Get Your Home Sold!

In today's housing market, the interest rates are rising, there are more homes going into foreclosure and being put out into the market by banks, and home sales are decreasing. These factors can make the sale of your home more difficult. Here are some tips that can help with getting your listed home SOLD! 1. PRICE ACCORDINGLY!! Get a real estate professional to do a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) on your home. A knowledgeable agent should be able to give you an overview of what similar homes in your area have recently been sold for. With this knowledge, you can price your home accordingly. You do not want to overprice your home with the assumption that you can always adjust the price by decreasing it later. When you initially list your home, agents who have buyers looking for a home similar to yours may bypass your listing and show other properties that fit their buyer's price range. Agents know the inventory of all homes in your area and you want them to show yours to their buyers! 2. MAKEOVER YOUR HOME!! Unless a buyer is looking for a fixer-upper or is bargain hunting for a home to completely remodel, they will want to purchase a home that they feel comfortable living in immediately. This usually means that the home they buy will be clean and in move-in condition. If your home needs a coat of fresh paint, spend a weekend or two repainting. If your home needs some light, purchase a few accent lights and open up your drapes. You can do some minor work on your home to get some major buyers interested in it. For more detailed tips, please check out our blog about "staging your home". 3. MARKETING & ADVERTISING!! Once you priced your home right and have prepped the physical aspects of your home to sell, either with some minor repairs or by staging your house, you are now ready to let the world know about it! As agents with Century 21 Beachside, your listing will be advertised in the Los Angeles Times, on Realtor.com, on Century 21.com, and our our personal website: www.minhandchristie.com. Additionally, your listing will be advertised on our caravan meeting as soon as you are ready to show it. Caravan is a weekly meet of over 100 Realtors who get together and learn about new listings. So, when you are ready to sell your home, please contact us.

Tips For Homebuyers

After writing the blog about how to "stage" your home to assist in the selling process, I decided to write a blog for homebuyers. I was going to give financing tips, the loan amount, the down payment, your mortgage, etc.. But then I realized that all this information can be found on my website, or rather OUR website! =) So please visit www.minhandchristie.com for financial tools, mortgage calculators, loan amounts, real estate news, property searches using our Multiple Listing Service (MLS), and other information that will help you in your research to finding your perfect home. Have fun!

Staging Your Home To Sell

What is staging? "Staging" is a term in the real estate industry which basically means that you "prep" your house to sell. Similarly to studying in order to prep yourself before taking a test to get the best results, you may find that "staging" will also give you the results you are looking for when you sell your home. In the real estate market today, buyers are fortunate enough to have a large selection of homes to choose from. When you have a buyer interested in your home, you want them to also be able to envision themselves and their family living there. As a seller, you want to be able to see your home through a buyer's eyes, as if you are seeing your home for the very first time. Below are some staging tips from Barb Schwarz, an accredited staging professional. INSIDE: 1. Clear all unnecessary objects from furniture throughout the house. Keep decorative objects on the furniture restricted to groups of 1, 3, or 5 items. 2. Clear all unnecessary objects from the kitchen countertops. If it hasn't been used for three months... put it away! Clear refrigerator fronts of messages, pictures, etc. (A sparse kitchen helps the buyer mentally move their own things into your kitchen.) 3. In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from countertops, tubs, shower stalls and commode tops. Keep only your most needed cosmetics, brushes, perfumes etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels to one or two colors only. 4. Rearrange or remove some of the furniture if necessary. As owners, many times we have too much furniture in a room. This is wonderful for our own personal enjoyment, but when it comes to selling we need to thin out as much as possible to make rooms appear larger. 5. Take down or rearrange certain pictures or objects on walls. Patch and paint if necessary. 6. Review the inside of the house room by room, and:

Paint any room needing paint.

Clean carpets or drapes that need it.

Clean windows. 7. If you need room to store extra possessions use the garage or rent a storage unit. 8. Leave on certain lights during the day. During "showings" turn on all lights and lamps. 9. Have stereo FM on during the day for all viewings. OUTSIDE: 1. Go around the perimeter of the house and move all garbage cans, discarded wood scraps, extra building materials, etc., into the garage. 2. Check gutters for roof moss and dry rot. Make sure they are swept and cleaned. 3. Look at all plants... prune bushes and trees. Keep plants from blocking windows. "YOU CAN'T SELL A HOUSE IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT." Plants are like children -- they grow so fast!! 4. Weed and then mulch all planting areas. Keep lawn freshly cut and fertilized. Remove and dead plants or shrubs. 5. Clear patios or decks of all small items. such as small planters, flower pots, charcoal, barbecues, toys. etc. (Put them in the garage or a storage unit.) 6. Check paint condition of the house -- especially the front door and trim. "CURB APPEAL REALLY WORKS!"

Our Service Pledge To Sellers

We are real estate professionals who are dedicated to making the process of selling your home as easy as possible. Below you will find the pledge points we offer in support of helping you. 1. Dedicate ourselves to making the process of selling your home as easy and as successful as possible. 2. Respect you and your needs; being honest and forthright. 3. Hold your best interests in the highest regard throughout the process. 4. Value and respect your time, being as efficient and effective as possible. 5. Understand your needs and respond quickly. 6. Use our base of experience, knowledge, tools and the most up-to-date training to best serve you. 7. Provide regular progress reports throughout the process and discuss with you comments received about your property. 8. Explain each step of the process and act as a guide to help you make the most informed decisions. 9. Make recommendations to enhance the marketability of your property. 10. Use a written Competitive Market Analysis and local market information to help you set the right listing price to sell your home and get the value you deserve. 11. Review various financing alternatives and assist you in determining those, which best enhance the sale ability of your home. 12. Develop, present and agree upon a Customized Marketing Plan that will detail specific promotional efforts to help best market your property. 13. Place the internationally recognized CENTURY 21 yard sign on your property with your permission and subject to local ordinances. 14. Provide worldwide exposure for your property on the Internet, including posting your property on Century21.com, a site which receives millions of visitors each month (2002 Web Trends Site Metrics Report) as well as on our personal website. 15. Explain local real estate procedures and regulations. 16. Show your property to pre-qualified buyers. 17. Utilize the CENTURY 21 System of thousands of offices to expose your property to potential buyers referred to our office. 18. Utilize the vast and powerful resources of the CENTURY 21 System to get you the results you deserve, including leveraging a Network of 8,000 offices and 147,000 agents worldwide. 19. Submit to you all written offers, assist with negotiations, and provide an estimate of your net sales proceeds, so you understand all implications prior to any acceptance. 20. Upon acceptance of an offer to you, pre-settlement (escrow) activities throughout the closing process will be monitored as permitted by law or local practice. 21. Assist you in finding your next home, or offer to refer you to another office where you will be relocating.

Our Service Pledge To Buyers

As homeowners, we understand the anxiety, stress, worry, restless nights, doubt, second-guessing, and fear that may overcome a person during a home purchase transaction. Therefore, as real estate professionals, it is our job to put your mind at ease and help you make this process an easy transition. As our pledge to you, our buyers, we promise to service you, at the least, by providing the following key points: 1. Dedicate ourselves to making the process of buying your next home as easy and as successful as possible. 2. Respect you and your needs; being honest and forthright. 3. Hold your best interests in the highest regard throughout the process. 4. Value and respect your time, being as efficient and effective as possible. 5. Understand your needs and respond quickly. 6. Consult with you to determine your particular real estate wants and needs. 7. Use our base of experience, knowledge, tools and the most up-to-date training to best serve you. 8. Explain each step of the process and act as a guide to help you make most informed decisions. 9. Disclose material facts known about the property and respond to questions concerning the property. 10. Help determine your purchasing power, while explaining alternative methods of purchasing and/or financing. 11. Provide an action plan for locating the right property, at the right price and terms, in an acceptable time frame. 12. To the best of our ability, continuously show you new properties that fit your needs. 13. Provide a Customized Home Search Plan for locating the right property for you, only showing you properties that will best meet your needs and in accordance with Fair Housing regulations and ethical real estate practices. 14. Use the most comprehensive database of listings in the area, to help you find the home that best meets your needs, whether that be the Multiple Listing Service and/or other methods. 15. Provide the resources of Century21.com that offers thousands of listings, allow you to easily review homes that are right for you, access in-depth information on neighborhoods, and additional information. 16. Use our knowledge and expertise to promote the most valuable purchase on your behalf. We will assist you in evaluating the market value of properties that are of interest to you and help you obtain the most advantageous price and terms. 17. Provide access to financing that meets your needs, at the lowest possible rates available to you. 18. Advise and assist you in completing your purchase agreement, and present your offer with integrity in a light most favorable to your needs. 19. Upon acceptance of an offer by you, pre-settlement (escrow) activities throughout the closing process will be monitored as permitted by law or local practice. 20. Offer to provide you with information regarding other professionals (e.g. attorneys, accountants, inspectors, contractors) that may assist you during and after your move. 21. Utilize the CENTURY 21 System of thousands of offices to provide you with the name of an office in the area of your new home, to assist you further.

Launching : www.minhandchristie.com

Hey all!!! After many, Many, MANY weeks of hard work and anticipation, we are finally coming to the conclusion of building our website. Yay!! We are incredibly excited to be able to launch our website and offer our clients valuable information regarding real estate online. For people who have any real estate related questions, but aren't ready to speak to an agent yet, please feel free to browse our website at www.minhandchristie.com. It will be like stepping into our virtual office. And when you are ready to meet with us, just give us a call or an email. We really hope you enjoy visiting the site because we are so excited to see it up and running online! We worked really hard to get every aspect of that site just right. Enjoy!! Oh, by the way, if you would like to know more about us, please visit our myspace page at: www.myspace.com/minhandchristie.