Pre-Sale Checklist For Naples Home Sellers

 

Selling your Naples home is the kind of major undertaking that has so many facets just deciding where to start can delay liftoff. Since there is no actual “right” place to begin, like other mammoth projects, just digging in anywhere will do. The happy truth is that when you’re selling a home, once momentum gets going, the rest of the pieces tend to fall into place.

To get the ball rolling, here is a pre-sale checklist of major activities that selling your home will entail. To get started, pick any one:

• Nagging problem elimination. Very few of us attend to every home maintenance problem as they gradually develop. If there were a reliable poll on the subject, I’d guess that 95% of homeowners have at least a two or three areas that we’ve learned to live with—but which will need to be attended to before we get very far toward selling our home. Identifying them is a pre-sale first step…then fixing them is the action item that transforms the idea of selling your home into reality.
• First impression inspection. Any time you return from an outing you have the opportunity to get started on what will become your marketing approach. Do this by stopping and seeing what kind of first impression your property makes on someone setting eyes on it for the first time. What seems least fresh and appealing? Is it fencing that could use a quick coat of paint? A planter that needs colorful blossoms? The numerals on the mailbox? Selling your home starts with favorable first impressions.
• Lights! Camera! Action! An essential element to get prospective buyers clamoring for a tour is the photography that highlights your Naples home’s listing. To start preparing for that, pick a room—any room—and stage it: clear it of unneeded objects, furniture, etc. This will entail figuring out where to store the objects that you want to keep, but which clutter up the visual appeal…and once you’ve identified where they will be stored, you’re seriously on your way to selling your home.
• Getting down to business. Educating yourself about the competition means taking a look at the local listings to get a feel for where the market is. Which comparable homes have just sold, and which haven’t moved for months? Your home may not be ready to go on the market for a while, but the earlier you start familiarizing yourself with today’s Naples real estate market, you better the odds that your listing price will be correct.
• Exit strategy. Be prepared to move! Any action you take in this direction, be it checking out reliable moving companies or beginning the hunt for your next home makes selling your home that much less of a long shot.

Each of these is a step that begins to transform the idea of selling your Naples home from a looming cloud of uncertainty into a doable certainty, so when you’re ready to list, give us a call!

Angela Graziano & Scott Twait, P.A.
REALTORS^®
The Gulf Coast Group
239.771.3900

photo credit: Feedback checklist via photopin (license)

Top 5 Reasons Naples FL Homeowners Should Avoid Listing As For Sale By Owner

There are Top 10 Lists aplenty that detail just why any Naples homeowner should think twice before planting one of those For Sale by Owner signs in their front yard. One of them, is that when you try to sell your home all by yourself, the sheer amount of time you’ll need to devote to mastering processes that are already fully handled by full-time real estate professionals, is a true waste of time, and it’s one wheel that doesn’t need reinventing.

If you are among those considering how you will sell your Naples property, and since your time is very important, let’s start saving it now by cutting those top 10 lists down to the Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs:

1. You’re involved. It may sound like a good idea to be your own salesperson since you are the most intimately acquainted with the product—your home—but logic rules against it if for no better reason that buyers will be automatically skeptical of your impartiality. Why? Because you aren’t! You also don’t get the benefit of a professionally trained set of eyes helping prepare your property to appeal to today’s buyers, nor the benefit of honest feedback that buyers won’t share with a FSBO seller.
2. Legal peril. Throughout this year’s political debate, a frequent refrain from candidates (both local and national) has been the need to cut down on over-regulation. Without getting into those weeds, it’s certainly the case that federal and state laws require a number of very specific disclosures. If you aren’t a real estate attorney, that lack of familiarity could make a FSBO sale an open door to after-sale litigation. When that happens, there goes any commission dollars saved (and possibly a lot more!).
3. Expense. That’s right, one of the Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs is that a FSBO can actually amount to an extravagance. It’s logical, because most buyers take one look at your asking price, mentally subtract the commission, and proceed from there (wouldn’t you?). The most recent studies bear out the bottom line: only 8% of successful sales were made via FSBO, and on average, they sold for 15% less than the agent-assisted sales.
4. Marketing Oomph. As Real Estate Professionals, we market Naples homes all year long, 24/7. As a result, we know which marketing approaches are currently bringing in results, and which are wasting time and money. We also have open channels with the media companies we deal with regularly—an advantage that FSBO sellers can’t hope to match.
5. Expert Opinion. The open secret is that those who know the most about how to get the best results from a home sale tend to rely on expert help. A good example came in 2014, when Al Bennati, the CEO of the “BuyOwner” dot-com (“the strongest For Sale by Owner marketplace”) decided to sell his home, and he listed it with a REALTOR^®.

There! Time saved already—who needed a Top 10 list when you have these? We bet you agree: these “Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs” are more than sufficient reasons to avoid the FSBO route…and to give us a call instead!

Angela Graziano & Scott Twait, P.A.
REALTORS^®
The Gulf Coast Group
239.771.3900

Naples Area Home Market Values Seldom Equal their Replacement Values

“Ideal” is a Shangri-La kind of a word. It’s not just because of its feel-good, pie-in-the-sky definition (“a standard of perfection or excellence”)—but because contained right there inside the word itself is a tacit admission. It’s only an idea—not something necessarily connected to concrete reality.

Naples residents don’t come across “ideal” anything very often in their daily routines, so few would be surprised to learn that even in something as important as determining the value of their Naples area residence, the calculation turns out to be less than straightforward. The ambiguity owes to the fact that it all depends on how you look at it.

In reality, there are two quite different approaches for determining any Naples home’s value. Ideally, both methods would produce the same value for the same property. That would be the Shangri-La outcome—a fine idea—but it’s seldom the case. The two methods are the Market Value approach and the Replacement Cost approach. Knowing how and why they differ explains why they yield dissimilar results.

When Naples homeowners examine their home insurance policies, they may find a breakdown of the replacement cost. The face amount of such a policy is meant to cover what the current cost would be to construct a similar building of equal quality—one that would have the same utility as the one that was destroyed. Such factors as materials, labor, the builder’s overhead, profit and fees are probably part of that calculation. In actuality, some of the costs that might be encountered may not be included, though: things like demolition of the old structure, debris removal, licenses and permits, but it also depends on the insurance policy.

The market value is an estimate of the amount a buyer would pay in today’s market to purchase the same home in its current condition. Right off the bat, you can see that this would include the cost of the land—so you might deduce that its market value would automatically be greater than the replacement value. Ideally, that might be true, if the home were brand new. But for structures that have been in existence for a while, that might or might not hold true. For a home in less than top condition, the total might be less… likewise, if the local residential market were in a slump. On the other hand, for older homes having architectural details with fine workmanship that is expensive to duplicate today, the reverse would be true. You get the idea: given the vast number of variables that can influence the difference between market and replacement value calculations, it would be miraculous if the two ever came out the same.

When you are buying, selling—or even insuring—your Naples area home, weighing market and replacement values is more than an abstract exercise. We’re here to help with those, and many other issues that will help you determine how to make the choices that serve you best.

Angela Graziano & Scott Twait, P.A.
The Gulf Coast Group
239.771.3900

The article Naples Area Home Market Values Seldom Equal their Replacement Values was originally found on The Gulf Coast Group

Luxury Real Estate Specialists Angela Graziano and Scott Twait of The Gulf Coast Group join John R. Wood Properties in Naples Florida

Luxury Real Estate Specialists

Angela Graziano and Scott Twait

of The Gulf Coast Group join

John R. Wood Properties in Naples Florida

 

Angela Graziano and Scott Twait of The Gulf Coast Group are proud to announce that they have joined the ranks of John R. Wood’s top-producing agents, and will work out of the company’s central office in Naples.

John R. Wood Properties is a leader in sales of the finest properties in Southwest Florida. Founded in 1958 by John R. Wood, the company is now one of the largest real estate brokerages in Florida, with strategically located offices serving the entire Southwest Florida region. John R. Wood Properties is a member of Luxury Portfolio International – the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ luxury initiative portal, comprised of some of the most powerful independent brokerage firms in the world.

“John R. Wood Properties provides an environment of excellence, where accomplished real estate professionals enjoy the ultimate opportunity for success.” says Scott Twait of The Gulf Coast Group. “They focus on legendary service to the luxury market, while embracing professionalism, expertise, teamwork, and ethics, and we are proud to be a member of their team.”

The Gulf Coast Group provides personalized buyer and seller representation for the Naples luxury real estate market. They are extremely tech-savvy, and utilize highly innovative methods for marketing and selling luxury homes and condominiums in Naples, FL.

Their meticulous attention to every detail during the representation of their clients has been very positively received; “Angela and Scott are a pleasure to work with,” as stated by one of their happy clients. “Their knowledge of the Naples market was key in finding the perfect condo for us. Everything was handled efficiently, professionally, and with personal care and attention.”

The Gulf Coast Group is a unique team that serves their client’s high-end residential and investment real estate needs, and they currently offer a number of luxury homes and condominiums in Naples. They are on track to become one of the premiere luxury real estate teams in Naples, and their performance in today’s real estate market are perfect examples of that. Their services are very personable, professional, and reliable – focusing on making the entire experience much more enjoyable.

For further information about The Gulf Coast Group’s luxury real estate services in Naples, please view this video, which introduces the company and explains the services that they provide in greater detail.

Angela Graziano and Scott Twait, P.A.
REALTORS®
The Gulf Coast Group
John R. Wood Properties
3255 Tamiami Trail N.
Naples, FL 34103
Direct: 239.771.3900
Website: www.thegulfcoastgroup.com

The article Luxury Real Estate Specialists Angela Graziano and Scott Twait of The Gulf Coast Group join John R. Wood Properties in Naples Florida was originally found on The Gulf Coast Group

Reduced Prices Attract Naples Area House Hunters

When you’re skimming through the Naples real estate listings, now and then you’ll come across attention-grabbing terms like “one of a kind”, “extremely motivated seller”, or “Reduced.”

After all, who doesn’t like a bargain? Especially when that bargain is associated with a major commitment, who wouldn’t think it’s worth looking into? Today’s listings may no longer be saturated with short sales, foreclosures, and scores of listings reduced by enormous percentages, but patient Naples area house hunters can still strike pay dirt if they are diligent and methodical. Nevertheless, there are some tried-and-true cautions that need to be observed to ensure that the “penny-wise, pound foolish” saying doesn’t wind up describing the result.

Most of what is being written on the subject of real estate bargain hunting falls into the common sense category—for instance

• Low-balling the offer seldom works. The hope that you can create a bargain just by making a shot-in-the-dark low-ball offer is much more likely to result in a resentful homeowner than a successful deal. As in most business transactions, success is more likely to develop when both sides understand the motives and goals of the other. Since any seller whose Naples property is on the market, is assuredly quite well aware of the likely value of his offering, unless the seller is in desperate need of a deal, this tactic is counterproductive (and if the seller does really need to move on, odds are the property has already been reduced to reflect that).   
• ‘As-Is’ also means ‘Heads-Up!’ A home that’s been “reduced” simply means the market is suggesting that an asking price correction is needed. When “as-is” is appended, it could also indicate that the home probably needs work—maintenance work (and work from potential buyers to discover how costly that maintenance is likely to be). In some cases—when a home has been perfectly maintained—it could mean that some features that are expected in today’s Naples area homes are missing. In any case, “as-is” means “heads-up.”

There is one more caution that isn’t usually written about, but which can be easy to overlook when an epic bargain looks to be within reach. Since the process of buying a house takes some time to accomplish, it’s one that often occurs before it’s too late, anyway—namely, it’s not a bargain if it’s not what you really want! It can happen that the asking price is so affordable for a home that has more (or better) features than you thought you could manage, that you are in danger of being charmed into making an offer on something that’s not a very good fit. When you discover a property that’s been reduced to bring it within your price range, it still needs to fit your family’s most important requirements. An Olympic-sized swimming pool can add an exciting and unexpected dimension, but if the place is one bedroom short, in the long run, it might not be such a bargain, after all.

There are many sensational offerings are out there for Naples home hunters, so give us a call when you’re ready to take a tour of those that meet your requirements!   

Angela Graziano and Scott Twait, P.A.
REALTORS®
The Gulf Coast Group
John R. Wood Properties
Direct: 239.771.3900
Email: homes@thegulfcoastgroup.com
Website: www.thegulfcoastgroup.com

The article Reduced Prices Attract Naples Area House Hunters was originally found on The Gulf Coast Group

Just Listed! Turn-Key Villa Home at 115 April Sound Dr, Naples, FL 34119 in Fountainhead at The Vineyards

Welcome to paradise in this rarely available “La Costa” floor plan with separate cabana and bath (3rd Bedroom), located in the Vineyards neighborhood of Fountainhead. This beautiful 3 bedroom, 3 bath home is being offered turn-key. The home features a private courtyard pool for privacy, and is a great entertaining space for family and friends.

The Master Bedroom offers a private bathroom suite, 2 walk-in closets, tray ceiling, and sliding glass door to the private courtyard pool area. The Master bath has dual sinks, soaking tub, and a large walk-in shower. Also featured is a large screened lanai, separate formal dining room, and a large kitchen with center island and pantry.

There are views of the private pool from the family room, dining, master bedroom, plus from the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. The 3rd bedroom cabana with a private ensuite bathroom is great for guests, or a home office. The home has been beautifully decorated and furnished, so you can just move right in and enjoy. The Vineyards is a gated community with easy access to shopping and dining, plus it’s just a short trip to the airport. Membership in the Vineyards Country Club is optional, with many programs to fit your lifestyle including golf, tennis, fitness, and a full spa.

View further information about this home:
http://www.thegulfcoastgroup.com/115-april-sound-dr-naples-fl-34119-fountainhead-at-the-vineyards-real-estate-home-for-sale/

Angela Graziano and Scott Twait, P.A.
REALTORS®
The Gulf Coast Group
John R. Wood Properties
Direct: 239.771.3900
Email: homes@thegulfcoastgroup.com

The article Just Listed! Turn-Key Villa Home at 115 April Sound Dr, Naples, FL 34119 in Fountainhead at The Vineyards was originally found on The Gulf Coast Group

Naples Home Sale Prices Affected by Renovation Decisions

Here’s an instant spot quiz— (see what comes to mind within a second or two):

If you decide to sell your Naples home, and if you had a crystal ball, what’s the most important detail about the sale’s result?

Quick! Answer!

If you’re like seven out of ten people, you were curious about the bottom line: “what price did it sell for?” Some people come up with “how long did it take?”—but usually, that’s the second or third choice (“what were the buyers like?” is another contender).

It’s hardly surprising that the closer they get to putting their own house up for sale, home prices are foremost in people’s minds. Yet, most homeowners assume that the ultimate sale price will be determined by market forces outside of their control. That’s sort of true, but not entirely so. Home prices aren’t set in stone. Homeowners do have a degree of control over what their property will bring—if they choose to exercise it. One key to seizing that control is the smart application of remodeling dollars to areas that will pay off.

For Naples area homeowners who plan to continue living in their homes for the foreseeable future, it’s less of an issue. They can be comfortable putting their remodeling project dollars in the directions that make the home more comfortable and agreeable to their own family lifestyles. They can safely follow their own priorities without worrying too much about where current tastes and trends are heading, unless you are someone who just enjoys being counted in the fashion vanguard.

But if you’re fairly certain that you will list your home in Naples sometime soon, you should remember that a property’s salability can be greatly affected by the remodeling direction that’s taken. Rather than making those decisions guided solely by your personal preferences, it makes good sense to take into account what buyers consider valuable, if for no other reason than the likelihood that those dollars will come back! There are three areas that deserve consideration:

Kitchens always seem to get the most attention when it comes to boosting home prices. A homeowner may prefer a warm, comfortingly cozy space for the center of family activity that the kitchen usually becomes—but many prospective buyers go the other way. Light and bright is vastly preferred over cramped and dark for buyers who are comparing kitchens—and the resulting home prices offered usually reflect it. If your property will be among the local listings anytime soon, think about directing some remodeling energy there.

The master bedroom is growing in importance, too. Many buyers in earlier eras may have valued a formal dining room, now forego it altogether—preferring an attractive master as a sanctuary from the stresses of the outside world.

Living rooms can also add to the bottom line that a home winds up fetching. An open, bright multi-purpose area that’s easily envisioned as a center for family entertainment and social gatherings can give a strong boost to perceived value. Simple renovation ideas like removing dated window treatment or replacing worn carpet can be dollars well spent.

If listing and selling your Naples home is anywhere on your horizon, it won’t be long before keeping tabs on trends in the Naples area home prices becomes a new personal priority. Whether early-on or last-minute, calling us for a no-obligation consultation can make a big difference for maximizing your sale’s end result!

Angela Graziano & Scott Twait, P.A.
The Gulf Coast Group
239.771.3900

photo credit: Matt Stone Grey Tullymore Kitchen via photopin (license)​

The article Naples Home Sale Prices Affected by Renovation Decisions was originally found on Naples Florida Real Estate for Sale | The Gulf Coast Group