Are you planning to sell your home in the Austin area that needs home staging? Many of today’s buyers in the Austin area are looking for move-in ready homes. Maritz Research Staging poll shows that 63 percent of buyers are willing to pay more for move-in ready homes. So why not get your home ready to attract its new owner?

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) your home may sell for up to 17% more money if it is staged professionally. According to the report, 62% of the seller’s agent said that staging a home decreases the amount of time the home spends on the market. One of the best ways to get your home to stand out amongst the competition is to have your home staged.

Most home sellers and the best real estate agents know…

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This month’s success story is about a family who won’t be able to move up to another home for about a year.

How can that be a success story? Whenever someone wants to make a better life for their family and they finally put a plan together to make it possible I consider that a success. Often I talk with people who say they want to make a move; either buying their first home, moving up to a larger home or even downsizing, but they never want to take the first step to make a plan. They will likely be in the same situation years later. 

 

In January a neighbor called me and asked if I would come over to talk about his house. His wife has always wanted a larger home with a pool. We looked at the market value of their home and their current…

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 It’s said most people move about every 5 years. The real estate market has seen dramatic changes in the last 5 years. If you are planning to sell your home this year you should be aware of 5 changes and how these changes will affect your sale.

 

1. Buyers Have More Data Than Ever Before       

Buyers are often searching for a home years before they are ready to buy. There is so much more information about neighborhoods, upgrades and home values compared to 5 years ago. Buyers often have a better understanding of the real estate market than people who are selling their home.

How it affects you is buyers will be comparing features, upgrades and condition of your home to other homes they have seen. They often make spreadsheets including…

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AUSTIN, TX–As single-family home sales continue to rise, another record-breaking year is expected for the Austin-area housing market, according to the latest monthly report from the Austin Board of REALTORS®. The November 2018 Central Texas Housing Market Report released today suggests another strong showing for the region.

"Sales are up 3.3 percent year-to-date for 2018,” Steve Crorey, president of the Austin Board of REALTORS®, said. “Pending sales volume in December, the Central Texas housing market is on track to have one of the highest-grossing years on record."

Austin-Round Rock MSA

In the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), sales volume slightly increased 0.7 percent year over year from 2,185 sales in November 2017…

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Update: Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill Opened on December 4th, 2018 in Avery Ranch

Click HERE to visit their website for more information.

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Rumor has it one of my favorite restaurants in Austin will be opening another location in Avery Ranch. The speculation is they will be moving into the old Z-Tejas building at the corner of Avery Ranch Blvd and Parmer Ln.

We would be very excited if this turns out to be true as their Sunday brunch is the best in Austin in my opinion.

When we asked Moonshine if they are opening a location they would not confirm they are but it sounded like they are working on making something happen.

Stay tuned for more…

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Because we specialize in helping people in the Austin area get their home sold fast Kopa Real Estate has a proven marketing plan we can show you in writing.

The Austin real estate market is different than other areas. To help our clients sell their homes our marketing plan is tailored towards our neighborhood. Our marketing plan includes not only getting buyers to visit your home, going under contract, but also takes you all the way to a successful closing.

The average Realtor in our area will sell one home per year. Whenever someone doesn’t do something frequently it is impossible for him or her to develop successful systems. What that means is an average Realtor will be practicing with your largest financial asset. Even worse is the Austin…

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Congratulations, your home is under contract! The next step will be for the buyer to have your home inspected.

Most of us assume a home inspector is going to be competent and the inspection report will be a truthful indication of your home’s condition. I wish that were true.

More than ever, this year we have run across an alarming number of home inspectors that produced inspection reports with significant inaccuracies. In some cases I wondered if they were even inspecting the correct house.

There are a few reasons for this development. First, home inspectors are like people with any other job. Some software developers are great, some are average and some or simply bad at their jobs. The same holds for home inspectors. The process to obtain a…

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Because we work with so many home sellers it gives us the ability to provide our clients who are buying a home great advice about how to structure an offer that a seller will accept. Here are a few mistakes we have seen buyers make when submitting offers on our listings.

Assuming the seller will negotiate with you.  One of the most common mistakes we see is a buyer who loves a house but just can’t get out of their own way to make a good first offer. They try to submit a low-ball offer. When we get another offer many times the seller decides to negotiate only with the 2nd offer and never gives the buyer who made the low-ball offer a chance to make a Best & Final offer. There’s a saying “Do you want to buy the house or try to buy the house?” Buyers who…

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For years people have been asking me if the real estate market is going to “crash.”

One of the misconceptions about the real estate market is it is binary. In other words the market is either super hot or crashing. The truth is a normal real estate market is more balanced than we have seen in 10 years.

Nationally we are seeing statistics that indicate that real estate is shifting towards a more balanced market that may not favor buyers or sellers as much as we have seen in a long time. This doesn’t mean a crash but it will mean changes and those changes will create challenges in the market.

The best analogy I can come up with is imagine you have been driving 100 MPH and then you slow down to 50 MPH. You will still be moving forward but it will…

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I can appreciate someone wanting to save money. If you’re like me what you’ve often experienced is when cutting corners things don’t turn out as expected. I know in my experience when I have tried to hire the cheapest option I’ve often had to hire someone else later to clean up the mess for you.

At Kopa Real Estate, our business is based on specialization. What often happens is a home seller thinks the decision of which Realtor to hire doesn’t make a difference. When their home doesn’t sell quickly they start asking questions and searching for answers. Because the discount agent they hired doesn’t specialize in our neighborhood they don’t have any answers. Many times those home sellers call me. They are confused about the real estate market, confused…

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