San Mateo-Foster City Real Estate News

Great Rates For Refinancing Your San Mateo Home, If You Qualify

The rates available for A+ borrowers is amazing and if you qualify you can reduce your mortgage substantially. Talk to your lender about making these savings available for you. If you are one of the newer home owners with a home worth less than what you bought it for, this may not work for you, but if you have equity in your home and it hasn't reduced dramatically in value, go for it.

We can recommend several very highly qualified lenders. Just go to our Team page and talk to any of them. Tell them we sent you.

What to Do With a Lowball Offer

We are in a funny real estate market. In some places it's a seller's market with few homes and more buyers. In other places it's a buyer's market with many homes and few buyers. And, again, in some areas it's a balanced market with loads of buyers and much to select from. If the house you decide to make an offer on has been on the market for a while, you might well decide to offer below asking. Will this insult the seller? Maybe yes, maybe no. Read on.....

What to do with lowball offers

By: Dian Hymer

Recently a buyer decided to make an offer on a house that had been on the market for some time. His agent showed him comparable sales information, which indicated that the list price was too high. So, he made a low offer.

The offer price was lower than the seller was willing to accept, so he didn't respond. When the buyer learned that his offer was going nowhere, he asked the seller to give him a counteroffer. The seller did and the buyer accepted. Thirty days later the sale closed.

Another seller was so offended when the buyers' agent presented him with a low offer that he asked the buyers' agent to leave his house. Again, the seller refused to respond to the offer. After many hours of persistent conversation, the seller's agent talked the seller into issuing a counteroffer to the buyers. They accepted and the listing sold.

A seller's reaction to a low offer may be outrage or despair. Some sellers feel insulted by a low offer and want to wait for a better offer, which usually means a higher price. Others feel that countering a low offer is a waste of time.

HOME SELLER TIP: Receiving a low offer is disappointing. But, before rejecting it, try to find out something about the buyers and, particularly why they offered the price they did.

The buyer could be used to negotiating in his line of work. For such a buyer, offering less than the asking price may be nothing more than business as usual. Buyers want to buy at the lowest price possible, just as sellers want the highest price possible. Don't fault a buyer for trying to get a discount, particularly if he's well qualified and sincere in his desire to buy your home.

Buyers often don't know in advance how high they'll be willing to go in order to get the home they want. Sellers may not know their bottom line until they get into the negotiations. Even if a buyer says he won't go higher than a certain price, he may be willing to pay a little more if it makes the difference between putting the deal together and no deal at all.

You may discover that the buyer offered a low price because he thinks your home is listed too high. If so, find out what comparable sales he's using to support his price opinion. Out-of-area buyers and agents may not be up on current market value. In this case, provide comparables sales information that validates your price.

If the buyer's comparables are the same as yours, one of you needs a reality check. Sellers can let pride of ownership get in the way of making a rational decision about selling their home. The better price you dream of may not be forthcoming. Buyers tend to offer less for listings that have been on the market for sometime. Keep an open mind to any offer from a well-qualified buyer.

Most sellers focus on price, sometimes overlooking other terms of the offer that could be negotiated to their advantage. For instance, let's say you're closing on a new home in a few weeks and want to avoid paying for interim financing. It might be advantageous to accept a lower price on the home you're selling provided the buyer agrees to a quick close.

THE CLOSING: Before countering any offer, make sure the buyer is qualified. If the buyer isn't already preapproved, include a provision in your counteroffer that requires the buyer to be preapproved within a day or two.

Dian Hymer is author of "House Hunting, The Take-Along Workbook for Home Buyers," and "Starting Out, The Complete Home Buyer's Guide," Chronicle Books.

Distributed by Inman News Features

Think Paint Before Listing Your House. It's an Easy ROI

I can't say it often enough - when it comes to buying a house, first impressions are everything. If you're selling or getting ready to sell your home in the coming months, one of the easiest and most dramatic ways to enhance that first impression is through paint. Fresh paint makes your house look clean, bright, and inviting.

Painting inside and out is quick, inexpensive, and gives a huge ROI (return on investment). If possible, hire a colorist to help you pick the right color for your house exterior and interior rooms. If not, talk to your local paint store and find out what colors are selling. Go to open houses annd look around to see what's being used.

Try to keep away from bright or unusual interior color. This can be a turn off to prospective buyers. The buyer needs to think about how their furniture will look in your home so pick more neutral color. Stark white isn't a good choice either because it makes a room cold.

If your budget won't allow for a complete repainting of the outside of your house, then repaint the trim around doors, windows, and roof. If you can, paint the front door a bright, inviting color. It's the first impression a buyer gets of your home. If you live in a condominiium or townhouse where painting is done by the homeowners association and it's needed, ask what paint colors are being used and buy the paint yourself to paint the front door. Just that one thing can really spruce up your entry.

Whether you paint yourself or hire someone, make sure all the prep work is done. Power washing will help get all dirt away and something it's all that's needed. Don't forget patching and repairing any necessary areas on the surface before it is painted.

Fresh paint is a great incenetive for buyers and will be mentioned in ads, flyers and online by the listing agent. Homeowners and buyers place a high value on the painted appearance of a home. Include the date the paint job was completed and the quality of paint that was used. Don't forget to leave any paint you use for the new owners. They will really appreciate it.

If you're thinking about going with a different color, the experts say you should consider the architecture of the home. You should also consider what the house is made of. You can easily paint wood, brick, masonry, or aluminum siding. But if you have vinyl siding, it should only be painted the same color or a lighter color. Dark paint will absorb the heat and ultimately cause the vinyl to warp in the heat.

Be sure to have all your painting done before potential buyers view the house. It is important to have all your repairs and painting done before listing your home and the virtual tour pictures will really be enhanced. You need that sparkling curb appeal from day one on the market. Anything less than that and you're just helping the other homes in the neighborhood sell first.

Are You Trying To Figure Out How This Mortgage Mess Happened? Look At This.

Local loan broker, Laura Biche, has done a nice job of explaining what caused our morgtage mess. She's in Menlo Park if you would like to talk directly with her. You can call her at 650-922-0824.

Burlingame Market Report 12.18.08

This past week the City of Burlingame had 54 houses for sale. The Median price was $1,484,444 (an unlucky number in Chinese numerology). The average price, which is always higher than a median was $1,595,334. The least expensive house for sale last week was for $695,000, a Short Sale, and it's now a pending sale. Believe it or not, this is good new, kind of... The median price has gone up but so has the average number of days on the market it is taking to sell that house which is 99! Almost half of the houses listed have seen a price reduction. You may wonder why Realtors seem to get price wrong and let me tell you it is an inexact science and changes by the minute and is something for a later post.

Now, this data is from last week, and I just went on the MLS to see what, if anything, had changed from the chart. Right now, as I am writing this, Burlingame has 40 houses on the market. When a house is for sale over the holidays you can be sure you are dealing with a serious seller, and there are 40 of these in Burlingame right now. The difference between the two sources has to do with time and additional data that Altos Research uses, including For Sale By Owner.

Altos Research likes to break down the real estate market by Quartile. Quartile 1 is the top quarter of the market with a median price of $2,350,000 and for this you likely will see a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom home likely in Easton Edition or the Hills, and somewhere around 3000 square feet in size. Quartile 2 sits below in the middle-upper half and sees a median price of $1,695,000. This house will also likely have 4 bedrooms but only 3 baths and is around 2700 square feet in size. As we move to the lower half of the market, Quartile 3 sees a median price of $1,317,750. For this you also might get 4 bedrooms but only 3 baths and a smaller home just around 2000 square feet in size. The bottom of the market, Quartile 4 sees a median price of $918,500. These are the smallest houses with a median size of 1300 square feet and 2 or 3 bedrooms and 1 bath.

What I love about the Altos Research charts is how clearly they show the market. Looking at the Median Price, you can clearly see that prices were at bottom right at New Year 2008. Then they moved up and then bounced at another low around the second quarter of the year. Prices have risen since then. So you ask, What Gives? I know you're thinking that the news media says prices are dropping everywhere so how can this be happening? Perhaps, since I am not an economist, it has to do with the high desire of Burlingame, the great schools, the proximity to both San Francisco and the Silicon Valley and the very present shortage of housing in San Mateo County. Now don't get me wrong, prices have declined in Burlingame, just like everywhere else, but just not as dramatically.

Burlingame is a Buyer's Market. It's been one for over a year and yes, if you can afford to buy here, you won't go wrong. There are several months of inventory to select from, we haven't seen any wild swings in the market for a very long time, and even though we're seeing prices going up, there's really no reason for it, and if you're serious about buying you will likely have a good chance at getting the seller to listen to a good offer and negotiate. The Market Action Index is something Altos Research developed to show the break between a Seller's Market and a Buyer's Market. The red line sitting at 30 is the delineator. It also shows the balance between supply and demand in a nice form.

If you like information like this, you too can receive it right in your email. Just let me know and I'll have it sent. There is money to lend to people who are qualified to get it. If you fall into that camp, we'd love to show you some of the beautiful houses for sale in Burlingame. Call me at 650-696-2820.