Wakefield,Reutlinger AND COMPANY/REALTORS

o r s .c o m
Rr e al t
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REAL ESTATE
A Publication of Wakefield, Reutlinger and Company/Realtors Vol. 1 No. 19 July 2009

How Does a Seller Get an Offer in a Buyer’s Market?

Buyers have been quick to see the change in the underwriter’s approval); pay some or all of their
real estate market moving in their favor. In a buyers’ closing costs; pay one year of their homeowners’
market there is an abundance of homes on the association fees; pay for a swim or tennis club
market for sale, but not as many qualified buyers membership. You could also throw in the flat-
shopping for homes. Many sellers, however, have screen TV, washer and dryer or a gift certificate to
been slower to understand the new market dynamics. a furniture store. The less money a buyer has to
Most think they have the best house in the shell out, the higher the perceived value.
neighborhood and that it will sell quickly. In
today’s housing market sellers are finding their
houses sit on the market much longer than they
ever have. So, how can they get their house sold?
Real Estate Update
And how can they get the most money for their Year to Date Sales by Price Range
Greater Louisville Area
house? Single Family Residential & Condo
LOUISVILLE In any market condition there are always people Price Jan 1-June 30,08 Jan 1-June 30,09
who are ready, willing and able to buy. If you are
Ranked Top Spot $29,999 or under 335 416
a seller in today’s buyers’ market, it means your
For Business house has to stand out among other homes for sale $30,000-39,999 129 127
The results from Market- in your area. There are three ways you can make $40,000-49,999 162 120
Watch’s 2nd ranking of the best your house more attractive to buyers. $50,000-59,999 147 162
U.S. metro areas for business Prepare your house to be in turnkey condition. $60,000-69,999 189 150
places Louisville in the top 50. This means that when a buyer looks at it, they will $70,000-79,999 217 162
Ranked in the 32nd spot, feel they can just move into it without having to fix
$80,000-89,999 263 233
Louisville was one of the cites, a thing. In a seller’s market you can get away with
walls that need painting or carpet that needs to be $90,000-99,999 318 213
for various reasons, that made
some of the biggest moves. replaced. But now, buyers are picky about the $100,000-119,999 678 576
This years ranking looked at details because if yours doesn’t suit them, they $120,000-139,999 744 531
several small-business categories. have many more choices. Buyers in today’s market $140,000-159,999 613 430
As with last year, the rankings will only consider a home that needs work if they $160,000-179,999 386 353
are purely result-oriented and can get a great deal on it. In order to get the most
$180,000-199,999 333 273
are based on available data in 8 for your house, you need to look at it critically and
categories from various make all necessary repairs. Clear clutter and extra $200,000-249,999 542 429

government agencies and furniture. Clean the outside and inside thoroughly. $250,000-299,999 335 249

financial organizations, as
Make sure the landscaping is well maintained. $300,000-399,999 340 237
well as two business publica-
Set the price realistically based on what today’s $400,000-499,999 137 93
market will bear. Forget about what your
tions, Fortune and Forbes. $500,000 or over 172 95
neighbor sold his house for last year. Setting your
No subjective criteria such as
price right will catch buyers’ attention. If you set it
“quality of life” were included. too high, buyers will not even look at it. And, it is Year to Date Residential Sales Stats
Single Family Residential & Condo
WRrealtors.com not advisable to set the price high with the expecta-
tion to lower it if it doesn’t sell. The longer a Jan 1-June 30,08 Jan 1-June 30,09
house sits on the market, the less desirable it be- Houses Sold 6040 4849
comes in the eyes of buyers.
Average Selling Price $168,136 $154,886
Sweeten the deal. For example, you could offer to
buy down the buyer’s interest rate (subject to the Median Selling Price $135,000 $129,900
ALL THE WAY HOME...425-0225
Source: Greater Louisville MLS.
Deadline for the $8,000 Tax
Credit is Approaching! First
Time Home Buyers Must be
Closed by December 1st!

This is not intended to solicit a currently listed property. Information

TWITTER
By the Numbers…
The average size of homes

2,438
started in the is a free social networking and
third quarter
87% ofsearchers
micro-blogging service that
The percentage home
65%
of 2008, down enables its users to send and
of first‐time from 2,629 square feet in the read messages known as tweets.
buyers for exist‐ second quarter, according to the Tweets are text-based posts of up
ing home sales for the forth look on the Internet U.S. Census Bureau. Similarly, the to 140 characters displayed on
quarter of 2008, up from 46% median size of homes started in
in the first quarter of 2008, first. the third quarter was 2,090,
the author's profile page and de-
livered to the author's subscribers
According to HouseHunt.com down from 2,291. who are known as followers.
The percent of income spent Senders can restrict delivery to

$100
Between March 2007 and March on housing in Louisville . those in their circle of friends or,
U.S. house‐
2008, the number of new In markets
11% holds by default, allow open access.
households like San
772,000
Since its creation in 2006 by Jack
grew by spend an
Diego, it can Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability
compared average of $100 per year to and popularity worldwide.
with an increase of 1.63 mil‐ cost 40% of income to own power electronic devices Twitter is ranked as one of the 50
lion a year earlier, according a home! when they are in “power mo s t p opu l a r websi t e s
to the U.S. Census Bureau. mode.” worldwide by Alexa's web
traffic analysis.

FACEBOOK is a free-access social net-
working website that is operated and privately
owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks
organized by city, workplace, school, and region
to connect and interact with other people. People
can also add friends and send them messages, and
update their personal profiles to notify friends
about themselves. Mark Zuckerberg founded
Facebook with fellow computer science major
students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and
Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University.
Website membership was initially limited to Harvard
students, but was expanded to other colleges in
the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford
University. It later expanded further to include any
university student, then high school students, and,
finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website
currently has more than 250 million active users worldwide.
Facebook has met with some controversy over the
past few years. It has been blocked intermittently in
several countries including Syria, China and Iran,
although Iran later unblocked Facebook in 2009. It
has also been banned at many places of work to
discourage employees from wasting time using the
service. Privacy has also been an issue, and it has
FEATURED PROPERTY
been compromised several times. Facebook is also
facing several lawsuits from a number of Zuckerberg's
former classmates, who claim that Facebook had stolen
their source code and other intellectual property. A
February 2009 Compete.com study has ranked
Facebook as the most used social network by
worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.
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