A Real Estate Agent with Real Solutions...
The Born Solution
prides itself on supporting those looking to buy or sell property. Below you will find helpful resources that will help you on your journey.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Suzette at
(714) 510-4848
for a no obligation consultation.
I am here to support you!
Getting Set to Sell Your Home
The home selling process can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve broken it down into six easy steps. This article describes the first step: Getting your home ready to sell. The more preparation you do beforehand, the better price you’ll get for your home.
Take a critical look at your house
When selling a home, you need to look at it from the perspective of a potential buyer. Are there obvious flaws that need to be fixed? Problems that you have grown accustomed to will leap out at potential buyers. Fix everything prior to listing. If you’re worried about possible repairs for larger problems such as an old roof or a broken heating and cooling system, it can pay to get a home inspection so you know what needs work. Taking care of those larger issues yourself before putting your home on the market can mean more offers and less negotiating later.
What about the appearance of your home? Does the décor need an update? Consider painting or making minor changes to update problem areas. Rearranging the furniture or buying new furniture or slipcovers can quickly change a room. Even if you don’t need updating, a fresh coat of paint helps both the inside and outside of your house look better and cleaner. Just be sure to choose neutral colors that will appeal to many buyers. The updates you make should be relatively cheap or should be able to travel with you to your new home.
Give it curb appeal
Starting at the curb, is your home welcoming? Check the landscaping and lawn. Trim your hedges, edge your loan, pull weeds, pressure wash the driveway and front walk. Plant flowers either in bed or pots around the front door. Keep your front porch swept and clear of any outside clutter. Replace a worn-out welcome mat. Paint the front door. If you have a storm door, clean the glass. Check to make sure all outdoor lights are working, especially the porch and walkway light.
In your backyard, put all your tools and work equipment out of site. If you have power tools or lawn equipment you don’t use frequently, put it in storage or at a friend’s house. Make sure any swing sets and outdoor furniture are clean and in good repair. That goes for the deck as well – repair any rotted wood, especially on steps.
Clean and de-clutter the inside
One of the most important things that you should do when selling a home is to clean and de-clutter inside. Home selling requires a thorough spring cleaning – the baseboards, blinds, furniture, floors, carpets, everywhere. You want your home to shine. You may even consider hiring a cleaning service to do this if you are short on time. And remember, once your home is clean, keep it that way. When your home is on the market, make sure you vacuum, mop and clean your kitchen and bathrooms every few days.
You also want your home to be free of clutter when selling it. Go through each room and pinpoint the piles of clutter that have built up, and be ruthless. In your living areas, get organized by storing what needs to be stored and throwing away the rest. If your rooms are furniture-heavy, store what you don’t need or take it to a friend’s house. Go through your bedrooms and put away personal items. Get a head start on packing by thinning out your closets with out-of-season clothing. Pare down your outwear, especially if you have a coat rack near an entrance. Pack away extra coats, shoes, umbrellas and other outdoor gear you won’t need while you’re selling.
Problem areas
In the kitchen, clear off the counters and organize your cabinets (they will be opened!). Pack away kitchen items you can do without – the piles of storage containers, party serving dishes, and specialty pots and tools you rarely use. The extra room will make your kitchen feel more spacious.
In the bathroom, move toothpaste, makeup and other items from the counter to a drawer or cabinet (neatly though, don’t just toss everything in the drawer). Put out a new bar of soap on a sparkling clean soap dish (if you can’t get all the dried-up soap off, buy an inexpensive new one.) Pack away medicine for ailments people don’t care to think about – laxatives, athlete’s foot, etc. Don’t leave your toilet bowl brush or plunger next to the toilet – a better place for those items is your utility closet.
Scrub your tub or shower stall until it looks new, and clean it every day to keep soap scum and mildew away (that includes fishing hair from the drain). Replace your shower curtain liner. Limit yourself to one shampoo bottle and one bar of soap or one bottle of shower gel. Use a wash cloth daily? Dried up, dirty wash clothes are a turn off. Toss it into the laundry and replace it after one use. Inspect your towels – only display clean, hole-free towels. If the edges on all your towels are frayed, pick up new, inexpensive ones to display.
Utility areas
Mudrooms, basements and laundry rooms can be the toughest areas to deal with when selling. Don’t let the project overwhelm you. First, throw away the junk. Then pack items you need but use rarely into storage bins or boxes and neatly stack them on shelves. Having the area clean and freshly painted is important. If you have pets, make sure food, litter boxes, pet toys and grooming tools are not in high-traffic areas.
After you’ve prepared your home inside and out, have a friend or neighbor walk through and tell you what should be changed. You need to choose someone who is not afraid to be honest to do this. The feedback can really help in the first step of the home selling process.
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Setting a listing price is one of the most important parts of the home selling process. Knowing your home’s value helps you determine its price. What determines home value Many factors go into determining home value. The square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms plays a large part. Typically, larger homes with more bedrooms and bathrooms increase the home value. There are several other features that help determine home value. Does your home have a magnificent view? Is it on a private lot or cul de sac, or close to public transportation? All of these can add to its value. School districts can greatly affect value, and the age and condition of the home are also factors. There are many tools available to help you determine your home value. The most obvious is your real estate agent. Your agent should have a good understanding of the current market in your area, allowing them to review comparable homes and estimate how your home sizes up.
Determine Your Home's Value
Another factor in home value is the current number of comparable listings on the market. The fewer the listings, the more valuable your home, particularly if it’s in a desirable location or has amenities hard to find in your area. Supply and demand can make your home worth more, allowing you to set a higher price when you sell. Conversely, if there are many homes similar to yours on the market, that can lower the value, especially if there aren’t many buyers. How to find your home value and set your price
When comparing your home to similar ones, make sure you look at more than square footage and the number of rooms. Take into account features such as molding, the condition of the home, the slope of the lot, etc. when looking at comps.
One final factor in determining your price is your time. If you are not in a hurry to sell, you can price your house higher because you have the luxury to wait for the right buyer. Just make sure you don’t price it too high – you don’t want to scare away prospective buyers. However, if you are in a time crunch, it may be better to price your home on the low end in order to sell quickly. Selling quickly may be more valuable than whatever additional money you would get from a starting at a higher price.
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Reviewing and Negotiating Home Sale Offers
Your house has been on the market and now you have an offer. What should you consider when deciding whether to accept, reject, or counter?
First, remember that the offer is not just about a price for your house. The potential buyer has written all sorts of other things into their offer. They want your refrigerator, curtains, and even your grill. Can they do that?
Understand what’s in the offer
A home sale offer can include these things and more. It is very common for
a buyer to want appliances such as your refrigerator, washer and dryer included in the home sale. Curtains are also a standard inclusion. However, the buyer might also want the custom-built furniture that fits perfectly in that little nook or your workbench in the garage. If the buyer wants it, they can always ask for it in the home sale offer.
Also look out for contingencies, such as the buyer needing loan approval or selling their home. These can create problems down the road, should either not come through.
Decide on your response
Once you have read through and understand the offer, how do you decide what to do next? First, is the price satisfactory to you? If the offer is at or above what you had hoped to get for your home, take another look at any contingencies. If there are none and everything else in the offer is satisfactory, then you should probably accept, or counter offer to get the sale details exactly right.
But what if the price is right, but the sale is contingent on the buyer selling his home? This is where you’ll want your Real Estate Agent’s expertise to help you gauge the market. Did you have a lot of other interested buyers? If so, another offer may soon come your way. But if it took a while to get to this offer, you may want to take it despite the sale contingency, or counter offer for slightly more because of the contingency.
Counter offers
Perhaps the offer was a bit under what you had hoped to get for your home, but the buyer is pre-approved and there are no other contingencies. In this case, it makes sense to counter offer. Many buyers submit first offers that are lower than what they’re willing to pay, so you’re likely to get a bit more for your home. Even if the offer price is right, you may counter offer on some other points in the contract, such as occupancy date or taking your appliances with you.
Low-ball offers
You may get some offers that are much lower than your asking price, especially if your house has been on the market a while. If the market is strong and you’ve had a lot of interested buyers looking at your home, you may not want to waste time on a low-ball offer. In this case, you can just reject the offer. However, if a lot of the offers you’re getting are low, you should talk with your Real Estate Agent about whether your home is priced correctly. Say your home is priced at $255,000 and you’re getting offers for much less. Reducing your price to $249,000 may bring in many more prospective buyers, who are capping their search at $250,000. By reducing the price slightly, the end result could be a better offer than the low-ball offers you’re getting now.
Multiple offers
A few sellers are lucky enough to have multiple offers to consider. This is a great position to be in, and you can use your leverage to get the price you want, with few contingencies. However, be careful not to get greedy. It is possible to turn off buyers, especially if there are other, comparable homes for sale in your neighborhood.
Negotiating points
When you’re negotiating, don’t forget the non-financial bargaining chips in a home sale:
- occupancy date
- home warranty
- closing costs
- major appliances
- draperies, curtains, blinds and shutters
- custom-built furniture
- area rugs that fit a particular room
- grill or fire pit
- patio furniture, planters and garden benches
- garden shed
- lawnmower, leaf blower or other maintenance equipment
- garden or household tools
- recreational equipment, such as ping-pong and pool tables, above-ground pools, trampolines, climbers, swing sets and hot tubs
Decide what you can add to the sale of your home and what is non-negotiable. If your father created that built-in cabinet himself, no price could entice you to leave it. However, a refrigerator is easily replaced.
Make sure you work with your Real Estate Agent throughout the negotiation process. The last thing you want is for the deal to fall apart because you gave the buyer assurance that something was included, but didn’t talk with your Real Estate Agent about it. By negotiating through your Real Estate Agent, you have less to worry about.
'width' is a duplicate attribute name. Line 1, position 37. Prior to most home closings, there are contingencies that must be met and paperwork that has to be taken care of. A contingency allows the buyer to back out of a contract if certain conditions are not met within a certain period of time. Some of the most common contingencies include the following: Once all the contingencies are met, the sale can go forward. Your Real Estate Agent will draw up all the closing documentation, including the settlement statement or HUD-1. This lists out all the costs of the sale to the buyer and the seller. Read over the settlement statement carefully to make sure everything in the contract is indeed reflected in the actual sale. If the document is correct, all that’s left is to sign the paperwork and hand over the keys to the new owner.
Closing on Your Home Sale
Contingencies
Important information for those who are considering doing a short sale…
Remember The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007?
This provision generally allows taxpayers to exclude income from the forgiven debt on their principal residence. Debts reduced through mortgage restructuring, as well as mortgage debt forgiven in connection with a foreclosure, qualify for this relief.
However; for discharges occurring on or after January 1, 2009, California does not conform to the federal provision. Generally speaking, under the current law, the amount of debt discharged is taxable to California. However, several bills pending in the Legislature would extend and modify California mortgage forgiveness debt relief to conform more to the Federal law: AB 1779, SBX8 32, and SBX6 14.
Tax year 2009
For tax year 2009, California does not conform to the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act which applies to discharges occurring in 2007 through 2012. 1 Amounts excluded for federal income tax purposes must be added to income for California tax purposes.
Tax years 2007 and 2008
California law conforms, with modifications, to the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act for discharges that occurred in tax years 2007 and 2008 (R&TC section 17144.5, as added by SB 1055). The amount of qualifying indebtedness is less than the federal amount and California imposes a state-only limitation on the total amount of relief. The following summarizes the differences between the federal and California provisions.
Federal provision applies to discharges occurring in 2007 through 2012, and:
· Limits the amount of qualified principal residence indebtedness to $2,000,000 for taxpayers who file as married filing jointly, single, head of household, or widow/widower, and to $1,000,000 for taxpayers who file as married filing separately.
· Does not limit the debt relief amount; it only limits the indebtedness amount used to calculate the debt relief amount.
· See the federal law Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act and Debt Cancellation for more information.
California provision applies to discharges that occurred in 2007 and 2008 and:
· Limits the amount of qualified principal residence indebtedness to $800,000 for taxpayers who file as married/registered domestic partners (RDP) filing jointly, single, head of household, or widow/widower, and to $400,000 for taxpayers who file as married/RDP filing separately.
· Limits debt relief to $250,000 for taxpayers who file as married/RDP filing jointly, single, head of household, or widow/widower, and to $125,000 for taxpayers who file as married/RDP filing separately.
Information resources
· Federal law - Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act and Debt Cancellation
· SB 1055 – Legislative Change 08-7
· Tax News July 2009 – Foreclosure and Short Sales
· Tax News November 2009 – Documents, Second Mortgages, Tax Reporting – How to Handle a Foreclosed Home for Tax Purposes
Claiming mortgage forgiveness debt relief on an original 2007 or 2008 tax return
You can file for debt relief on your original 2007 or 2008 Form 540, California Resident Income Tax Return, or Form 540NR, California Nonresident or Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return.
If the amount of debt relief for federal purposes is more than the California limit, include the amount in excess of the California limit on Schedule CA (540/540NR) line 21f, column (C).
If the amount of debt relief for federal purposes is the same as or less than the California limit, then no adjustment is necessary on Schedule CA (540/540NR).
You must include a copy of your federal return, including Form 982, Reduction of Tax Attributes Due to Discharge of Indebtedness (and Section 1082 Basis Adjustment), with your original California tax return.
Claiming mortgage forgiveness debt relief for a previously-filed 2007 tax return
If you already filed your 2007 tax return, file a Form 540X, Amended Individual Income Tax Return, in order to claim debt relief.
If the amount of debt relief for federal purposes is more than the California limit, include the amount in excess of the California limit on Schedule CA (540/540NR) line 21f, column (C).
If the amount of debt relief for federal purposes is the same as or less than the California limit, no adjustment is necessary on Schedule CA (540/540NR). On Form 540X, simply enter on line 2e, column (B), the amount originally entered on Schedule CA (540/540NR) line 21f, column (C).
1 Federal law initially applied to discharges occurring from 2007 through 2009 (the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, Public Law 110-142, December 20, 2007). Federal mortgage forgiveness debt relief was subsequently extended to apply to discharges occurring from 2009 through 2012 (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Public Law 111-5, October 3, 2008).
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Suzette Born
DRE Lic # 01841704
HomePreviews Real Estate Network
Certified Notary Signing Agent
18619 Yorba Linda Blvd.
Yorba Linda, CA 92886
Cell (714) 510-4848
Fax (714) 701-1910
Suzette@TheBornSolution.com
Copyright . Suzette Born. All rights reserved.