The Motley Fool recently featured a range of mortgage tips to help educate first-time buyers, including:Know their credit score. The credit score can be a big key to knowing how much buyers can afford and how much interest they’ll be paying. Home shoppers should be encouraged to check their credit report and FICO score before even starting the homebuying process.Estimate how much can be borrowed. Lenders generally don’t like to see a mont
1. Window shoppers: Some clients will take you on a wild hunt for the perfect home, but they aren’t committed to purchasing and say they hope to buy “someday.” “Some home buyers want to see every single house that’s on the market,” even if the home doesn’t match their criteria, says Rae Wayne, a sales associate with the Bizzy Blondes team in Los Angeles. You may want to encourage these types of buyers to attend open houses so they
akurtz/Getty ImagesBuying a home—especially if it’s your first—can be a lot like losing weight in the sense that people end up doing, well, some pretty dumb stuff in the process. But while desperate dieters might waste money on “magical” weight-loss pills or silly exercise equipment (remember the shake weight?), misguided home buyers could be doing far more serious damage—like undermining their ability to purchase a house at all
EpicStockMedia/iStockBalancing trendy touches with classic appeal can be tricky in your home and even trickier in your outdoor spaces. After all, you can always repaint a wall, but no one wants to tear up their entire hedge every year.Luckily for you, we consulted with experts on the top landscaping trends that homeowners are loving right now—and that won't go out of style any time soon. So take a good look at your landscaping and decide whet
Lure potential buyers with a simple and clean palette. Shades of white and off-white are the top colors for a quick home sale, Jody Finglas of Finglas Painting in Ossining, N.Y., told USA Today.“White is the foundation that anchors the home,” adds Friley Saucier, a broker-associate with Sotheby's International Realty in Naples, Fla. “This is absolutely what is most requested when I’m working with home buyers.”Finglas says less is m
Remember, social media success means being socialKey Takeaways Take advantage of all the platform's updates, make sure to use different content types, and keep it social.Instagram has been dominating 2017.The platform updates regularly, it recently hit over 700 million monthly users,and over 250 million users are using the stories feature daily.Real estate agents can use Instagram to build their brand and their business.Engagement on the plat
Not every improvement made to a house will ultimately raise its value. Homeowners who are looking for projects that will pay back at resale would be smart to consult a local real estate professional to determine whether the project they have planned would help boost their home’s value. Home office remodels.More people work from home nowadays, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily want a dedicated office. As such, investing more than $2
Real estate professionals see a lot of dumb reasons why home buyers ultimately end up losing out on a deal. Practitioners recently shared some of the more common mistakes with realtor.com®, including ways to correct the situation:1. Shopping outside their price range.“It sounds obvious, but some home buyers just have trouble sticking to a budget,” says Benny Kang, a real estate professional in Irvine, Calif. Shopping online may increase the
The majority of buyer's agents say a staged listing helps their clients visualize life in the homeKey Takeaways Staging a home "greatly reduces" the amount of time a home stays on a market, according to seller's agents. Buyer's agents concur that home staging has an effect on their clients' decision and how much they're willing to spend.Inventory is low, which means most listings are selling faster than ever. But there are still some outliers
Preparation and rehearsal are the keys to success and confidenceKey Takeaways Agents should feel comfortable approaching their brokers for listing presentation advice and criticism, and brokers should make sure their feedback is constructive and practical.Agent perspective Summer is baseball season, and it is definitely fair to say that I am stuck in a slump. I have done hundreds of listing presentations over my career, but my last few have bee
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