For Sellers

Selling your home has always been challenging, and the past few years have made it even harder.  To help earn the best possible price for your home in the timeframe that works with your needs, you need to choose a real estate professional with the local knowledge to price your home, the marketing tools to bring buyers to your door, and the business experience to negotiate the possible best deal.  You need an Executive.

Executives Versus Agents

A real estate Executive is more than an agent.  An Executive is a trusted source of local information, familiar with every block of every neighborhood, able to promote what’s special and unique about your property, and savvy enough to answer hard questions from sellers.  An Executive understands local market conditions to set a price that will be attractive to buyers, but still get you what you need format he sale.  Above all, an Executive is a professional, with years of experience negotiating deals and managing legal and regulatory red tape.  When you’re dealing with an Executive, you can relax and focus on the next stage in your real estate journey, knowing you’re in good hands.

Setting the Stage

An Executive will work with you to balance your financial desires and time constraints with the current market situation in your neighborhood and region.  Your Executive can also advise you about the viability of home repairs and additions, home staging, and other pre-sale improvements that could help you sell your property–or end up losing you money.

Marketing Your Home

Once you’ve settled on a price and prepped your home for showing, your Executive will market your home in a number of ways, including yard signs, print ads, Web marketing, and email campaigns.  When you work with an Executive, you can expect highly-targeted exposure that bears results.  Executives are expert networkers with years of experience finding buyers–not just browsers.

Sealing the Deal

By the time you receive an offer, you and your Executive will have established a negotiation strategy and financial baselines.  When negotiations begin, Executives can use their knowledge of the process to field counter-offers and work within your guidelines to ensure that you accept only the best possible deal.  Part of that deal includes limiting your legal liability, to avoid unexpected post-sale costs related to unknown issues with your home.  Your Executive will escort you through the entire buying process, until the final paper is signed, escrow is closed, and the check has cleared in your bank.

I’ve included some relevant blog posts and links for your review.  If you would like more information on how an Executive can help you sell your home, please contact me.

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Get A Tax Break For Home Improvement

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Julie Scarborough

Real Estate Tax Talk

By Stephen Fishman
Inman News™
August 16, 2011

In today’s  down market, many homeowners are reluctant to pour more money into their homes.  Before deciding whether to replace a roof or merely patch it, homeowner’s  should consider the tax implications.

Home  improvements — a new bathroom or kitchen, for example — can increase the  value of a home and reduce any taxes due on the profit earned from its sale.

Home  repairs provide no immediate tax benefits to a homeowner. They are not tax  deductible and they are not added to the home’s basis (cost), for tax purposes.  As far as taxes go, they are a nonevent. Thus, a homeowner who patches a leaky  roof gets not tax benefits.

Home  improvements are very different, though. The cost of an improvement is not  deductible, but it is added to the home’s basis for tax purposes. For example,  the cost of adding a new roof to a home is added to its tax basis. This reduces any taxable gain when the home is sold.

Of course,  a substantial amount of gain is usually tax free, anyway, under the home sale  tax exclusion: $250,000 for single homeowners and $500,000 for married owners  filing jointly. But homeowners with substantial equity can still benefit from  an increased tax basis in their homes.

For  example, if Joe and Jane purchased their home in 1990 for $250,000 and it is  now worthy $1 million, they will have a $750,000 gain. A full $500,000 of this  amount is tax-free because Joe and Jane are a married couple and qualify for  the tax exclusion.

But this  leaves $250,000 subject to taxation. If Joe and Jan had spent $250,000 adding  improvements to their home, they would have no taxable gain. This is because  the $250,000 is added to the home’s original $250,000 basis, providing an adjusted  tax basis of $500,000.

As a  result, their gain on the sale would only be $500,000, not $750,000; and this  entire gain would be tax-free because of the $500,000 exclusion.

So how do  you tell the difference between an improvement and a repair? Here’s the basic  rule provided by the Internal Revenue Service: A repair keeps a homeowner’s  property in good operating condition but it does not:

-Materially  add to the value of the property
-Substantially  prolong its useful life, or
-Make it  more useful (see: Treasury  Regulations, Subchapter A, Section 1.162-4).

In  contrast, an improvement adds to the value of a homeowner’s property, prolongs  its life, or adapts it to new uses.

The problem  with this definition is that virtually all repairs increase both the value and  useful life of the property being repaired. The key difference between a repair  and an improvement is that a repair  merely returns property to more-or-less the state it was in before it stopped  working properly. The property is not substantially more valuable,  long-lived, or useful than it was before the need for the repair arose.

In  contrast, an improvement makes property substantially more valuable and/or long-lived or useful than it was before the improvement.

You need to  compare the situation before and after you made the expenditure involved. Have  you just returned your property to the state it was in before the need for the  repair arose? Or, have you made it much better?

If the  answer to the first question is “yes,” you’ve repaired the home. If  the answer to the second question is “yes,” it’s a home improvement.

Good  examples of repairs include repainting a home, fixing gutters or floors, fixing  leaks, plastering, and replacing broken windows. Examples of improvements  include adding a deck to a home, a new bathroom, installing a new heating  system, or putting on a new roof.

 

Stephen Fishman is a tax expert, attorney and author who has published 18 books, including “Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Contractors,  Freelancers and Consultants,” “Deduct  It,” “Working as an Independent Contractor,” and  “Working with Independent Contractors.” He  welcomes your questions for this weekly column.

Contact Stephen Fishman:
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Posted in For Buyers, For Sellers, Home Finance, Home Improvement, Lifestyle and Community, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Three Ways to Increase the Value of Your Home

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Julie Scarborough

Buyers only get one first look at a property, and they don’t want to use their imagination.  They assume the house they see is as good as it’s going to get.  If you want your home to sell, step out of your comfort zone and think like a buyer.  Here are three ways to help you turn your house into the home of someone else’s dreams.  We’ve broken down each category into low-cost, “Basic” tips and tricks, and an “All-Out” blow-the-budget transformation.  How far you take it is up to you.

Clean

No one likes a ditty house, and your what “lived in” is to you might be someone else’s “messy.”  When in doubt, clean.  It’s the least expensive way to improve your home’s initial appeal, and it’s a good way to get a jump-start on your move.

Basic: The first thing you need to do is de-clutter.  If your moving company offers storage, this is the time to use it.  Extra furniture, oddball art, pots and pans that don’t fit in the kitchen—it all needs to go.  Don’t go overboard—your house should still look like a home. It just needs to be airy enough for a buyer to put his or her mental imprint on it.  Your hackey sack collection from college won’t help.  Next up is a good, solid scrubbing.  Spend a weekend washing the floors, baseboards, and bathrooms.  Be sure to get the tops of cabinets and corners behind furniture.  Clean every piece of glass in the building.  Too many people ruin a pristine home with spotty mirrors and doors.  Don’t forget the outside of the house.  Hose down your exterior walls and driveway, trim the lawn and hedges, and remove any trash cans and clutter from sight.  If your neighbors are less-than-tidy, you might want to offer them some free help, as well.  And while you’re cleaning the garage, wash your cars, too.  They make an impression.

All-Out: If you have money to spend, install space-saving storage solutions in the garage, kitchen, and bathroom to reduce clutter.  Consider paying a service to do the deep cleaning you’re bound to miss.  Rent a pressure washer for the driveway or (if it’s a real mess and you’re feeling generous), repave.

Fix

Part of the joy of buying a new home is starting with a clean slate.  No one wants to buy an existing to-do list of nagging little fix-its.  Making small fixes now can put the buyer’s mind at ease.

Basic: Focus on inexpensive, highly-visible problems.  Doorbells, window glass, cabinet handles, and holes in walls are all easy to spot and cheap to fix.

All-Out: Take aim at long-term maintenance projects, such as pool pumps, water heaters, and air conditioning servicing.  Buyers probably won’t notice these on their own, but your agent can call attention to these facts to help reduce worries about long-term costs.

Brighten

Buyers like to see what they’re viewing.  Good lighting, vivid color, and a few visual cues can go a long way toward making your home a memorable one.

Basic: Repaint interior walls, particularly those in the bathroom, kitchen, and extremely bright areas.  White walls are particularly important, as they get dingy quickly.  Replace traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, which put brighter lights in your existing sockets while saving money.  Tie back curtains to let in the maximum amount of sun, which makes a house look more inviting than artificial light.  Spruce up empty or colorless zones with potted plants.  They add character to a room, but are obviously disposable if a buyer dislikes them.  Repaint your front door, mailbox, and any street numbers.

All-Out: Repainting the entire interior if it’s been more than a few years since the last paint job.  Install additional lighting in cabinets and closets.  Add new cabinet doors and counter tops.

What Not to Do

While you can certainly overspend on any of the above suggestions, their value is well-established.  Making a home cleaner, better-functioning, and more attractive is a no-brainer.  However, some improvements can go too far, and actually hurt your investment.  As a general rule, don’t build for the sake of building.  Bigger isn’t always better, and if you take a project too far, you risk going in a direction the buyer will have to undo.  For example, adding an extra bedroom might seem like a great investment, but a retired couple may prefer to use that space to install a pool in the back yard.  Upgrade the home you have, but don’t try to make it something else.

By Cormac Foster

Posted in For Sellers, Home Improvement | Leave a comment

Three Ways to Increase the Value of Your Home

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Realty Executives

Buyers only get one first look at a property, and they don’t want to use their imagination. They assume the house they see is as good as it’s going to get. If you want your home to sell, step out of your comfort zone and think like a buyer. Here are three ways to help you turn your house into the home of someone else’s dreams. We’ve broken down each category into low-cost, “Basic” tips and tricks, and an “All-Out” blow-the-budget transformation. How far you take it is up to you.
Continue reading – Three Ways to Increase the Value of Your Home

Posted in For Sellers | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Find the Best REALTOR® to Sell Your House

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Realty Executives

By: G. M. Filisko
Published 2010-03-11 16:55:53

Ask detailed questions about their experience and skills to help you find the right agent for your home sale.

Working with the right real estate agent can mean the difference between getting prompt, expert representation and feeling like you’re going it alone when selling your home. Here are 10 questions to ask when you’re interviewing agents.
Continue reading – Find the Best REALTOR® to Sell Your House

Posted in For Sellers | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
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