Today we just wanted to reach out for a moment and wish you and your family a safe and happy holiday season from our entire team here at Tim Majka Real Estate Experts.
We are very appreciative of all the support you have shown to us this past year and because of that, we were able to help over 30 families buy or sell a home. We are looking forward to another great year in 2016, helping even more families realize their dreams of home ownership.
Have a safe, happy, and fun holiday season, everyone! If you have any questions for us, or are interested in buying or selling a home in the near future, give us a call or send us an email. We can’t wait to hear from you!
First, let’s talk about the cons. The biggest one is that no one wants to spend the time during the holidays to show their home. That is a valid concern, but there are ways you can limit when your home is shown to potential buyers. We can reduce the number of days your home is available for showings, and can even make certain days throughout the holiday season “off-limits” for showings.
The other big con that this presents is moving during the holidays. We can help reduce this problem for you. If your home is for sale in December and scheduled to close at the end of the year, a lot of times we can negotiate either a delayed closing or a 2-4 week rent-back period, so you don’t have to add that stress on your plate until after the holidays are over.
While there are a few drawbacks to listing your home on the market right now, there are also plenty of advantages to selling now that you don’t get at other points in the year.
The biggest pro to selling during the holidays is the low inventory. Right now, we have the lowest level of inventory that we’ve seen in the last 10 years all over Orange County. With less homes to compete against on the market, your home stands out more to buyers.
Another great reason to list right now is because of all the serious buyers out on the market right now, looking to close on a deal before the end of the year, either for personal or tax reasons. A lot of times these buyers don’t mind allowing a rent-back for the holiday season, because they don’t want to move then either.
These are just a few of the pros of selling during the holidays. We have found that this time of year is a great time for home sellers to list their homes and get back the equity they have gained in recent years. If you have any questions for us, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you!
I know a lot of people who choose to rent out their properties instead of selling them. Not everyone is cut out to be a landlord, and I sometimes see people making mistakes that can cause a lot of turbulence in the process. I have four tips to help you through this process.
1. Not doing a proper financial check on your applicant:We always recommend obtaining a credit report with FICO scores and eviction checks. We also like to have a pay stub and a bank statement to ensure that the applicant is financially capable of paying for the property.
2. Not knowing the law:Tenants are afforded a bevy of rights, and you need to know when you or your tenants are overstepping your bounds. Consult an attorney if you need to, because these issues can become dicey. Research your local laws as well as national ones.
3. Not maintaining your property:Landlords often don't want to spend any money on their proeprties, but this doesn't make sense to me. It's your biggest investment, so make repairs when necessary. Ideally you can be proactive so that nothing disastrous happens, and tenants appreciate someone who keeps things in working order. You might be surprised at how your relationship will improve if you put more effort into maintaining your property. Yearly inspections are generally something that we recommend.
4. Renting your property for less than it's worth:This seems pretty logical, but a lot of landlords charge less than they should. You don't want to have to pay down the mortgage, that is the job of your tenants. Run a rental analysis in the neighborhood to ensure that you're keeping your rent in line with the market.
As a real estate broker and property managerI take a lot of pride in helping people with their real estate issues.Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments.
Today I am going to talk about the difference between online home valuation websites view homes as opposed to how a real estate agent prices the home. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with sites like Zillow or Trulia and their home valuation services. It can be a useful tool for a general idea of what the market is like, but there is a big difference in how they price your home and how an agent will price your home.
An online tool, like Zillow’s Zestimate, has no idea what your home looks on the inside. It doesn’t know about any remodels you have done, or what views you have, or other things that could significantly affect your home’s market value. All these sites know are your number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, your square footage, and its physical location. It doesn’t take into account anything that makes your home unique.
With an agent like myself, our job is to not only look at your home as a physical property, but to determine exactly what the market value of your home is. By being able to look at all the relevant information from your home, including seeing what it looks like from the inside, we can figure out how to maximize the price of your home.
What kinds of things do we do to help increase your home’s value? For starters, we work with a great staging company and have found that staging a home can increase the sale price 6% to 8% over what an unstaged home would sell for. In addition to that, we use a professional photographer to make sure your home looks the best it possibly can when people are browsing online.
These are just a few of the ways we can help you maximize the value of your home. If you would like to get an idea of what we could sell your home for in our current market, just give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!
If you are looking to hire an accountant or a doctor, you are going to want the most qualified professional in charge of your well-being. The same goes with real estate. There are a lot of agents out there, so today we are going to tell you some of the biggest mistakes that home sellers make, in the hopes that you don't make them as well. Here are the top 3:
1. Hiring an agent who is a family member or friend You may not want to hear this, but friendship alone isn't enough to establish professional credentials. You have to use tough standards to find the best agent who will provide you the best service, and sell your home for the most money.
2. Hiring an agent that promises to list the home for the highest price A higher price point always sounds good on the surface, but you've got to dig a little deeper to find the true value in this type of offer. Anybody can tell you that your home will sell for X amount, but not everyone can prove it with numbers and data. The one who can prove they can sell your home for more money is the one who will actually do it.
3. Hiring an agent with the lowest brokerage fee Although it might sound good to hire someone because they have the lowest price, that doesn't always mean much in terms of what you get. What I'm trying to say is you get what you pay for. While a low rate broker may put a For Sale sign in your yard, host an open house, and even put your home on the MLS, that's about all they are going to do for you. If you're saving 1% on the commission, but your home ends up selling for 5% less than it would have by hiring the best agent in the first place, you are losing 4% at the end of the day.
When looking for an agent to hire, interview them. Find out how they are different from the next and what they are going to do to get you a higher sales price. If you have any questions for us, feel free to give us a call or send us an email anytime. We look forward to hearing from you!
Here at the Tim Majka Real Estate Experts we have a proven, repeatable system backed by market research to sell your property for up to 18% more than traditional real estate methods.
This system consists of seven steps:
1) Market Expertise – We are experts on the local real estate market and we know exactly how many homes are for sale, how many have sold, what the median sales prices are, and the current changes in supply and demand. With this knowledge, we are able to price our listings in accordance to where the market is going, not where it’s been.
2) Differentiating your property from others – Did you know that a home that is professionally staged can help you sell for up to 7% more than a home that is not staged? Often times a few small cosmetic changes can make a major increase in the value of your home. We work with expert stylists and stagers that provide expert advice on how to maximize the value of your home.
3) Massive Exposure – Getting maximum exposure requires a significant marketing budget invested in the right place. With over 95% of home buyers starting their search online, we invest heavily to make sure that your property is prominently featured on all of the major real estate websites. We also have an amazing professional photographer that will make your photos stand out from the competition and grab the attention of all of the buyers out there.
4) Agent Cooperation – Did you know that, nationally, over 70% of homes that sell are not sold by listing agents? Because of this, we have a system to make sure that every real estate agent knows about your property and they know exactly why they need to bring their buyers to come see your home. We also utilize exclusive technology where we can see every buyer that is receiving a search from their agent. The search criteria that matches your property will be alerted to us and we can contact this buyer on your behalf.
5) Buyer Acquisition System – Did you know that according to NAR, the average response time for a real estate agent to respond to a buyer inquiry on one of their listings is 16 hours? Really! Here at Tim Majka Real Estate Experts, we have a system in place not only to market your property to all of the buyers and agents out there, but once we receive an inquiry from that buyer or agent we have a professionally trained sales team that can respond to that inquiry immediately. In fact, a recent MIT study found that if a buyer inquiry is responded to within 5 minutes the sales person has a 80% chance of reaching that buyer, but that if they wait just 15 minutes longer, the odds of reaching that buyer diminish significantly.
6) Expert Negotiation Skills – Did you know that your agent’s negotiation skills are the single most important variable to help maximize your equity. Our team has expert negotiation skills to get you the best offer on your property.
7) Execution – Did you know that there are over 115 variables involved in the sale of your property? Our team has the systems and the experts in place to make sure that everything that we say we do gets done.
If you are thinking of selling your property or if you know of someone that is, we would be happy to send you more information on our proven repeatable system to sell your property for up to 18% more than traditional real estate methods along with testimonials. We can be reached at 562-900-9430.
Hey everyone, welcome back to our blog. The real estate market is continuing to sizzle here in Southern California. In LA county, the median sale price went up in the last year. In May 2014, the average was $430,000, while in May 2015, the average rose to $460,000. Here is a link to a graph that shows the median home price in LA County over time.
While prices were rising, the supply of homes decreased in the last year. In May 2014, we had 4.1 months of inventory. Currently, we have 3.4 months. In Orange County, the median sale price also rose in the past year. After being at $575,000 in May 2014, the average home price in Orange County is now $600,000; Here is a link to a graph that shows the median sale price in Orange County over time. The supply of homes in Orange county dropped slightly, from 3.8 months in May 2014, to 3.1 months in May 2015. Local job growth, mortgage rates, and availability of homes all look solid. These factors, in addition to slower home appreciation, helped draw buyers. We saw an increase in the volume of homes sold in Orange County of over 10% for April and May of 2015 compared to the same period last year and about 7% in LA County. The housing market is doing great right now in Orange and LA Counties. In some neighborhoods, we are even having all-out bidding wars on homes. Sometimes, these homes go for hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking price. In fact, we recently had a listing receive 40 offers. Supply is not even close to keeping up with demand. So if you have been looking to sell your home, no matter the price, we are in a great market to do so. If you have any questions for me, feel free to give me a call or send me a quick email. I would love to speak with you!
Hi everyone! This is Tim Majka with the Tim Majka Real Estate Experts with Keller Williams Coastal Properties serving Long Beach and the greater Los Angeles and Orange County area.
Today I wanted to go over some reasons to love the city of Los Alamitos and the community of Rossmoor
The first reason is great schools! The Los Alamitos Unified School District which covers the schools for Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, and Seal Beach offer some of the best schools in California. Some More facts about the Los Alamitos Unified School District:
• Only District in OC and one of six in the US on the College Board's AP Honor Roll five years in a row
• Three elementary schools in the top 10 in OC
• LAHS ranked #87 (top 1%) in the United States
• Highest college enrollment rate in OC
• Record number of scholar artists and athletes
Because of this, there is always a high demand for homes in the area, especially from folks looking to get their children into the schools. This keeps property values strong.
Another reason to move to Los Alamitos is great location. Los Alamitos and Rossmoor are located on the border of LA and Orange County. This gives you the benefit of being able to tap into everything LA and Orange County have to offer. For example, if you want to go surfing at Bolsa Chica or hit the mall at South Coast Plaza in Orange County, you're only 30 minutes away. Additionally, if you want to hit the beaches in the South Bay or see a show at the Hollywood Bowl or a Clippers game or Lakers game in Los Angeles, you are only 45 minutes away
Along with that – living in Los Alamitos and Rossmoor give you the opportunity to tap into 3 major job markets – Long Beach, Orange County, and Los Angeles.
These are just a few of the reasons that make Los Alamitos and Rossmoor a great place to live. There are so many more amenities to list here. If you have any questions about moving here or you would like any more information about the area, please contact me.
If you know of anyone thinking of moving to Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, or the surrounding areas, we would love to help them find the perfect home. Thanks for tuning in.
You may also call me at 562-900-9430 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.
Today we are going to look at a dilemma that many people face at one point in their life: whether to rent or whether to buy a home. In our opinion, buying a home makes more sense than renting, for a number of reasons.
One of the best reasons to buy is that owning a home is a hedge against inflation. When you buy a home with a fixed-rate mortgage, you don't have to worry about your payment changing at all during the life of your loan. You don't get that same guarantee that rent will be the same over that time. Even if rent just went up by 5% per year, your payments would be doubled in just 14 years.
Another thing buying a home does is give you the opportunity to build a nest egg. When you rent, you are paying rent to your landlord and that money is going towards their mortgage. When you own your own home, you are paying off your mortgage every month, and eventually, if you keep making payments, you will own the property free and clear.
These are just a few of the top reasons why many people choose to buy instead of rent. I hope this gave you some valuable information. If any questions come up, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to speaking to you!
You may also call me at 562-900-9430 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.
Hey everyone, today I would like to discuss how to sell your property in 2015, tax-free.
One of the great benefits of owning real estate is that the IRS has set up ways for you to sell your property tax-free, without having to pay any capital gains.
The first question you need to ask yourself to determine if you can do this is, "Is the property owner-occupied?"
Even if it's not current, if you have lived there for 2 out of the last 5 years, you can sell the property and have up to $250,000 of tax-free capital gains if you're single, and $500,000 if you are married.
Another way you can avoid taxes on the sale of real estate is if the property is considered an “investment property” by the IRS. A 1031 Exchange is where you sell your investment property and purchase anotheronewhereby your tax basis transfers to the new property, and you do not have to pay capital gains at the time of sale.
There are specific requirements to do a 1031 exchange, so if you have any questions, make sure you talk to a tax professional to see if you could qualify. If you have any other questions, let us know. We would be happy to answer them and send you some more detailed information if you need it.
You may also call me at 562-900-9430 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.
Hey everyone, today I am going to discuss the hazards of online home searches and home evaluation websites. As you will see, there are a lot of inaccuracies in them that can be solved by looking elsewhere.
The top real estate sites in the country like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com play an important role in our industry. On one hand, they are a good source of local real estate trends. On the other hand, they aren't so good at providing accurate value estimates or information about homes for sale. Why aren't they as accurate as some other sites?
For starters, they gather data from tax records, which is not always accurate in terms of providing fair market information. For example, if somebody sold their home to a family member or relative, they may sell for less than market value on purpose. However, this value will skew the home's value.
Another technique these sites employ is an algorithm to determine your home's value. This algorithm is only taking into consideration public information from public records - things like bedroom count, bathroom count, and square footage. The problem is they are not taking anything from inside the home into account. You may have made some great improvements to your home, which increased its value, but that won't show on these sites. This could lead to your home being undervalued by as much as 25%.
If you are looking to buy a home, you need to know the home listings online are typically delayed anywhere from 1-5 days. What often happens is that by the time a home is listed for sale, every agent and every buyer working with an agent is already aware of this property. If you are in a hot market, it has probably already been sold.
If you want to have access to homes the instant they go on the market, the only way to do that is by working with a real estate professional, like myself, who can get you access to the MLS.
If you have any questions for me, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to talking with you soon!
