Lakewood Real Estate News

(12/30/08)  We’ve been teaching 2-hour seminars for home sellers and buyers for the City of Lakewood’s Community Services Department for well over a decade, and we’ve got one of our most popular ones coming up on Saturday morning, January 24th.

The concept behind this particular class came from a casual remark about twenty years ago from my business partner at the time, Alan Schwendener. We were in the midst of a tough market for sellers at the time, discussing how to best support our clients who needed to sell. Alan’s observation made a lot of sense: “You know, Dave, if we get the home into escrow in 30 days, the seller’s happy.”

The more Alan and I thought about this, the more we realized there are several key reasons why things tend to work out best when a home is sold during its’ first 30 days on the market:

1. New listings attract the most attention from buyers.
2. Buyers are more willing to pay at or even above full price on a new listing, but the longer a home’s been on the market, the more aggressively buyers want to negotiate.
3. Keeping an occupied home properly staged and cooperating with showings and possible open houses requires a lot of effort from everyone involved. Most sellers and their families only have the stamina to keep an occupied home properly staged and ready to show for about 30 days. After that, cleanliness, cooperation, and attitudes tend to deteriorate.
4. In a market like today’s, with the future uncertain and prices currently trending down, the longer it takes to sell, the lower the sellers’ bottom line.
5. It’s easier to attract competing offers during the first two weekends a home is on the market. Not only do competing offers allow the seller to negotiate price more aggressively, they also allow the seller to select the more solid buyer in terms of qualifying and successfully closing the transaction. That’s extremely important in the current market, where qualifying for a loan is so difficult.

In the class we give an overview of seven keys to a fast, top-dollar sale. Strategies we’ve honed over 30 years in the business are reviewed and explained. We discuss topics from pricing to staging to negotiating to qualifying. We’ll also go into detail on current market trends and what to expect over the next several years.

Anyone considering selling a home in the Greater Lakewood/Long Beach area would be well served to attend.  It’s a summary of an approach to home selling that’s been amazingly successful in good markets and bad.  Perhaps the proof is our own track record over the past year:  No expired listings, and most listings put into escrow within about a month of hitting the market.

This year we’re again holding the class at the Pavilion meeting room at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park, on the corner of South Street and Lakewood Blvd.

Blair and I were both teachers when we first went into real estate, and we enjoy getting back into a classroom setting from time to time. My decision to buy my first home way back in 1976 was largely based on information I received in a similar, but longer, Saturday buyers’ class taught by Los Angeles Realtor Scotty Herd for UCLA’s extension program. It gave Barb and I the information, tools, and confidence we needed to make that first purchase. The buyer and seller classes we do give us an opportunity to discuss real estate in an informal classroom setting.

If you know of someone who may be thinking about selling in the next year or two, this course would be an excellent opportunity to get lots of useful information and to benefit from our three decades of experience.

The main session runs from 9 - 11, but a bonus “early bird” session from 8:15 - 8:50 has additional tax, estate, and planning info for seniors.

The city charges a nominal facilities fee of $5.  To register, or for additional info, click this link to Lakewood’s Class Schedule.  Or you can call us directly at 562.822.SOLD.