The Eagle's View

This is a little bit off the subject of real estate, but it's important nonetheless. Search engine optimization (SEO) is big business. It's the art or science of getting your website to appear high in the search results in a search engine, like Google or Yahoo! There are companies that will charge hundreds even thousands of dollars to help you "optimize" your site so that it'll appear at the top of the list when someone searches on your desired keywords.

For example, I want my site to be the #1 result on Google and Yahoo when someone searches for, "Highlands Ranch Real Estate Agent" or "Littleton Real Estate Agent". This will help me get more business because presumably people searching for those terms are looking for exactly what I offer. Well, I've managed to secure the top spot with those two terms on Yahoo! Google is a little more difficult to figure out.

The only reason I mention this in my blog is because a Realtor that has a site with good SEO can actually help you sell your home better! How? By having your listing featured on the site, and having more people visiting the site, that's more people seeing your home, thus more potential that someone will find it and want to buy it. Just like marketing in a newspaper, it's better to be in a paper that has a lot of readers than one that nobody actually reads.

A great deal of attention is focused on the first-time homebuyer but from my experience the stress-level is much higher for the person(s) looking to buy their second home. Not a second home as in a vacation home but a second home as in moving up from the starter home.

Here's why. First off, the second-time buyer has a home to sell and usually this must be completed before he or she can buy a new home. It's great if a seller can think of this as a completely separate transaction from buying the next home but that's not always easy. For example, suppose you have found the next home you want to buy but you cannot make an attractive offer until you know when you will close on your current home. This could cause you to accept a lower offer on your current home because you just want to get it sold! If you did not have a future home in mind, then you might be more aggressive in getting a higher price for your current home.

And then there is the timing issue. Your home could sell in a matter of days, weeks, or months. So when do you begin looking for your next home? If you start too early you may find a home but be unable to buy it until your home sells, causing more stress and frustration! Start looking too late and you will feel rushed to find something quickly as your home is under contract and the clock is ticking. It would be great if you could just sell your home for as much money as possible, put all your stuff into storage and live in a hotel or apartment for a month or two while you look around and find that perfect next home then try to get the best price possible for the home you want. This would eliminate many of the external forces affecting your price negotiations. Sure there are drawbacks to this plan, like paying for storage and a hotel and living out of a box for a while, but wouldn't it be nice to make the financial decisions of selling and buying a home without regard to the timing issues?

As if buying your second home isn't tricky enough, many people also find it difficult to balance the "wanta factor". The wanta factor is what I call it when someone has lived in a home for a few years and over that time has compiled a lists of everything he or she wants to have in the next home. As you can imagine such a list can be very long and often obtaining everything that is on the list would result in wanting to purchase a home that is many times more than what you can afford. I hear the effects of the "wanta factor" all of the time. A typical conversation goes something like this:

"We are ready to move into the home where we plan to stay for the next 20 years while our children grow up and eventually go to college at which time we will then be ready to move again. Since it will be our long-term house we want it to have..."

And that's when the wanta factor kicks in. It usually begins with location and school district, then number of bedrooms and bathrooms, then gets down to the details like his & her closets, Jack & Jill bathrooms, full basements, large kitchens, mudrooms, main floor or upstairs laundry rooms, etc. etc. It is fine to want all of these things and of course any buyer will have a list of wants, but to obtain everything on that will be nearly impossible for nearly everyone who can't afford to build a custom home.

Herein lies the need to rank and prioritize items on the list. Husbands and wives should be careful with how this process occurs. What is important to one might not be as important to the other. They say the key to marriage is compromise and this will be a great opportunity to test the theory.

While prioritizing items on the list of desires, keep in mind two VERY IMPORTANT things:

1) Most people move on average every 3-5 years. You may have every intention and desire to live in the same home for 20-30 years, but you do not have to and eventually you may not want to. Think about homes built 25 years ago. They generally were designed to fit the styles and desires of 1980, not those of today. Buyers today want big kitchens, granite countertops, 5-piece master bathrooms, wide and long garages, things that new homes offer. Will your desires in 5 or 10 years be the same as they are today or will you want to move again?

2) Location, location, location. You can remodel, add on, remove and replace things in, on and around a home, but you cannot move it. Finding a home that doesn't have everything you want but is in a great location may be worth buying because you can eventually make the home the way you want it. On the opposite end of the argument, you may find a home that has everything you want but is located on the corner of a busy highway intersection. Even though you may not mind the traffic, when you try to sell it will be much more difficult than if you have a good location.

When you begin the process of buying your second home, I think you will find it much more difficult than when you bought your first home for all of the reasons discussed above. Hiring a professional Realtor to help guide you through the process is (in my opinion) critical and should not be overlooked.

Seems like everybody in the real estate business loves to work with the "First-Time Buyer". I'm no exception...it's fun, exciting and easy. The first-time buyer might not be looking for an expensive home, but it's an opportunity for me to gain a new client for life. The first-time buyer usually is looking to buy something that's better than their current situation, which typically is moving from an apartment, dorm, or parents house! So it's easy to please the first-time buyer. They don't know about all the cool things that someday they will want, like a big yard, walk-in closets, gourment kitchens, jack-and-jill bathrooms, etc. Usually the first-time buyer just wants a place that he or she will own. Agents and mortgage brokers like to feel smart by educating the first-time buyer too. We make sure the buyer understands everything about the process of buying a home, the different loan options, the advantages and disadvantages of location and so on. Owning your first home isn't as scarry as it sounds and you are usually better off buying vs. renting. If you are looking to buy your first home, contact me to get started.