Real Estate Buying and Selling Advice.

Selling your home can be a harrowing experience if you don’t know what to expect. Cotty offers the most important pointers to anyone thinking of putting a sign up. On the flip side, Cotty has a lot to say about the “Who” and “What” of buying a home from an experienced Realtor’s perspective. A great way to start out with the right frame of mind.

Advice for Buyers

The Search

  1. Work with an agent who is knowledgeable about the area where you would like to live. He may know of unlisted properties that other agents won’t.
  2. We will counsel you on how much to offer when you have found a property you want to buy.
  3. Don’t buy a condo as an investment, only as a life style!

The Offer

  1. Be careful of making a low-ball offer.
  2. Your agent can provide you with market analyses and price/sq ft studies to help establish value on the properties you have interest in so you can shop and compare.
  3. Ask your agent for a referral for a reputable mortgage loan officer to get qualified for purchasing a home.

Advice for Sellers

Home Preparation

  1. Consult with a professional Realtor before making any cosmetic improvements; we can advise you how to make the most cost effective improvements with the highest chance for return possible.
  2. Improvements can yield rewards. Experience has shown that that the return can be up to 3X the amount spent. In other words, $10,000 spent on the right fixes or upgrades up can mean an additional $20-30,000 in sale price. Market conditions influence this fact, but even in a soft market the right improvements can keep the asking price solid and sell a home faster.
  3. During listing, try not to think of your home as YOUR home. Someone else will be living there shortly, so embrace the idea of making it appealing to the buying public. De-clutter spaces, neutralize colorful areas, remove family photographs, rearrange furniture & stage the home.

Agents and Pricing

  1. It is imperative that your home is priced competitively on the first day it hits the market, when the demand is at its peak. Chasing your price down over time only creates less of a demand for your home, and every day your home is on the market, your price goes down.
  2. Work with a knowledgeable agent in your marketplace. An agent who knows the neighborhood may know of properties that have sold that were never even on the market.
  3. Be prepared to accommodate showings at any time with any amount of notice.

Heard enough?