Boulder CO Homes for Sale and Real Estate by Mary Ellis

For Sellers

Selling your home shouldn't be a stressful ordeal. Making the smart move of choosing a REALTOR® is your first step to ensuring that your investment in your home pays off. My services and experience allow you to focus on your move while I manage your home sale from our initial consultation to the closing deal, and beyond. I pride myself on repeat business and hope you'll come to understand why.

What We will do for you
Recent Home Sales
Getting the highest price
Closing Costs

As Your Agent, We Will:

Complete a comparative market analysis that will compare your home's value to that of your neighbors.
Compile a comprehensive plan detailing all the efforts we will employ to sell your home, including Internet and local media.
Present your home to as many qualified buyers as possible getting your home maximum exposure.
Help you stage your home and generate curb appeal to ensure you get the highest price.
Assist with obtaining offers and help you in negotiating the best deal as smoothly as possible.
Help you find your next home and answer all of your questions about the local market area, including schools, neighborhoods, the local economy, and more.

Recent Home Sales

What are homes selling for on your street? Use HomeRadar.com to find out what neighborhood homes are selling for, free of charge, or choose a more detailed analysis of the value of your home.

Getting the Highest Price for Your Home

Curb appeal is key and could make a difference whether people stop and take a flyer, or drive right by. Here are a few tips to increase the curb appeal of your home. Staging your home is important. Many buyers will stay in your home longer if it's staged appropriately. I have compiled some ideas to present your home in the most effective manner.

Closing Costs to Expect:

Title insurance fees depend on the sales price of the home.
Broker's commission is a full-service fee and will cost anywhere between 5% to 7%.
Local property transfer tax, country transfer tax, state transfer tax, and state capital gains tax are the charges that you'll pay for the privilege of selling your home. Credit to the buyer of unpaid real estate taxes for the prior or current year are variable and depend on when you close and when your taxes are due.
FHA fees and costs are all fees are now negotiable between an FHA buyer and seller.
Home inspections fees are in some circumstances paid for by the seller and include pest, radon and other inspections.
Miscellaneous fees can accrue from correcting problems noticed during the home inspection.

Find out how much your closing costs could be.

<fontsize=+2>If you're planning to sell your home in the next few months or would like to know the current value
<a href="http://www.maryellis.com/content/articles/freecma.html">click here </a>
and fill out the form. You can get a list of current sales in your neighborhood by logging in to my <a href="http://www.maryellis.homelog.com">FREE "Homelog" Personal assistant for homeowners<a>. <fontsize=+0>It will automatically email you an interesting newsletter, calculate your homes current value, remaining mortgage balance, and much more. The information you provide will be used or given to NO ONE without your express prior knowledge and consent.

Some people find a Realtor through a family member or a friend. This is often a reliable approach <fontsize=+2>(70% of my business is repeat or referral based)Be wary of any one who claims they can get an unreasonably high sales price.<fontsize=+0>An agent might use a high listing price to secure a contract only to seek a lower price later, after little traffic is generated at the initial price. Meanwhile, you've lost the most critical time period in selling a home, the initial weeks after it is listed. <fontsize=+2>Check on experience, productivity and education. <fontsize=+0>As in most professions, experience pays in real estate. Experienced agents know the market and the marketing process. <fontsize=+0><fontsize=+2>Designations<fontsize=+0> --- such as the Graduate Realtor Institute (GRI), Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) --- suggest an expertise and commitment that goes beyond just earning and maintaining a real estate license. Is the agent a part timer who is just dabbling in real estate sales or is the agent a full time professional who's livelihood depends entirely on an ability to successfully and repeatedly close real estate transactions?

A Realtor is a licensed real estate agent who is a member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), an organization of some 720,000 real estate agents in the United States. A licensed real estate agent does not have to be a member of NAR to practice real estate. NAR is a non-profit trade organization that promotes high professional standards in real estate information, education and professional standards. <fontsize=+2>NAR champions private property rights and working to make home ownership affordable and accessible. NAR members adhere to a strict code of ethics founded on the principle of providing fair and honest service to all consumers. <fontsize=+0> Realtor business practices are monitored at local board levels. Arbitration and disciplinary systems are in place to address complaints from the public or board members.

For any home sell there is a group of similar homes, lined up on the market that compete with it. Those similarities include proximity, size, age, condition, type of lot, etc. Since homebuyers are trying to find the best house for the least money, if you have a group of comparable houses differentiated mainly by price, odds are, those that are priced better will sell first. Therefore the saying, "Where do you want to be in line?" You can decide depeding on how you price your home. Odds are if you're holding on for a higher price than your competition, you're going to have to wait until those houses sell first before you get to the front of the line. Logically it's not hard to see that if your price is higher than your competition, the odds are your house will sell later rather than sooner. If logic ruled the day, then sellers would not ignore common sense by pricing their homes too high. The current market is stable in terms of good sales activity, but there remains a high inventory of unsold homes. With the large number of homes currently on the market, sellers that price their homes competitively improve the odds of getting their home sold faster. Many homes in today's market are priced too optimistically. The necessary price reductions and/or extra time on the market often results in that home selling for less than if it had been priced competitively from the start. Why do sellers price their home too high? "I have to get X dollars out of the sale." That's a hard one to get over. Unfortunately, even though you may feel you have to get a certain price, the market isn't worried about what you have to get. The market only cares whether your home is a good value compared to the other homes competing against you. Sometimes pressure from neighbors, who have a vested interest in the house next door selling for as high a price as possible, can play a part in overpricing. Another urban myth says, "If something isn't selling, raise the price and it will." People have many rationalizations for starting at a higher price, but the key to overcoming the overpricing dilemma is by making comparisons to similar properties that are currently on the market - and by not using reasoning that home buyers aren't concerned with. For the home sellers who do understand the concept of playing the odds,the competition being overpriced actually is a blessing. The higher priced homes help the better priced ones sell sooner. And in a buyer's amrket - which is what we're in - sellers can use the odds to their favor. Let logic rather than rationalizations, hearsay and fantasies rule the day. In this way, the savvy sellers will get on with their lives and get where they need to go -- on time.