Sept. 15, 2021

Zillow Zestimate Pit Falls!!!!

Zillow Zestimate Pit Falls!!!

Posted by Tyler Harrison on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 at 3:58pm.

It has become ever more increasing to meet with sellers to go over the value of their home before placing it on the market, and they have already done some home work with Zillow obtaining a "Zestimate."  Part of the time Zillow has been relatively close, but more often than not Zillow has missed it significantly.    There are three glaring reasons why Zillow just can't get it.  Zillow does not take into consideration the properties LOCATION.  Zillow does not take into consideration the properties CONDITION.  Zillow does not take into consideration the properties UPGRADES.  If you have bought the immaculate house that over looks the park with granite everything, hard wood flooring, walk in tile shower and plantation shutters, then you are out of luck, Zestimate will not consider this.  If you would like a professional Brokers Price Opinion done by a Realtor call Western Oklahoma Realty today.

Posted in Market Updates
Sept. 15, 2021

Dang Millennials!

Those Dang Millennials!

Posted by Tyler Harrison on Thursday, October 27th, 2016 at 8:27pm.

Did you know that 31% of homebuyers in the US are millennials?

I was recently reading an article that spoke about millennial buyers in our market. What I found interesting is that there’s no mention of what this means for sellers, so here’s my take on it:

  • Most millennials are not looking for a fixer-upper. Making modern updates, like adding new fixtures, to your home will not only raise your home’s value, but make it desirable to this group.
     
  • Transitioning rooms into spaces that can function as home offices that these young buyers can envision themselves working in, rather than focusing on things like nurseries, is one way to make your home relevant towards their needs.
     
  • Millennials are looking to make an investment through their first home, so highlighting how the home could be profitable down the line is important.


I have plenty of ideas I’d like to share, so give me a ring - (580) 799-3864.

Posted in Market Updates
Sept. 15, 2021

Elk City Events

While looking at real estate in the towns of Weatherford, Clinton, Sayre, Canute and/or Elk City during the Labor Day weekend, you might want to stop and enjoy the Friday night Football games.  Merritt has a home game on Friday, September 1; Clinton has a home game versus Woodward on Friday; Sayre has a home game versus Mooreland on Friday; however, Elk City will be playing at Frederick on Friday night. 

Elk City doesn’t have a home game, but the 79th Rodeo of Champions is at the Beutler Brothes Arena in Ackley Park and will begin at 8:00 P.M.  on September 1.  This is a PRCA rodeo and has the following 7 events:  bareback, tie down roping; steer wrestling, saddle bronc, team roping, women’s barrel racing, and bull riding. 

On Saturday September 2, 2:00 PM is the yearly rodeo parade in downtown Elk City.  At 8:00 PM that evening will be the second rodeo performance, and on Sunday will be the third and final rodeo for the season. The Beutler will then provide the bucking horses and bulls.  They have provided the stock for the rodeo since 1929.

So while out and about this weekend, not only will you have a choice of real estate, you will have a choice of various football games, a parade, and three nights of a PRCA rodeo.  Come visit Western Oklahoma to see what we have to offer. 

Posted in Market Updates
Sept. 15, 2021

I hate my 80s home!

The 80’s had some high points- there was Bon Jovi, Regan, and Back to the Future. However, the 80’s era homes were pretty scary. Scary is the first word that comes to mind when someone asks me to come look at their dated 1980’s home. Traditionally, 80’s homes have few windows, short ceilings, dark walls, dark wood work, tons of carpet, wall paper, bad texture, and lots of walls creating a dark, dingy cave feeling. It doesn’t have to be scary- it can be clean, crisp, and even modern. I have often said that a home built in 1962 is sometimes more updated than a home built in 1982, as far as visuals go. So, what do you do if you have that 1980 monster to sell? Or maybe you just want to add value to it? First, you need to call me and my team! We can help, even if you do not want to sell; we offer our professional services as a courtesy for free to you. We would love to take a sledge hammer and demolish everything down to studs and start over in some homes, but that is not cost effective in this Elk City Real Estate Market. So, we have three cost effective tips to help your 80’s home that do not involve tearing down walls and completely gutting kitchens.


First Tip: Paint your brick! (I know there are some brick layers out there that just had heart palpitations! Don’t worry.) Most people do not like 80’s style bricks, even though they generally are not conscious of that singularity when they look at a home. When a buyer just does not like the curb appeal of the home for some reason, it is the brick, I promise. It is like looking at someone with overgrown or over plucked eyebrows- you notice there is something bad going on there but cannot put your finger on it- until one day they fix those odd things up. Ugly brick is much like ugly eyebrows, and once painted you will not easily forget what a difference it makes. Here are some examples of before and after, homes that is. For an added bonus hang some shutters (not the screw flat on the side of the house kind). And yes, paint the brick in a beautiful neutral color, not bold, no purple, no red, no turquoise, etc. We want a neutral cream, like Sherwin Williams Dover White (SW 6385). Most paint stores like Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore have helpful ideas on their websites about matching colors for body, trim, shutters, and accents on home exteriors, so go have a look!

Second Tip: Paint the wood work and the interior walls. Consider painting the wood work a shade of white (we advise against stark white), and the walls a cream or a shade of grey, grey is popular. There are several different shades of whites and creams and greys. I recommend painting the ceilings a shade of white, that is after scraping off that popcorn ceiling. (I guess this could have been the fourth tip, but three tips to fixing the 80’s home sounds easier, and if you’re painting the whole home why not do a little scraping while the ladder is out.) White ceilings draw the eyes upward and creates a calm, open feel visual overhead. Most 80’s homes only have 8 foot ceilings with few windows, so creating openness is the key in this area. Painting the wood work white or cream emphasizes, clean, light, and airy, and helps over compensate for the 80’s look. For your painting needs call Pudges Painting Melvin Boyce. He is great at doing this- I have sold several homes for him, and he is good at choosing paint schemes that are popular, and most importantly, add value.Boyce can paint most home exteriors for a lot less than you may think, and can do most brick home interiors around 1600 to 2000 square feet for about $1500 not including paint. Paint cost usually runs close to the cost of labor.

Third Tip: New flooring everywhere! (Do not be cheap and skip the bedrooms- people notice- trust me!) I do not recommend tile unless it is a wood look alike, and I also do not recommend laminate flooring; it was once the rage, but people look at it like people used to view linoleum, that is old and cheap. And although nice, I would not buy hand scrapped wood flooring either. I recommend LTV products, they look great, are more durable than traditional wood, and cost half or three times as much less. Not to mention easier to care for- no sanding later on! You can expect to spend $4 to $10 a square foot, including labor for laying, for these products. Also, some companies make tile now that looks similar to wood flooring. It is more expensive than LTV, but it just may be worth doing. Carpet works well in the bedrooms, however, make sure it is neutral, and not sculpted. I recommend calling a local carpet company, Elk City has some really good installers. Let us know if you need any help shopping for carpet style.

There are many factors that go into a home’s value, including location, cleanliness, and functionality of the home’s floor plan. So, before spending $12,000 to $20,000 on your 80’s home, please call us, and we will give our opinion if it is worth the time and capital.

 

PS

 

Posted in Market Updates
Sept. 15, 2021

Safety Scare

Safety Scare, 

There is more to Real Estate than just selling houses.  

If you have a gas hot water heater, please read my scare.

I was at my home with grandkids when my daughter came in and said the house smelled like gas.  We called the gas company and my daughter took the kids to her home.  The Natural Gas Technician came and we figured out when the kids were horsing around they had turned on the gas stove top, so that was a relief.

The Technician decided to go ahead and check everything else out.  He found my hot water heater vent that takes the carbon monoxide out thru the roof was down.  How scary is that, the carbon monoxide was coming in my house!!  The technician said, “a lot of times if you have your roof replaced or any work done the vent could get moved, causing poor ventilation. 

 

 

 

 

 

Being in Real Estate for over 20 years I always look to see if the hot water heaters are gas or electric, but I never look to make sure they are vented properly. 

So please check your vent pipe and make sure it is in place.  I suggest calling a plumber.  If it is gas there should be a fresh air intake, as well. 

 

 

Deedra Watson

Posted in Market Updates
July 31, 2017

Underpricing your home is as bad as it sounds!

Underpricing your home is as bad as it sounds!

Posted by Tyler Harrison on Monday, January 20th, 2020 at 4:09pm.

 

Under Pricing your Home is bad as Overpricing your it. 

 

I have been in real estate now 15 years (wow part of this makes me sad because I am now dangerously approaching being middle age) but on the bright side, I can now site my experience instead of saying, “it was in an article I read.”  I have railed for years that over pricing and underpricing your home is one of the worse mistakes you can make.  I did not come to this conclusion by myself- it is well documented by experts in real estate, and there are hundreds of articles written every year decreeing the simple fact that overpriced homes do not sell well.   Underpricing your home is less documented and less talked about but can be just as detrimental as over pricing it.        

 

I

think we can all list about five negative effects of pricing your home too high.  It is so well documented that I can’t believe people still do it; human nature is just difficult to change. I call it the “it’s worth more because I own it syndrome.”  Here it goes- in the 15 years of selling real estate in Elk City and Western Oklahoma I have seen the way people search for homes.  It has become exclusively through the use of smart phones.  Most sites use search parameters to search for homes in a given area, most use price (ding ding), although there are countless parameters.  When someone moves to Elk City and wants to buy a home and their budget is $150,000, they will plug in the parameters $140,000 to $160,000.  If your home is overpriced, it won’t even show up in the search for your prospective buyer.  The buyer literally has to drive by your house and see a for sale sign to know it exists.  (This works for underpricing as well, and I just gave away one of my points for the next paragraph.)  The other main reason why over pricing is bad is that people are not stupid.  They are well informed and have an array of different tools to use to determine what a home is really worth.  And oh, by the way, most people get a loan and an appraiser shows up.  While you might fool the buyer, you’re not going to fool the appraiser.  No loan no sale.  You have to rely on finding someone dumb with cash, and those two are not positively correlated. 

 

Underpricing in the Elk City market is relatively new to the game and is not as common, mostly because of that human nature thing.  I will say one thing if you don’t mind losing money it’s a fast way to sell, and you don’t have to be much of salesperson to sell things below market value.  It makes sense to sell fast sell it below market value.  However, remember what I said about search parameters and the example I gave?  It works the same way if your home is worth $150,000 but you price it at $120,000- there are going to be a lot of folks who never see your house.   Folks in the underpricing camp, say, “Tyler you’re wrong; we are never going to actually take less for our house than market value this is just a way to bait people into making an offer, and then we will have people bid against each other or we will have an investor with a predetermined bid, like an ace in the hole.”  Let me say it again, “people are smart they know how this works they don’t like being a pawn in the game.” A majority of them won’t even look at the undervalued home due to the game they know they have to play to get it, thus reducing the number of available buyers.  This is even more so for rural people.  I go to real estate conventions all over the US, and even Canada, and I explain to my fellow Realtors that a lot of things that work in Urban America will not work in Rural America.  People in Rural America are just less fussy, and we don’t put up with a bunch of bunk- we like to get to the point no games no gimmicks. 

 

Over and underpricing your home is going to eliminate potential buyers for various reasons.  The buyer may not find your home in the world wide web due to search parameters; they don’t think you’re a serious seller when overpriced, or worse you alienate people with your bait and switch game, and they won’t even go look at the home.   The moral of the story here is to price your home at the current market value to reach the most available buyers, make the pool of buyers larger not smaller.  Priced correctly you will have the best chance for success. 

Tyler Harrison

Broker/Owner 

 

 

 

Posted in Market Updates