6 Tips To Sell Your Home Faster

In a declining real estate market where supply outstrips demand, a person can generally sell a house faster by lowering the price. But there are other ways to enhance a home's attractiveness besides lowering the asking price. If you're looking to sell your home in a cooling real estate market, read on for some tips on how to generate interest and get the best price possible.

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Multimillion-Dollar Homes on Sale for Half Price

If you’ve dreamed of owning a million-dollar home, the time is now. According to the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), high-end homes in the U.S. are now listed for 27 percent less than their prices at the peak of the market in June 2006. That translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings — and the possibility of buying a million-dollar home for, say, $500,000.

Los Angeles real estate agent Gary Gold of Hilton & Hyland confirms most of the homes in the million-dollar bracket are selling for a third less than the peak market price — and that many of his clients are taking advantage of the discount.

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One Way to Sell Your House: Ask the Right Price

In the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1991 hit “Learning to Fly,” the long-faced singer bemoans how “what goes up, must come down.”

That’s the feeling as the once red-hot real estate market across the country cooled for the past few years. Patch wondered what the local and national real estate scenes are now, and asked some Glen Ellyn experts in the field about it.

Beth Lindner is a Keller Williams Realty broker representing sellers. She finds that her area is holding its own.

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Celebrity Real Estate: Divorced Stars' Homes For Sale (PHOTOS)

Much has been is written about what happens to the kids, the love life, and even the pets after divorce, but what about the house?

If you're a celebrity, chances are you'll ditch it to move on to new--and sometimes better--digs. Here, 5 exes who put their marital homes on the market. Check 'em out and tell us: are you interested in purchasing a piece of celebrity-divorce history?

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Boost Your Curb Appeal During Difficult Months

Now that virtually all the winter’s snow has melted and it’s easier to navigate the streets, let’s consider something calculated to get people slamming on the brakes:

Curb appeal, that special something that makes prospective buyers stop for a better look at a house for sale.

In normal market times, the National Association of Realtors says, 49 percent of buying decisions are based on curb appeal.

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How to Get Homes Sold in this Buyer’s Market

You know it’s a buyer’s market.  But you really need to sell your home now.  Here are six tips to get homes sold even in today’s real estate market:

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Top 8 House-Hunting Mistakes

Buying a home is a very emotional process, and allowing those emotions to get the best of you can cause you to make any number of mistakes. Since buying a home has many far-reaching implications, from where you will live to how hard it will be to make ends meet, it’s important to keep your emotions in check and make the most rational decision possible.

There are eight common emotional mistakes that people make when buying a home. Avoiding these pitfalls will  help you find the best home-sweet-home.

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Despite Fears About Buying A Home, Now May Be The Time

Interest rates are near historic lows. Real estate is more affordable than it was three years ago. And the inventory of homes for sale gives buyers more choices than they’ve had in years.

So why aren’t more people buying?

Certainly, there are scores of potential buyers who no longer can qualify for loans under today’s tighter lending criteria. And others can’t because of layoffs, pay cuts and other recessionary hardships.

Even among those who can and want to buy, many are still holding off out of fear that it just isn’t the right time, but are they missing an opportunity?

“Consumer confidence is really low,” said Eric Allen, director of Metrostudy in Salt Lake City, which tracks the housing market.”

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Garage For Sale — Oh, And With A House Attached

Molly and Stan Hyman are hitting the road and they've put their garage up for sale.

And by the way, their six-car garage comes with a house.

The Burbank couple are automobile enthusiasts and restorers who in 1995 custom-built their garage/house to give themselves room to rebuild and showcase vehicles.

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Cost-Effective Ways To Boost Curb Appeal

Anyone who's ever bought, sold or even just looked at a house can tell you first impressions matter. A house can be filled to the rafters with luxury touches, but if it lacks curb appeal, few potential buyers will ever step in the door to see what's inside.


With real estate sales still sluggish across the country, curb appeal is taking on a new meaning for many homeowners. While an attractive home exterior can still boost potential resale value, homeowners are also looking at curb appeal as a way to enhance the enjoyment of their homes. Giving the exterior of their home a facelift not only makes the house stand out on the street, it also allows homeowners to "move up" without the expense of remodeling or moving.

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Getting The Job Done: Home Stager Prepares For The Sale

With so many homes for sale, sellers are looking to find any advantage they can to set their home apart from their neighbors. Home-staging businesses, assisted by numerous home-staging and decorating television shows, have sprouted to fill the need.

Carmen Wilber of DeLand started Style Fusion Home Staging last summer with her husband, Michael, helping her market the company. She is an accredited staging professional by the International Association of Home Staging Professionals.

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Traps Foreclosure Buyers Need To Know

Interest in buying foreclosures is on the rise and the statistics show that nearly half of all home sales are distressed properties.

Even though it is hard to argue that these deals are the best pricewise, home buyers need to be aware of possible traps that exist when dealing with foreclosures and bank owned properties.

If you are thinking of buying a foreclosure at auction keep in mind that most likely you will not have an opportunity to see the property inside. Auction buyers usually don’t have the time to ensure they are getting a clear title and possible deficiencies may exist.

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Hulk Hogan Still Trying To Sell Off His Florida Real Estate

 

Hulk Hogan may have gotten married at his Clearwater, Florida home in December but that doesn't mean he isn't still trying to unload it. Not only that, he is still trying to sell the Belleair, Florida home that he shared with his ex-wife Linda and his family and was featured in the reality television show "Hogan Knows Best." Back in 2006 the five-bedroom home was listed at $25 million.  

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Nicolas Cage Las Vegas Home For Sale Again

Around this time last year we heard that the Las Vegas home that once belonged to Nicolas Cage has finally been sold. Kenneth Lowman, Broker/Owner of Luxury Homes of Las Vegas announced that he sold Cage's foreclosed, now bank-owned Las Vegas home the first day it was on the market at a new low price of $4.95 million. Cage, who once had a variety of properties scattered all around the world, picked up this home in 2006 for $8.5 million. In July 2008 he listed it for $9.95 million. The 14,000-square-foot home with a 16-car garage was later discounted to $9.49 million. The seven-bedroom home is blandly extravagant with a sweeping staircase, home theater, elevator and panoramic views of Las Vegas. The home has a pool and spa and is located in a gated community for privacy.

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The $60 Million Dream House

A group of wealthy art collectors and philanthropists dined on risotto and listened to chamber music at a 10-bedroom estate on a private island off Florida's Biscayne Bay last month. The mansion isn't owned by a Russian oligarch or a certain NBA player who recently moved to town. It was built purely on speculation by developers in search of a buyer.

Its asking price: $60 million.

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For Sale: 10 of America's Strangest Homes

Millions of homes across the U.S. are on the market. Some are cookie-cutter McMansions. Many more are your undistinguished Colonials. Search hard enough, though, and you'll find unique — and in some cases downright weird — properties up for grabs. 

Forbes surveyed real estate experts at Realtor.com, Sotheby's International, Coldwell Banker and elsewhere to compile a list of strange homes on the market that defy the status quo.

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Housing Recovery Stalls

A new bout of declining home prices is threatening to hamper the U.S. recovery, just as consumers and the overall economy have been showing signs of healing.

Home prices across 20 major metropolitan areas fell 1.3% in October from September, the third straight month-over-month drop, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday. Many economists expect the declines to continue into at least next spring, erasing most of the gains made since prices bottomed out in early 2009. 

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Foreclosure Mess Didn’t Significantly Impact Home Sales

When revelations that banks filed flawed foreclosure paperwork in thousands of cases emerged over the fall, it was widely assumed that the problems would be a disaster for the U.S. housing market.

Now, evidence is emerging that the threat–at least for home sales–may be less significant than it appeared.

Tom Lawler, an independent housing economist in Northern Virginia, scours reports on home sales from metro areas around the country before making a forecast of how home sales will look each month.  He is predicting that next report from the National Association of Realtors (due Dec. 22) will show that November’s sales of previously occupied homes will actually be up 3.2% from October–a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million.

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How Rising Mortgage Rates Could Boost Home Sales

If you're in the market for a home, you're probably feeling pretty calm: Prices are falling, interest rates are low, and there are few other buyers to compete with. You can probably just hang out for awhile and wait for prices to fall some more.

But how long will the buyer's market last? Conventional wisdom holds that prices will fall another 5 to 10 percent, most likely bottoming out sometime in 2011. As the housing market stabilizes, sales will slowly pick up, while the huge backlog of foreclosed and bank-owned homes gets worked off. In healthier markets—like many in the Midwest, where there was never much of a bubble to start with—the housing market might even start to feel normal again in 2011 or 2012.

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Foreigners Flock To Florida Real Estate Bargains

Foreign tourists who for years have crowded Florida's shopping malls to buy clothes and electronics, are now flocking to real estate offices to snatch up apartments and homes at bargain-basement prices. 

The investors, mainly from Europe and Latin America, are jostling over apartments in Miami's trendy South Beach neighborhood selling for 70,000-100,000 dollars, and in less exclusive areas to the north where they start at around 50,000.

"The buying opportunities are maybe the best ever. Who knows if we'll see prices again like today's in Miami Beach," Keys Real Estate agent Michelle Iglesias told AFP.

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