Comet Realty's Photo of the Day

What is wrong with this picture? 

Let me count the ways:

1. A wood stove
2. Made out of wood

3. Guaranteed to burn 4 hours

4. Made in Poland

5. Only $48.95

We found this in a machine shop in a very unique house we were showing to one of our clients. It could barely be seen through the dust of the years (and I mean years). We dusted it off and sure enough, it said what we thought it said. 

Firewood costs $5/bundle. It burns for about 4 hours. 

Or, you could just send off $48.95 (+shipping/handling) to this company in Poland, get yourself a real wood stove, and have yourself a fire in style. Your friends will be amazed (probably at your stupidity, but amazed, none-the-less).

Or, if you have some scrap wood laying around the house and a lot of time on your hands, perhaps you could make your own, amazing and dazing your friends. In fact, if you do it, I'd pay you at least $19.95.

I can't make this kind of stuff up. I love my job. 

TIP: Home Improvements That Pay Off

Dian Hymer is a nationally syndicated real estate columnist, and author.

The temptation is strong: Clean up the yard, declutter the house, and put it on the market without spending time and money sprucing the place up for sale. This is especially the case if you anticipate losing money on the sale.

Some real estate agents recommend you do little if anything to get your home ready for sale. This could work if you price the listing to look like a bargain. However, most buyers in today's market are nervous and picky. They aren't in a hurry and they want a house that's move-in ready.

An agent who is looking for a fast sale might steer his or her clients away from doing any fix-up work. It takes a lot of time and coordination, not to mention money, to get a home properly prepared for sale in today's market. Some agents don't want to take on the effort, or haven't the vision to see the home's potential. This could cost you on the sale.

One agent told his clients that they needn't do anything to get their house ready for sale. True, the house had inherent charm and good bones. But, the seller's furniture was much too big to show the rooms off to advantage. The dogs had damaged the hardwood floor and the beautiful garden was overgrown.

The house didn't sell until the sellers found another agent who recommended a laundry list of items to take care of before selling, including moving most of the seller's furniture out and having the house staged.

Unfortunately, market values declined between the first and second times the home was listed. Even though the house sold quickly with multiple offers the second time it was listed, it sold for less than it would have if it had showed well the first time it hit the market.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: Choose an agent to work with who has experience helping sellers prepare their homes for the market. Ask an agent you're thinking about hiring for references. Call past sellers and ask them how effectively the agent helped them get their home sold and whether they made back the money they invested getting the home ready for sale.

A good agent should be able to supply you with a list of tradespeople who can help you paint, change outdated floor coverings and light fixtures, etc., at reasonable prices. And your agent ought to be able to provide access to the home for the people you select to help with the fix-up if you are out of town or at work.

Ideally, you should work with your agent who will help you prioritize the things that should be done to bring about a timely sale. For example, an outdated kitchen can usually be improved considerably by painting, changing light fixtures, refinishing or replacing a worn floor, and changing cabinet pulls.

It might make sense to change extremely old appliances and counters. However, it's not a good idea to gut the kitchen and completely remodel it for sale. You won't get that money back when you sell. The aim is to make cost-effective improvements that make your home appealing to the broadest number of buyers possible.

Painting is the least expensive improvement you can make that is likely to return more than you invest, provided you select the right colors. One seller repainted the exterior of his home before he selected a real estate agent. He painted it the same dowdy colors that adorned the house for decades. The first thing the buyers wanted to change was the exterior paint color.
THE CLOSING: For the best result, talk to a color consultant before you paint.


TIP: Contact Comet Realty's team of professionals. They have the local knowledge, expertise, feng shui certifications and staging experience to help you decide what to do to get YOUR house ready to put on the market. 


805.546.9925, Info@CometRealty.com

Four Ways On-line Real Estate Valuations FAIL

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is an author and the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com.


Q: Knowing that I would be selling my home, I have been following price ranges for comparable properties to my home on a couple of major real estate websites. Now that I am ready to list, all the agents I've talked to say that the websites are so out of line that their recommendations are worthless. What a shock!

A: Real estate websites have transformed the whole experience consumers have of home buying or selling -- they have made public what used to be private and difficult to get to -- namely, listing and sales data about homes across the country.
Several of these sites offer nearby recent sales, with the promise that savvy sellers like yourself can simply go online, input your address and find out what specific homes in your neighborhood have sold for lately -- some even go so far as to take the leap from what those homes have sold for to placing an estimated value on your home.

These sites try hard to do a lot of the work for you -- surfacing the homes they see as comparable to yours.

However, these are, at bottom, computer programs.

So, what's involved is a computer taking the description of your home from the public records (which usually reside at the county recorder's office and in their databases) or from a recent listing (if your home has been sold in the past few years), in terms of the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square feet, primarily, and pulling out the closest homes to yours that have sold recently that have similar data on record.

However, the computer can't necessarily distinguish nuances in a property's condition or aesthetics, nor does it always correct for whether the house two blocks over was a short sale or a foreclosure.

Depending on where you live, how similar homes are to each other in your area, the level of sales activity near your home and the level of accuracy found in the public records for your house and nearby homes, these sites can offer very comparable "comps" -- or comparables that aren't really comparable at all.

If you live in a fairly cookie-cutter subdivision where several homes just like yours have sold very recently, you're likely to get a good set of comparables, and a value estimate that's at least in the ballpark. But in many areas, lots of fairly common scenarios can come between you and a good set of automated comps:
• if your home is older and has had a lot of improvements and even additions that are not in the county records, you're likely to get bad comps;
• if homes in your area are very different from each other, you might get bad comps;
• if you live in a neighborhood very nearby another neighborhood where homes have a much higher or lower value than your area's (say, because they belong in a better school district or even on the other side of the city limits), you're prone to getting bad comps;
• if your home is in an area where homes are dense, the algorithm might jump over many very nearby properties to get to a relatively dissimilar one even a half-mile away, and that can give you bad comps.

The listings provided by the sites can be very useful for homeowners trying to stay on top of what homes around theirs are selling for -- not listed for, but actually selling for. They are less useful, in my opinion, at placing values on properties; the sites that do this usually have their accuracy rates listed somewhere on the site, and I haven't yet seen one that's impressive.

But when it's time to actually list your home, or figure out what it is worth, no computer -- no algorithm -- is as accurate as a living, breathing local real estate professional who sees and sells all the different specimens of homes in your neighborhood and sees firsthand what ready, willing, qualified buyers actually pay for them, day in and day out.

I think it's important for sellers interviewing listing agents to discuss the online comparables with prospective listing agents, but not as a counterargument to what the listing agents recommend you list your home at.
Rather, it's a smart way to see what the agents know -- and what you can learn -- about the other properties in your area.

If you are considering selling your home, or just want to see what your home would be worth in today's market, please call one of Comet Realty's professionals at 805.546.9925. 

Butter or Parkay? Photo of the Day

 The things you see when you are out and about. I tried to get my clients to buy it just for the sign. We found another place for them. Don't be surprised if you see the same sign at their new place when they close escrow on their new home! 

FOR SALE: 1332 PURPLE SAGE, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA (MLS #171481)

Move right into this 3 bedroom plus office/den/4th bedroom, 3 bath home. This lovely home is located in the Los Ranchos school district in San Luis Obispo, across from a neighborhood park and walking/biking paths. Other amenities include eco-friendly drought tolerant landscaping, plantation shutters, tile and laminate flooring, loft area, and 2 car garage. 

It's priced at only $589,000. Call Comet Realty today to see the inside of this superclean home!

Visit the property website for more information:   www.1332PurpleSage.com

FOR SALE: 144 Summit Way, Pismo Beach, CA (MLS#173285)

www.144Summit.com 

This wonderful single level twinhome, features 2 bedrooms, 1-¾ baths, a recently updated kitchen, beautiful cherry laminate wood floors, vaulted ceilings and a slate fireplace in the living room. Other benefits include a fenced backyard with timed sprinklers, a water softener, and a 2 car garage with extra attic storage space. It's newly listed at $325,000 by Comet Realty. Call one of our amazing Realtors® today to see this and other Central Coast Properties. 805.546.9925.

FRIENDLY.   PROFESSIONAL.   LOCAL.

FOR SALE: 601 Grove, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 (MLS#170559)

Stunning custom 1963 Mid Century Modern architectural hilltop home in the downtown San Luis Obispo core area–close to everything! Featuring panoramic views of Cerro San Luis and Bishops Peak, this home has been painstakingly restored and enhanced to todays standards while keeping the integrity of its original design. Dramatic 2 story vaulted ceiling with spectacular freestanding stone fireplace. Floor to ceiling windows. First time on the market in over 30 years. Over 15000 SF lot (check with city for options). 

This is currently listed for sale for $648,000 with Tim Townley of Comet Realty, who can be reached at 805-440-8735, or Tim@CometRealty.com . 

See more photos and virtual tour at www.601Grove.com