How to Respond to an Offer on Your Home

There are many great Metro area homes for sale. Click here to perform full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to contact us for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at (262) 797-6453 or (262) 798-1162 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today I wanted  to answer a question I’ve been getting quite frequently. A lot of sellers have been asking me about how quickly they should respond to offers on their homes. Normally, when an offer is written, a buyer is going to want to get an answer pretty quickly, usually within 24-48 hours, unless it’s a weekend. 

The quicker you respond to an offer as a seller, the better chance you have of putting the deal together. What are your options? If you like the offer, go ahead and accept it. If the offer is not acceptable to you, we strongly recommend making a counter-offer, so you still have a chance at getting a deal done, at least more so than if you would have declined the offer.

If you have any questions about this process and what your options are, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We can’t wait to hear from you!

How Is Our Market Improving this Year?

There are many great Metro area homes for sale. Click here to perform full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to contact us for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at (262) 797-6453 or (262) 798-1162 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.
 

The fall is here and we are ⅔ of the way through the year. Today I thought I would give you a quick market update. I’ve been looking at some of the latest numbers and in August 2015, sales in the metro area were up 7% from this time last August! We now have 1,644 homes that have sold so far this year, as opposed to 1,524 at the same time last year. 

I was also looking at the year-to-date numbers, and noticed an even bigger trend. Compared to where we were at this point in 2014, sales are up 16.5%! There have been close to 1,500 more sales this year than last year. At the same time, inventory is declining. There are about 8,523 single-family homes for sale right now on our MLS, down 8% from 9,200 last year.

What does this mean? Well, more people are buying due to confidence in the economy and the fact that interest rates have remained extremely low. If you’re thinking about buying, I would consider making a move now due to the fact that you can lock in an interest rate on a 30-year mortgage for less than 4%, which was unheard of in the past. 

Rates may rise very soon, so we recommend taking advantage of conditions now and making your move while money is cheap. 

If you have any questions for us about the market or how you can succeed in it, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!

The Benefits of a Home Warranty

There are many great Metro area homes for sale. Click here to perform full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to contact us for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at (262) 797-6453 or (262) 798-1162 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today, I want to briefly discuss how to use a home warranty to help sell your home. 

Here at Shorewest, we work with a company called Home Security of America, which provides warranties on the sale of used or existing homes. Many of our clients use these to help sell their home. They are attractive to buyers because they cover heating, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, and appliances. Essentially, warranties cover the guts of your home, not the structural items like roofs, basements, and windows. 

 

Home warranties cover the buyer for one year from the day of closing. Plus, the seller gets free coverage while they are listing. Homeowners use warranties as a selling feature. For instance, if you have a home warranty on your home, but the three other homes that buyers are looking at do not have a warranty, your home will be viewed in a much more favorable light.

Warranties provide buyers and sellers with peace of mind. If something happens after closing, the buyer isn't going going to call the person who sold them the home, they're going to call the home warranty company, who will then come out and fix the problem. The basic single-family home warranty, which covers all the entities in your home, is about $564. Deductibles range from $75-$100, depending on the plan you go with.

If you have any questions about home warranties, or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you!