Selling a house is stressful. I don’t think that anyone will deny that, if they’ve been through it. No matter how great your listing agent is, and how perfectly your house is staged, and how low you’re priced…if you won’t let buyers in to see it, they can’t and won’t buy it.
Charlotte North Carolina’s real estate market is healthier than most. We currently have about 5.5 months’ inventory available, market-wide (statistics courtesy of Carolina Multiple Listing Services). Any numbers geek will tell you that this inventory level indicates a balanced market. But let’s break it down into a number that means something to you. As of today, 5 May 2008, there are 21606 active listings in our MLS. Which means that if you’re selling a home in Charlotte NC, you have competition.
It also means that when you get a call from Centralized Showing Service (can I tell you how delightful it is, to have an MLS-wide appointment desk? Woo hoo!), you need to allow that showing. If you say NO to the showing, there is no guarantee that the buyer will come back. When they have a ton of other choices available, it’s just not likely. Now I know that each house is unique (I will not get on my soapbox about Vinyl Villages in this post), and that each seller feels they have the ONLY perfect house on the market. But the fact of the matter is that when you have competition who are also well marketed, staged, and priced aggressively, you will lose out if the buyer can’t get in the door.
As an agent who works both sellers and buyers in Charlotte NC and surrounding areas (not on the same house, though, see my post about how much I don’t like dual agency if you’re curious), I can tell you that one of the most annoying phone calls to get back from the appointment desk is the classic:
“The seller has rescheduled your appointment from ….. to ….”
Ahem. You don’t know my schedule, you don’t know my buyers, you don’t know anything about our planned day. So why in the world are you so insistent that we change our tour to fit your schedule? If buyers were plentiful and listings were scarce, it would be a different discussion. But when I’m out showing property to buyers who must make a decision that very day, we don’t have the luxury of changing our viewing times for each house-otherwise, we won’t be able to see everything.
Case in point-I was showing property last week in the luxury home community of Highgate, in Weddington NC just over the Union County line (this is about 30 minutes’ south of uptown/downtown Charlotte NC). My buyers were in town at the last minute, because their home in another state had sold and they were in panic mode, needing to locate the next house to complete one move. I gave a day’s notice on showings-which is a lot of notice in this area. One of the listings wanted to ‘reschedule’ my showing for later in the day. The trouble was that we would have been done in Highgate by that time, and moved on to another community in the area. So we had to cancel and could not view that home.
Within a short time frame, the listing agent had called to apologize for the seller, and was begging for us to come view it in our original showing window. The seller panicked when the realization hit that we might not be able to adjust for their schedule. We were already a distance away from the community at this point, and my buyer clients had already located three strong options, so they decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation to go back (yes, my buyers chose not to go back when offered that option).
What I’m trying to explain is that if you, Mr/Ms Seller, are not 100% on board and cooperative with buyer agents and showing agents, it’s hard for your house to sell. I know it’s a pain to keep that house clean, to get up and go cruise the area at the drop of a hat, to keep the kids from tearing the house up. But if you truly want to sell-you have to adjust to the market. Realize that your competition is also stressed out about showings, but they’re accomodating them. Buyers are looking for motivation right now, and when you don’t want to cooperate for showings, it tells them that you are not motivated and not serious about selling.
Truly, I WANT to sell your house. But you have to work with me on it.
If we put any credence to what some buyers think, there might be.
Many folks hear about the great real estate values in the Charlotte NC area. In their minds eye, they are picturing Tara (even though Gone With The Wind was set in Atlanta, some 4 hours south). They see a full front porch, two-story home, on 5 acres, with a basement, a two or three car garage, fully updated, and in the best school district available.
Oh, and they want to pay $150,000 or less for it.
Then, when we cant find it (or anything even closely resembling it), were the bad guys. These buyers ask if were SURE that their dream house isnt out there somewhere (well, maybe in Alabama but I cant verify that rumor). And cant we keep looking, since theyre just positive they saw something like it on the internet?
I promise, there is no conspiracy theory. I am not hiding your perfect house from you. Trust me-if I could find you that perfect house, why would I choose NOT to sell it to you? Realtors who are working as buyer agents only get paid here in North Carolina at closing-after youve located a great house, passed inspections and appraisals, and the loan has been blessed. Until then, were on the hunt. If you go back to elementary logic, it makes no sense that we would be hiding a house from you which you might buy.
I know that you heard about our great values-and yes, when you take into account the positive job creation in Charlotte, the low tax thresholds, the strong public schools, the lovely four-season climate, the low cost of living-we ARE a great value.
Doesnt mean that houses are free, though. The last thing I want to do is break your heart-so when I search and find nothing, then discuss with you where your compromise might lie, dont get angry with me. My job is to find the best house within your budget and to be HONEST with you during the process. Would you rather sit on the sidelines as the market continues to move up, as you search in futility for a house that doesn’t exist?
So you have a darling little ranch home in a very established and desirable community, just north of Charlotte NC in the little town of Harrisburg NC. Folks flock to Harrisburg NC because of the low property taxes ($0.84 per $100 assessed) and the fabulous public schools and the mere 20 minute commute into uptown/downtown/center city Charlotte NC.
You put that lovely home in Harrisburg Park on the market. It sells in three days (yes, some houses in our market still sell quickly, if you want to buy a home in Harrisburg NC you need to be ready to make a decision).
And then, one week before closing, that call comes in. You listing agents out there know THAT call. The one that reminds us to tell sellers NOT to spend their money until the deed has been recorded and the check has cleared the bank. Your heart sinks, because you have to call the seller and tell them that closing isn’t going to happen.
In this particular situation, it’s hard to be mad at the buyer. See, she was separated from her husband, and they decided to put the marriage back together. So that’s a happy ending for the buyer-it’s always good to see a family that decides to give it a fair shake!
Luckily, we had two buyers in the wings who were hoping against hope that the house would come available again (there is very rarely anything on the market in Harrisburg Park and when something comes up, it gets snapped up FAST.). Both of them came out at the drop of a hat last night. Of course, they both wanted the house.
So less than 24 hours after the original buyer termination, we had two new offers on the table. And the seller is quite happy with the outcome. She didn’t sleep much last night, neither did the potential buyers, but we now have a patched-up marriage, a happy buyer who got the dream house they had been wanting, and a seller who didn’t skip a beat in her move. One sad buyer who lost out in the multiple offer situation, but we will find them another great home.
All’s well that ends well in Harrisburg NC. If YOU are thinking of buying or selling a home in Harrisburg NC, you know who to call. Leigh Brown knows the area-lives here, works here, shops here-and she can sell your home, too.
***Caveat-this is not a normal situation and we can not guarantee that you too will have multiple offers on your home. We’ll try our darnedest but we just can’t make the darn crystal ball work all the time!***
I mean, seriously. Enough is enough! We, as a collective citizenry (whoa-that goes against every grain of my Ayn Rand-loving nature), need to stand up and hold people accountable for their misbehavior.
Want to know why the easy mortgage money has dried up? Want to know why so many folks are whining and crying about ‘lost equity’ in their homes? Want to know why homeowners and investors alike are walking away from houses?
It’s a lack of personal responsibility and we as a society have put up with it for too long.
This morning, I received a phone call from a buyer’s agent, on a transaction that is currently under contract here in Concord NC. He was calling to let me know that the contract is being terminated, due to the buyer’s inability to obtain loan approval. (In North Carolina real estate, we have standard language in our Offer to Purchase and Contract that states that the buyer must be able to obtain loan approval.)
Drat, darn…hate to make that call to the seller-we’re back to square one. But it’s part of the gig in real estate, some contracts close and many others fall by the wayside. Before I was going to make that call, I needed to ask a few more questions…since the contract was only a week old-and I had spoken with the buyer’s lender prior to the seller accepting the contract. Something didn’t quite feel right, that it was crashing so soon.
As it turns out, the buyer was unable to obtain loan approval because she LIED on the loan application. I mean, we’re not talking a little fluff-we’re talking whiteout on paystubs!! Seriously? This buyer thought that falsifying proof of income was acceptable?
When the lender saw this mess, he immediately turned the loan away, refusing to get involved in what very clearly would turn out to be loan fraud. Kudos to them for their upright behavior.
So the contract is being terminated-and the buyer wants the earnest money back, since they were unable to obtain a loan. Which is true. BUT it didn’t go down in good faith-it went down because of deception and outright lying.
In North Carolina, the earnest money deposit is held in a trust account, with one of the involved brokers or the closing attorney. And per the NC General Statutes, it can’t be released until all parties have agreed as to its disposition. If it’s still being disputed in 90 days, the money is escheated to the clerk of court and the buyer and seller can file on one another in small claims court.
After speaking with the seller about the situation, the seller chose NOT to release the earnest money. He agrees with me that situations like THIS have been the primary cause for the sheer amount of loan fraud and crisis in the country-and that if this kind of behavior had not been acceptable (and even rewarded), we might not be in an environment where even good credit prospects may have trouble obtaining a loan. There need to be repercussions for lying. For knowingly running a buyer agent around town, lying to a lender, having a seller take a house off the market, etc. They should NOT get their earnest money back. As a matter of principle more than anything.
Well, if you live in Harrisburg NC already, we know that you’re just seeking news and intrigue about the town. Small towns have that special flavor that the big cities (like our beloved Charlotte NC) just can’t seem to bottle up. Harrisburg is perfectly located, just north and slightly east of uptown (downtown? center city? who knows?) Charlotte NC, but over the Cabarrus County line which results in these low property taxes and superb public schools.
No, we’re not uppity-just because our average home price is 23.3% higher than the average home price in Charlotte NC.
No, we’re not snobs-just because we successfully fought to keep Wal-Mart out of the center of town. (I mean, come on, we’re a town of a little over 10,000 souls-a Wal-Mart in the center of town would have totally destroyed our balance with the increased traffic and crime and noise etc.)
For you folks who are new to Charlotte NC and are in the process of discovering and evaluating the outlying areas in an attempt to find the best spot for settling down, you’ll be hearing about Harrisburg NC. You can keep your commute times low, be within 10 minutes of Concord Mills mall, send those future generations to top public schools, get a lot of house for your money (see below), and still see familiar faces at the Harris-Teeter when you’re doing your grocery shopping!
This great home for sale in Harrisburg NC is located in the Abbington neighborhood, off of Rocky River Road just east of I-485. A full-brick home, custom designed and built by one of the area’s premiere builders, Grady Cook, with full finished basement and a huge lot…still under a million, asking price $950,000.
Come see today why Harrisburg is a breath of fresh air in the quickly growing Charlotte NC real estate market. See why this Realtor, Leigh Brown, makes Harrisburg NC her home. (and you’ll also quickly see why it’s also one of my favorite micromarkets for real estate investment). Call today for your private showing of this exquisite home, or for more information on buying or selling a home in Harrisburg NC. I’m always glad to help!
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