How to sniff out a hidden contingency…. If someone is making a cash offer on your house and they send you an investment portfolio as their proof of funds, are they really going to sell all those stocks to buy your home and generate a huge taxable event? Or are they actually getting the money from the sale of another house that has not yet closed? You gotta find out.
Don’t sell your home so fast that only a couple people had time to see it and offer on it. Give people time to find it, to evaluate it, and to write an offer. One or two days is not enough. The first offer you get is often not the best offer you’ll receive. When a home sells in one day, the person that may have paid the most, never even had time to setup a showing.
An incredibly powerful thing to do for your business is to ask your clients what their biggest fears and desires are. And then ask them what they need most from you as you work together. When we first meet with clients who are preparing to sell, they are often overwhelmed with all the things they need to do to get the house ready. They want to know what projects to do and what to ignore. And they want to find trustworthy people to get the jobs done. That’s why we assembled a dream team of service providers: handymen, house cleaners, trash removers, carpet installers, landscapers, painters, plumbers, electricians, dry-wallers and stagers. Often we recommend doing nothing at all. But sometimes there are projects that have a lot of bang for the buck.
This is how you make your clients want to run for the hills. The market is hard enough on buyers. The last thing they need is to feel like their agent is tired of showing them property and is trying to convince them to just write an offer be done. Look for a high level of competence with multiple offer situations and the ability to source properties off market.
I’ve been paying close attention to the work of economist @logan_mohtashami who writes for @housingwire. Logan talks a lot about how demographics are an under reported driver of the housing market and why interest rates are falling despite rising inflation and hot economic data. His conclusions are logical and data driven unlike so many of the headlines we see in our feeds. Give him a follow and make more informed housing decisions. Search “grey rock realty podcast” to hear more.
Pulling cash out of an investment property instead of selling is a great way to access a lump sum of cash without being taxed on it. The average home owner in America has $200,000 in equity in their home and can easily pull out $100k and often get a lower rate in the process.
Taking mortgage forbearance during the pandemic did not affect your credit score at all. Taking it in 2008 trashed your credit, people just did it to avoid foreclosure. Even if 25% of people that are in forbearance now list there home this year it would only have a mild effect on inventory levels.
I’m no CPA but I have read IRS pub 523 and cringe when I see folks going to great lengths to wait two years to sell due to a job related move. Many people can claim an exclusion large enough to completely avoid capital gains even when selling well before the two year mark. Any CPAs want to call me out please do :)
Mortgage interest rates will cool the market but their effect can be counter acted by the supply and demand issues we’re currently experiencing. In 2018 rates went to 4.9% which is almost 2% higher than they are right now but the NoCo market continued to climb and posted at 7% gain for that year.
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