Connestee Falls News – Issue 2

The Role the Internet Plays

in Buying/Selling Real Estate

2008 National Association of Realtors®

Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

Shows What Buyers Do

* 35 percent drove by the home
* 29 percent walked through the home
* 12 percent found a REALTOR®
* 11 percent requested more information
* 4 percent got pre-qualified for a mortgage
* 3 percent applied for a mortgage 2 percent found a mortgage lender

An overwhelming majority (87%) of recent home buyers in the US say they used the internet as an information resource during their home-buying process, and nearly one-third say they first learned about their newly purchased home from an online channel, according to a study from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Local multiple-listing-service websites (such as Western North Carolina MLS) are the most popular internet information resources, consulted by 60% of buyers, followed by Realtor.com (48%), real-estate company sites (46%); real-estate agent websites (%); for-sale-by-owner sites (19%); and local newspaper sites (11%).

Should you be interested in Buying or Selling go to www.ConnesteeFallsHomes.com to learn more about the area, see our featured homes and search the Western North Carolina MLS.

Staging is not just rearranging furniture and bringing in a lot of pretty things and painting. The basics are:
Cleaning and Organizing

Smell is huge: The buyer opens the door – The smell is there -smoke, stale closed, moth balls, cooking odors, garbage.

Empty the garbage often.

If someone in your household smokes, eliminate all smoking in the house & get an ionizer to remove the smoke smell.

If your home is scheduled to be shown the following day, not a good idea to cook lamb, broccoli, garlic or fish. You won’t be able to get those smells in time before a showing.

If you can’t make cookies every day to improve the smell of the home, then get a very subtle plug-in air freshener & set to the lowest setting. No. 1 scent is cinnamon; No. 2 is vanilla. Put one upstairs and one downstairs.

Dust – clean the fans & dust the windows.

Vacuum the furniture.

Open the blinds on the windows.

Remove any pet dishes.

Temperature set at a comfortable setting.

There are basically three reasons people buy a home:

Location – we can’t do anything about location
Price – price is determined by market
Condition – one thing you have control over

If the condition is good, you can sell at the higher end of the price bracket and sell faster.

Exerts taken from REALTOR Style, Staged, and Sold by Melissa Tracey 051909 interview with Cheryl Kirby

Homes sold as of 06-30:      2009                2008                2007            2006
in Connestee Falls                  13                   19                    39                44

Residences for Sale in Connestee Falls as of 06/30/2009 – 143

Connestee Falls
Prices of Residences sold:                  (Price)            (Price)
Range                   Median              Average   Ave. Days on Mkt
2009        $205,000 – $560,000       $312,500            $338,500                     231
2008        $123,000 – $845,000       $329,000            $366,000                     185
2007        $159,000 – $872,999       $399,850            $419,457                     108
2006          $80,000 – $800,000       $321,000            $343,000                     122