Saving When Selling, Hawaii Style

You know, we are Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties.  You know, we save people thousands over what they’d pay an ordinary real estate agent when selling a home.  You know we provide exceptional service and get rave reviews from the clients we serve.  What you may not know is HOW MUCH we save our sellers.  Let me give you 3 examples from the dozens of homes we’ve sold this year.  kalaheo 1

First is a great house we sold in Kailua.  It had 5 bedrooms, 5 baths and, as you can see, a great pool.  The house sold for $1,615,000 Had the seller listed with an ordinary real estate agent, the listing portion of the commission would probably have been something like $40,000.  We we listed and sold it and charged the seller just $9,750 on the listing side, a savings of about $30,000!

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Next, we have a big 5 bedroom, 4 bath home in Kamehameha Heights with a 3 car garage.  It also had an outstanding view!  The home sold for $1,195,000 in about a month.  An ordinary agent would have probably charged about $35,000 on the listing side.  We charged just $9,750!  Again, we saved this seller thousands of dollars.

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Finally, just so you know we also work with less expensive properties, here is the view from a one bedroom condo we sold not too long ago.  It went for $600,000 and an ordinary real estate company might have charged $15,000 or more on the listing side.  We charged just $5,750 and this happy seller saved about $10,000!

I don’t mean to brag, but really:  if you are thinking about selling your Oahu home, you owe it to yourself to have a quick conversation with the pros at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties.  We’ll get you top dollar in a reasonably quick time and save you a ton of money in real estate commissions!

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.  

Make a Splash When Selling

Our Oahu real estate market is moving!  Just when you thought homes couldn’t sell any faster, they do!  March sales of single family homes were up more than 20%  over last year.  The same was true for condos.  And prices continue to climb, though not at the astronomical rates we’ve seen in the past.  Year over year median sale prices are up just under 4%.  Clearly, your Oahu real estate is your best investment.

In this kind of market, it is important to think strategically when selling your home.  You’ll want to sell quickly with a minimum of inconvenience and you’ll want to walk away with as much cash in your pocket as possible.  How can you accomplish that?  Some thoughts:

Know where you’re going.  Understand that houses on Oahu sell quickly if they are properly priced.  Right now the median priced single family home is taking less than 20 days to go under contract for sale!  Closing can take an additional 30 – 45 days.  In this environment, it is not wise to put your home on the market until you have somewhere else to go within 60 days.

Price properly.  That means at market value.  It’s tempting when homes are selling so fast to push the price up, ask for a little more, try to cash in big.  But that strategy fails over and over.  Home buyers have lots of tools today to spot overpriced listings and most avoid them.  Your aggressive price will limit showings and encourage low offers.  Instead, price at market value and then let the market set the price.  What you’ll find is that a great home in a good location will produce offers over and above asking price.  And wouldn’t that be a nice situation!

Prepare the property.  The day your home goes on the market it becomes a product that has to compete with other similar products.  Before you make your home available for showing, make sure it is breathtakingly clean, neat and staged.  You want every person who sees your home to dream of living there and the best way to do that is to make the home dreamy.

Plan to make a splash.  Sometimes it’s smart to create urgency and anticipation when selling.  ‘Coming Soon’ signs prior to the actual listing period can accomplish this, but I sometimes suggest other strategies.  Having the first day of showing coincide with a well promoted open house – a Grand Open House – can ensure that the largest number of potential buyers see the property on that first day.  Sometimes I suggest that we hold off reviewing offers until the end of the first week.  This creates a sense of urgency, a deadline, and sets the expectation that there may be a bidding war for the home.

Listen to your agent.  When you hire one of the professionals at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, you’re teaming up with a trusted consultant.  We know this business and this market and there is no one better qualified to advise you every step of the way.  Sometimes the emotion of selling can nudge you into poor strategic thinking.  Our job is to help you stay focused on the business decision that selling a home should be.

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.  

Save When Selling Your Oahu Home

At Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, we are all about savings.  It is our identity:  we are the guys who will save you money when it comes time to sell your home.  And, it’s not something we do grudgingly; we get just as excited by the money we save consumers as we do by the fees we earn.

We’ve learned over time that the more we can save home sellers while providing the best service in the industry, the more they will brag about us; and the more our business will grow.  That flies in the face of what ordinary real estate agents have done for decades, which is to rely on personality and pressure exerted on friends and family to build business.

Here is a typical Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties listing, sold and closed at the end of 2015:

RC2It is a great home in Hawaii Kai, with 4 bedrooms and a little more than 2,800 square feet and an indoor swimming pool! We listed it for $1,238,000 in late September, and had it sold and closed for full price in early December, just 75 days after the listing went active.  With a lot of effort, we were able to get it closed before the end of the year:  no small feat considering the latest round of transaction slowing legislation impacting the industry.

This was a brave home seller.  He could have succumbed to the pressure to list with a friend or neighbor working for an ordinary real estate company and charging, say, 6%.  If he had, he would have paid more than $74,000 in commission – assuming they were able to get a full price offer.

Instead, he did the smart thing:  he listed with Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties and agreed to pay our low set fee of $8,000.  As it turned out, the buyer was represented by an outside MLS agent and so the seller had to compensate that agent and company as well: an additional $30,950 (2.5%).  So this seller paid $38,950 in total commission to sell, as opposed to $74,280 had he chosen to list with an ordinary company: a savings of $35,330.

Do you suppose this seller was delighted to sell quickly for full price and save more than $35,000 in real estate commission?  You bet!  Do you think he will tell his friends, neighbors and co-workers how well his transaction went and how much he saved?  You bet!  And so, our business grows.

We promote our successful sales and the money our sellers save because that is what we want Oahu residents to know about us:  we will sell your home quickly, for a good price and save you thousands over what an ordinary broker would charge. When it comes time for you to sell, don’t succumb to the pressure to do it the way it’s always been done.  Be smart.  Choose Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties.

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.  

What is a View Worth?

Honolulu ViewRight up front, let me point out the obvious:  We live in one of the most view-rich places on Earth.  Almost anywhere you might live on Oahu has the potential to produce an outstanding view of the ocean, the mountains, the rainforest or the city.  But, what is a great view worth?  How much value can a view of crashing surf add to your property?

There is not doubt that views are valuable.  In the ranking of most desired amenities, home buyers put an unobstructed water view at number two, just behind a waterfront location.  And while being able to see water is most desired, great city views and mountain views are not far behind.

However, attaching a monetary value to a view is hardly scientific.  A view is worth whatever a willing
and able buyer will pay in addition to the value of the house to have it.  Logically, if you could find two homes that are identical, one with view and one without, that both sold recently, you’d have your answer.  But that situation is very rare in the world of real estate.Oahu View

Almost forty years ago, an appraiser working on his Masters Thesis, chose 94 vacant lots that had sold recently in three separate developments and considered them on a variety of criteria including lot shape, location and view.  In some cases, the view contributed as much as 50% to the value of the lot.

That has been informally verified by the estimates of real estate experts who seem to agree that a view – say, of a mountain – seen from a lower point – might add 1% – 4% to a property’s value.  The increase in value goes up as does elevation, so a hilltop view looking down on a panorama might add 6% – 12%.  Truly magnificent views – the ocean, the city from above – can add up to 50% and sometimes even more.

Strip ViewYou can test this idea yourself without selling your property.  The next time you take a vacation to a popular destination, be it a city or a resort, ask the hotel about the increase in room rate depending on view and floor.   In Las Vegas, for example, a Strip-view room located at the 20th floor or above will fetch a startling premium over one on floor five, facing a wall.

The best help you can get for assessing the value of your view is right here at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties.  We’ve been selling homes on Oahu for almost twenty years and have carefully tracked the progress of prices for homes with and without views.  When you ask us for a free, no-obligation opinion of value, we will come with all of the data on what similar homes have brought and our own informed  point-of-view about what an ocean, city or mountain view can add.

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.  

A Banner Month For Savings!

June was a pretty good month for Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties!  We helped 14 buyers and sellers realize their housing dreams.  Most important, though, is that we saved home sellers almost $125,000 in commissions compared to what they might have paid an ordinary real estate agency.*

Savings is a key part of the Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties experience.  Our low set fee pricing enables us to save every seller with whom we work thousands over what they might have paid for real estate services.  And our sellers save without sacrificing service; we are a full-service real estate company.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are just three of the listings that sold in June and the savings each of those sellers realized:

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This home in Makakilo sold in just 14 days.  It had great coast and city views and a mother-in-law suite.  With 7 bedrooms and 3.5 baths, it was an updated gem!

 

 

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This Kalihi Valley home sold in just 4 days.  It is on a quiet 21 home cul-de-sac, has 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and a 3 car garage.

 

 

 

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This fixer upper in Hawaii Kai’s Koko Head Terrace area has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and a large lot.  It was a great opportunity and sold in just 10 days.

 

 

 

 

I am excited about our June activity and pleased as can be that we were able to save sellers so much.  But I have a hint for you in July:  so far this month we’ve saved sellers almost twice as much!

If you think it’s about time you started saving on high real estate commissions without giving up service, Call Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties!

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.  

*Savings are calculated by comparing actual fee paid with a typical 6% real estate commission.  Real estate commissions, whether percentage or set fee are always negotiable between the seller and the real estate broker.

AFFORDABLE Hawaii Living

A couple of posts ago in a video, I talked about the High Cost of Waiting to Buy.  It was a scary article because of the topic, made even more scary by the prices I used in the examples.  I was using typical prices for single family homes in and around Honolulu – which hover at $800,000 to $900,000 – and the resulting figures for down payment and monthly mortgage were correspondingly large.

I promised in that post to revisit the issue using some of the most affordable options on the island.  They certainly exist, though often they are condo/townhome options.

For example, we just listed a great townhome in Ewa Beach for $435,000.  It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a garage and nearly 1300 square feet.  It won’t last – the last home we listed in the same neighborhood sold in a matter of days – so it would probably be a good idea to get to our first open house on the property, this weekend, June 14, from 2-5.

Or, if a single family home is absolutely what you want, we also have a new listing in Kapolei for less than $600,000.  It has almost 1500 square feet of living space and an ocean view!

If this still sounds too expensive to bear, how about a lovely 2 bedroom condo in Mililani.  At 850 square feet, it features 2 bedrooms and 2 baths and 2 parking spots.

So you see, affordable options still exist on Oahu, but here is the thing:  in these price ranges, they always sell FAST.  If you want to compete for a home in this range, you need to get together with an agent and start looking now.  The word ‘NOW’ is very important because the steady rise in prices we’ve been experiencing over the past several years shows no sign of slowing.  If you wait another year, it is possible that homes like this may be beyond your capability.

As always, the professionals at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties are ready to help you find and secure your dream home.  You’ll find our low pressure, educational approach refreshing, comfortable and easy.

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company that provides exceptional service while charging less than ordinary Realtors.  We’ve been successfully helping buyers and sellers all over Oahu for more than 12 years and we’d be delighted to help you achieve your housing dreams.  Contact us at (808) 593-8811, or visit our website.