It's All in the Vibe

As a photography enthusiast I love images of houses.  My favorite magazine is Architectural Digest.  I can spend hours looking at the photos and reading about the amazing houses they showcase.  As a Realtor I strive to take the best photos I can of the houses that I'm listing for sale.  I often go back to the house and reshoot photos to keep them current or to find a better angle or a better moment, like when the sun is shining through that huge window bathing the house in a warm glow.  Making the house as appealing and as enticing as I can through images is my job.  The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" has never been more true in marketing and advertising a home in today's Real Estate market. 


But photographic images are not the real world.  Lighting and composition can create a mood or evoke a feeling.  Like that cozy sun filled room.  There are images that remind us of a childhood memory, or make us smile or bring tears to our eyes.  Advertisers have been using images to great success for years and years.  But again, images are not the real world.  That fast food burger always looks so appealing to me when I see it on TV, but I know what I feel like once I eat it.

For buyers searching the internet images are a huge help in selecting which houses to put on their "must see" list. As a Realtor, this is what I want my clients to do.  But I can't even count the number of times my buyers have been let down once they've actually seen the house.  The "I'm dying to see that house, I know I'll love it!" goes to "That wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be".  Some of this can be attributed to the Realtor photos, you know, the ones that are taken with super wide lens that makes every room look like it's the size of a football field.  I for one really hate those, but to each his own.

But for me, the real reason isn't the misleading advertising.  No, for me it's something much more subtle and intuitive.  For me it's the "Vibe" the buyer feels in the space.  All of my buyer clients will tell you, I talk a lot about "vibe".  According to the Cambridge online dictionary the word vibe is defined as such:

• the general mood a person or place seems to have and the way they make you feel

And that's it to a T.  I always recommend to my buyers to pick their favorite houses out of the listings that I send them, but I also encourage them to look at other houses as well, or I will bring them to houses that I've seen that they might like.  It's important to get in the space.  Feel what the house does to you.  See how it fits.  I also encourage my clients to image their day in the house.  How would they use it?  How would it feel using it.  Picture yourself cooking in the kitchen, entertaining friends.  Where do the kids play? Where do you eat your meals?  It seems like that would be a pretty obvious thing to do.  But it's not natural for buyers coming into a strange house, filled with another families personal items.  It's difficult on an emotional level to displace the current homeowner from their house and call it your own.  Yet it's something that buyers need to do to make sure they get the right home.

On more than one occasion I've gone into a house with buyers who had a baby with them.  And upon coming into a house the baby has started crying for no reason.  No reason to you or I, but there's something about the place that creeps the baby out.  Call me crazy, but pretty much all of the time the baby is unhappy in a space, the adults don't get a good feel for the place either.  Of course the opposite has happened as well, and I'm very quick to point out the smiling, happy baby to my buyers.

I'll never forget my first visit to a particular house that I was going to list.  It was very small, kind of rough around the edges.  The couple who lived there raised two children in the house.  As soon as I walked in I felt it, it was overpowering.  It the feeling of familial love. This incredibly family was so warm and loving that the house exuded it.  It took all of 3 days to sell that house...  I see the new owners of the house periodically and they're still very happy in the house.

So my advice to buyers is to get into the space and let go.  Let yourself "feel the vibe" of the home.  You'll know if it's the right house is for you. 

It's all in the vibe....can you feel it?

Hot New Listing!

Hey!  Spread the word!  This is a great house on a great street!

Come see this charming Colonial that sits on a quiet cul de sac in the desirable Montrose Park neighborhood.

Deceiving in size, this home has 4 full floors of living space.  The house boasts both front and backyard patios, a fenced in yard, plus a blue field stone three season room off the dining room.

Inside, the house has been freshly painted though out.  The kitchen has been remodeled and boasts gorgeous granite counter tops. Fabulous dentil molding decorates the living room and dining room adding a great architectural detail not found in most homes.  There's a working wood burning fireplace in the living room as well as a large bay window with custom window treatments.

The large Master Bedroom has a deep closet, storage bench and huge Spa-like master bath with a jetted tub.  The finished attic with full bath and separate A/C unit can serve as a rec room, office, guest room or a 4th bedroom.

The fully renovated and finished basement carries a Lifetime waterproof guarantee.  French drains, sump pump and an air barrier carpet cushion, all make sure the basement stays dry!  There are new widows throughout the house as well as Central A/C - Forced Hot Air, a home security alarm, a water softener, walk in pantry and a huge cedar closet in the laundry room.

Easy access to NJ Transit's mid-town direct train that offers a quick 30 min. ride into Manhattan.

Here's a link to the Garden State Listing of the Home with more details & photos:

http://emailrpt.gsmls.com/public/show_public_report_rpt.do?report=clientfull&Id=62129677_315177

If you or someone you know wants more information, or would like to see the house, please feel free to contact me at 917 676 2000 or by email at dhuebnerrealtor@aol.com.

Thanks,

Doug

A "Smart, Energy Producing" Home

Okay seeing how this blog is dedicated to all things house and home and not just me unabashedly self-promoting myself as a Real Estate Agent, I thought I'd share this cool house that I found on one of my favorite architecture websites.

The house is called "Home for Life" and it's designed so that over the course of the building's life, it ends up giving back more energy to nature than what it took to produce it's building materials.  Pretty cool hun?  And there's more.  This is from the site:

Home for Life is designed as the world’s first Active House and is a result of a research and design development aimed at ensuring a necessary foothold in architecture in an anticipated sustainable and low-carbon future.

Thanks to 7m2 solar collectors, 50m2 solar cells and a solar heat pump the house has an anticipated energy surplus of 9kWh/m2/year it. In this way it takes approximately 40 years for the house to generate the same amount of energy that was used to produce its building materials and at that point the house will have returned more to nature than it consumed.

The window area of the house is 40 percent of the total floor area – twice the area of a traditional house – while sensors register heat, humidity and CO2 in all rooms and automatic window opening mechanisms let in fresh air. Furthermore the occupants and environment of the house are valued through quantitative and qualitative interviews and measuring. Subsequent the values are analyzed to develop knowledge to optimize the positive impact on the occupants and climate.

 Here's a link to the full article with a lot more photos:
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/projects/view/home-for-life/18552/

I don't love the minimalist interior, I'm a "cozy" kinda guy and like more defined rooms.  But I dig all the windows and the indoor/outdoor feel.

I can only hope that home builders here in this country recognize that this is how homes should be constructed from here on out.  Most people I know would rather see the money put into this sort of technology and live in a smaller home, then live in large, wasteful, energy sucking "McMansion".

What do you think?  Would you live in a house like this?

Real estate sales predictions for 2011

Came across this information the other day and thought I'd pass it along:  It's from the National Association of REALTORS.  First some numbers: NAR anticipates that sales of existing homes, after falling 4.8 percent in 2010, will rise 7.9 percent this year, to 5.3 million, and another 4.5 percent in 2012, to 5.53 million.

The median price of existing homes, meanwhile, rose 0.3 percent in 2010 after a 12.9 percent drop in 2009, and is expected to rise 0.5 percent this year, to $173,800, and another 2.4 percent in 2012, to $177,900.

NAR expects that 30-year-fixed mortgage rates will average 5.1 percent this year, up from 4.7 percent in 2010, and rise to 5.9 percent in 2012. 

The Pending Home Sales Index tracks homes for which a sales contract has been signed but the transaction has not yet closed.  The index fell 5.3 percent in the Northeast in December 2010 compared to December 2009, but rose 1.8 percent from Nov. to Dec.  I personally think that the sales were higher in Dec. of 2009 because we were still feeling the effects of the "First Time Home Buyer" tax credit.

Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, said in a statement, "Modest gains in the labor market and the improving economy are creating a more favorable backdrop for buyers, allowing them to take advantage of excellent housing affordability conditions. Mortgage rates should rise only modestly in the months ahead, so we'll continue to see a favorable environment for buyers with good credit."

“In the past two years, home buyers have been very successful, with super-low loan default rates, partly because of stable home prices during that time. That trend is likely to continue in 2011 as long as there is sufficient demand to absorb inventory,” Yun said. “The latest pending sales gain suggests activity is very close to a sustainable, healthy volume of a mid-5 million total annual home sales. However, sales above 6 million, as occurred during the bubble years, is highly unlikely this year.”

You can take all that info for what it's worth. I've never been much of a numbers guy and NAR stats encompass huge geographical regions, while Real Estate really needs to be talked about on the local level.

My gut tells me that this Spring is going to be very busy.  Buyers and Sellers who've been holding back or waiting for things to get better are going to either realize that "now's the time" or have gotten tired of waiting and are ready to move forward.

Next weekend officially starts the Spring season and soon inventory will swell.  I myself have a new listing scheduled to come on the market and have it's first open house next weekend.  Houses that are priced right and positioned properly for the market will sell quickly and dare I say, with multiple offers.  While homes that are overpriced and unprepared will languish. These are the houses that drag down the numbers and cloud the true nature of the market.  Note to local Home Owners, if you're thinking of selling your house, read my last post.  I took clients to see 7 houses on Saturday, only 3 were properly positioned to sell.

So reeve your engines and plug in the GPS, it's time to get things started!

The Right Way to Sell Your Home

"Dude, just tell me what I have to do.  I just want to sell this house as fast as possible." Slight pause.  "But I don't want to give it away."

Makes sense right?  As a Realtor that's basically what I hear from every Home Owner I talk to that's looking to sell their house.  And that's my job, that's why you hire me.  BUT....  You have to hire me sooner, rather than later.  Doing that makes all the difference in the world.  I'll explain that in a minute.  First things first.  Because the very first question you as a Home Owner have to ask is, "Do I really want to sell my house?  Am I going to make a commitment to selling my house?"

There are many reasons why people chose to sell their homes.  Some families are using the historic low interest rates and lower house values to their advantage by "buying up" to a bigger home. I have friends who are doing this (ask me why this is great idea).  Other "empty nesters" are ready to downsize.  Having to maintain a large family home that only two people occupy can be a lot of work and isn't very cost effective.  Other reasons houses need to be sold are job relocation, loss of income, divorce, death of the owner, foreclosure, or a more timely reason, people are tired of the harsh snowy winters and are ready to move to a more temperate climate.

Whatever reason you have for selling your home the first question you need to ask yourself is "how motivated am I"?  It takes a lot of work, patience and resolve to sell your home in today's market.  If your just testing the market to "see what happens", your really wasting your time.

It's a buyers market out there.  There are a lot more houses on the market than there are buyers so you have to be willing to spend some money and do some work to get your house ready for market.  But what exactly does that entail?  What do you have to do to get buyers to put your home on their "must see" list?

That's where I come in.  Once you've resolved to sell your home call in a Realtor.  If you live in Essex County NJ, that phone call should only go to one person...me.  Don't do anything else.  Resist the temptation to undertake a home renovation, and then show it to me, or another Realtor.  Let me go through the house and work with you on what needs to be done so that your house can stand out from the competition.  I can also advise you as to what repairs and renovations need or DON'T need to be done.

You may think that it's a great idea to have a full bath on the main floor of your house, but unless you have a bedroom near-by it's an unwarranted expense.  I was once asked by a prospective seller to come evaluate their home.  Their contractor had convinced them to turn the powder room off the dining room into a full bath and so, to keep their budget in tact, they forewent putting in a real granite counter top and instead put in a faux granite laminate one.  A really poor decision and one they could have avoided if they spoke to me sooner.  I can't imagine that shower getting much use, while a granite counter adds a great aesthetic to be enjoyed everyday.  As well as something most buyers expect to see in today's market.

So how much money should you spend in preparing your home for the market?

As little as possible.  There's a big difference between making minor and inexpensive "polishes" and "touch-ups" to your house, such as new kitchen pulls on cabinets and a fresh coat of neutral paint in the living room, and doing extensive and costly renovations, like installing a new kitchen.

As a Realtor familiar with your neighborhood, I can tell you what buyers' expectations will be and more importantly can go over the numbers with you.  Knowing what your house will sell for, deducting all the expenses, understanding what repairs or renovations will cost and how they'll pay off, all leads to you maximizing your profit, managing your expectations and being happy on the day of the closing.  Ultimately that's my real job, that's what I strive for, making you happy.

The Home Owners of the house below are doing it right.  Once they realized they were selling they contacted me.  They're doing a major update of the kitchen, painting the whole house and fixing what needs to be fixed.  I was there every step of the way with them; going over the numbers, walking through with the contractor, helping them decide what upgrades needed to be done or not, based on buyers expectations and what list price the market would bear for this particular neighborhood.

If you're thinking that you'd like to put your home up for sale, or would like to know how much money you would make if you sell your home, please contact me.  I'd love to come see your house and give you a free consultation.

"Snowman Realtor" built by my sons, Rock & Grant.