RealVitalize • October 24, 2022

RealVitalize Helps Sellers Prep Homes for Market

by Rodger Hardy

BACKGROUND

Coldwell Banker Realty’s RealVitalize Program helps sellers make home improvements with no money up front to get their home ready to sell.

Many homeowners want to sell but may be hesitating because their home has needed repairs that will impact how long it takes to sell or what they can get. In today’s market, it’s critical to get your home show-ready to profit the most, and sell quickly, Realtors say.

The list of potential projects includes:

Carpeting
Handyman work
Plumbing
Cleaning
Junk hauling
Renovation
Electrical
Landscaping
Staging
Flooring
Paint

Also, to participate, the home must not fall under these conditions: forbearance, foreclosure, short sale, bank owned, or if the seller is in bankruptcy.

THE CHALLENGE

I helped Brett and Karen Ballantyne buy a home several years ago in Tooele, Utah. When the COVID 19 pandemic hit Karen was confined to working from home. Brett, on the other hand, had started a cross country delivery business and was still able to work as usual — have truck, will travel.

Because they could both work remotely, the couple decided to relocate to their native Florida. But their home had a few issues that needed addressing before I could market it aggressively.

The kitchen, living room and hallway needed paint, while the basement needed some minor remodeling. Outside, the rock front yard needed more gravel after a plumbing repair disturbed the landscape.

“It wasn’t hard,” Brett said. “We knew the things that were wrong with it,”

THE SOLUTION

So, we brought in the RealVitalize program.

Offered to customers of Coldwell Banker Realty, homeowners must enroll and have their home listed with a Coldwell Banker agent to participate. The budget matches the seller’s side of the commission.

So, if the commission is a typical 6%, split evenly with the buyer’s agent, then the budget is 3 percent of the original listed price. Commissions usually have a selling side and a buying side. So, whatever the seller agrees to pay the listing brokerage on the selling side, that becomes the RealVitalize budget.

With the budget in place, the project can begin and Coldwell Banker Realty will carry the balance. The seller pays the brokerage at closing from the proceeds of the sale.

The RealVitalize team professionally manages each project by bringing in a local contractor.

All that worked well for the Ballantynes, who didn’t have to worry about hidden fees, charges or markups. Soon the home was ready for market.

“We needed some remodeling to get done and we were able to use the RealVitalize program so the remodel money came out of our proceeds instead of our pocket,” Karen said. “It was super easy. We just love it!”

THE RESULT

With their home professionally prepped it sold quickly, well above what the Ballantynes owed enabling them to move to Florida and into a brand-new home.

By using the RealVitalize program, remodeling and other projects have better management control, while reducing the risk to home sellers. Payments are streamlined and made easy by refunding the brokerage through the proceeds at closing. If the home fails to sell, then a repayment program is worked out.

To date, the RealVitalize program has completed more than 8,500 projects. Realtors report that homes using the program sell quickly and at asking price or above.

CONTACT INFORMATION

To learn more about the RealVitalize program and how it can help you successfully sell your home, email me at rodger.hardy@cbealty.com or call me at 801-360-9133.

Uncategorized • October 17, 2022

I’m Adding Case Studies to My Marketing While Offering It to Other Industries

by Rodger Hardy

Case Studies are a great way to tell a company’s story. I’m adding it to my marketing.

Back in the day, long before I took my first class to get my real estate license, I edited the real estate section in the Palm Springs, Calif. Desert Sun.

It was more than just a section. It was several sections. One on Friday, another one on Saturday and then I launched Desert Real Estate, a weekly tabloid. The largest Saturday section ever numbered 80 pages. The framed news rack placard announcing that achievement hangs proudly in my home.

Unfortunately, Utah newspapers never caught the vision of a separate real estate section on that scale. During a staff meeting one day, a spokesman for the Evening News Association, which owned the paper then, announced that the real estate sections pulled in a cool $1 million every month. I remember wishing I was paid on commission.

Of course, the sections were so large because Palm Springs was and is a wonderful real estate location. And we had a great advertising sales staff. It was my job alone to fill that gaping, weekly news hole. So, additionally as a reporter, I covered every aspect of desert real estate, the housing market and development and wrote a weekly column on the subject.

Wearing Two Hats

Then the business editor quit and the managing editor handed me that role. After a few years wearing both hats, I decided to go out on my own and become a freelance writer. One of my clients, actually my bread and butter, was the largest commercial real estate developer in the desert. That worked well for almost a decade, then a recession hit and writing jobs became less and less.

One day, my wife announced, “I’m moving to Utah, “wanna come?”

So, we made the move with no job, but lots of hope. I took a tech writing job, which lasted only a few months and then moved over to the Deseret News. I also got my Utah real estate license. Real estate supplemented my news writing income, but became my main focus after retiring from the paper 12 years ago.

Crazy Real Estate Market

Now we’re facing another recession. After several years of a crazy market punctuated with low interest rates and ever-climbing home prices, real estate listings are scarce and buyers are taking over the market. Yet high interest rates have kicked a ton of them to the curb and put fear into the hearts of many would-be sellers.

So, while still servicing a shrinking buyer and seller pool I’ve been gearing up to jump back into the freelance writing business. No, I’m not giving up on real estate, but I am adding a new element. After training with the American Writers and Artists Institute to polish and reinvigorate my skills, I’m now ready to face the challenging world of freelance writing. Despite the looming recession.

My focus I that arena is writing business to business commercial pieces starting with what’s known in the industry as Case Studies. These are short, approximately two-page tomes that highlight the successes customers have with a certain company, product or service. They are much more than a testimonial.

And they are in high demand.

Starting With My Clients

I’m starting with writing them about my clients’ successes, while offering that service to other industries.

Companies use them in their marketing, whether it be in newsletters, email or mailed campaigns, webinar fodder, website content, sales training, white papers, press releases, the list goes on. Everyone has a story to tell and Case Studies tell that story very well. They are very much like the feature stories I wrote as a journalist, with much more prep.

So, don’t pigeon hole me, a common Utah practice. Whether you want great marketing to sell your home, a compassionate Realtor to lead, guide and protect you in buying a home, or someone who can tell your company’s story, we need to talk.

Utah County Market Stats • October 13, 2022

Interest rates drop home sales

by Rodger Hardy

Based on a three-month average, single-family home sales in Utah County have dropped by 86 percent as of October 2022 with just 82 sales, resulting from dramatic interest rate increases.

The average sales price now sits at $671,000, down 2 percent from the previous three-month period. The median list price sits at $625,000, according to the Wasatch Front Multiple Listing Service. That said, the median list price remains virtually unchanged from the previous three months. The sales price to list ratio during that period compared to now is also unchanged.

The Typical Single-Family Home

So, what does a single-family home look like here? According to the MLS this past September, it had four bedrooms, three baths, measured an average of 2,786 square feet, and sold for $349 a square foot.

While the supply of homes for sale has been dismally low in recent years, the October report saw a dramatic jump of 547 percent. Utah County now sports a 16.6-month supply of homes for sale, where earlier it was just a few weeks.

The Rear-View Mirror

Looking back a year ago, to September 2021, the average Utah County home sold for $611,283. This September that figure was $669,890, an increase of 9.5 percent. Homeowners here are sitting on a lot of equity.

The number of days to sell a home has gone from 24 days in September 2022 to 43 days now, an increase of 79 percent.

The average sales to listing price ratio peaked in April at 102 percent, meaning that buyers were paying 2 percent more, on average, than sellers were asking. That feeding frenzy appears to be over as buyers are now taking the reins of the market.

This past September that ratio had dropped to 94 percent. An indicator that buyers now have increased negotiating power for the home they want to buy. Sellers, however, have not given up complete control over the market. We are still seeing multiple offers, though not as much.

Uncategorized • August 3, 2022

Rising Interest Rates Are Changing the Landscape

by Rodger Hardy

Single-family home prices in Utah County rose 17.5% the past 12 months, but now that interest rates have gone up and are continuing to climb the market is slowing. Projections are that single-family home prices will continue to climb over the next year, but at a much smaller pace, around 5%.

The average price for the typical Utah County single-family home comes in now just a shade under $650,000. That home has about 3,100 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths and took an average of 22.5 days to sell, according to the Wasatch Front Multiple Listing System.

The changing landscape

What does that mean for you if you are still in the market to buy or sell a home? When rates began to go up prices typically come down. But prices are still going up! That scenario could well impact what you get for your home going forward and could give buyers a breather.

The only prices coming down now are the asking prices of those folks who listed their property too late to catch the market before it changed. You never know when you’ve hit the peak, or the bottom, until it’s passed.

It’s interesting that the average asking price, just under $642,000, is less than the average sales price, which shows where we’ve been the past year. However, we’re still in a bit of a seller’s market. In July the average asking price of $713,040 was the highest so far in the last 12 months and about $13 higher than the average sales price for that month. Overall, buyers paid an average of 1 percent over asking in the last 12 months.

Sales are dropping

The number of July sales dropped to 487, well below June’s total of 655. It was the third slowest month this year; only January and February were lower.

I attended a training recently to learn what top agents are doing to keep their businesses going. According to the instructor, research showed that those agents paid for some of the buyers’ expenses of buying a home. Things like picking up the cost of a home warranty if the seller wouldn’t cover it, reimbursing the buyer’s inspection at closing and making it easy to get out of a deal if the buyers changed their minds.

The research also found that clients like to stay well-informed throughout the process. It’s not so much about price than it is about service.

I’m also seeing sellers beginning to pay some of the buyer’s closing costs and being willing to buy down the interest rate for the buyer because it has the potential of saving the buyer more money over the long haul than if the seller dropped the price.

So, I’m incorporating those concepts into my business. We’ll see where it goes. Let’s get together and discuss it, whether you’re buying or selling. I’m sure we can come up with a plan you’ll really like.

Uncategorized • June 14, 2022

Writing about celebrity homes a way to capture interest

by Rodger Hardy

Back in the 1980s, when I was real estate editor for the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., I had the privilege of writing about many of the celebrity homes when they went on the market.

Among them was the late Hollywood studio system kingpin Darryl Zanuck’s estate. The two-story, Spanish-styled home built on six lots encompassed about two acres in a neighborhood dubbed the Movie Colony. It included a large, rectangular pool and pool house.

Legend has it Zanuck won it in a poker game.

The listing agent brought the story idea to me, thinking it might make a good read. And a great marketing tool for her. She loaded me up with black and white photos, ghosts or the many celebrity cocktail parties held in that home and pool house. We ran it on the front page of the real estate section, featuring a party photo of Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand. That picture never made it out of the backshop. It disappeared. Probably in an employee’s back pocket.

One of Zanuck’s favorite pastimes — that became legend, according to the listing agent — were the croquet games that went into the wee hours of the morning on that well-lit, two-acre yard, surrounded by oleanders and grapefruit trees.

Treelined Path

I also wrote about an unusual brand-new home in Palm Desert with a waterfall pool and a treelined path to the bathroom — inside. Actor Tony Curtis saw the story, and according to the listing agent, bought the home.

High-end homes then started in the $300,000s. These days you can add another zero.

I wrote about Liberace’s home, the one with the kitchen bar that was really a piano and his artistic toilet embossed in gold baroque designs. That was after he moved to the home where he died that was once a church.

I wrote about the Bing Crosby home and its unusual step-down spa tub in the guest house. I wrote about the then-65-year-old home that once belonged to actors Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner with its huge bathroom with the tub reposing in the middle of the room.

I wrote about comedian Jack Benny’s not so glamorous house near the hospital where my daughter was born. I wanted to name our newborn Laurel Ann so she would be Laurel Ann Hardy, but my wife nixed that idea. (For you young folks, look up Laurel and Hardy.)

I interviewed Ginger Rogers about the remodel of her Rancho Mirage home. She enlarged it by some 3,000 square feet to accommodate all her costumes.

Writing About Pioneertown

Later, as a freelance writer, I wrote a piece about Pioneertown in the foothills near Yucca Valley when it went up for sale. Founded by a group of investors in 1946, including movie legends Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, many movies in the 40s and 50s were made there. Weather-worn movie posters adorned many of the walls of the main town. Movies today are still made there, and the town has become a destination.

The old school building served as storage space for furnishings of the period, really antiques. Some of the buildings in Pioneertown became homes simply by finishing the missing wall the movie makers left open.

Remember the character Judge Roy Bean? Rumor had it that the set became the home of Hopalong Cassidy’s widow, according to the agent. The interior smacked of a movie museum.

“I want to show you something,” the listing agent said. She proudly brought out a well-preserved 1941 movie poster of The Bad Man, starring Ronald Reagan and Laraine Day.

The agent was so proud of that mint-condition poster. Reagan was president at the time. But what was exciting for me was Laraine Day. My grandfather and her father were first cousins, which makes me a not-so-distant cousin.

I also wrote about the worst home in a Palm Springs neighborhood where actor Kirk Douglas lived. An interior designer bought and remodeled it into a fantastic million-dollar home. It was featured in the short-lived TV show, P.S. I. Luv U in the early 90s. It starred Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan. I met Evigan on the set of B.J. and the Bear, first filmed in Oroville, Calif. when I was a news reporter there.

One home I didn’t get to write about was the copper-domed flying saucer-style home that glistened from the mountainside — comedian Bob Hope’s home. Probably because it never went on the market.

The one that got away

And while the bright sun bounced off that copper roof every day, rumor had it that once you stepped inside for a party or other event, photographs were verboten. Those were pre-cellphone days, so it was not easy to sneak a picture.

So, I got to thinking, now as a Realtor and a freelance writer, why not write about historic celebrity and public figure homes in Utah when these homes are listed or other newsworthy event occurs? Celebrities and public figures usually didn’t live in the homes when I wrote about them.

Still, they make compelling stories as part of a marketing program. People have great interest in real estate like that. Got a listing like that? Let’s talk.