Kopa Real Estate Blog - real estate tips

Success Story – 15804 Dink Pearson Ln

If you listen to the media or friends your impression of the real estate market is that every home will sell no matter what you do. You’d also think your home will sell for the same price regardless of the condition, marketing or Broker you hire. These are some of the biggest lies in real estate today. Sometimes I think people believe the government is putting a limit on their home and you’re only allowed to sell it for $600,000 regardless of what they do.

I sold the home next to 15804 Dink Pearson last year. The owners of that home had hired another agent to sell their home but it didn’t sell. After…

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Protect Yourself From The Agent Buying Your Listing

 
99% of the time being a Real Estate Broker specializing in an area is a huge positive. Understanding the different buyer profiles in our area, differences in the types of homes and what buyers are willing to pay for is an advantage to both myself and the clients I represent.

1% of the time it works to my disadvantage because I know something about a home that will be seen as a negative to buyers. I always want to be upfront and honest with our clients. Over the years I have found I attract savvy clients who appreciate being told the truth.

When you are interviewing Brokers to be your listing agent you will be tempted to hire the agent who recommends the highest price. It’s human nature that you will like the agent who tells you the highest…

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3 Ways To Price Your Home

 
Many times I will hear someone say “The Realtor made me price my home for $500,000” and that’s not the way I look at it.

The approach we take when talking about pricing for your home is we are a consultant. Although I certainly can tell you what price I recommend or I can tell you what I would do if I was in your situation my job isn’t to make that decision for you. My job is to give you so much information and advice that together we can arrive at the best decision for your situation.

Most agents only have 1 pricing strategy but in reality there are 3 ways you can price your house.

Aspirational Pricing

The first way to price your home is what we call “Aspirational Pricing.” This is a strategy where we are priced well above the…

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Our Commitment To Fair Housing

Would you believe through July we have had clients who were born in 14 different countries? We’ve also had clients from just about every race, creed, color and family unit you can imagine. Sometimes I say only the deli outside the UN has a more diverse clientele than we do.

With everything going on right now attention within the real estate industry is being paid to fair housing. That’s good because historically housing has been one of the worst areas of discrimination in America.

We want you to know whoever you are and wherever you came from Kopa Real Estate is ready to help you! It’s the right thing to do, it’s good business and if you are selling your home it will make you money.

The reason I say it will make you money is when…

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Why Some Sellers Sell Their Home For More Money

How To Attract The Emotional Buyer

If you ask me why so many home sellers hire us when they decided to sell my answer would be simple. When it comes to selling your home the price you receive comes down to whether or not you are trying to attract a buyer buying based on emotion or based on logic.

The buyer buying based on emotion will always pay the most for your home. What we have done is come up with a repeatable and market proven system to attract and appeal to the emotional buyers in our area.

Sellers who understand the difference have great success. Sellers who try to use logic often wind up frustrated because the real estate market and buyers don’t react the way a logical mind hopes.

One of the many ways we add value to our…

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Covid-19/Coronavirus Real Estate Market Update

Everyone is asking me “How’s the real estate market?” Here’s what we are seeing.

Transactions are still happening. As of today, March 30th, in the Austin MLS on average over 100 homes are going under contract every day. Things are slowing down but people are still selling and people are still buying.

Here's what we are seeing with our business. Some of our sellers and buyers are telling me they are going to hold off for now and I’m supporting them in that decision while I continue to keep them aware of what’s happening.

Some of our clients need to sell now and some need to buy now, and we’re doing that with all the appropriate precautions.

All of this is day by day and in some cases hour by hour. Things may be different by the…

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What You Need To Know About Property Tax Protesting Companies In 2020

It’s only January and we are already seeing hand-wringing in our neighborhood about property taxes and the companies that will protest on your behalf. Protesting your property taxes in Williamson and Travis Counties will be even more challenging this year.

Just a reminder, if you engaged one of the tax protesting companies last year you probably signed a form giving them authorization to protest for you every year. That means if your plans are to protest on your own this year or you plan to hire a different company you will want to cancel the service with the company you previously hired. Otherwise they will protest on your behalf and you will get billed if they are successful.

Something new this year is at least one of the protesting…

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Is Your Property Tax Value The Same As What Your Home Can Sell For?

This is a popular question whenever we do our home selling seminars. The short answer is no.

When estimated a sales price for your home we want to compare your home to other similar homes that have sold recently. From there we want to make adjustments for specific features and benefits about your home and add in market knowledge from our side and where we expect the market is going.

The reason a tax value may not be accurate is the value of your home is established early in the year based on sales largely from the previous year. As I am writing this message some of those comparable sales are close to 2 years old and since we are in an appreciating market they may not accurately reflect what is happening in the current market.

If you…

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What Is An "As Is" Contract?

Selling your home isn’t like selling a toaster on Craigslist or selling your car at the CVS parking lot. There is often a misunderstanding of what as As Is contract means.

I had a client whose AC wasn’t working when the buyer performed their inspection. When the HVAC tech arrived at the property, he told my client she didn’t have to repair the AC because real estate contracts are As Is.

Technically the tech is correct but there is a big difference between what happens after going under contract on your home with an As Is contract and how things play out in the end. 

When a buyer makes an offer for your home they will check off if the contract is As Is or if the buyer is requesting any specific repairs and treatments. By far the…

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