regard to holiday décor on the exterior of your home, be sure to take into consideration what your neighbors are doing during this time.  Does your neighborhood generally decorate to the nines for holidays, or do HOA rules discourage such decoration?  Follow those guidelines first and foremost, but if your neighbors are celebrating the holidays with decorations, definitely join in the fun.  Be sure to choose tasteful decorations; wreaths for the front door or front gate are always appropriate, as are colored ribbons decorating planters containing seasonal plants.  Perhaps forego the giant inflatable turkey or gingerbread man this year, however.

As for the interior, you don’t need to be channeling the Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge here either.  If you like to enjoy some holiday decorations, by all means carry on as usual.  However, be sure you are still showcasing your home’s features that will appeal to buyers.  Overcrowding corners and entryways with holiday décor will prevent the buyers from seeing what your home has to offer.  Therefore, consider paring down the decorations to your favorites, which will still set a holiday mood for you to enjoy between showings, and will accent all your home has to offer.

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Congratulations!  You’ve Received a BINSR!  

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You’ve negotiated a price with a buyer for your home, and you’ve entered a contract to sell your home to this buyer.  This is great news!  What happens next?  Typically, the buyer will set up and pay for an inspection of your home, and based on the inspection report, will send you a BINSR.  This is a Buyer Inspection Notice and Seller Response, and is the document the buyer uses to notify you, the seller, about the issues that exist with the home and the property.  Here’s the important part:  the buyer typically has ten days after the inspection to deliver this BINSR to you.
S Scottsdale listingWith regard to the BINSR, there are three ways the buyer can go after the inspection.  First, the buyer can indicate that they accept the premises completely, which means no further work needs to be done.  The second option is the buyer can reject the premises, which means the real estate transaction is cancelled and they will not be purchasing the home.  The third option, which is the most common scenario, is the buyer “elects to provide the seller an opportunity to correct” whichever items from the inspection the buyer wants corrected before they take possession of the property.

This third option is where the buyer wants the seller to either replace, repair or change something based on the inspection report.  You, as the seller, will then have 5 days in which to respond to the BINSR.  As the seller, you then have three responses available.  The first response is that you agree to correct all inspection issues.  Your second available response is that you agree to no repairs.  (The buyer then will have the option to accept the property as-is, or to cancel the transaction altogether).  The final response is that you can itemize which items you are willing to repair, replace or change.  For example, you may agree to fix 80% of the items on the inspection report, but not the other items because you disagree with the inspector’s conclusions.  This scenario is common, for example, when the inspector can’t find a switch to turn something on, or the lightbulbs just need to be replaced.

At this point, the buyer can then choose to either accept or cancel based on the seller’s response to the BINSR.  While this is a very simplified explanation of the BINSR process, this is generally how this often-complicated portion of the real estate transaction proceeds.  We look forward to answering any specific follow-up questions you may have about any real estate related matters.

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Tips on Choosing a Moving Company

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Unlocking a front door photoMoving is often said to be one of the top five most stressful live events.  And for good reason.  Assuming you’re not going to move your belongings yourself, hiring a good, responsible moving company is a large part of the stress of moving.  To that end, here are some tips to consider when making that decision.

  1. Pick three moving companies to call for an estimate, and research them.  There are two different schools of thought here.   Some people like to use national moving companies, because there may be more of a track record or reputation with one of these companies.  Other people may want to use local companies as there may be more accountability with the company being headquartered in the same city.  Whichever direction you decide to go, be sure to research the companies you choose to call.  Easy ways to do this are researching them online via www.yelp.com, social media (Facebook and Twitter) and of course via the Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbb.org/).
  1. Reputable companies will always come to your home to give you an estimate of costs to move your belongings.  In preparation of this estimate, be sure to make decisions regarding what you will be paying to move.  If you know you won’t be moving items, donate or sell them prior to the estimate, or tag them so the moving company won’t include these items in the quote.  ALWAYS get this quote in writing.  And, be sure to let them know who else you are getting quotes from.  This may prompt the moving company to let you in on any special promotions or discounts of which you weren’t aware.
  1. Be sure that you ask the following questions about your quote:
    1. What is the total cost of the move, inclusive of tax?
    2. What is included in the move and what isn’t?  (For example, are you required to remove headboards from beds, detach TVs from the wall, disconnect appliances?)
    3. How can the price change if the items in the quote decrease or increase in number or weight?
    4. What are the cancellation fees, if any?
    5. What is the deposit?  Is it refundable?
    6. Timeline of move?  When can you expect your property to be delivered?

The more information the better.  These tips should be a good starting point for you in your search for a moving company.  Feel free to contact us if you’d like any specific recommendations of companies that we’ve worked with in the past.