3 common home purchase roadblocks

Do you know your sellers' true motivation?

Question:  Allison, we have been looking for a place in Summit County for over a year now.  We’ve seen several that we like, but just can’t seem to “pull the trigger”….any suggestions on how we’ll know when we’ve found the perfect place?

Answer:  You are not alone!  Buyers who find a home they'd like to buy soon after they start their home search often pass on it because they feel they haven't seen enough listings. Months later, when they haven't found anything to compare to the first home they really liked, they can regret that they didn't seize a great opportunity when they had a chance.

It takes a leap of faith and complete trust in your real estate agent to make a quick move in a market that's new to you. You'll feel more confident when you've done your homework and know the reasons why some listings sell for more than others. This is a process that takes time and is time well spent.

A characteristic of the current home-sale market, particularly in or near areas where job growth has improved significantly, is that there are not a lot of good homes for sale. In these niche markets, there tend to be more buyers looking than there are homes to satisfy the demand.

The housing market is bifurcated. Unlike the high-demand enclaves inspired by a pickup in employment, there are many more areas where there are far too many unsold homes and with too few buyers. This tends to have a dampening effect on home prices.

How long it takes you to find a home will depend in part on whether what you're looking for is readily available. It will also depend on how many buyers are looking for the same kind of home you'd like to buy. If there's competition for a scarce commodity, you might make offers on several homes before you are able to convince a seller to accept your offer.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: Investors snap up foreclosure listings quickly, but they aren't going to call these places home. It's rare for buyers to find a home they want to occupy as their primary residence quickly, either due to specialized housing needs or lack of inventory. Put the time you spend waiting to good use by learning more about the community in which you want to live. Patience should be your motto.

Patience is also needed to carry you through the contract negotiation and closing. Although each home-sale transaction is unique, it's not uncommon for a glitch to come up at some point. Some homes don't appraise for the price you've agreed to pay. If you don't have any additional cash to add to the deal, and the seller won't renegotiate the price, you'll be back at square one, looking for a home to buy.

The glitch could occur before your offer is accepted if the sellers are stubbornly unrealistic about the price they're asking. Recently, buyers were encouraged to make an offer on an overpriced listing that had been on the market for months. The buyers reluctantly made an offer for the top price they could pay for the house. The sellers flatly turned the buyers down and said they would never sell for that price.

Three months and one price reduction later, the house still hadn't sold. The buyers were again encouraged to make an offer. They made an offer for the same price they did the first time, but the terms were more agreeable to the sellers. It was accepted.

Many unrealistic sellers never come around. Don't waste your time on sellers who don't have a strong motivation for selling. There's a big difference between sellers who want to sell only if they can get an unrealistic price, and sellers who have purchased another home and have no need for the current one.

Until you have an accepted offer, keep your eye on the market; don't miss a listing that will work for you and is reasonably priced.  Good luck – and keep trying!  You’ll find your perfect spot in the mountains!

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

I hope the spring is treating you well!  We are enjoying a very warm, dry spring here in Summit County, CO... I'm not complaining... AND it is a little weird not having much snow in April! 

  Our market is proving to be steady as she goes right now... that's a good thing!  The number of sales is up slightly, prices still coming down slightly and inventory is down.  These are all signs of a market that is stabilizing....

Here's an interesting article on price and the market.

MARKET RECAP
Prices always make news, as well they should. A price is an important factor in determining loan amount and equity position. Price determines whether someone buys, sells, or holds. You could say that price is everything.
With that thought in mind, home prices have been volatile in 2012, which has lead to volatile sales data. But though prices have been volatile, they have been trending higher. S&P/Case-Shiller's 20-city composite home price index shows prices increased 0.2 percent in February compared to January.
Though the S&P/Case-Shiller index is the most monitored index, it's a little stale, being two months in arrears. We were more interested in contemporary price data released by Zillow, which show home values were up 0.5 percent in its 30-market index. Zillow believes 19 of the markets it follows have either hit bottom or are expected to hit bottom by the end of the year. Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries advises, "For people who have been waiting to time their home purchase close to market bottom, it’s time to start shopping.”
Not to pat ourselves too hard on the back, but we've been offering similar advice for the past six months. Now, no one can precisely call a bottom, but you can get a “vibe” in your market through experience and information. More of the vibes and much of the information is turning positive in many local markets. To be sure, bad news can still be found, but if you wait for nothing but good news, the bottom will have long been gone.
Existing home sales prove that the news still isn't all good. Sales for March came in softer than expected, posting at 4.48 million annualized units, a 2.6 percent dip from February. The good news is that market dynamics appear to be shifting from mostly low-end homes to higher-end ones: the median national home price rose a strong 4.6 percent to $163,800.
As for new homes sales, the news was decidedly good. New home sales posted a better-than-expected 328,000 annualized units in March, after being revised strongly upward to 353,000 units in February. The national median sales price dipped 1 percent, to $234,500, in March, but we'd be surprised not to see a price rebound in April, because of a dearth of new homes. In fact, the supply of unsold new homes fell to just 144,000 in March – the fewest on record dating to 1963.
Mortgage rates, meanwhile, continue to skim along the bottom, though they're showing no inclination to move meaningfully lower. Again, we can't stress enough the risk/reward paradigm in the mortgage lending market: Even after a spat of bad economic news in Europe, rates hardly moved. This suggests to us that waiting for still lower rates means incurring a great deal of risk for little reward.

 

I’ve had lots of questions lately about 1031 tax deferred exchanges and thought it might be time for an update!  This information is from Bankers Escrow Corp and Mary Lou Schwab.   

Great News! The I.R.S. will not challenge whether a vacation property or second home qualifies for a Section 1031 Exchange if certain specified ownership and use requirements are met.  The I.R.S. released Revenue Procedure 2008-16 providing definite guidelines for a safe harbor 1031 exchange. 

To meet the safe harbor requirements, a taxpayer, during the 24 months prior to the sale or after the purchase of a vacation property or second home must:

1. Rent the property at fair market rent for a minimum of 14 days during each 12 month period of the 24-month period.

2. Taxpayer’s personal use of the property cannot exceed the greater of 14 days per year or 10% of the days the property is actually rented during each of the two 12-month periods before or after the 1031 exchange.

Personal use is defined as:

• Use by the taxpayer or any other person who has an interest in the vacation or second home property, including a tenant-in-common interest.
• Use by any individual who uses the property under an arrangement which enables the taxpayer to use some other property.  No trading places allowed!
• Use by any member of the taxpayer’s family unless the vacation property is rented out as a primary residence at a fair market rent.
• Use by any other individual if rented for less than fair market rent.

Maintenance days do not count as personal use days. If the taxpayer is engaged in repair, upkeep and annual maintenance on a substantially full time basis for any day, a personal day is not claimed.  The taxpayer must be ready to prove that the actual work was done and this can include overseeing a contractor that is providing the work on the property.

In summary, a taxpayer can take a second home or a vacation property and rent it at fair market value for 14 days per year for two years and then exchange out of it. Remember that personal use must be limited during these two years.  Revenue Ruling 2008-16 provides these guidelines for a safe 1031 exchange.  Taxpayers must also satisfy all other requirements for a like-kind exchange. Always check with your tax advisor before engaging in any 1031 exchange transaction.

Mary Lou Schwab is a CPA and a Certified Exchange Specialist.  She oversees the 1031 division at Bankers Escrow Corp. and can be reached at 800-571-6595 or 303-986-4848.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

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For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Allison is a long time local in Summit County. Summit Real Estate – The Simson Team is located at the Dillon Ridge Marketplace. Allison’s long-time residency and years of real estate experience can help you make the most of any buying or selling situation. She’s a Certified Residential Specialist (CRS), the highest designation awarded to a Realtor in the residential sales field.  Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Question:  Allison, we have had our Silverthorne, CO home on the market for several months with lots of showings, but no offers.  We feel like our price is right – do you have any other ideas for us?

Answer:  Thanks for asking…of course, correct pricing is the #1 thing you can do to increase the likelihood of a sale, but here’s another idea that I have been using recently with good results:  Write a love letter to you buyers!

According to Tara Nicolle with Inman news, recent reports suggest that the real estate market might be picking up in the nation.  While we do tend to lag behind the national market by 12-18 months and our prices are still declining slightly, we are seeing some good energy here in the mountains.  That said, sellers from coast to coast are still doing everything within their power to differentiate their home from the scads of other competitive listings.

As someone who has been inside probably thousands of homes with buyers over the years, I've always thought there was one super-simple, vastly underrated marketing technique for homes that are having a hard time standing out from the rest of the market: the seller love letter.

A seller love letter is a note, personally written or typed up by the home's seller. Among other things, it expresses the love the seller's family has had for the home, and explains the facts and events underlying that sentiment.

I've seen these be as short as a single page, and as long as a binder containing a 10-page letter and a collection of supporting pictures and other documents.

If the power of staging lies in depersonalizing the property so buyers can picture their own family living out their own lives in the home, the power of a seller love letter is that it leaves buyers with a warm feeling that the home has a positive energy and history, which is especially desirable on today's distressed property-riddled market.

Here are six things smart sellers should consider including in their love letters about their homes to their buyers:

1. Fond family memories. Now, there's no reason to get all "TMI" (too much information) about it, but the fact is that buyers do love to hear sweet, fond family memories about a property. I've watched with my own two eyes as buyers who liked a 100-year-old home fell desperately in love with it as they read about the seller's parents' building the home, and then raising a flourishing family there.

Even much newer homes can have their own endearing stories, whether they be about a hard-charging professional bachelor who is moving out of a loft to start a family; about retirees who raised their kids there and are now moving to downsize and be near their grandkids; or about a smart, single woman who was the first person in her family to own a home.

The goal here is to create warm fuzzies while you satisfy the buyer's craving to know why on earth anyone would want to move from such a lovely place. And if you can tell a happy story, you can kill another bird with a single stone – distinguishing your place from all the tragic stories and sadness surrounding the short sales and foreclosures with which your home is competing.

2. Favorite neighborhood vendors and local businesses. One reason people dread moving so much is that it forces them to find new vendors for everything, especially for the practicalities and minutiae that can derail our schedules and lives if they don't run well. If you have neighborhood businesses you love, making a list of them and including them with your love letter is very much appreciated by buyers.

Take care to include things like: dry cleaners, house cleaners, landscapers, carpet cleaners, produce markets and butchers, and especially restaurants that have great take-out and delivery services.

You get extra points if you know the proprietor and authorize the buyer to drop your name, or you include menus with your list of restaurants that deliver to the property address.

3. Lifestyle amenities that map to local buyer wish lists. Give some thought to the sorts of things people looking to buy a home like yours might be looking for, from a lifestyle perspective, and include notes about any of those amenities in the neighborhood that you and your family or housemates have especially enjoyed. Things like favorite ski runs, playgrounds, running trails, yoga studios, libraries and bookstores, sailing and outdoor recreational opportunities make great fodder for this list.

4. History of upgrades. Of course, your state-required disclosure forms will include a pithy section for relating the repairs and upgrades you've done in the time you owned the property, but you can take that to a new level in your seller love letter with a free-form description of the work, color commentary (if it makes sense) around why and how you had it done, and a little appendix that includes any relevant plans, permits warranties, receipts, service contracts and the like.

(Obviously, you don't want to include the originals of these items if this love letter document will be left out in the property during showings.)

If there are any issues or repairs that are likely to come up in the buyer's inspection reports that you want to explain in more detail, the love letter can give you your chance to do just that.

5. Property details and tricks. If you have a detailed landscape plan that identifies all the plants and trees in your yards, tricks for how to work the heating and cooling timer or the tricky downstairs doors, details on when the neighborhood trash pickup happens, or info about your alarm, termite or other service contracts, prospective buyers will feel well taken care of if you compile and include all this information with your love letter and let them see it before they even make an offer.

6. Neighbors. If you have particularly close and friendly relationships with any specific neighbors, or there are block parties, online or email groups, homeowners association (HOA) or neighborhood watch meetings or other favorites, ones with kids, block party, watch meetings, other things being planned/organized, let the buyers know.

You see, a good seller love letter is equal parts lovey-dovey and logistical, but the care that goes into preparing it and the love that is evident in its content can be a significant selling point to buyers weary of dealing with bank sellers or stressful short-sale situations.

Whatever you do, if you decide to write a seller love letter for your home, review your plans and thoughts about what to include with your real estate Broker first. You want to make sure not to run afoul of any equal opportunity housing laws or disclosure laws.

As well, waxing rhapsodic about all the weekends you invested in the terrible mural on the wall might be more concerning than compelling to buyers who think they could live in your home easily -- assuming they paint over the mural on day one as the new owners.

Let the buyers know why you love the place and they might fall in love with it, too!

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Q. Allison, I bought a rental home three years go and have been renting it out ever since. If I move into the home now and live in it for two years and then sell it, will I qualify for the full $250,000 home-sale exclusion?

A.The short answer is:  No. The maximum Section 121 exclusion you'll qualify for is $100,000 (40 percent of the full $250,000 exclusion for single taxpayers). I don’t claim to be a tax expert (quite the opposite, really!) but I came across this article by Steven Fishman that might be interesting to you:

One of the greatest boons in the tax code for the average person is the Section 121 home-sale exclusion. Homeowners who qualify for it don't have to pay any income tax on up to $250,000 of the gain from the sale if they're single, or up to $500,000 if they're married filing jointly.

Qualifying for the Section 121 exclusion is simple: You just have use the home as your principal residence for at least two years of the prior five years before it's sold.

As Section 121 was originally enacted in the 1990s, this meant that you could buy a house, rent it out for three years, live in it for two years, and then sell it and qualify for the entire Section 121 exclusion. Thus, you could avoid having to pay tax on up to $500,000 of otherwise taxable gain. And you could do this over and over again. However, those days are gone.

Section 121 was amended in 2008. For sales and exchanges after Dec. 31, 2008, gain from the sale or exchange of a principal residence allocated to periods of nonqualified use is not excluded from gross income. Nonqualified use means any period in 2009 or later where neither you nor your spouse (or your former spouse) used the property as a main home.

Example: You purchased a home on Jan. 1, 2009, and rented it out until Jan. 1, 2012, when you moved in and made it your main residence. You sell the home on Jan. 1, 2014 for a $100,000 gain. During the five years you owned the home there were three years of nonqualified use. Because three of five is 60 percent, only 40 percent of the $100,000 gain -- $80,000 -- can be excluded under Section 121.

However, nonqualified use does not include any portion of the five-year period in the two-out-of-five-year Section 121 exclusion that falls after the home is used as the principal residence of the taxpayer or spouse. In other words, if you live in the home and then rent it out, the periods of rental use after you lived in the home aren't a nonqualified use and your Section 121 exclusion won't be affected.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Don't put your agent TOTALLY in charge

Question: Allison , we’ve never bought a home before and we are working with a Broker to buy something in Frisco, CO this summer.  She is very helpful, but we are a bit confused about what she should do and what our responsibilities are.  Suggestions? 

Answer: Good question!  We are seeing some good movement in our market right now, so your timing could be perfect!  Buying or selling a home can be rewarding, although often stressful. To ease the pain, assemble a group of professionals to help you get the job done.

A good real estate agent can make the project a lot easier. Be sure to make your agent selection carefully. If you don't already have an agent with whom you've had a good prior experience, ask acquaintances who live in the area where you're buying or selling to recommend a well-respected, local agent.

Rapport is a very important component of the agent selection process. Your agent will act on your behalf with prospective buyers, other agents, contractors and inspectors, to name a few. Pick an agent you trust, respect and who has good communication skills.

Your agent can help coordinate the many details that need to be managed before and during the sale transaction. However, never forget who's in charge. Your agent works for you.

You rely on your agent's recommendations, intuition and skill based on years of experience working in your marketplace. But your agent is not the decision-maker -- you are.

Most buyers and sellers are busy. You usually don't decide to make a move when you're sitting around with nothing else to do. Buyers' dream homes often come on the market at the least convenient time.

As much as you'd like to turn the decision-making over to your agent, you need to stay current on what is happening during your transaction. Some agents withhold information from their clients because they know they're busy and they don't want to bother them.

This can lead to problems if you find out too late that you can't fix a problem that you could have if you'd only known earlier. Make sure your agent knows that you want to be kept informed throughout the transaction.

The same goes for your dealings with the rest of your team. For example, if you're having your home staged, it's best to meet with the stager and your real estate agent to look at the home and discuss the staging strategy. It's fine to leave this step to the stager and your agent if you really don't have time.

When you see your home staged, be aware that it won't look like you live there. That's the point. You want buyers to feel that they can make your home their own.

However, if you don't like something about the finished job, make your feelings known. A good stager will make changes in furnishings or remove accessories if asked to do so. Check with your agent first to make sure you're on target. Emotions can get in the way.

Today, working with lenders can be one of the most difficult parts of the home purchase transaction. Buyers don't feel they're in charge. Harassment might better characterize the loan approval process. Mandatory forms are ambiguous. Lenders ask for an ever-increasing amount of documentation. If you don't provide it in a timely fashion, your loan may be denied.

However, you choose the lender or mortgage broker you want to work with. You are the decision-maker when it comes to what kind of mortgage you want: fixed-rate, adjustable-rate (ARM), or a fixed/ARM hybrid.

Your loan professional should provide you with all the information you need to compare the various mortgage options available, but you decide which one is best for you. You also decide how much to borrow, even if it is less than what you can qualify to borrow.

Select expert local inspectors and take the time to read the reports. Sometimes there are mistakes in the reports. If so, contact the inspector and have the report corrected.

If you can't stay involved, make sure you hire an agent who will keep you up to date and who won't make decisions for you. Copyright Inman News.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Question:  Allison, I have my home in Silverthorne, CO for sale and while I’ve had some showings, I haven’t had any offers.  What can we do to spruce it up? Any suggestions?

 Answer:  Thanks for asking!  Without asking the buyers directly (or through their broker via feedback after showing) I can’t say exactly what they don’t like about your place, and I came this information about what buyers HATE that might be helpful! 

1. Images that lie

Stretching photos to make rooms appear much larger than they actually are would be banned by listing services, if buyers had anything to do with it. And if your home is pristine and staged during the photo shoot (which it should be), it should still be pristine and staged when buyers come to see it in person.

Taking a photo of just one corner of a room that is shaped strangely or stuffed full of personal items is another way to confuse and irritate buyers, who hate nothing more than to feel like they were misled and tricked into wasting their time to see a place that is nothing like the photos.

Another personal pet peeve of mine is photos where it is clear that the person taking the photo had to practically climb up on the roof, or belay up the wall to get a view shot.  Just stand on the deck and take the picture, for goodness sake!  You shouldn’t need a harness to get the shot!  

2. Listings with no useful images at all

Listing photos of the piano or a piece of beautiful furniture that is not included in the sale is irritating to online house hunters, who might assume that the house had no other attractive features to furnish. Even worse: Home listings with no photos at all.

Nine times out of ten, when the listing has no photos buyers simply scroll or click right past those homes -- even the ones that might perfectly meet their expectations.

Sellers, let's be clear: Skilled listing agents who are getting homes sold in today's market are putting 10, 20 even 30 photos of each listing online. That's your competition. If a buyer only has time to see seven homes on a Sunday, and there are 20 listed in your area and price range, chances are good that those with the best, most numerous pictures will capture those valuable showing slots.

Often, listings with no photos are that way because of technical difficulties. Check on your home's online listings on various real estate search sites and alert your agent if there's a problem with the pictures.

3. Misleading marketing

Problems in the condition of the home that will be obvious when buyers enter, like a shifting foundation or clearly leaky roof, should be disclosed as such in the listing to minimize the inconvenience to you and those buyers who wouldn't have bothered to visit if they knew. Disclosing such problems upfront will maximize your chances of finding the right buyer, who is willing to take them on.

Phrases like "immaculate" and "better than new" set you (and your home) up for failure when the buyer walks in and sees even normal wear and tear, or the smells and clutter of daily living.

4. "Stalkerish" sellers

Sellers who are intrusive or follow buyers around during a showing were No. 1 on my own list, and on the lists of many buyers. You might love the murals you've painted on your kids' walls or the custom living room crafting area you've set up, and want to share your love with prospective buyers.

But the fact is that most buyers just aren't interested, and would rather be able to discuss their plans to get rid of crazy customizations freely with their spouse and their agent than feel obliged to feign appreciation. (I've even had some buyers say they liked a house, but kept looking because they would have hated to pull out the sellers' beloved personal touches.)

5. Bizarro showings

Dogs, kids and sleeping residents all made recurrent appearances in the comments to my article. I've personally shown a home with dog "leavings" on the interior carpets, and even once joined my out-of-shape clients on a foot chase to catch a wily little dog whose owner had left explicit instructions not to let "Fido" out (but left him roaming around the house, poised to dart out the front door the second I opened it). One reader related a showing in which she opened a hall closet door and out popped a dog that had been cooped up there for the occasion.

Multiple buyers told of walking into rooms where people were changing clothes, eating, frying up food or sleeping during the showing. Not a selling point.

Showing bizarreness is tough for buyers to get past, even if the place is a palace. Copyright Inman News.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Know which projects are worth the cost, effort

Question:  Allison, we are getting ready to put our Silverthorne, CO home on the market and would like to ask what suggestions you have for fix it up?

Answer: Ahhhh, the million dollar question!  I always say that “it’s a price war AND a beauty contest, and you have to win both!”  Homeowners who are thinking about selling this year should be aware of what today's buyers are looking for in a home. It will affect what you should do to get your home ready for sale, and how you should price it.

According to Dianne Hymer of Inman News, a survey by the National Association of Realtors in 2011 found that buyers favor walkable neighborhoods that are close to shops, restaurants and local businesses over neighborhoods that require more driving between home, work and recreation.

According to the survey, 77 percent of the respondents said they would look for pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Improvement in public transportation was favored over building new roads.

Most buyers (80 percent) still prefer to live in a single-family, detached home as long as it doesn't require a longer commute. Although space is important to most buyers, 59 percent said they would accept a smaller home if it cut 20 minutes off the commute time.

Does this mean your chances of selling are slim if you don't have a high Walk Score?
No, but proximity to a popular commercial area usually brings a higher price.

Proper pricing is the key factor affecting the salability of your home in today's market. Make sure you're comparing apples to apples when you evaluate the probable selling price of your home.

The home-sale business is all about location. If you live in a neighborhood where you have to drive to get to work, school or recreation, you can't expect to sell for the same price as a comparable home that's in a desirable, walkable location.

You can't change the location of your home, but you can appeal to today's buyers who are typically looking for a home that is in good condition that they can move right into without doing any major work.

A common refrain heard from sellers is that there's no point in painting or changing worn carpet -- buyers will surely want to do something different. In some cases, this may be so, but many buyers don't have extra cash to pay for extensive home improvements. They may ultimately change the color scheme, but don't make them worry about making the house livable when they buy.

It's a good idea to consult with your real estate agent before you make fix-up improvements. Review your list of preparation-for-sale projects and get your agent's feedback before starting any work.

Sometimes, sellers think projects need to be done that are really not essential in successfully marketing the home. For instance, your yard may be in poor condition, but this doesn't mean that you should have it re-landscaped. This is the kind of improvement you'd do for yourself if you were planning to stay in the house for years. A cosmetic redo will usually suffice.

Get your agent's or stager's input on colors, light fixtures, carpeting, etc., so that you can ensure a positive response to your efforts. Also, watch your costs. You don't need to do a top-of-the-line paint job or use the most expensive granite for your countertops in order to sell. In fact, it will eat into your proceeds from the sale.

Stick to cost-effective, tasteful improvements for maximum appeal at a reasonable cost.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com  

Question:  Allison, we are looking for a foreclosure property to buy in Frisco, CO.  Anything in particular we should watch out for?

Answer:  I’m getting this one a lot lately.  While there are some great deals out there now, as it turns out, sometimes the obstacles you have to overcome for the bargain negate the value of the deal -- and then some.

According to Tara Nicole Nelson, today's low prices and interest rates, combined, seem like the perfect storm for finding a great deal.

But some buyers run into -- or even unwittingly create -- circumstances in an effort to cash in on the bargain that deactivate or diminish the full value they otherwise stand to gain from buying at the bottom of the market, for both home prices and interest rates.

Here are three ways homebuyers are defeating their own deals in today's market:

1. House hunting too long. As many as 60 percent of the homes for sale in some markets are short sales. Many other listings are bank-owned (also known as real estate owned or REO) properties, and those homes tend toward two extremes: terrible condition, or so nice at such a low price they receive multiple offers.

Even the nicer, non-distressed homes on the market can end up in and out of contract over and over again due to appraisal or other lending-related issues.

As a result, it is not at all bizarre to hear homebuyers today say they've been house hunting for a year, 18 months, even two or three years. When you house hunt that long, you become susceptible to house hunt fatigue, which causes irrationally extreme overbidding out of sheer exhaustion.

Alternatively, it can cause you to settle for whatever house you can get, even if it doesn't actually meet your needs -- then spend the next 10 years obsessively spending to upgrade, improve, repair and furnish the place to try to make it more like the home you actually wanted.

Both of these outcomes negate and deactivate the bargain you stood to score.

To avoid house hunting too long, it's uber-important to get and stay clear on the differences between what you want and what you need, and to work with a local real estate professional you trust.

Look to your agent to get and keep your expectations centered in reality, so you can make more strategic decisions throughout your entire house hunt, like house hunting in a price range where you're likely to both find homes that will work for your life and be successful in your efforts to obtain one.

2. Making lowball offers way too low. Overbidding seems like an obvious way to cancel out the bargain potential of your deal. But making excessively low offers -- offers sellers couldn't afford to take if they wanted to -- can have the very same result.

Buyers who think they can operate strictly on the basis of buyer's market dynamics -- without realizing that most sellers will need to make enough to pay off their mortgage or at least receive the fair market value for their home -- are cutting off their own noses to spite their faces, all in the name of trying to score an amazing deal.

Note to "low-ballers": If you don't actually secure the home, the super-low price you offered is no deal at all.

3. Freak-outs, stress, drama and mayhem. Once was, it was mostly the buyers uneducated about the home-buying process who tended to freak out and stress the most, especially at the top of the market. These were the folks who found themselves defeated at every turn by buyers who knew what they were up against and were prepared to make their best offer on their first offer.

Fast forward, and now the norm is for buyers to spend much more time reading up on what to expect, but the inundation of information can create brand new mindset management challenges.

Almost every buyer is stressed about whether they can qualify for a loan, and about buying into a down market. Some buyers try to apply national headlines about home prices being depressed to the super-local dynamics of their neighborhood market.

This is unwise if you happen to be, for example, trying to buy a home in the boomtown real estate markets of Silicon Valley. Others go the opposite direction and deny that the basic truths about, say, buying a short-sale listing will actually apply to them (attention homebuyers: buying a short sale usually takes a long, long time).

The emotional freak-outs that result from having your expectations shattered, sometimes brutally, in the course of buying a home often lead to panic-based and fear-based decisions, which can be costly in the short and long term. Additionally, the stress itself can take a toll on your ability to be productive at work, and can even impair your relationship with your mate, neither of which are worth any deal you think you stand to strike.

Again, managing your expectations by working with a trusted broker or agent you feel comfortable relying on to understand the market in your neck of the woods and the type of transaction you want to pull off is essential to downgrading the role emotion plays in your real estate decision-making.

For answers to your real estate questions, call Allison at 970-468-6800. Email - Info@SummitRealEstate.com. Her philosophy is simple, whether buying or selling, she understands that the most important real estate transaction is yours.  Want to know the value of your Summit County property? Visit www.SummitHomeValue.com