Friday Is The Best Day To List A Home
Blog, Real Estate Tips, Selling | Dunham Stewart
Nailing the day that a home listing debuts is crucial, homes get four times the traffic on the day of debut than any other time of the week. Last year, homes listed on Fridays sold for 99.1% of the seller’s original asking price, the highest percentage of any day of the week. One day of the week can mean an extra $5,000 in a home-seller’s pocket. Listing a home on a Friday rather than a Sunday—the worst day to debut—could mean a difference of nearly $5,000 on a $500,000 house. Properties listed on Fridays also sell the fastest. What makes Fridays so special? Adults who have a Monday-to-Friday workweek tend to be more positive and happier on Fridays, an effect that lasts through the weekend. They also tend to report more vitality and energy on the weekends, which may prompt them to be more proactive in searching for homes. Conversely, Sunday listings have to sit around for a few days before people start lining up home tours for the following weekend. One other day seems to dominate the real-estate world: Tuesday. Homes that are listed on a Tuesday garner the most interest for home tours, Tuesdays are big planning days for many people.
Bad neighbors with annoying pets, unkempt yards, unpleasant odors, loud music, dangerous trees and limbs, or poorly maintained exteriors can cost homeowners big time. The Appraisal Institute today cautioned homeowners and potential homebuyers that bad neighbors can significantly reduce nearby property values. Appraisers refer to this as “external obsolescence,” which is depreciation caused by external factors not on the property. External obsolescence may be caused by economic or locational factors, and may be temporary or permanent, but it is not curable by the owner, landlord or tenant. Owners and buyers should walk streets neighboring a property on several days at various times to learn more about what is happening in the neighborhood. A home’s proximity to a bad neighbor also can impact the rate of potential decline in value. Potential homebuyers also should be aware of a property’s proximity to commercial facilities, such as power plants and funeral homes, as these also can negatively affect a home’s value.
The Internal Revenue Service has announced a simplified option that many owners of home-based businesses and some home-based workers may use to figure their deductions for the business use of their homes. The new option, capped at $1,500 per year based on $5 a square foot for up to 300 square feet, reduces the paperwork and recordkeeping burden on small businesses by an estimated 1.6 million hours annually. Though homeowners using the new option cannot depreciate the portion of their home used in a trade or business, they can claim allowable mortgage interest, real estate taxes and casualty losses on the home. Further details on the new option can be found in Revenue Procedure 2013-13, posted on 
The real estate market in the South Bay ended 2012 optimistically, with a rise in sales and median price of single-family homes and condos. according to the South Bay Association of Realtors sales of single-family homes in the area reached 245 transactions last month, a 16 percent rise compared with the same period a year earlier. The median price rose 8.7 percent to $500,000, up from a year earlier. Sales of condos and town homes were also strong, with 123 units changing hands, up 11 percent from a year ago. The median condo prices were up 18 percent to $395,000. Inventory was down 75 percent to 1.1 months worth of homes, compared with 4.4 months a year earlier. The report covers the South Bay, excluding the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Inglewood.
There was a time when the only source of real estate property listings information was a local real estate agent. There where big books distributed to all the local real estate brokers, listing all the local homes for sale. Today, with the advent of the internet, things have changed and all that closely guarded information is now very public. Because you know about all the homes for sale, will you be able to ensure a successful real estate transaction on your own? Let me submit that the odds are against you for several key reasons.
Home shoppers will likely have more urgency in the new year, wanting to buy before home prices rise even more. Home prices are edging up in most markets, and buyers are taking notice. Buyer surveys recently have shown that home shoppers expect home prices to continue to inch up, and they want to cash in before they rise too much higher. Rising prices could eventually encourage more sellers to put their homes on the market, which would help boost demand even further. These condition area a result of the slow but steady improvement in the operating fundamentals for the housing market, including 33 straight months of private sector job growth and rising housing formations. Steady buying by investors has also helped reduce distressed home inventories. With supplies dwindling, home prices have improved across much of the country, which is helping bring trade-up buyers back into the market. In 2013, rising rents are expected to push more renters to buy, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
A year of record low inventories of homes for sale and improving prices may finally be catching the attention of millions of prospective home sellers. Is a seller’s market in the offing? According to a November consumer survey released today, 22 percent of homeowners said they are likely or somewhat likely to sell in 2013. Should the sales materialize, the number of homes on the market next year would increase five-fold over 2012. Annualized sales were 4.71 million (as of October), or about 6.2 percent of the nation’s 75 million owner-occupied homes. The survey found that homeowners who bought their homes between 2010 and 2012 and have owned then less than two years are more likely to sell than those who have lived in their homes longer. One out of three homeowners (33 percent) who bought their homes in the past two years said there are likely to sell next year compared to 20 percent who bought before 2002. Most of the new owners seeking to sell are probably move-up buyers who won’t be adding to the overall inventory but will be vacating entry-level homes, which are in high demand in most markets. For years, low home values have frozen move-up buyers in place, many of them underwater. Today 22 percent of owners with a mortgage still owe more than their homes are worth. Rising prices will bring out more sellers, especially if price increases lift them back above water. 2013 could be the year that inventory turns around, just as 2012 was the year that prices started recovering.
{Infographic} Thinking about selling your home? I wanted to take this opportunity to re-post these quick must know facts compiled from the IRS and the California Association of Realtors.
{Infographic} With Southern California moving swiftly ahead in the direction of real estate recovery, now is the time for move-up buyers to capitalize on comparatively low home prices and historically low interest rates while they still can. The stabilizing real estate market is a result of a a combination of reduced defaults, increased demand in move-up markets and lively activity on the part of investors. All this means the competition to buy real estate is high with multiple offers becoming the norm.
