Hartwell Real Estate Facts
Hartwell Real Estate Cycles
During a slow economic time, fewer people are buying homes in the Hartwell market. Even so, some homeowners find themselves in a situation where they must sell. Families grow beyond the capacity of the home, employees get relocated, and some may even find themselves unable to make their mortgage payment - perhaps because of a layoff in the family.
During sellers' markets, Hartwell real estate sells quickly and sellers have a lot of pricing power. As a result, prices rise more rapidly than at other times. During buyers' markets, Hartwell real estate may sit on the market for a while before selling, so sellers become more flexible and may even drop their prices.
Bitten by the Hartwell Home Improvement Bug?
Maybe, like millions of Americans, you can’t help it! You live in your Hartwell home for several years and before you know it, you find yourself thinking about how the kitchen would look with new cabinets and a granite countertop. Should you start with the kitchen or would it be better to add a home office to give the family a little more room? There seems to be endless options for the creative Hartwell homeowner bitten by the Home Improvement Bug. Once you get started thinking along these lines, it usually doesn’t take long before the ultimate question pops up. Is it better to improve your current home or simply sell and buy a bigger, newer or more desirable Area home? Here are some issues to help you make that all-important decision.
Bitten by the Hartwell Home Improvement Bug?
Before you finalize your decision regarding remodeling versus moving, it is wise to get a professional estimate of your Hartwell home’s current value, the actual costs of moving to a different home and the estimated return on investment of the most common types of home improvement. I’ll be happy to provide you with a complimentary analysis of your home’s current value. Simply call or E-mail me whenever you are ready. As for improvements that traditionally bring the highest rate of return on investment, here are some statistics. Kitchen remodeling and adding a bath tends to bring rates of return with averaging anywhere from 85% to 95% return on your dollars spent. Compare that with the 64% return on investment for adding a home office.
The Benefits of Selling Hartwell
If your Hartwell holdings consist of both a personal residence and a rental, you can sell your personal residence and exclude up to $250,000 ($500,000 for a married couple) on the gain. Then you move into your rental, live in it as your personal residence for two years and then sell it, again benefiting from the $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion. This is true even though most or all of the increase in value occurred before you converted the property to your personal residence.
Tips for Buying or Selling Hartwell
Most experienced real estate agents and brokers already have Websites that showcase their local MLS data so your Hartwell can show up online as soon as it is listed. On the other hand, if you are selling on your own it will take time or a considerable advertising budget to get your individual Hartwell property to show up on the major search engines where prospective buyers will find it. You could tap into one of the several For Sale by Owner Websites but that would limit your market of buyers.
Buying real estate in Hartwell is also much easier when you work with a real estate agent who knows the area and the market. While there is a great deal of information online about real estate asking prices, it is not always so easy to find out what a property actually sold for. And even then, specific terms of a sale often make a difference in how to interpret the sales price.
When Hartwell Does Not Sell
Let’s say a home is in excellent condition but simply messy. The cat box needs changing, the dog dish is a mess, the dishes haven’t been put into the dishwasher and the beds are not made. Should these conditions affect the price of the Hartwell? No, but they do. Take two identical houses next door to each other and priced the same. The sparkling clean house will sell much faster than the messy house and the messy house will more than likely sell for a lower figure. This is true of Hartwell as well as real estate nationwide.
When a home does not sell, the owners tend to think that the REALTOR didn’t do a good enough job of promoting the property. There is a difference among agents and brokers and some will promote a property more than others. However, the main and most important method of promoting Hartwell for sale is listing it in the local MLS.
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