Tips to make your house price right

The single most important factor to consider when selling a house is the home price tag: how much your house is worth. You don't want to overprice the house because you will lose the freshness of the home's appeal after the first two to three weeks of showings. After 21 days, demand and interest wane. On the other hand, don't worry about pricing it too low because homes priced below market value often will receive multiple offers, which will then drive up the price to market. Pricing is all about supply and demand. It's part art and part science, and no two agents price property the same way.

Pull Comparable Listings and Sales

• Look at every similar home that was or is listed in the same neighborhood over the past six months.
• The list should contain homes within a 1/4 mile to a 1/2 mile and no further, unless there are only a handful of comps in the general vicinity or the property is rural.
• Pay attention to neighborhood dividing lines and physical barriers such as major streets, freeways or railroads, and do not compare inventory from the "other side of the tracks." Where I live, for example, identical homes across the street from each other can vary by $100,000. Perceptions and desirability have value.
• Compare similar square footage, within 10% up or down from the subject property, if possible.
• Similar ages. One neighborhood might consist of homes built in the 1950s next door to another ring of construction from the 1980s. Values between the two will differ. Compare apples to apples.

Sold Comps

• Pull history for expired and withdrawn listings to determine whether any were taken off the market and relisted. If so, add those days on market to these listing time periods to arrive at an actual number of days on market.
• Compare original list price to final sales price to determine price reductions.
• Compare final sales price to actual sold price to determine ratios.
• Adjust pricing for lot size variances, configuration and amenities / upgrades.

Withdrawn & Expired Listings

• Look for patterns as to why these homes did not sell and the common factors they share.
• Which brokerage had the listing: a company that ordinarily sells everything it lists or was it a discount brokerage that might not have spent money on marketing?
• Think about the steps you can take to prevent your home from becoming an expired listing.

Pending Sales

• Since these are pending sales, the sales prices are unknown until the transactions close, but that doesn't stop anybody from calling the listing agents and asking them to tell you. Some will. Some won't.
• Make note of the days on market, which may have a direct bearing on how long it will take before you see an offer.
• Examine the history of these listings to determine price reductions.

Active Listings

• These matter only as they compare to your listing, but bear in mind that sellers can ask whatever they want.
• To see what buyers will see, tour these homes. Make note of what you like and dislike, the general feeling you get upon entering these homes. If possible, recreate those feelings of reception in your own home.
• These homes are your competition. Ask yourself why a buyer would prefer your home over any of these and adjust your price accordingly.

Square Foot Cost Comparisons

• Remember that after you receive an offer, the buyer's lender will order an appraisal, so you will want to compare homes of similar square footage.
• Appraisers don't like to deviate more 25% and prefer to stay within 10% of net square footage computations. If your home is 2000 sq. ft., comparable homes are those sized 1800 to 2200 sq. ft.
• Average square foot cost does not mean you can multiple your square footage by that number unless your home is average sized. The price per square foot rises as the size decreases and it decreases as the size increases, meaning larger homes have a smaller square foot cost and smaller homes have a larger square foot cost.

Market Dependent Pricing

• Same house, three different prices. After you have collected all your data, the next step is to analyze the data based on market conditions. For comparison purposes, let's say the last three comparable sales in your neighborhood were $150,000. In a buyer's market, your sales price might allow some wiggle room for negotiation but be strong enough (near the last comparable sale) to entice a buyer to tour your home. To sell in this market, you might need to price your home at $149,900, settling for $145,000.
• In a seller's market, you might want to add 10% more to the last comparable sale. When there is little inventory and many buyers, you can ask more than the last comparable sale and likely get it. So that $150,000 home might sell at $165,000 or more.
• In a balanced or neutral market, you may want to initially set your price at the last comparable sale and then adjust for the market trend. For example, if the last sale closed three months ago, but the median price has edged upwards of 1% per month, pricing at $154,500 would make sense.

How to choose a house that has good resale value?

LOCATION
The most important thing in real estate is location. It is the most important element in real estate because land is heterogeneous and it is permanently fixed in one place. You cannot move your house to another location if it is in a bad location. Since location is an element that is beyond your reach for change, it is the most important element to consider. The rule of thumb for determining a good location is to choose a location that is integrating and flourishing, such as an area that is moving in the forward direction. Look for location that is situated in an area that has structured economic development, transportation, infrastructure, and local government. One of the examples would be a house in a suburban area that is moving toward becoming a major city with a lot of economic activities going on. To look around an area, you can enter an address on zillow.com to get the aerial view of the property that you are interested and survey the surrounding environment. Besides, you can also do some research in the library or go to the local Chamber of Commerce to get information about a city or log on to the city's web site. At all costs, avoid airport, rail road, and heavy industrial area that constantly produce noise and air pollutants.

SCHOOL DISTRICT
The next thing is the local school district of your home. When buying a house, try to do some research on the local school district and find out the school performance ranking and public review of the school system there. Whether or not you have a family, you should consider the quality of the school system in the district where you want to live because an excellent school district will guarantee excellent resale value since there are always a lot of buyers seeking to buy a home in an excellent school district for their kids to have the opportunity to go to excellent schools.

NEIGHBORHOOD AND CRIME RATE
Look for a safe and well organized housing community. Your home should be in a safe and well maintained neighborhood to make it marketable for high resale value. New housing developments usually have Homeowners Associations established for taking care of the community; they enforce the covenants of their community, and also ensure that proper maintenance, care and order are in place to maintain their property values. At all costs, avoid run down neighborhood or a neighborhood that is going downhill. Go to the local police station to find out the crime rate in your area.

HOME STRUCTURE AND APPEAL
The home itself has to be pleasant in and out. A pleasant home should be well designed, constructed and maintained. If there is something that will turn you off in the house, walk away because your buyers will probably have the same kind of negative feeling of the house when it comes the time to sell it. Remember that no deal is better than a bad deal. There are always plenty of houses on the market for you to choose from.

Finally, buying a house that will have a good resale value is the key to building wealth in real estate and it would be a nightmare for anyone to move into a house and then later on regret it if the above elements were not considered before buying the house.

The Basics of Land Investment

There are currently several factors that are creating a prime environment for land investment.Increasing population, Scotland's vibrant economy and the thriving house building industry has led to a climate where an investment in land just now will lead to an increase in land prices in the coming years.
The chronic affordable housing shortfall in Scotland and the need to significantly increase house building will require significant land releases and increased home building rates demonstrating that Scotland is a prime location to invest in land. Local Development Plans aiming to develop new communities and have urban expansion over the next 20 years means that there will be a search for residential sites suitable for residential development. There has not been a better time for land investment as long as it is professionally assessed and sites have legitimacy in planning terms.
Land can be a cheap method of investment; there are no complicated concepts that purchasers need to understand, just that there is an ever-increasing demand for land in the UK due to housing shortages.If interested in investing land closer to existing housing developments can carry a higher price, up to tens or hundreds or thousands of pounds per acre, but can be a wise investment as they also have a higher probability of substantial rewards; being built near to existing developments increases the likelihood of gaining planning permission for the site, which if successful will cause the value of the land to skyrocket.
Finding investable land depends on what you are looking for, and that depends on the level of risk you can afford. It is advised to seek advise from a land investment company and a solicitor.