ROB and LINDA CLARK are the "REALTORS YOU NEED TO KNOW...FOR THE LIFESTYLE YOU DESERVE"

Thursday, February 22, 2007

GOOD PROPERTY PHOTOS




A picture is worth 1,000 words, especially when it comes to selling a home. As more buyers shop for properties online, high-quality photos are more important than ever. “Good photos will grab people’s attention and help you sell a home,” “Bad pictures will absolutely give you trouble, because you won’t have any calls on it and nobody will come to see it.”Whether you take the pictures or you hire an expert, here are some tips for making the home look its best on camera.

Insist on good photography equipment so the photos are sharp and colors aren’t washed out.
Get rid of clutter in the home so the focus can be on the property, not the furniture and personal items.
Don’t shoot at night. Natural daylight will make the home look brighter.
Use flowers; they’ll add color to the photos.
Wide-angle lens are good, unless they distort the view. Making an average living room look like a ballroom will only disappoint potential buyers when they see the real thing.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Vacant-Home Rate Sparks Economic Concerns


Amid many signs that the housing market is improving, there's one piece of data that's still causing concern among many economists: the Homeowner vacancy rate is 2.7 percent, higher than it has been in the four decades that the U.S. Census Bureau has measured it.

The vacancy rate is a measure of how many homes for sale in the country are empty.

Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius concluded in a report last Monday that rising vacancies signal that the excess housing supply continues to grow – and that new construction has to decline further this year, even after a 13 percent decline in new home starts in 2006.

Meantime, J.P. Morgan economist Haseeb Ahmed said the overhang of vacant housing stock could erode existing home values as sellers cut prices to move their vacant properties.

Economists fear that many vacant homes are owned by speculators who are stuck with investment properties that they can't sell and who may be under increasing pressure to drop their prices.

"We are concerned that there could be downward pressure on prices for awhile," Ahmed says.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Michael Corkery (02/05/2007)