All posts by Joann Samelko, REALTOR®

About Joann Samelko, REALTOR®

Hi, I'm Joann and it is my pleasure to serve your real estate needs. I am a Licensed Realtor and have been Licensed as a Broker since 2002. My business focus is on helping buyers and sellers with their real estate needs and goals. I enjoy working with first time homebuyers, people relocating to the area, individuals making a change in their lives, and of course, my former clients and friends. My Designations include the ABR (Accredited Buyer Representative), ASP (Accredited Staging Professional), CRS (Certified Residential Specialist), GRI (Graduate of the Realtor Institute) and SRES (Seniors Real Estate Specialist). In addition to working with buyers and sellers I am also the Director of Relocation for Northside Realty. Prior to becoming a Realtor, my background includes over 20 years of sales and sales management experience in the corporate world.

What Your Home Is Worth _ The Automated Value

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There are sites all over the web that offer to tell you what your home is worth. Simply plug in your address and email and you’ll get a value.  It’s fast; it’s easy but is it accurate?

There are sites all over the web that offer to tell you what your home is worth. Simply plug in your address and email and you’ll get a value.  It’s fast; it’s easy but is it accurate?

The value is determined by what is called an Automated Valuation Model (AVM) that analyzes public record data with computer decision logic.  Square footage, age, number of bedrooms and location are easily definable objective data.  The challenge is identifying, measuring and comparing the subjective data.

An AVM cannot identify how unique features might add or detract from the value, if the market is declining or why the comparable sales apply or don’t apply to the subject property.  Is a home worth more because it is near shopping or less because it is across the street from a high-traffic commercially zoned property?

Experienced professionals are more likely to make proper adjustments for condition, market appeal and positive and negative influences.

Imagine that you’re going out for dinner and you consult HamburgerAVM.com to tell you how much a hamburger is worth.  It might be accurate based on condiments, vegetables and weight but can it address things like taste, quality, cleanliness, service, convenience or atmosphere.  You certainly couldn’t present the printout to the waiter to negotiate a lower price.

An AVM can be a tool that a homeowner, prospective buyer, mortgage officer, appraiser or real estate agent can use to get a quick idea of price but there are inherent limitations that can only be considered by personal examination balanced with experience in the market place.

Experience and understanding of the subject property and the marketplace are critical to having confidence that a value is accurate.  Any person could go through the same steps to arrive at a value but an experienced, well-trained professional is far more likely to assess all of the variables more accurately.

Allow me to help you determine the value of your Triangle home.  Contact me to prepare a complimentary home evaluation.

Home is Worth the Sacrifice

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There are many reasons people want a home with the most frequent responses being a place of their own, to raise their family, share with their friends and feel safe and secure.  These are all strong motivations fueling the American Dream of owning your own home.

The motivation is so dominant that buyers are willing to make sacrifices to have their dream come true.  According to the 2014 National Association of REALTORS® Home Buyers and Sellers Survey, 72% of first-time buyers cut spending on luxury or non-essential items.  They also cut spending on entertainment, clothes and even cancelled vacation plans.

The value of getting their own home is more important than the immediate gratification of things that are considered less important.  While qualifying guidelines were increased last year, there are still more buyers purchasing homes at near record-low mortgage rates.

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13,808 Houses Sold Yesterday! Did Yours?

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There are some homeowners that have been waiting for months to get a price they hoped for when they originally listed their house for sale. The only thing they might want to consider is… If it hasn’t sold yet, maybe it’s not priced properly.

After all 13,808 houses sold yesterday, 13,808 will sell today and 13,808 will sell tomorrow.

13,808!

That is the average number of homes that sell each and every day in this country according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) latest Existing Home Sales Report. NAR reported that sales are at an annual rate of 5.04 million. Divide that number by 365 (days in a year) and we can see that, on average, over 13,800 homes sell every day.

The report from NAR also revealed that there is currently only a 4.4 months supply of inventory available for sale, (6 months inventory is considered ‘historically normal’).

That means less competition for buyers who are out in the market now, but more houses will hit the market soon with spring right around the corner.

Bottom Line

We realize that you want to get the fair market value for your home. However, if it hasn’t sold in today’s active real estate market, perhaps you should reconsider your current asking price.

Setting a Pricing Strategy For Your Home

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Price it Right to Get It Sold    

“We can always go down, but we can’t go up.”

If you’re selling your home this statement has probably crossed your lips at least once. But when it comes to setting a pricing strategy for your home, is it a good idea to start high and work your way down?  Probably not, as most experts would advise that the best way to increase your odds of a successful sale is to price your home at fair market value. But, as logical as this advice sounds, for many sellers it is still tempting to tack a few percentage points onto the price to “leave room to negotiate”.

You could be setting yourself up for failure if you don’t price it right from the start:

Appraisal problems

Even if you do find a buyer willing to pay an inflated price, 90% of buyers use some kind of financing to pay for their home purchase. If your home won’t appraise for the purchase price the sale will likely fail.

No showings

Today’s home buyers are well educated about the real estate market. They review information about your home online before they ever think about viewing the house in person.  If your home is overpriced they won’t bother looking at it, let alone make you an offer.

Selling the competition

Overpricing helps your competition and other properties for sale in your neighborhood. How? You make their lower prices seem like bargains. Nothing is worse than watching your neighbors put up a sold sign.

Stimatized and Stagnation

The longer your home sits on the market, the more likely it is to become stigmatized or stale. Have you ever seen a property that seems to be perpetually for sale? Do you ever wonder – What’s wrong with that house?

Tougher negotiations

Buyers who do view your home may negotiate harder because the home has been on the market for a longer period of time and because it is overpriced compared to the competition.

Lost opportunities

You will lose a percentage of buyers who are outside of your price point. These are buyers who are looking in the price range that the home will eventually sell for but don’t see the home because the price is above their pre-set budget.

One popular myth is that a great marketing plan will overcome a pricing problem. Nope – spending a zillion dollars on advertising, internet ads, and television spots won’t motivate buyers to pay you more than the home is worth. Another myth is the assumption that a buyer will see your home, fall in love, and write you a check so the competition doesn’t matter. Wrong. Buyers don’t look at homes in isolation. Most look at 10-15 homes before making a buying decision. Because of this, setting a competitive price relative to the competition is an essential component to a successful marketing strategy.

Thinking Of Selling? Now May Be The Time

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It is common knowledge that a large number of homes sell during the spring buying season. For that reason, many homeowners hold off putting their home on the market until then. The question is whether or not that will be a good strategy this year.

The other listings that do come out in the spring will represent increased competition to any seller. Do a greater number of homes actually come to the market in the spring compared to the rest of the year? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently revealed which months and days of the year most people list their home. Here is a graphic showing the results:

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The circles represent the ten most popular listing dates in 2014. We can see that all ten days are in the second quarter of the year. The months in red represent which months most people put their home on the market. Again, the three months in the second quarter are most active for listings. Last year, the number of homes available for sale in January was 1,880,000.

That number spiked to 2,350,000 by July!

What does this mean to you?

With the job situation improving and mortgage interest rates projected to rise later in the year, buyers are not waiting until the spring. They are out looking for a home right now. If you are looking to sell this year, waiting until the spring to list your home means you are putting your house on the market at a time you will have the greatest competition for your buyer. It may make sense to beat that rush of housing inventory to the market and list your home today.

The Real Estate Market Has Turned The Corner

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As we finish 2014, it appears the real estate market is once again on solid footing and ready to advance forward over the next few years. The strength of the market can be viewed using two metrics: projected home values and projected house sales.

We recently reported that the Home Price Expectation Survey revealed future home values will continue to appreciate nicely. Today we want to look at projections on the number of home sales (existing and new construction) we will see over the next two years. We researched what the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers’ Association (MBA) are projecting for the housing industry going forward.

Here is what we found:chart for article

N.C. Museum of Art to construct 164-acre, $13M park campus

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The North Carolina Museum of Art will construct a 164-acre campus, with $13 million for the first phase from an anonymous donor.

Bicycle trails, walkways, new art and a connection to the Capital Area Greenway are some of the new features being added to the re-imagined space, which NCMA Director Larry Wheeler says allows the museum “to be a catalyst of change.”

The first phase will begin in spring 2015, but the museum’s planning director Dan Gottlieb says the vision began in the late ’80s.

“The museum had commissioned an artist and design team to imagine what the museum could be beyond its walls and they came up with ‘Imperfect Utopia,'” he says. “It didn’t go very far. When I started here in 1990, I took an immediate interest in the idea.”

Since then, the prison, which sat on Blue Ridge Road, has come down, but Gottlieb says he intentionally had the smokestack left intact.

“It can become this kind of beacon for the museum, for Raleigh, and for the emerging Blue Ridge Corridor,” says Gottlieb. “With this momentum moving forward with this big landscape plan, we have engaged Jim Hodges to work with us to re-imagine the smokestack as exactly that. There’s a concept being developed for that. I can’t give an exact date for when it will be revealed, but it should be within a few months.”

Jim Hodges is an artist, and he’s been commissioned for the work. Urban planning and design firm Civitas, Inc. of Denver, Colorado, is also on the team to develop the plan to “recreate the museum’s identity along the street front, to connect what people perceive as the building to beautiful landscape and a great walkway,” says Gottlieb.

Dawn Wallace  Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal

 

The Importance of Using a Professional When Selling Your Home

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When a homeowner decides to sell their house, they obviously want the best possible price with the least amount of hassles. However, for the vast majority of sellers, the most important result is to actually get the home sold.

In order to accomplish all three goals, a seller should realize the importance of using a real estate professional. We realize that technology has changed the purchaser’s behavior during the home buying process. For the past two years, 92% of all buyers have used the internet in their home search according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2014 Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers.

However, the report also revealed that for the second year in a row 96% percent of buyers that used the internet when searching for a home purchased their home through either a real estate agent/broker or from a builder or builder’s agent. Only 2% purchased their home directly from a seller whom the buyer didn’t know.

Buyers search for a home online but then depend on an agent to find the actual home they will buy (53%) or negotiate the terms of the sale & price (31%) or understand the process (63%).

Stephen Phillips, the Chief Operating Officer for HSF Affiliates LLC, put it best:

“Home buyers are more informed than ever with their Internet searches and ongoing research; however, there’s a critical need to transform that information into analysis and advice that helps consumers make the best home-buying and selling decisions.”

The plethora of information now available has resulted in an increase in the percentage of buyers that reach out to real estate professionals to “connect the dots”. This is obvious as the percentage of overall buyers who used an agent to buy their home has steadily increased from 69% in 2001. 

Bottom Line

If you are thinking of selling your home, don’t underestimate the role a real estate professional can play in the process.

4 Reasons to Buy Before Winter

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It’s that time of year, the seasons are changing and with them bring thoughts of the upcoming holidays, family get togethers, and planning for a new year. Those who are on the fence about whether now is the right time to buy don’t have to look much farther to find four great reasons to consider buying a home now, instead of waiting.

1. Prices Will Continue to Rise

The Home Price Expectation Survey polls a distinguished panel of over 100 economists, investment strategists, and housing market analysts. Their most recent report released recently projects appreciation in home values over the next five years to be between 11.2% (most pessimistic) and 27.8% (most optimistic).

The bottom in home prices has come and gone. Home values will continue to appreciate for years. Waiting no longer makes sense.

2. Mortgage Interest Rates Are Projected to Increase

Although Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey shows that interest rates for a 30-year mortgage have softened recently, most experts predict that they will begin to rise later this year. The Mortgage Bankers Association, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the National Association of Realtors are in unison projecting that rates will be up almost a full percentage point by the end of next year.

An increase in rates will impact YOUR monthly mortgage payment. Your housing expense will be more a year from now if a mortgage is necessary to purchase your next home. 

3. Either Way You are Paying a Mortgage

As a recent paper from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University explains: “Households must consume housing whether they own or rent. Not even accounting for more favorable tax treatment of owning, homeowners pay debt service to pay down their own principal while households that rent pay down the principal of a landlord plus a rate of return. That’s yet another reason owning often does—as Americans intuit—end up making more financial sense than renting.”

4. It’s Time to Move On with Your Life

The ‘cost’ of a home is determined by two major components: the price of the home and the current mortgage rate. It appears that both are on the rise. But, what if they weren’t? Would you wait? Look at the actual reason you are buying and decide whether it is worth waiting. Whether you want to have a great place for your children to grow up, you want your family to be safer or you just want to have control over renovations, maybe it is time to buy.

Bottom Line

If the right thing for you and your family is to purchase a home this year, buying sooner rather than later could lead to substantial savings.