How Can Your Home Sale Move Quicker?

There are a variety of opportunities in the Austin Real Estate Market for both buyers and sellers. If you're a prospective buyer click here for a full home search, or if you're considering placing your home on the market, get a free home value report, right here.

Today we are going to talk about selling your home. More specifically, we are going to be discussing 3 great ways you can decrease the amount of time your home is on the market, while increasing the sale price.

It's easy for our personalities to get in the way when you are trying to sell a home. Having your own unique style can make getting your home ready for sale a bit of an undertaking. Today, we're going to share 3 great tips on how to get your home sold, so it doesn't have to sit on the market.

Depersonalizing your home
 First off, if you have any family photos, heirlooms, or other items, remove those and pack them into a box. If you are really committed to selling, you are going to have to pack anyways, so you might as well get a head start. If you have any walls painted with unique art pieces or loud, bright colors, we want to try and neutralize that. Painting over them with a lighter, more neutral color will appeal to the widest number of buyers. You want to try to help the buyers imagine themselves in your home.

Closets
One important part of your home to prepare for sale is your closets. We recommend you minimize your closet space by about 50-60% to make it seem larger, which is what buyers want. Put your clothes away in boxes or a storage locker while your home is on the market. Think of your home as a product that you need to sell now.

Home Staging
 If you go into any of the new construction communities in Austin, you can see that home builders spend a fortune getting these homes staged with all the best furniture and decorations. We don't expect our clients to go into garden ridge and copy their homes, but it will give you an idea of what a professionally staged home looks like. In addition to this, we provide a professional stager to do a staging consultation with you so you can make sure your home will show in its best condition.

If you have any questions, be sure to give us a call. We can't wait to hear from you!

The Pros and Cons of a Short Sale

There are a variety of opportunities in the Austin Real Estate Market for both buyers and sellers. If you're a prospective buyer click here for a full home search, or if you're considering placing your home on the market, get a free home value report, right here.

A short sale is a complicated process. It's not always the ideal outcome for homeowners, but sometimes it's the best option you have. There are 2 sides to every decision, however, so we will be examining the pros and cons of short sales and why, sometimes it may be your best option, but in other cases, it isn't. 

The first thing we need to talk about is: What is a short sale? Well, let's put it this way. Say you bought a house for $150,000 and took a loan out for that house for $125,000. Now, let's fast forward a few years. You need to sell the house, but now it is only worth $100,000. What happens to that extra $25,000 you have from the loan?

 Well, in  a short sale, you get the bank to sell your property and release your liability for the loan. They sell it for less than the home  balance. Now with this type of sale, there are positives and negatives. First, lets look at the pros. 

Pros

• The financial implications of a short sale is a significantly better alternative than going through the foreclosure process. If you foreclosed, you could have to wait 7 years to buy another home. With a short sale, you are put on credit probation for 2 years and through certain loan programs, can qualify immediately for another home loan. 
• It also gives you a little more time to stay in your home and more time to sell it. 

Cons

• Your credit score will drop, by at least 100 points.
• If the bank takes a loss on your short sale, they could potentially file a judgement against you and require you to pay it in the future. 

If you are thinking about going through with a short sale, consult with a real estate attorney first. We know some great ones we can refer you to. After that, it's important to sit down with a real estate expert to figure out what your goals are and how you can accomplish them. 

This city council candidate has some big plans for our city!

There are a variety of opportunities in the Austin Real Estate Market for both buyers and sellers. If you're a prospective buyer click here for a full home search, or if you're considering placing your home on the market, get a free home value report, right here.

The Watters International Realty office is located in the heart of Austin at Mowpack and 2222, in District 10. If you're thinking of buying or selling a home in Austin, it's really important to understand the hot button topics and know about the leaders in the community who are making decisions. Since we feel it's our duty to keep you informed, we've interviewed Robert Thomas, who's running for city council of District 10. We were lucky enough to hear him talk about his plans to improve our city:

Q: What sparked your interest in city council?

Robert: I've been active in the community for over 20 years. I moved here to go to law school and later got my MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. I got super engaged in the entrepreneurial community, spent some time at a high-tech start up, started investing in local businesses, creating my own businesses, as well as buying and selling businesses. Through all of this experience, I started to gain an appreciation for the impact of regulation on business people who are trying to build good jobs for folks. I also started serving on the Austin Child Guidance Center Board and Safe Place Board to try to give back to the community in a meaningful way. As my children got older, I got involved in the school district and people have encouraged me to continue contributing.

Q: What's your action plan for the city? What should we do about the traffic problems?

Robert: People were saying the same thing 10, 15, 20 years ago. There are no new ideas, there has just been a failure of leadership to implement them. We have to have a multimodal, strategic transportation plan that includes all of Austin, but also all of the surrounding region because there are many commuters from around the area. We need to have a strategic plan that talks about how we're going to develop our roadways, and prioritize those where the greatest need is and then expand out. I'm also looking at bringing real affordable public transportation to all of Austin, not just parts of it. If Proposition 1 doesn't pass, we need to sit down with the community and come up with a real plan.

Q: A big problem we're dealing with here in Austin is affordability. Property tax rates are through the roof, forcing many people to move outside of Austin. What do you suggest we do to keep Austin affordable for the people who live here?

Robert: The problem is not property evaluation. The real problem is the tax rate that's set. It matters how much local governments want to raise taxes to fund inefficient government, to fund wants and luxuries as opposed to core municipal services. I propose we do a top to bottom audit of all city departments and the city budget - both a performance review of the departments and an audit of the finances - to find out whether we need to tax the people of Austin at such a high rate, which is really what creates an affordability issue.

Well, there you have it - Robert Thomas on what he plans to do if he is elected to the District 10 City Council. It's important to stay informed so you can vote for the leaders who will make our city a better place. We want to give a big THANKS to Mr. Thomas for granting us this interview and helping us keep our great readers in the loop on an important topic.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. If you have any questions about Austin real estate, or are interested in buying or selling in the area, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you!