Selling your house in an increasingly competitive home market

Home staging experts say there are ways to succeed while other home sellers are struggling

RISMEDIA, October 18, 2006—When it comes to selling your house in an increasingly competitive home market these days, the old real estate adage "location, location, location is taking on new meaning. Staging the optimal location of the furniture and items in the seller's home usually makes a difference between sale or no sale. Home staging experts say there are ways to succeed while other home sellers are struggling.

"Edit, reduce clutter, and rearrange existing furniture," says Dana Dickey, vice director of Interior Redesign Industry Specialists (IRIS), an organization for professional interior redesigners and home stagers – http://www.WeRedesign.com www.WeRedesign.com>. Dickey's comments describe what industry insiders have termed "staging." Staging, the process of preparing and cleaning a home to make it more marketable to potential home buyers, is something that has gained national popularity in recent years. "It's a fairly simple process," says Dickey. "It's also cost-effective. Homeowners I work with are amazed at how the look of their home can dramatically improve with just a little assistance."

Meeting Homeowner's Needs
IRIS trains members to tailor their staging services to meet the needs of individual homeowners based on the homeowner's budget and desired level of assistance. Some homeowners have no problem with organization, for example, yet need assistance with the exterior of their home, to create more curb appeal. Others seek professional assistance for re-organization of furniture and decorating. Whatever the task, the goal remains the same.

"We want to give each home that 'wow' factor," Dickey says. "Especially in today's housing market, in which home buyers largely make their final decision based on emotional factors, it's important that a house make a good first impression."

In addition to the increased speed at which a home sells, staging can also help homeowners boost their asking price. Many professionals focus their attention on two rooms in particular: the kitchen and the bathroom. Due to the high level of traffic through both rooms, each tends to collect clutter and becomes a source of hidden messes.

"It's not that people don't want to pick up," said Dickey. "It becomes a situation where the homeowner just naturally looks past something without even noticing it." She explains that professionals act as objective observers, seeing decorating possibilities and unwanted clutter that a homeowner might not otherwise see.

Popularity Equals Competition
The recent national popularity in staging services seems to have sprung from the popularity of television shows such as HGTV's "Designed to Sell," A&E's "Sell this House," and TLC's "Clean Sweep." While Dickey acknowledges the competition that her business faces, she is reluctant to compare it to the competition that homeowners face when selling a home.

"It can be brutal," says Dickey of the housing market. "That's why we offer our service -- to let people know that the smallest detail can mean the difference between a quick sale and a depressingly long stay on the market. We're here to give their home the edge on the competition."

Design guidelines for historic districts and landmarks in Athens, Georgia

Design guidelines for historic districts and landmarks

(a) Identification of design guidelines. Concurrent with, or immediately following, the designation of any historic district or landmark, the historic preservation commission shall recommend to the mayor and commission a set of "Design Guidelines" appropriate to the district or landmark. The guidelines are intended to identify the characteristic features of the designation that will be used in determining the compatibility of new construction or alterations of size, location, materials, style, rhythm, and any other quality deemed by the historicpreservation commission to contribute to the character of the historic property.

(b) Procedure for adoption of design guidelines. The historic preservation commission must draft and recommend the proposed design guidelines to the mayor and commission at a public hearing. Adoption of the guidelines by mayor and commission may only be considered after the historic preservation commission's recommendation and following a public hearing as follows: The historic preservation commission and the mayor and commission shall hold a public hearing on the adoption of the design guidelines. Notice of the hearing shall be published in at least three consecutive issues in the legal organ and/or in a newspaper of general circulation within Athens-Clarke County. All such notices shall be published not less than ten nor more than 20 days prior to the date set for the public hearing.

(c) Concurrent action. The historic preservation commission may recommend, and the mayor and commission may consider and adopt, the design guidelines at the same public hearing and/or meeting as the designation of the corresponding historic district or landmark. The legal notices for the guidelines and designated area may be combined into one notice if the hearings are to be combined.

New Home Sales Dip

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes dropped in July by the largest amount since February while the inventory of unsold homes climbed to a record high.

Piling on more proof that the housing boom is over, the Commerce Department reported Thursday that new home sales fell by 4.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 1.072 million units. The decline was the largest since an 11.5 percent plunge in February.

Sales of both new and existing homes set records for five consecutive years as the housing industry enjoyed a boom powered by the lowest mortgage rates in four decades. But rates have been steadily rising this year as the Federal Reserve tightens credit conditions as a way to slow the economy and keep inflation under control.

Analysts expect home sales to drop by some 10 percent this year.



In other economic news, orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods fell 2.4 percent in July as demand for aircraft and automobiles weakened.

And the Labor Department reported that the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week slipped by 1,000 to 313,000.

Prospective home buyers have turned cautious about making such a big-ticket purchase as mortgage rates have gone up and uncertainty has risen over whether the economy and job creation will keep slowing, analysts said.

The government reported that the median price of a new home was $230,000 in July, down from $233,800 in June and up from $229,200 a year ago.

Rent vs Buy

In many cases, the amount of money a renter spends on rent can be about the same as or less than the amount a homeowner spends on a mortgage. With the tax benefit for homeowners, the savings can be significant.\
The chart below shows a cost comparison for a renter and a homeowner over a seven year period.

* The renter starts out paying $800 per month with annual increases of 5%
* The homeowner purchases a home for $110,000 and pays a monthly mortgage of $1,000
* After 6 years, the homeowner's payment is lower than the renter's monthly payment
* With the tax savings of homeownership, the homeowner's payment is less than the rental payment after 3 years



Years Rent Mortgage Differenc Tax Savings | Yearly Difference | Savings
1 800 1000 -200 -50 -2400 -600
2 840 1000 -160 -10 -1920 -120
3 882 1000 -118 +32 -1416 +384
4 926 1000 -74 +76 -888 +912
5 972 1000 -28 +122 -336 +1464
6 1021 1000 +21 +171 +252 +2052
7 1072 1000 +72 +222 +864 +2664
8-30 Savings increase every year




Monthly Expenses: Buying

Your rental company takes part of your rent payment to cover certain housing expenses. When you decide to purchase a home, you accept responsibility for paying for these expenses (listed below). They are additional costs to your monthly mortgage payment and should be included in your budget estimates:

* Property Taxes and Special Assessments
* Home/Hazard Insurance
* Utilities
* Maintenance
* Home Owner Association (HOA) Fee: Doesn't apply to all purchases. It pays for trash and snow removal and maintenance of common grounds if applicable.
* Membership Fee: It may pay for recreational facilities and other services (cable TV).

Sales of U.S. homes will ease modestly

WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - Sales of U.S. homes will ease modestly but should stay within a narrow range for the remainder of 2006, a real estate agents' trade group said on Tuesday.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said in a monthly forecast that it expects sales this year of existing homes to fall 6.7 percent to 6.6 million units, the third highest yearly level on record, from 7.08 million in 2005.

NAR also said it expects new home sales to fall 12.8 percent to 1.12 million units from 1.28 million in 2005, and for housing starts to dip 6.8 percent to 1.93 million units from 2.07 million last year.

"We should see home sales rise and fall month to month, but don't look for any big shifts one way or the other," National Association of Realtors chief economist David Lereah said in a statement.

"The major housing indicators have been moving up and down within a reasonable range, which means the market should even out just below present levels," he said. "At the same time, housing inventory levels are balanced in much of the country, so overall price appreciation will be at a normal rate."

NAR said it expects 30-year mortgage rates to reach 7.0 percent by the end of 2006. "We remain concerned about the potential impact of higher interest rates in some of the more expensive areas of the country," Lereah noted.

The Realtors group also forecast the national median existing home price for both single-family units and condominiums to rise 5.3 percent this year to $231,300 and for the median price on new homes to reach $243,300, up 1.0 percent from 2005.

But NAR President Thomas Stevens said home prices were leveling out. "Home sellers in most areas understand that the period of abnormal price growth is over, and they have become more realistic about the current market. This is helping to ease the pressure on home prices in some areas," he said.

The association also said it expects the 2006 U.S. unemployment rate to average at 4.7 percent and the Consumer Price Index to be at 3.4 percent this year. U.S. 2006 gross domestic product growth was forecast at 3.4 percent and disposable personal income to rise 3.1 percent.

30-year mortgage rate nears 7 percent

Money costs a lot more today than it did just three months ago. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is flirting with 7 percent and is almost half of a percentage point higher than it was at the end of March.

The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 10 basis points to 6.93 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.34 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 5.61 percent; four weeks ago, it was 6.72 percent. The last time the mortgage index was higher was April 18, 2002, when it was 6.96 percent.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 12 basis points to 6.57 percent. The 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage rose 10 basis points to 6.59 percent.

Mortgage interest rates are up slightly

Mortgage interest rates are up slightly over the last two months.

The new Federal Reserve Board chairman, Ben Bernanke, did not disappoint. In his first meeting as chairman, as expected, he raised short-term interest rates by another .25 percent so that the Fed Funds target rate now stands at 4.75%. That is the interest rate that banks use to borrow borrow funds from each other overnight.

The Federal Funds rate is influential because it affects many other short-term interest rates, such as the prime rate and short-term treasury notes.

So why did the Fed raise rates yet again?

After a slow fourth quarter in 2005, the economy seems to have picked up the pace in the beginning of 2006. If the economy grows too fast, wage and price inflation become a fear, so the Fed raises rates to try and slow things down.

We expect mortgage rates to remain fairly stable, with the continued potential for small increases like we've experienced since the beginning of the year. At the same time, there is potential for a little bit of a bump when employment growth figures are announced during the first week of April and as 1st quarter economic figures come out later in the month.