The home looks warm and inviting, doesn't is?

green grass, don’t you assume the home has been on the market a while? 

The way people look on the Internet before they ever call a Realtor or even attend an open house means real estate professionals should try to keep their photo’s current to the season.

I’ve been using a type of photography called “High Dynamic Range Images”, or HDR, when the days get short in the late fall here in Alaska.  For me it’s not practical in the summer because either it doesn’t really get dark enough, or I would have to take my photo’s at mid-night to get the contrast I’m looking for in a decent photograph.

In Anchorage in October, days are beginning to get short enough that it is dark enough to at 6:30 or 7pm to achieve the photo’s that I’m looking for.

This photo was taken the night before Halloween

To create the look I want, I take a series of photo’s, often three to five, taken at different exposures from over exposed to under exposed.  I used five exposures on the photo’s on the homes here.  I “bracketed” the photo’s with exposures like this: +2, +1, 0, -1, -2;  then with special photographic software, the photo’s are merged and “tone mapped” to create the images you see here.

The look I am searching for makes the home look “warm and cozy” inside; the viewer surely knows it’s chilly and cold outside.

When a buyer or real estate agent does a property search that may have multiple homes in the find, these evening photo’s may stand out from the rest, causing the view to click on the image to “come inside” the home and take a better look.

What do you think?  Is it worth the effort to have a unique photo?  Should the night photo be the primary photo in the multiple listing service?  I don’t know for sure….I’m still exploring!

When something seems too good to be true - be suspicious!

A real common fraud happens when a party goes into a real estate listing on line listings and copies (steals) the photo’s, virtual tours and the home details; then, they post a rental ad in craigslist for a large house with a very low rental amount.  They start out with a story like “I’m Father Smith and while on a mission to Africa, hard times have fallen on my family.  We are forced to rent our vacant 2,400 sq. ft. home in Anchorage while my wife is getting needed medical attention.  We are only asking for enough rent to cover our house payment during this time of family crisis.  We can rent the house to a deserving family for $1,200.  If you are interested, please wire first and last months rent to _____”.  Of course the house being advertised is For Sale by a real Realtor and not at a discounted rent amount which is being being sent to a ”scammer” off shore! 

It’s funny, well, not really funny, interesting to me that a situation that sounds too good to be true can still find suckers who will wire money to someone they haven’t spoken with.  My office has been contacted in such a situation with a request for the keys, only to learn they’ve been taken advantage of. 

Real estate agents know to ask lots of questions if the buyer is from China, Japan, England, or Canada (really any foreign country where the buyer is suddenly relocating and buying real estate sight-unseen), or if the initial emails contain typos or poor grammar; or the email address comes from @asia.com or some other generic email

I guess the my point is that when you work with me, I will be paying attention to what’s going on and asking questions to cover my back and yours!

Are we standing at the Crossroad?

 The front page of the site, called the “index” page,  appropriately says:

 ”Alaska’s businesses and households are only as strong as the economy that supports them. Like the three-legged stool, it takes all three legs to support and sustain our economy. For 20 years now, Alaska’s prosperous and growing economy has enabled us to successfully operate private businesses. In today’s uncertain times, it is essential that each Alaskan learn, understand and actively support our economy—the “three-legged stool”—and what it will take to keep it strong.”

In “The Alaska Journal of Commerce“,  February 3 editorial, “Oil Industry is changing, but it may not be for the better,” the Journal notes that Alaska “now has fewer standing rigs than any other oil producing state, that we now produce less oil than any other oil producing state, and that exploration in Alaska is coming to a halt.

Tellingly, in a recent survey of international oil executives, Alaska ranked close to the bottom of states to invest in, surpassed only by California and Colorado as least-desirable.

In short, the Journal sees a change taking place in the Alaska oil industry, but it’s the change of decline. And while global demand is down in these recessionary times, other oil producing states and nations are taking advantage of the shake-up to reposition themselves. According to the Journal editorial staff, our state leadership seems to lack a sense of urgency, however, which puts Alaska’s future at stake.”

We need to get some of things fixed!  Feel free to share these comments, website and the Journal links to everyone you know!

A dandelion just before the wind blows!

I spent the next hour detailing what we do to find a buyer and get the sale closed.  The list goes something like this:

We do a detailed market study paying attention to active home competition, recent similar “pending” properties, as well as sales on the street and neighborhood.  How long do properties like the subject take to sell on the average?  What is the most likely financing?  On the average, how close is offered price to the list price?  We would make a non-emotional and objective recommendation to the seller as how to price his home.

We would make recommendations on both curb appeal and home staging or cleanliness items to get the properties “best-foot forward”.

We council our sellers on how to show their home to it’s best potential.

Of course, we immediately place the property in the Multiple Listing Service, but NOT before we are ready to show the home and have everything we need including professional quality photographs, virtual tours and all disclosures, surveys and other items so we immediatelyhit the ground running.  When the property hits the MLS “hot-sheet” as a new listing, we want any agents or buyers to have access to everything including photographs and virtual tours!

Modern technology makes it easy to make any seller documents, surveys and disclosures available immediately online.  Good real estate licensee’s put those online right away so any interested party can have fast access to them.

In our market it is customary to put a lock-box on the door, a sign in the yard and good quality color flyers on the sign as well as property “hand-outs” inside the home.

We email our client everything and ask if they feel we missed any selling point on their home, we make the seller an active participant in the marketing, if they want to be.

We begin to upload the property details to a multitude of real estate websites so that the property is really marketed nationally via the Internet, hopefully to the major real estate sites someone may be watching.

Our own websites such as www.AlaskanHome.com gives us plenty of room to showcase property details and photographs.

Nothing takes the place of quickly responding to both phone calls and email inquiries! The real estate market can be 24/7 and the Dan Wolf Team make every attempt to answer our phones and respond quickly to email. 

And the marketing is just the tip of the iceberg.  You won’t have a sale if you don’t negotiate effectively and “bullet-proof” your transactions!  An agent should be able to provide a “seller net sheet” on an offer to closely estimate what a buyer’s net will be at closing after the house is paid off and all bills are paid.

Your offers have to be properly documented.  I could write another entire post about making sure you are ready to close when the buyer and seller have agreed to close.  Don’t forget that title report, resale certificate or to order that appraisal!  If repairs come up on the home inspection, do you have contractors to make those repairs correctly, quickly and not charge too much.

I didn’t even mention all the emotions and personalities an agent can become involved with when selling homes for divorced people, stressed people, first time home buyers and myriad of other circumstances!

According to reports I’ve read, total newspaper advertising fell last year 9.4%, but real estate specific advertising fell

The "old-fashioned" way to find real estate

22.6%!  It seems the real estate audience is no longer reading newspapers and have shited their attention to the Internet, which is now the primary research tool for real estate research.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says when buyers were asked “How did you search for your home?”,  84% of respondents used the Internet to some degree to view property and learn neighborhoods and pricing before they actually bought.

We have entered into the age where consumers are bombarded with information from all directions; fast moving movies, television, YouTube video and sounds bites have given today’s consumers very short attention spans.  If someone wants a specific type of property in a specific area, they don’t want to spill through the newspaper hunting for something that sounds interesting, only to find out the property has the wrong location.  Unlike the “baby boomer” generation, Gen “X” or the newer Millennial Generation much prefer to have a search engine narrow property prospects.

Unfortunately for the print media, this trend will only perpetuate as the older generation passes on.

On that note, this is interesting.  Did you hear about the Arizona folks who “twittered” that they were preparing to head out of town.  While they were on the road their home was burglarized! 

The victim, Israel Hyman has a business with about 2,000 followers he stays in touch with on the Twitter site.  Hyman believes his post on Twitter tipped of the burglar that he wasn’t going to be home. 

Home Security System is Armed!

Police don’t know if their is a connection or not, but the story should give us a pause to think, huh?  Even if the post has nothing to do with the incident, it does show that sharing too much information especially in a format where you don’t know who is reading it, could create a problem for you!

Lots of us have good locks on our doors and good security systems.  Telling people when you aren’t at home could be a security breach!

Where do people, who eventually purchase a house, find that home?

This answer is an important question for a seller and their listing agent to know. And while there are several answers, the question seems to get easier to answer with every passing year.  

Below are “must know” facts about today’s buyer from the NAR survey questions:

33% of all buyers looked on-line (the Internet) for property as the first step in the home buying process.

87% of all buyers used the Internet as part of their home search.

94% of 25-44 years old buyers used the Internet as part of their home search.

81% of buyers fount the Internet “Very Useful” in their search

29% found newspaper or magazine ads “Very Useful.”

99% of buyers found the Internet “Useful” or Very Useful”

98% found their agent “Useful” or “Very Useful”

34% of buyers found the home they purchased through an agent.

32% found the home they purchased through the Internet

Only 4% visited an open house first.

ONLY 3% found the home they purchased through a newspaper or magazine ad.

The undeniable conclusion is more and more buyers are becoming informed through the Internet.  The facts speak for themselves; the Internet is where home buyers are now turning

Real Estate becoming more convenient to search on Internet

for housing information.  If your home cannot be found easily on the Internet, you have potentially eliminated the 87% of buyers using the web for housing information.

As this trend continues, it becomes all that more important that the seller’s agent be on top of Internet technology.  

Being a realtor, I understand why you would want someone to sign up to recieve information from your site, but looking as a consumer, I knew I was not a buyer, only curious about the cost of property and I didn’t really want to take the time to explain that to other realtors.

Anyway, long story made short, I made a website where buyers can simply look at homes in the MLS without registering or without any sponsoring or other advertising. Check it out! “www.AnchorageMLS.net”

This is a free search to find active real estate listings in Anchorage, Eagle River, Matanuska Valley and neighboring communities throughout South-central Alaska. There is no advertising and no tracking of your selections.

I hope you enjoy it. Please give me your feedback.