Episodes
Do You Need Flood Insurance if You Live in the Middletown Area?
September 19, 2017 19:40 VideoSelling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale The cleanup effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is ongoing here in Katy, Texas, where I’ve joined Keller Williams’ relief initiative with many others to lending a helping hand to those in need. As you can see in the video above, it’s a nightmare of a mess. Many folks are unloading everything from inside their houses onto wheelbarrows and dumping the clutter onto the street. The house we’re clean...
A Market Update for the End of Summer
September 07, 2017 21:54 VideoWhat can you expect from our real estate market over the next few months? We’re here to let you know. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today we’re going to talk all about the summer market: what happened, what it means for you, and what you can expect as we transition into fall. There are five long-term indicators that show how our market is doing, along with one short-term indicator. The long-term indicators include: Inventory is do...
Why Is the Negotiation Gap So Important In Pricing Your Home?
July 10, 2017 19:43 VideoWhen pricing your home, it’s important that you stay within the negotiation gap. If you don’t, you could lose out on a lot of money. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale What effect does low inventory and high demand have on pricing in our market? The short answer is it allows you to get a higher sale price for your house than you would’ve been able to last year. There’s something I want to caution you about, though. Every single time I s...
Don't Underestimate Your Front Door
June 22, 2017 17:29 VideoWhile the agent opens the lock box, buyers have plenty of time to take in every detail of your entryway. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Statistics show that your front door is actually one of the few places in your home where you can spend money on an update and get a positive return on your cash when you sell. Why is this? Most homeowners don't even use their front door, preferring the garage door or a side door that's closest to w...
How to Juggle A Home Sale and a Home Purchase
June 06, 2017 16:07 VideoBuying and selling a home at the same time can get tricky. Here’s how you can make the situation easier. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale A lot of people have been asking lately how they can buy and sell a home at the same time. How can you get those two transactions to hook together? Inventory is low right now, so there isn’t much to choose from on the market. This is good news for sellers, but they are still hesitant to put their ho...
How Can Sellers Time Our Spring/Summer Market?
May 22, 2017 18:00 VideoEvery year, our spring/summer market goes through two rushes of buyer activity. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale When exactly does the spring/summer market start? When is the best time to enter the spring/summer market? Houses sell all year long, but what happens in the spring and summer is a large influx of buyers come from a specific demographic: folks who have school-age children. This subsection of buyers produces two rushes of m...
Should You Try Selling Your Home as a Pocket Listing?
April 25, 2017 21:33 VideoPocket listings have both pros and cons to them, but they typically don’t give you the best chance to get a great price on your home. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale What is a pocket listing? Basically, a pocket listing is when you have an agent who tries to sell a home before it hits the market. The agent tries to market that property to their internal list of buyers so they can get both halves of the commission. If you’re a seller,...
Get a Bird’s-Eye View of the 301 Bypass Project
April 03, 2017 16:45 VideoToday, I’m flying over the 301 bypass to give you a bird’s-eye view of the progress that has been made so far. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today I am broadcasting from 3,000 feet over Middletown to show you footage of the 301 bypass project. This project has been in the works for such a long time that many of us here in Middletown (including myself) doubted that it would ever make it from the drawing board to the groundbreaking c...
How to Add Value to a Home With DIY Projects
March 14, 2017 21:21 VideoI'm back at another remodel site to show you a cool example of how you can add some serious value to your home without hiring a contractor. In this case, the homeowner paneled their ceiling and added decorative trim and beams for just $1,400. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale We're going informal again today as we're shooting from another remodel job to talk about making your own ceiling. The ceiling you see in the video above needed a...
How to Quiet Your Creaky Staircase
February 23, 2017 23:32 VideoToday we’re doing things a little bit informally as I’m on the job to show you how to repair creaky stairs. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today we’re discussing how to get rid of creaky stairs. I’m on the job so I can walk you through this process. Creaky steps have been a plague on this particular house for years and years. In fact, if someone goes up and down these stairs, you can hear it throughout the entire home. We’re using...
What Impact Has the Presidential Election had on our Housing Market?
January 03, 2017 21:04 VideoDespite some initial concern, the presidential election shouldn’t have any long-term major impact on our housing market. Here’s why. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale I’ve been through several elections in my lifetime, and the one thing you can always count on after a controversial election such as the one we just had is everybody getting riled up over it. For a short period of time, there’s usually a great deal of concern from the half...
How's the Delaware Market Finishing in 2016?
December 20, 2016 01:17 VideoThe year is finally winding down, so I wanted to give you a quick update on the market. Inventory is still low, giving sellers a great chance to get a great price for their house. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale The fall market looks to be wrapping up for the year, so today I wanted to give you a closer look. When you compare this year to last year, we're essentially looking about the same. Inventory is down slightly from 2,505 units...
What Do You Do With Family Photos During Home Showings?
November 28, 2016 21:54 VideoOne important aspect of home staging is removing your family photos. Why? We’ll explore a few reasons why family photos can cause home buyers to pass on your property. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale You have probably heard about the importance of staging your home before you put it on the market. Today, I want to focus on one specific aspect of staging: removing your family photos. Everybody sets up their homes to be attractive and...
What’s Happening in the Fall Market?
November 05, 2016 18:23 VideoIn our current market, inventory is down and prices are up. As the weather turns colder, we’ll probably see this trend intensify. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale What’s going on right now in the fall market? Let’s take a look at the numbers from the month of September and see how they stack up against September of last year: Inventory has decreased from 2,587 homes to 2,450. Inventory accumulation—the number of months it would tak...
How to Determine if an Agent Is Right for You
October 19, 2016 00:14 VideoIf you’re planning on selling your house, it’s important that you find the right agent to help you sell it. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale If you’re selling your house and an agent is trying to buy your listing, they’re simply over-guaranteeing on the sale price in order to convince you to list with them. This typically happens when multiple agents are competing for the same listing. Sellers have every right to interview multiple ag...
How to Re-Enter the Market the Right Way
September 30, 2016 00:47 VideoIf you tried to sell your home once already and failed, how long should you wait before trying again? Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale If you tried to sell your home and were unsuccessful, how long should you keep it off the market before resetting and trying again? The official reset time period for the MLS is 60 to 90 days, but buyers tend to be active on the market for anywhere between six and 18 months. This means the MLS will res...
How the Middletown Market Has Improved in a Year
September 14, 2016 20:10 VideoSummer is nearly over, but the summer real estate market isn’t. We’ve got an update for you today complete with the latest numbers for the Middletown market. Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale We’ve got a quick summer market update to share with you about how the housing market is doing right now in the Middletown area. To look at how the market is doing, we look at the numbers and figures for the most recent months vs. the numbers we sa...
When’s the Best Selling Season in Delaware?
August 22, 2016 18:56 VideoWhen is the best time to put your home on the market? This is one of the most frequently asked questions that I get as a real estate agent. The general public seems to believe that spring is the best time of year to sell a house. However, I've seen that the decision to sell your home is usually triggered by a life-changing event. A baby being born, someone dying, someone getting married, someone getting divorced, someone’s job being transferred, a home burning down, or maybe wanting your k...
Just How Accurate Is My Zestimate?
August 03, 2016 21:34Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Automated home value tools like Zillow and other real estate websites aren’t always reliable. Although the conversation is often about how accurate these tools are, I’d like to bring up a new question. How accurate is the information that’s going in? These algorithms predominantly rely on information given about your home. This information, derived from public sources, compares your property to the home...
Lois Houston Reviews Jason Morris
July 08, 2016 21:51Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale "Everything was as good as it could be. There were times where we were a little freaked because something wasn't going the way it should, and Jason was really good about taking care of the situation. Each time we got off the phone with him we felt relieved. He did a great job marketing our home and had great advice on how to get the home ready to sell, which helped the house sell quickly."
How to Sell Quickly in Middletown
July 05, 2016 22:32Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale How long does it take to sell a Middletown home? Typically, buyers in our marketplace don’t have any requirement for how long a property has to be on the market. In fact, we find the most motivated buyers are anxiously waiting to purchase your home. If you have a home in excellent shape and priced appropriately, you’re likely to receive an offer immediately. However, if you’re lagging on condition or pr...
Be Aware of Your Septic System in the Delaware Market
June 15, 2016 17:45Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale We recently reached out to Delaware clients to find out which topics you’d like to see covered in our video blogs. Surprisingly, the top answer was septic systems. The last revision of the agreement of sale that's used as a bit of a template for real estate agents has language to put responsibility on the seller to provide a septic pump and certification within a certain number of days of going under co...
What Happens When You Overprice Your Delaware Home?
May 27, 2016 19:41Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today, I want to talk about a topic that comes up frequently: pricing. Many home sellers think they can’t earn the listing price for their home. Although it varies by neighborhood, the difference between the offer price and listing price is not nearly as big as you might think. For instance, they overwhelmingly think they’ll earn 10% less than the initial asking price. When looking at the figures, we ac...
Repairs vs. Upgrades: Which Is More Important when Selling a Home?
April 28, 2016 22:26Selling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale A lot of homeowners think that they can raise the value of their property before selling by installing multiple upgrades or doing a wide array of repairs. However, I’ve seen a lot of people dump a lot of money into repairs that would never bring a return that they wanted. “ Repairs are usually more valuable than upgrades when selling. ” Keep in mind that a repair is necessary when something is not in...
What to Expect From the Middletown Market This Spring
April 13, 2016 16:41 VideoSelling a home? Get a free home value report Buying a home? Search all homes for sale Today we are excited to talk about what’s going on in the local housing market here in Middletown. While each neighborhood market can vary, overall we are seeing an increase in the number of sold properties. We’re up by 21.3% from this time last year! At the same time, we are only seeing a slight increase in the number of new homes available, at 1.3%. There is a pretty big gap of what’s been sold and wha...