Death, Divorce and Moving are the three most stressful experiences in life. There are two very different kinds of needs that people have when moving and buying a Dallas home. First, there are the transactional needs, like finding the home that is just right for them, finding a seller who is realistic, negotiating the price, filling out the paperwork, handling the escrow, and arranging for the move. Then, there are the emotional needs that are involved when moving, and this is where the biggest stress comes in. Any competent real estate agent will handle the transactional needs for you, but if your emotional needs remain unfulfilled, you’ll be frustrated and may not act in your own best interests. The ideal real estate agent is one, who is competent with paperwork and numbers but can also guide, direct, and counsel you through the emotional ups and downs of moving.

‘6 Ways To Beat The Stress Of Buying A Dallas Home.’

1. Begin with the end in mind. Have an ultimate scenario of where you’re trying to be. What will life be like when you get there? How will it be better than where you are now? Dwell on that picture and write it out, fill up at least a page about how it feels in the new place. This is imperative. Having the goal in front of you at all times energizes you to achieve it, in spite of setbacks and frustrations. Emotions will run high and you need an anchor. You too must focus on that future goal when anxiety threatens to get the better of you. (more…)
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I recently wrote a post about how to use a house value report. In that post I briefly mentioned using one for determining the value of your home improvement projects. Since writing that article, I have received a lot of requests for more information about this. Understanding the true return on your home improvement investment is mostly science with a little art mixed in.

Before you start a project, there are 3 steps to determining the value of your home improvements.

1. Step One - Find a good Dallas area Realtor that really knows your area or hire a professional appraiser. An appraiser is expensive (around $300) but will be more accurate than a Realtor. Plus, many Realtors have never done a TRUE comparative market report, opting only to compare bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage so they do not understand the intricacies that go into this science called an “Appraisal”.
2. Step Two - Have your Realtor or appraiser prepare a comparative market analysis or full appraisal to determine the value of your home compared to other homes in your neighborhood. Once that first appraisal is completeld, have them provide a second house value report comparing your home with future home improvements to homes in your neighborhood with those same improvements.
3. Step Three - (more…)
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Thanks to increasingly tightening credit standards and rising interest rates, there has been a lot of buzz about the startling increase in foreclosure rates across America and the Dallas Fort Worth area.

Many Dallas Fort Worth home owners think it cannot or will not happen to them, but what would you do if you were actually faced with the prospect of foreclosure? It is important to know the “lingo” of lenders and understand what the options are so that you can make an informed decision on the best way to move forward in a stressful situation such as foreclosure.

This article from FreddieMac.com is a good resource that defines the terms associated with foreclosure and walks through the steps to take if you think you may soon be unable to pay your mortgage. Among the topics covered in this helpful article:

• What to do if you can not pay your mortgage
• What if you can no longer afford to keep your home
• Beware of scam artists

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Every day, we receive over a dozen requests for a free house value report for homes across Dallas Fort Worth (strangely enough, a large percentage are for house values in Frisco and Keller Texas… does that mean something? huh). The vast majority of the house value requests are for home owners thinking about selling their home. They want to see what their Dallas Home would potentially sell for compared to what they own it for. Did you know that this is only one of many examples of how a free house value report or comparative market analysis (aka CMA) can be used?

Here Are 5 Ways To Use a Dallas House Value Report aka CMA

1. Selling Your Dallas Home- The first and most obvious way to use the free comparative market analysis that you receive from Texas Home Central is to compare your home against other homes that have sold in your neighborhood. I wont go into too much detail here since this one is pretty obvious. What I would like to add here is that an “automated CMA” is not enough to give you a clear picture of what your home will sell for. Sometimes you will get a false sense of value and be too high or too low by thousands of dollars. Price too high and people will not bother looking at your home, too low and people will think something is wrong with your home and try to negotiate you even lower or again, not even visit. It’s imperative that a professional that knows the real estate market take the time to do a deeper analysis, comparing more that just bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage. A good agent will also compare lot size and location, upgrades, home features as well as what other homes have that your home may not have. (more…)
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As a REALTOR, we have the pleasure of meeting with a lot of homeowners who are interested in selling their home. Many have tried listing with other agents in the past before giving up. Do you want to know what two of the biggest questions homeowners have when they are selling their home?

1. I am losing ALL of the equity I have worked so hard to build over the last few years. How can I keep more of my equity and still sell quickly?
2. I can’t wait 6 months with my home on the market wondering if or when it will sell. I don’t have that much time. What I can I do to sell my home faster without dropping the price below all of the competition?

In an effort to answer those questions once and for all, Texas Home Central has done away with the traditional 6% listing and moved to a flat-fee, full-service listing. There are other companies that offer a flat-fee listing but also greatly reduce their services. Not us! It’s full-service or nothing.

How does that answer the two questions mentioned above?
First, by moving to a flat-fee listing, we can save you thousands of dollars of hard-earned equity on your Dallas Fort Worth home. We will market your home harder than almost any other Realtor in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. (more…)

I read a recent survey that stressed the importance of curb appeal in the buying decision. I wish I could remember where I read that survey and spent over an hour trying to retrace my steps so I could quote and give credit to the right person but I have failed… failed miserably and I’m sorry. If you know who did the survey, please email me and let me know so I can give them credit.

According to this survey, 82 percent of real estate agents polled said that buyers unimpressed with the exterior of a home will not even want to look inside. The survey also found that 90 percent of those interviewed said a sale depended on the first impressions of the front entry and 91 percent said the exterior of the home is as important as what is inside the home.

I find this especially true for homes in the Dallas Texas Metroplex. So how can you improve your home’s curb appeal to sell better? Here are 5 ways to do just that.

Increase Curb Appeal To Sell Your Home

1. Yard and Landscaping- Potted plants and a few decorative (classy, not trashy) items will add character to your home’s exterior. Colorful flowerbeds with fresh mulch and neatly pruned landscaping will also give a very positive first impression. Grass that is embedded with weeds will not be appealing to potential homebuyers so take the time to pull the weeds and spread weed control over your lawn.

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If your Dallas home has been on the market for a while and you are having trouble selling it, you may want to consider a lease-to-own option. Lease-to-own can help sell your Dallas home during a slow housing market or when you need a little more money than the market will support. This is a good option for a few areas in Dallas Fort Worth where you are competing with new construction.

In short, here’s how a lease-to-own agreement works:

• First, a home seller agrees to lease their home to an interested home buyer for an agreed upon period of time, usually one year but can be as long as three years. At the end of the lease period, the buyer has the option to purchase the home at the preset selling price.
• A small portion of the rent payment received during the lease period is usually counted toward the down payment on the home. In order to cover that down payment, the home seller would charge a monthly premium of a few hundred dollars compared to comparable rentals (e.g., if a comparable property rents for $1,100 per month, you would set the monthly lease payment at $1,300).
• Many home owners also charge an option fee for taking the property off the market, typically 1% to 2% of the sales price. This can be applied toward the down payment as well.

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It is our job as real estate agents to help you decide on the best selling price for your home. We pull together a Comparative Market Analysis (aka CMA) and that information in hand, we sit down with you and talk about the homes that have sold in your area, the homes that are for sale in your area and what is currently pending, comparing them ALL to your home.

You already know that? Of course you do! But let me give you a little tip that may help you sell your home for more.

Tip #1 - PRICE YOUR HOME ACCURATELY
Once we know what your home is worth, now is the tricky part. Setting the selling price. If you set it too high, you will get less visitors to see your home. If you set the price too low, potential buyers will be suspicious and think something is wrong OR think you are desperate to sell and try to negotiate you down even further. The trick is simple, price it accurately the first time and within a few thousand of where you want the home to close at. Ultimately, there will be more offers, less negotiating on the price which tend

Doesn’t sound like much of a trick? Well you’d be surprised at how many Realtors have NOT figured that one out. Let me share with you a dirty little secret. There are a lot of Realtors that will tell you that your home is worth more than it is in an effort to win the listing. They lead you to believe you can sell for more if you list with them knowing full well that they are going to convince you to lower the price after a few weeks of no offers. The real problem is the longer your home is on the market, the more desperate you become and the more potential buyers will try to negotiate with you even more. In the end, you the home seller always lose but that shady Realtor still gets paid.

Tip #2 - PRICE YOUR HOME PRECISELY
Ditch the three zeros at the end of your sales price and use a more precise figure. A research team at Cornell University found that home buyers will pay more for a home if its listing price does not end in all zeros. If your home is valued at $255,000 try listing it at $254,500.

I recently read an article in the Washington Post that covered this very idea. Here’s the condensed version:

Washington Post- Researchers (at Cornell University) say sellers make more money if they price their home at $325,425 rather than $326,000. … Results were confirmed by examining 27,000 transactions in two markets - South Florida and Long Island, N.Y. In South Florida, having three zeros at the end lowered the selling price by 0.73 percent. … According to the authors, if there is one house with a list price of $485,000 and another with a list price of $484,700, “our results suggests the the house with the more precise list price will sell for about $1,380 more” than the house with the three zeros.

If you are interested in selling your Dallas area home quickly and would like to speak with us, please call 800-326-9011. We will be able to help you accurately price your home and will market your home in more ways than anyone. Plus with our flat fee listing, our average home seller saves $6,250 on commissions. Please visit our home marketing page for more information! You can also request your free CMA here.

If you are looking to buy or sell a home anywhere in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex to include Frisco Real Estate please call us at 800-326-9011 or email us by clicking here.

A recent article on CNNMoney.com titled “7 Ways to Fight Property Taxes” had a checklist for fighting your tax value when it seems too high. From experience, I can tell you that Denton County, where I live, has been notorious for raising your property value every year for the maximum amount possible. Then, they leave it up to the homeowner to fight the value. If they didn’t, it is more money in the taxing authority’s pocket.

The “7 Ways to Fight Property Taxes” were:

1. Learn your system (find out what method the taxing authority uses to arrive at your value).
2. Get your assessors evidence (find out what information they have about your house).
3. Make sure the description is right (compare the information they have about your house to the true facts about your house).
4. Build your case (most taxing authorities will give you a specified time period to appeal. Use this time to find comparables with your homes characteristics and also find out what the appraisal district is valuing your neighbors homes at).
5. Meet the assessor informally ( this is the best time for you to explain your case and also have the assessor explain his).
6. File the appeal (make sure you are prepared to explain your case to the full appraisal board. Prepare a speech and practice it).
7. You lost (If you did lose your case and want to take it further, you will most likely need an attorney and an appraiser. At this point it will be up to you to decide if saving a little money in tax dollars is worth spending it in attorney’s fees).

This article does a good job of outlining all of your options. However, I can also tell you from experience that the two most important pieces are building your case and meeting with your assessor informally. When I felt my house was overvalued on the Denton County tax rolls, I called the county and set up an informal meeting. Armed with a recent HUD-1 from the purchase of my home, I was able to get my value reduced to an acceptable level at the informal meeting. I was in and out in 10 minutes with an appointment… trust me, taxing authorities would prefer to negotiate this way as it reduces the backlog of a full board hearing. I hope these tips will help you the next time you need to fight your property taxes!

Craig Pollard is a mortgage professional and owner of Texas Mortgage Team. He specializes in the Dallas Fort Worth area and is a frequent voice on Texas Home Central’s blog. Craig can be reached at 972-317-9900 or emailed by clicking here.

In my last post, Good News for Home Buyers, I talked about how the Fed continuously lowering rates was something to get excited about. I didn’t mean to leave out home owners and home sellers. I believe it’s reason to celebrate for everyone in Dallas Fort Worth!

It’s true that we haven’t seen the pain in Dallas Fort Worth like the rest of the U.S. has but still, the news headlines can scare anyone into remission. With the latest fed cut, real estate analysts are expecting improvements in home sales across the U.S. I have already seen a sizable increase in home buyers visiting the home search feature on our real estate website.

For home sellers, this is great news for multiple obvious reasons. First, lower interest rates means more home buyers that can get approved to buy your home. More home buyers mean competition which equals increased sales prices (hint for home buyers, if you wait, prices will be going up, not down so act now). That is great news for anyone that has their home on the market.

Even for home owners not interested in selling, this is great news for you too! With mortgage rates at a low, this is a great time to refinance and get out of a high interest rate loan or an adjustable rate mortgage. You can easily get approved with our preferred lender Texas Mortgage Team.

Like lowering taxes, lowering interest rates will boost the economy. More money in the consumer’s pocket equals greater consumer confidence which equals more spending that in turn improves the economy. Don’t you just love economics?

Best of luck in selling your home… but in case you want more than luck in selling your home in DFW and are looking for an agent that will market your home the right way, please contact me at 800.326.9011 or email me here. Thank you.