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One of the great things about technology today is that it provides us with so many choices. But,  it’s also one of the things that can take your curious mind and completely stupify it with the oceans of information available. Sometimes looking for a home on the internet can be like taking a drink out of a fire hydrant. When you fill out the search form on a lot of real estate websites, it says, “350 homes available”.  And, obviously they cannot all meet what you want.So how then, does a smart buyer use technology to simplify their homebuying experience without drowning in all of the options avaiable? The answer actually gets back to one of the seven habits described by Steven Covey, “Begin with the End in mind”.  I’ve found the following exercise helpful for my clients.

1. What are the top 4 things you want in a home?
Write down the top 4 things that you HAVE TO HAVE in a home: Not your wants, YOUR NEEDS. I have the husbands and the wives do this separately. That way, we can identify the differences before we go spend hours looking at homes that won’t work for either of them.

2. How important are those things on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most important)?
By ranking the importance of your criteria, you can rate the suitability of a home more accurately than just saying, “I kind of like this home better than the last one, but I don’t know why”. If a large kitchen is one of your NEEDS and on a scale of 1 to 10, you rate it as a 10, then a  great home with a tiny kitchen will automatically be ruled out for you. You won’t waste time looking at the wrong kind of homes.

3. Custom program the MLS (multiple listing service) to find homes that meet those criteria
The best secret about the private realtor homes database is that it has an “Update” feature. If you tell me what type of home you’re looking for, I can program that database to automatically notify you of any new home that meets your criteria, REGARDLESS of the company that listed the home for sale. You get to know about it as soon as the other realtors know about it.

The home magazines that you’re looking at, and even Realtor.com all have at least a 1 week delay before they update themselves. The auto-update feature of the MLS is every day! Even in a buyer’s market the best homes, go fast. Knowing when the best homes come up for sale is invaluable.

The other nice thing about the auto-update feature of the MLS is that it covers the homes on all those other real estate websites that you have to spend hours on. Most of those websites all pull their data from the MLS anyway! Programming the MLS to auto-update you is THE WAY TO GO! Why would you look for a home any other way?

 If you’d like me to program the MLS to update you on homes for sale, just let me know. (Utah residents only please.)

Rob Green – Broker
Smart Choice Realty, LLC
(801) 377-7627
rob@smartchoiceutah.com

 (p.s. if you are already working with a real estate agent, I am prohibited from providing this service to you).

To listen to a free podcast explaining how to avoid these mistakes, click here.

click on this link

While the Springville Utah real estate is not in the cataclysmic state that the rest of the nation is, we certainly have a surplus of homes on the market. It is useful to know what price ranges have the most amount of homes for sale. Here’s a quick glimpse as of today (29 Nov 07).

You can see from this data that the bulk of homes for sale are between $140k-$300k with a huge surplus of homes between $400k-450k. Anyone want a discount luxury home in a few months?   The bulk of homes that are selling are between $140k-$250k, which overlaps the majority of the price range of homes that are currently for sale. And, it looks like they are taking less than 2 months to sell. Which is great.

So, what does all of this mean? All things being equal, the Springville Utah Real Estate market is doing fine, as long as you’re not trying to sell a luxury home.

While Provo Utah real estate is not in the cataclysmic state that the rest of the nation is, we certainly have a surplus of homes on the market. It is useful to know what price ranges have the most amount of homes for sale.  Here’s a quick glimpse as of today (29 Nov 07).

But, if you look at the market over a 5 year trend, we’re still experiencing a healthy rate of growth. So then, what price ranges of Provo utah real estate are selling right now? Here’s a quick 90 day summary:

 From this data you can see that the majority of homes that are listed are between $160k-$300k. But the price range that is SELLING is between $140k-$250k. Homes in this price range are taking an average of 3 months to sell.

If you would like to know what price your own provo home would sell for, click here.

Rob Green
Broker for Smart Choice Realty, LLC
(801) 377-7627

 For a current list of Mapleton homes for sale, click here.

For full October 2007 statistics for Mapleton Utah Real estate, click here.

What do I have to disclose when selling a home?

When I represent a client in selling their home, there are a number of standard documents that they fill out. One of these, is the Seller’s Property Condition Disclosure. This form is designed to assist sellers in clomplying with legal requirements to “disclose to buyers defects in the property known to seller that materially and adversely affect the value of the property that cannot be discovered by a reasonable inspection by an ordinary prudent buyer”.

But, what should be disclosed on this form? Each of the 6 pages lists certain items that should be addressed. The topics include:

• Occupancy
• Roof
• Utilities
• Heating/Cooling
• Equipment
• Appliances
• Interior features
• exterior features
• termites and pests
• additions or remodels
• structural items and soils
• Boundaries and Easements
• Use of Property
• Electrical
• Mold
• Other Moisture conditions
• Hazardous conditions
• Home Owner Associations
• Unpaid Assessments
• Insurance

Now that you’re completely bored after reading that list, I’ll bet many of you are saying, “When I bought my house, the seller didn’t tell me about all of that!”, and you’re probably right. If you buy a home that is “For Sale by Owner” and you don’t have an agent assisting you, you’re likely to not get a lot of this information. Why? Because most seller’s don’t know what they’re supposed to disclose to you.

In general, the rule of thumb I tell my clients is to disclose as much about the property as possible. It’s better to be completely honest and have a buyer hem and haw than it is to be sued later on for something you didn’t think was important enough to tell the buyer, but they viewed it to be a problem.

If you would like help with the disclosure process of selling your own home, feel free to give me a call.

Rob Green (801) 377-SMART (7627)
Broker for Smart Choice Realty, LLC