Do You Need Flood Insurance if You Live in the Middletown Area?

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The cleanup effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is ongoing here in Katy, Texas, where I’ve joined Keller Williams’ relief initiative with many others to lending a helping hand to those in need.

As you can see in the video above, it’s a nightmare of a mess. Many folks are unloading everything from inside their houses onto wheelbarrows and dumping the clutter onto the street. The house we’re cleaning out now had a water line that reached four feet up the wall.

The whole experience has brought a couple of points to my mind that I want to share with you.

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Donations are still very much needed for the folks down here in Texas.

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First, if you live in an area in Middletown that’s had its flood lines remapped, you should seriously consider getting flood insurance. There are definitely some areas that have been remapped, and not all mortgage companies know about it.

Second, remember that any donations are still very much needed for the folks down here in Texas. Whether that’s food, supplies, or money, every little bit helps.

If you have any questions about how to donate or how to obtain flood insurance, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I’d love to help you.

A Market Update for the End of Summer

What can you expect from our real estate market over the next few months? We’re here to let you know.

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Today we’re going to talk all about the summer market: what happened, what it means for you, and what you can expect as we transition into fall.

There are five long-term indicators that show how our market is doing, along with one short-term indicator. The long-term indicators include:

• Inventory is down from last year.
• The rate at which inventory is accumulating is down.
• The number of closed transactions is up.
• The median price point is up.
• The list-to-sale price ratio is up.

All long-term indicators point to a strong seller’s market.

All these long-term indicators point to us being in a strong seller’s market, but the short-term indicator is different. Over the last seven days, we’ve started to see the number of new listings outpace the number of pending transactions. We’ll keep an eye on this trend to see if it continues. You should keep an eye on it as well.

If you have any questions for us about the market or anything else about real estate, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Why Is the Negotiation Gap So Important In Pricing Your Home?

When pricing your home, it’s important that you stay within the negotiation gap. If you don’t, you could lose out on a lot of money.

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What effect does low inventory and high demand have on pricing in our market? The short answer is it allows you to get a higher sale price for your house than you would’ve been able to last year.

There’s something I want to caution you about, though. Every single time I sit down with a homeowner and ask how much they want to pad the price of their house to leave room for negotiation, I get the same answer—10%. In this market, the reality is that you only need to pad the price by a little less than 3%. 

If you overshoot your home’s market value by 10% and your margin of error is 3%, that means you’re 7% over the mark. 3% goes into 7% a little more than two times, meaning you’re more than twice your allowable margin of error. If you remember your grade school math when it comes to calculating percentages, you’ll know that twice of what you need translates to 200%.

In other words, you’re more than 200% in excess of your margin of error, or what I call “the negotiation gap.”

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If you price your home over the negotiation gap, you’ll likely lose money on its sale.

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When you come in with numbers this high, it drives your home’s time on the market way up because you have to keep reducing the price until it’s back within that 3% margin. On top of that, buyers will assume there’s something wrong with your house because it’s been on the market for so long, so you’re bound to get less money for it than if you priced it within the 3% margin to begin with.

If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market, you won’t be able to draw the competition for your house you need to get a good price if you’re 200% over the margin of error. Even if your house looks like a million bucks, it’ll be too far outside of what buyers expect in terms of price.

You can save yourself this trouble by working with an agent who can figure out the numbers and help you step into the market intelligently. If you’d like to know the math on your home, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I’d be happy to help you.