4 Reasons Your House Won’t Sell…Now What?

There is no shortage of good real estate agents, there is only a shortage of effort.  In the Branson, Missouri and Tri-Lakes area, if you need a Realtor, you can pick up the phone and call one of about 300 of them. Do they return your call on the same day? Do they work with you to develop a sales strategy? Are they doing their best to get bodies in your home? Are you doing your part to help sell your home? You may have interviewed two or three of them before making your final decision and you felt good about your choice…so why is your home not selling? 

Here are a few reasons:

1. There is no communication between you and your agent.  Of those 300 realtors in the area only about 20% of them are doing it full time.  Unless your agent is new or starving, you mostly likely won’t get the enthusiasm you need out of that lower 80% you need to cut through the white noise and get people in your home.  Plus the top 20% have Mega Teams and you won’t even get a chance to work with your agent.  You’ll be dealing with assistants most of the time. We pick up about 30% of our listings that are expired because another agent let the client slip through the crack.  Ask your agent if you call them personally if they will pick up their phone and ask them if they will return your call the same day. 
2. You home is WAY overpriced.  We’re nice folk here in the Midwest and no one wants to hear that their kids are ugly…so most Realtors won’t tell you that your HUGE 4000 sq ft home with laminate floors and hollow core doors and dog poop in the walkway, just isn’t competing well with the other Half a Million Dollar homes on the market.  The Realtors that are honest and find a way to tell you are the ones that do usually don’t get your business…because the other guys said I get more money? Right? Well…show me the money!  How much is it costing you to hold on to your home? How is it serving you to keep your home on the market with no foot traffic?  We develop a sales strategy to sell your home and it usually starts facts rather than opinion.  
3. Your home has no curb appeal.  I’ve been in the situation before where the outside of a home just does not do justice to the home.  For heavens sake…plant some flowers!  Landscaping is one of the few improvements you can make in most markets and still get your money back out of the upgrade.  Is your realtor poor? Are they advertising your home? If so? Where? What is the story or strategy that you and your agent have come up with to get noticed and to get some bodies into your home? Right now there are 464 single family homes that have sold in the past 6 months in the Branson, Missouri Real Estate Market.  Out of the 1,392 available on the MLS, that makes an 18 month supply of homes.  Another way to say this is that you have a 41% chance of selling your home.  You have to have activity before you have offers and you have to have offers before you have a contract. 
4. I see London, I see France…  You need the best agent you can get…and it’s not just up to your agent. It is up to you, to do your part because you are an integral part of your home selling team.  Selling your home is not the same as living in your home.  It doesn’t mean you are not without privacy, rights and comfort, but it does involve you making your bed and putting your dishes away.  In addition to normal upkeep, do not expect to take your poorly maintained home, price it low and hope to sell it.  Most of my clients who have picked up a paintbrush and gotten a storage unit and put a little sweat into their home before they put it on the market achieved higher than average sales prices and have sold their home in less time than the market average.   Don’t keep your home sale a secret.  Carry extra cards for your Realtor and give them to everyone and tell them your home is for sale.  When they ask how much? Tell them to call your agent, that’s what you hired them to do. You never know who may be interested so shout it to the world, your agent should be doing the same thing and together you’ll get it done.

Visit us at our website for more strategy and tips, or search the entire Branson Real Estate MLS for free at http://www.bransonhomefinder.com/

Author = Worley & Associates

Not Everyone Will Do It. Will You?

Gary Keller wrote in his book “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” this quote:

“The Millionaire Real Estate Investor is dedicated to the men and women who have a passion for their work and yet dream of someday achieving financial independence, of someday being able to finance their mission in life without having to work. This book is dedicated to all those who want the biggest life possible, who are actively seeking ways to finance that vision, who want to go as far as possible with as few roadblocks as possible, and who want to say that at the end of the day, “I’m glad I did” instead of “I wish I had.”

 

What an awesome statement. It seems there is no such thing as job security anymore. Between corporate bottom lines, the fear and greed in the stock market, many investors I’ve talked to recently are looking for more solid control over their money. Real estate is one of the best ways to break free from this rat race.

I’ve been helping investors buy cash flow Branson Real Estate since 2007, and now, I’ve mustered the courage to do it myself. The best way to succeed in a new discipline is to do it with a buddy, so I’m throwing down a challenge. I’ve prepared a seminar based off the book “The Millionaire Real Estate Investor” which outlines the clues to the path of success that the 36 millionaire investors used to gather their wealth. If you are so courageous, then join me on:

Monday, May 12^th at at 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

At the Keller Williams Training room at 114 N. Commercial St, Branson MO 65616

Bring a pencil and a notepad and a friend. My goal to lead a discussion that will take us all to the next level in our investment goals.

If you are a new investor, I will help frame your mindset for the next step of the journey. We’ll send you home with the tools you need to locate and evaluate a great investment property in Branson or the Tri-Lakes Area. If you are a seasoned investor, then come let us show you a new play to run in your playbook.

Please let us know if you’d like to attend by sending an email to jerworley@hotmail.com

To begin searching the Tri-Lakes MLS for FREE, click here to go to our website

Thanks – Jeramie

Author = Worley & Associates

 

Branson Real Estate Market Update

Here is a quick market update for those of you who like to know what’s going on in the Branson Real Estate world.

I ran some numbers that compare Jan 1, 2012 through July 3, 2012 to the same time frame in the previous year and some interesting and encouraging facts came to light.

Inventory continues to be absorbed – There are 1,949 listings on the Branson real estate market now compared to 2,146 from the same time in the previous year. This is a decrease in inventory by about 9%. This means there are fewer properties to choose from if you are out there looking for one to buy.

More Homes are Selling – As of July 3rd there were 732 sold residential listings, compared to 658 from 2011. This means that there are 11% more buyers out there buying this year.

The Average Sale Price is up – Today we are looking at an average sale price of $143,926 compared to $136,883 in 2011. This is only a 5% increase but it is HUGE news as this is the first time this has happened in three years in the Branson Real Estate Market.

Seller are still getting a little more than they were last year – The current list to sell ratio is 93.91% on average compared to 92.89% this time last year. The list to sell ratio is the selling price of a home divided by it’s list price. You want to price your home right if you want to sell and if you are a buyer, you may have to put that red pen back in your pocket and stop running round slashing prices.

For those of you interested in Branson Canyon there are new homes being built that are great investments.

Hope you found my Branson Real Estate Market Update helpful, now get out there and tell someone your Realtor is an expert!

Jeramie L. Worley GRI

Broker / Associate

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing, Hollister MO 65672

Branson Real Estate Market Update

Author = Worley and Associates

Sellers seem to be getting more out of their Branson Real Estate

Here is a quick bit of Branson Real Estate stats for those curious number crunchers out there.

 The list to sell ratio is the closing price of a home divided by the asking price.  Or in other words, what percent of the list price did a seller get for their home?

 For single family homes in Branson, Missouri, for the date range 1-1-2011 to 5-21-2011, sellers were getting, on average, 91.01% of their asking price.  Today, based on the same MLS data for the same time frame in 2012 sellers are getting 93.23%.  I know that doesn’t seem like much, but hold it partner…that’s $4,218.00 on a $190,000 home.  I’d be happy to get that if I were a seller, wouldn’t you?

 

The average days on the market have also seen a brighter light at 128 days instead of the 168 for the same time frame last year.  Homes are selling a bit faster.

I hope this helps those of you in the industry to need some encouragement, or if you’re selling a home in the Branson Real Estate Market, perhaps this will put a bit of wind in your sail…and if you are buying a home in Branson, looks like you may have to fork out a bit more dough.

Posted by:

Jeramie Worley, GRI

Broker / Assoc

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing, Hollister MO 65672

Two Years of Recovery in Branson Real Estate

Aren’t you curious to find real stories of real estate rather than the sky falling media version of things that make you want to curl up in the fetal position and regret waking up in the morning?  Me too.  I came across some positive news that I thought was worth sharing.

I talked to some folks from Las Vegas over the weekend and I asked them how things were going.  They said, it was still bad in Las Vegas as home prices were still declining.  They asked how we were doing here in Branson and I gave them the typical Realtor answer that we never had the super high increase that Las Vegas had so we didn’t have as dramatic of a low but we did have some drama.

I like to work with facts rather than opinions so it inspired me to check the real numbers.

I keep a running tab of my own data that I process year after year to keep track of the Branson Real Estate Market and what I found was two years of recovery!

If you look at the number of transactions (closed sales) from  2005 until today you’ll see that 2005 was an amazing year for real estate in Branson with 13% to 15% appreciation in values from the previous year.  Then 2006-2008 were declining years, not only in the number of transactions, but also in the average price of a home.  The market bottomed in 2009 and has had two years of an increase in the number of transactions from the previous year in both 2010 and 2011.

The decline in the average sales price has leveled off to $141,169 from $143,169 in 2010 and $147,000 in 2009.  The foreclosure inventory is being absorbed and as it continues to do so, we should see an increase in that average home price.

But the good news is, buyers are out there and want real estate.  Interest rates are still at historic lows and so are average home prices.  People love a sale, and that’s evident an increase in the number of buyers to Branson Real Estate for the past two years.

Contributed by:

Jeramie Worley, GRI

Broker / Assoc

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing, Hollister, MO 65672

Greedy Branson Home Owners Won’t Share Real Estate

Nor should they! When you buy a condo in Branson you are forced to share walls, roofs, foundations and the cost to maintain it all.  I know developers have come along way in condo construction with steel framing and concrete walls for sound reduction, but why share a wall if you don’t have to?  Go Crazy!

Branson Canyon is a community of single family homes that are zoned as condominiums along a private nook on Table Rock Lake.  Instead of only owning everything from the drywall in (as you would in the traditional sense) you own the interior and exterior of your building and the land underneath it.  This is considered your “unit” and everything else (such as the land between the homes) is the “common element”.  It is still as ultra low maintenance as a condo but it’s yours, all of it – finders keepers.  

We use the most maintenance free products on the market, like LP Smart Panel Smart Trim Siding, composite decking materials and a good coat of Sherman Williams paint.  We’ll even maintain your yard, landscaping and sprinkler system.  It’s all part of the package.

Here is the best part…If you were shopping for a condo in Branson or a vacation condo on Table Rock Lake, a good buyer’s agent, working for you, would find out the ins and outs of the Home Owners Association. Most importantly, how much has the association set aside for repairs and deferred maintenance.  If the answer is… a big goose egg, then you, along with all of your neighbors, could get an assessment for the needed repairs.  Yep, it’s the way it works in the condo world.  The association decides who does the work, when you get assessed and for how much.  But, imagine if you lived at Branson Canyon…since you own your single family home (zoned condo) you get to decide when you want a maintenance item done, who does it, and how much you want to spend.  More control is one of those comforts we talk about when we say you get all the convenience of a condo with all the comfort and privacy of a single family home.

The fact of the day is;  people buy condos because they are maintenance free, but how do you get all of your friends and family into your 1100 sq ft condo?  You don’t, you can’t.  Branson Canyon specializes in building 4-6 bedroom homes with room to spare.  There are very few 4 bedroom condos in the Branson real estate market and if you are looking for 5-6 bedroom condos…they don’t exist…except at Branson Canyon.

It’s a new concept to wrap your head around, but you’ll get used to it.  Our goal is to give you everything you expect and more as we pave a new way for real estate ownership in the Branson real estate market and so far, the feedback has been pretty darn good.

Branson New Home Construction: No building code, No Problem?

As a Realtor who sells Branson  new home construction, I always do a double take when I see a new house going up.  Sometimes I’ll even stop and look around.  I work primarily inTaney County,MO which has no building codes

.  They do have a Certificate of Conformity Permit, which is little more than an inspection to make sure the home is habitable, but outside of that, no one is checking to see if  the builder has gone about the systems or the structure properly.

Once I showed a (supposedly) completed branson new home to some prospective clients and I’m not joking, it looked like a large monster had scared off the subcontractors.  There were tools and lunch trash laying everywhere in the yard, the front door was left wide open and there were footsteps embedded in the concrete floor of the garage.

Further inspection revealed that there had been no box or ridge venting to the roof, and the drain for the main level laundry drained right onto the floor of the basement.  It had not been connected at all to the plumbing system.  Imaging, doing a load of laundry after you move in and you are in the basement working on a nice scrapbooking project. The next thing you know,  a soapy shower is raining down on you’re your many pages of grandmas 80^th’ birthday party from last spring…ruined, and darn it, now those die cut wood trees that you put down with dazzle tac glue are warped and just won’t stick anymore.

Just yesterday I saw a small 1400 sq ft home going up in a nearby neighborhood and they had all the forms up for the concrete slab.  There was no footing.  Now, I’m not a builder or an expert by any means, but that seemed like a cut corner to me.

I took a builder, from a development I had listed, out to look at the property and said, “Is this right?”  He gave me the thumbs down  but I still wasn’t satisfied. I had to know why.  Further research revealed that a Slab on Grade foundation is ok for areas where the ground doesn’t freeze, but here inMissouri, it does and therefore a T-Shaped footing is recommended to prevent frost heave.  Wow…seems like the corner wasn’t cut, it was totally hacked off.  All homes are built by humans and will have mistakes, or what builder like to call “character” but if this home is starting out this way, it’s going end up being Jim Carey by the time the roof goes on.

 

Branson new home construction at Branson Canyon

The builder I took over there cut his teeth on the strict and rigid building codes of Kansas City so he is was used to doing things a certain way, even though it is not required.  That’s the kind of gusto you want from your builder. Conversations about building codes or at least what your builder is used to…is a MUST, especially if you are building a home in Branson or Taney County, Missouri.

Contributed by:

Jeramie Worley, GRI

Broker /  Associate

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing,Hollister,MO65672

417 336 4200

Author = Worley and Associates

Branson Vacation Rentals are in Demand in 2011 and Beyond

Somewhere between your last vacation and your next one, you’ll probably considerBranson,Missouri.  It is the third largest vacation destination in the United States, just behind Orlando, FL and Las Vegas, NV, and is reported by the Branson Chamber of Commerce to get anywhere from 7-9 million visitors per year.

 

Some people still choose to stay in hotels, but a growing trend is moving toward privately owned vacation rental homes.  Free from slamming doors and coffee pots in bathrooms, the large spacious vacation homes can accommodate an entire family with large, fully stocked kitchens and multiple living areas for room to spread out.  When a family pools their vacation resources, the cost per family per room is a huge savings.  One poplar rustic resort near Branson charges $165 per night for a one bedroom hotel room while you can spend only $350 per night atBransonCanyonand sleep 14.  Also, when you decide to cook a few meals at home instead of giving Joe’s Crab Shack a weeks pay for one family meal, the vacation home really starts to pay for itself.  Aside from the time when my brother-in-law embarrassed our entire family at a steakhouse inSanibel Island,FLwith a loud body noise, our most memorable times are around the table at home. When we cook and eat together, those are the best vacation memories aren’t they?

 

Look at some numbers.  If you are headed toOrlando,FLand go to a site like Homeaway.com to find a vacation home, you’ll find over 4000 vacation rentals to choose from, however, if you are headed to Branson, you have just over 200 to start with.  Then break it down to 4-6 bedroom homes and the list starts to get pretty small. 

 

With a growing trend of families using vacation home instead of hotels and growing trend of families pooling their resources to vacation smarter and furthermore, a supply this small compared to other vacation markets, now is an excellent time to buy a second home in Branson and rent it out when you are not using it.  Interest rates are still very low and purchase prices are still reasonable here in the Branson Real Estate Market.

 

Branson Canyon has become successful enough that people have decided to stay here full time.  In 2011BransonCanyonlaunched “Branson Canyon Reserves” for full time living where no vacation rentals are allowed. 

 

There is something for everyone here, but if you are smart, you’ll take the opportunity to get in now, before I succeed in letting the rest of the world know how great of a placeBranson Canyon really is.

 

Contributed by:

Jeramie Worley

Broker

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing,HollisterMO65672

jerworley@bransoncanyon.com

Branson Vacation Homes: when is the best time to buy?

I get asked this question all the time and there is only one good answer – Now!

Before you dismiss me as sleazy salesman, please know, that this is my area of expertise and I sell more vacation homes in Branson than anything else.

This info is a compilation of real stories from my clients.

The 4-6 Bedroom Nightly Rental home is still very in demand in the Branson Real Estate market and key to when to by, falls in the good and bad of our own human nature.

Branson Canyon Vacation home with 6 bedroom, 5 bath

Branson Canyon Vacation Home with 6 bedrooms and 5 baths. Perfect for vacation rental.

There are two types of people: procrastinators and planners and both can help you succeed with a Branson Vacation Home.

With limited properties in the area, than can fit your whole family together in one place, many responsible planners look ahead to find a properly with the availability they need.

The people with this kind of mindset are smart, and instead of calling everyone in the family, they wait until the Thanksgiving – New Year holiday season to talk to everyone and find out everyone’s availability.  When people are together, they search properties online, look a pictures, get more info, and make a decision.

This is why many Branson Canyon owners see a surge in booking activity for the summer months, during the December, even January time frame.

If you waited to buy or build until May, which is right about the time the Season kicks off, you could have missed out on all of those potential bookings.

However, the procrastinators (or folks with last minute vacation plans) need a place also and they don’t want to let everyone down since they’ve been trusted with the job of finding the home. As they start searching for a place, they see that almost all of the properties are booked. Hmmm…what are they going to do? So, when you introduce your property to the market with open availability, you will get a flood of activity and can probably get a better price.

At BransonCanyon, spring and fall bookings tend to come in more last minute (less than 30 days out) but the summertime and holiday dates get booked up quite a bit in advance.

The key is not when to buy, just buy and get your property available to the Branson Vacation Home rental marketplace.

With interest rates low and building costs going up…don’t wait.  Get your Branson Vacation Home on the rental market.

Don’t forget to schedule some time for yourself.!

 

Branson Vacation Homes: when is the best time to buy?

Contributed by:

Jeramie Worley, GRI

Broker / Associate of the Community Real Estate Group, LLC

And owner of Vacation Rental Propery inBranson,MO

 

Three reasons to own a second home in Branson in a community

Aside from being a great way to start a great thriller, owning a second home (especially a vacation rental) in an isolated part of the Ozarks, may not be a huge advantage.  Consider these tips when you are looking for a vacation rental in Branson or any other Branson Real Estate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  You are safer in a community – Not just you personally, but your stuff is safer.  When there is constant activity and people watching out for each other, it helps keep the boogie man away.  AtBransonCanyon, we’ve even installed a video surveillance system on some of the common areas to further increase security.

 

2.  You get the spill over – One of the largest benefits to owning a vacation rental home atBransonCanyonis the repeat business.  Many people who come to Branson are now looking for Branson Canyon Homes on VRBO.com and Homeaway.com.  Last year they may have rented from your neighbor but by the time they called, your neighbor is booked up.  They are ready to book with you because you are available and have a rental home atBransonCanyon.

 

3.  Amenities – One of the largest benefits to a community is the pool, clubhouse, hiking trails or whatever else might be offered.  If you rent a home off by its lonesome you may get a really cool fire pit and tell some crazy late night stories…but you may get the beast that goes along with them!

 

This article was contributed by:

Jeramie Worley, GRI

Broker / Assoc

The Community Real Estate Group, LLC

140 Canyon Crossing,HollisterMO65672

471 336 4200