We at the Templeton Real Estate Group believe that Discount Real Estate Brokers saving people money is a myth. Buyers and Sellers should be aware and choose their real estate professional carefully. We see it on a regular basis, that is, when bad things happen to good people in the name of “saving on real estate commission”. For example, we see a seller that decides to go with a discount Boise real estate broker thinking they are going to save money, or we see a buyer working with a “discount real estate broker” who gives them money back at closing.More about Real Estate Myths

It can be disheartening to see some of the results when we work with some of these “discount agents” and their clients. Somehow this promise of a “rebate” or “discount” is enough to convince a buyer or seller to work with agents that are less experienced in pricing, negotiating, and working in complex situations. But the fact is, and we tell buyers and sellers this all the time; an experienced, savvy agent can and WILL net you more on a sale and get you the best price on a home when buying than a discount broker every time by utilizing valuable experience and acquired skill. Top agents don’t discount their fees because they don’t need to! Discount brokerages and agents obviously know their worth and charge accordingly ( discounted) because the services, experience, and expertise they bring to the table are never on par with a top notch agent that offers unmatched marketing, negotiating skills and market knowledge. In fact, we had a “discount” brokers agent make an offer on one of our listings and she drafted the offer so that her buyer paid $20,000 more than she needed to!! It was great for our seller, but sad to see the buyers outcome in the hands of a “discount broker”. In another instance we saw a “discount broker list a home in an area we know very well for substantially under market price and they accepted an offer as a “coming soon” listing. Talk about costing your sellers thousands of dollars!! Again, this was hard to watch as we considered the poor outcome for the seller.

As a full service real estate brokerage we at the Templeton Real Estate Group know that if we discounted our commissions we could not possibly offer the level of marketing, customer care, and caliber of agent that our clients demand. We know that our area expertise and sharp negotiating skills is valued by our home sellers and buyers alike. Our clients know that they will be skillfully cared for. Our clients understand the concept that “you get what you pay for” and that the promise of a commission discount doesn’t mean a higher net profit!

I have always found it interesting and revealing that most savvy buyers and sellers always utilize the services of the best, and aren’t afraid of paying a higher fee to get better service and peace of mind for a real estate transaction performed at the highest level.

Call Top Real Estate Agents in Boise today for superior results and service at 208-473-2203.

Need help finding the right Boise neighborhood for your home search? Here are five factors that should figure prominently in your thinking.

Schools

Even if you don’t have kids, the quality of the schools in a given neighborhood should be high on your priority list. That’s because property values are higher in Idaho communities with strong school districts, meaning that your home will appreciate more. That said, you may have to settle for less house due to higher prices.

Property Values

Independent of school quality, you should look at local trends in home prices to get insight into that community’s future. If property values have been in steady decline for a decade, you’ll likely face issues when it comes to reselling down the line. Instead, look for up and coming Boise neighborhoods where home prices are climbing.

Traffic

Remember: if you’re buying a Boise home, chances are you plan on living there for a long time. Heavy traffic may not seem like a big deal now, but in five years you (and your wallet) may feel differently. Congestion can also have health and safety implications with respect to air pollution and car accidents.

Emergency and Medical Services

In the event that something bad happens, you want to be sure that emergency responders can reach you quickly. It’s also one thing to be close to a hospital, and quite another to be close to a good hospital. If possible, concentrate on areas in proximity to university hospitals, which tend to have more modern equipment and resources.

Crime

Don’t rely on looks alone when evaluating the safety and security of a neighborhood. Information on local crime rates (and most common types of crime) are commonly available from your local police department and the FBI website, and real estate sites like Zillow aggregate data from several sources to provide their own reporting.

6 Clever Things to Help Sell Your Home

Whether you are selling your home now, or down the road, you will want your house to stand out amongst the competition. It doesn’t take rocket science, but it does mean you have to be clever to cut through the fray and get top dollar for your home. The time and work will be worth it. After all, this is serious business and we’re dealing with possibly your largest investment.

Before you “do” anything, you will want to comparison shop. Put on your buyers hat, and look around your neighborhood at homes for sale – this is what your home will be competing against. Ask yourself how your home stacks up. The condition of your competition may be an indicator of how you should price your home and what buyers are looking for in your area. If other homes have new roofs or fresh paint, you may have to bite the bullet and do the same. Just remember, choose light, neutral colors with wide appeal, as bold hues can scare off buyers.

Here are some other things you should do to make buyers love your home:

1. Spread Fresh Mulch

This is an easy and inexpensive way to spruce up your landscaping and make a great first impression. Pick up a few bags of mulch from the garden center, and heap it up in your planting beds and around small trees and shrubs. Fresh mulch will give the appearance of a well-maintained yard which sets the stage for what is to come inside. Potential buyers will think that a homeowner who takes the time to care for the landscaping will surely have taken care of the interior of the home.

1. Swap Out Hardware

Sometimes small things can make a big difference. Take drawer pulls and knobs, for instance. Dated-looking hardware ages a room almost as much as outmoded cabinets. Fortunately, swapping out hardware is a much cheaper fix than refacing cabinets. Bring a few of your current knobs, pulls, or handles with you to the hardware store so you can make sure the replacements will fit the existing holes. Once you have new hardware that fills the bill, use a screwdriver to remove the old and install the new.

1. Deep Clean Your Bathroom

You’re smart enough to scour the bathroom before an open house, but what are you going to do about that stained grout that’s bringing down the look of your freshly cleaned tile? Because it’s porous, even clean grout can look grungy, and that’s a major turnoff for buyers—but it’s also an easy fix. Start out by trying baking soda, vinegar, and a toothbrush, but if the grime won’t budge, escalate to a commercial grout whitener. These concoctions can clean, whiten, and seal grout, making a bath look decades younger—and cleaner.

1. Clean Out Your Garage

Potential buyers will want to picture their car safely sheltered in your garage, alongside their landscaping tools and other items they plan on keeping there. Whether your home has a one-, two-, or three-car garage, visitors will probably fixate more on the functionality of the space than its total square footage. Here’s another instance where disciplined decluttering pays off. If your garage has become a dumping ground, get rid of the junk and install budget shelving and pegboard to hold the necessities neatly. You—and everyone who attends the open houses—will be delighted by your orderly, spacious garage.

1. Clean Out Closet Clutter

Every home buyer is looking for more closet space, right? Well, even if storage space isn’t one of your house’s strengths, you don’t have to start knocking down walls to carve out more appealing closets. A much cheaper way to show your closets in their best light? Declutter. Cluttered closets—even large ones—look cramped and inconvenient. Weed through your closets and linen cabinets, and remove about half of the items. Box everything up and put it in storage until your house is sold. Or, better yet, use this opportunity to jettison some of it—packing and moving will be so much easier!

1. Professionally Stage Your Home

Whether it’s simply rearranging and decluttering your personal items or whole home staging, home styling will help you achieve the look that buyers demand. You will need someone experienced and trained in preparing your home to maximize your net profit and appeal to more buyers. This is a service provided to clients by Templeton Real Estate Group with a signed listing agreement.

If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Boise, give the Templeton Real Estate Group a call @ 208.473.2203. We are a small yet highly skilled real estate team with decades of area expertise, service, property pricing, and negotiating. We are passionate about providing our clients with the best real estate experience available. Our office is located in East Boise’s beautiful Bown Crossing, just steps to Boise’s Greenbelt. You can learn more about the Templeton Real Estate Group on Realtor.com or contact us today to schedule your complimentary and confidential consultation.

Source: www.bobvilla.com

Staging your Idaho home is a proven strategy for speeding up the sales process. It can even help boost your home’s value when offers start coming in. By highlighting your home’s strengths and giving prospective buyers a sense of how they’d utilize different spaces, you can help these prospects develop emotional attachments to your home.

Here are some quick tips for helping you along with the staging process:

Pay attention to lighting

Great lighting is crucial for making your home look warm and welcoming. If you notice that some areas of your home are dark and dreary, increase the wattages of the lightbulbs in the fixtures and lamps. A good rule of thumb is to have a total of 100 watts of lighting for every 50 square feet of interior space. Also, you should strive for three different types of lighting per room: accent lighting (on a wall or table), task lighting (such as a reading or under-cabinet light), and ambient lighting (overhead).

Update your appliances

Alright, so you might not be willing to spend thousands of dollars on installing new, stainless steel appliances just for staging. However, studies show that new appliances in the kitchen garner high returns for sellers, which means you stand to get a better price for your home. A great, inexpensive solution is to apply stainless steel stick-on coverings to all of your appliances. These coverings can quickly transform an outdated kitchen into one that screams ultra-modern.

Get rid of unnecessary furniture

It should go without saying that when staging a home, you need to get rid of clutter. However, sellers often forget about some of the biggest causes of clutter: namely, couches, chairs, and tables. Having too much furniture in your home can make it seem small and cramped. So before you start showing your home, take a walk around and remove furniture items that you can live without. You don’t need to get rid of everything (after all, you want the space to look lived-in), but you want to make sure you’re maximizing available space.

Let’s face the facts: Buying a home can be an amazing experience, but it can also be quite complicated. With emotions running high, it’s all too easy for homebuyers to skip over crucial steps and make mistakes. But don’t worry! I’ve laid out some of the biggest mistakes that homebuyers make below so you will know to avoid them.

Low-balling the seller

If you find a house that you absolutely love in the Boise area, don’t play games: work with your agent to come up with a reasonable offer based on the sales of comparable properties in the area. Some buyers seem to think that taking their time and making a seller “sweat” is a good strategy for getting the best price possible. Don’t fall into this trap! You will likely never be the only one interested in buying a particular home, so if you find one that you love, get it before it’s gone. Don’t kill the deal by making too low of an offer or by making excessive estimates for repairs.

Not reading contracts

When you sign a real estate contract, you’re entering into a huge financial obligation. And while it seems like common sense that you should always read (and understand) all of the terms and conditions, many homebuyers do not. A good idea is to have your agent go over your contracts with you, section by section. Because contracts are legally binding, it’s crucial that you discover any issues BEFORE you sign.

Spending too much

Your pre-approval amount should act as a guide, showing you what you could pay for a home if you maxed out your finances. Your pre-approval amount should not, however, be the price that you buy at. Buying at the tip top of your price range will likely leave you “house poor,” which means you’ll be able to make the mortgage payment and cover recurring expenses, but then you’ll have little or nothing left for recreation or other projects. So instead of buying at the top of your approval level, buy within your comfort level: a level where you’ll still have sufficient money left over for other things.

Times are changing and you’re thinking about moving the family into a new home. But before you start searching for your next dream home in the Boise area, you’ll need to figure out when you’re going to sell your existing home. The decision is a complex one, especially considering the unpredictable economic environment you’re living in. And while there’s no magic formula for determining the best time to sell a home, there are several factors you should consider.

The wrong time to sell

This likely won’t come as a big surprise: you should avoid selling your home during the winter holiday season. Tensions run high during the holidays and budgets run low. The result? No one’s really itching to buy, and offers that do come in are often low. So as a general rule of thumb, avoid the months of December and January when selling a home.

The best season for selling

Conventional wisdom dictates that spring is the best time to sell a home. In spring, the holidays have past, the new school year is still a while away, and gardens and other outdoor spaces tend to look their best. And while spring is the season that sees the largest amount of buyers, it’s also the season when inventories are highest. This means lots of competition, so if you’re going to sell in spring, you really need to get your property to stand out with effective marketing and staging.

The best day for selling

According to research, Thursday is the best day of the week to list your home for sale. By listing your Idaho home for sale on a Thursday, you can make it available immediately for weekend showings. Come Saturday – the busiest day for real estate – your home will have only been on sale for two days, which is great for attracting full-price offers. In general, the shorter amount of time your home remains on the market, the higher the offer you’ll receive.

When you are ready to sell, contact us!

Buying a home can be an overwhelming process. From financing to negotiating to closing, there are a lot of moving pieces that can leave homebuyers bewildered.

A real estate agent can help guide you through each step of the buying process, offering sound advice along the way. By working with a professional agent who knows the ins and outs of the real estate industry, you’ll not only end up with a great home, but you’ll also walk away with a great experience.

Here are some of the key areas that our team can help you with:

Getting pre-approved by a lender

By providing your real estate agent with some basic information about your income, savings, and debt, he or she can assist you in getting pre-approved by a reputable lender to buy your Boise home. The lender will then go over your financing options, what monthly payment amount you can afford, and what you can expect for down payment requirements and closing costs.

Choosing a home

For most buyers, choosing a home is an emotional process. An agent can assist you in this process by offering objective information about each property you look at. From local community information like schools and zoning to home-specific details like condition and amenities, an agent can help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Making an offer

Once you’ve found the home of your dreams, an agent will research recent comparable sales of similar homes in the area to help determine a fair selling price. Based on those comparable sales, as well as other factors like inspections and repairs, an agent will then help you structure an offer and negotiate to get the very best deal possible.

Closing

Closing, or settlement, can be a complicated process. In some areas, the escrow or title company handles the closing process, while in other areas an attorney handles it. Regardless of where you’re buying, a real estate agent can help ensure that everything goes smoothly.