By Molly Cartwright, Realtor, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate, Molly@CooperJacobs.com, 206-841-6800, on April 28th, 2010%
Good Housekeeping: 5 Points To A Sale of your Green Lake Home
We have seen a lot of Green Lake homes sales in the Seattle MLS through the years and the homes that always sell faster and for money have one thing in common in most cases. They all follow the seller tip guidelines below. We thought we would go ahead and share them with you in case you are thinking about selling your Green Lake home.
The goal is to sell your Green Lake (Greenlake) house as quickly and as profitably as possible. To do that sellers need to Stage the home – not just have it Staged professionally, but all the items that go along with that. Here are four-steps designed to maximize the value of your house:
- De-cluttering Tips
- Repairing Tips
- Cleaning Tips
- Revitalizing Tips
- Showing Tips
De-cluttering Tips
Make four distinct piles: Trash, Return, Donate, and Might Need.
It would be overwhelming if you tackled the whole house at once. Delegate the work to other family members accordingly and go at it. Put checkmarks next to each completed room. It’s important to know you’re making progress. Golden Rule – Consider hiring a garbage collection agency or rent a commercial garbage bin if you have a lot to throw away.
Repairing Tips
Green Lake Buyers expect a trouble-free home. They want to buy a house, move in and start enjoying it right away. They don’t want to waste time and money fixing up the place. If you don’t repair your house now, it will be seen as a fixer-upper and you will not be able to attract the right kind of buyers, nor will you get the price you want for it.
Know whether you need a pre-listing home inspection and understand the difference between repair and renovation can save you money and headaches. Golden Rule – Repair cracks in the foundation immediately.
Cleaning Tips
Cleaning your house for sale goes well beyond dusting, mopping and vacuuming. You must clean it like you mean it. You must minutely examine every square inch of your house and restore it to near-new condition. An advantage of a well-cared-for house is that you’re less likely to receive a low offer. When buyers can’t find faults they focus less on how much money they can squeeze out of you and start thinking that the house is right for them. If you don’t have the time to clean then you should hire a professional. It’s a smart investment. Golden Rule – Clean the area around your fireplace and then the fireplace itself.
Revitalizing Tips
Revitalizing is not remodeling, which is usually expensive and delays the selling of your house. Revitalizing starts with improving your curb appeal, follow up with lighting, and painting. Only then can you start staging your house for sale. Golden Rule – Home Office: Move your filing cabinet into the basement.
Showing Tips:
You’ll need to dust the undisturbed rooms once in a while but you can see how this strategy ensures your house is always ready for showing with minimal efforts. For the rest of the living space create three to-do lists:
- A weekly must-do checklist
- A daily must-do checklist
- A final checklist before the open house
Golden Rule – Put away personal valuables. Turn off your computer.
Full service Green Lake Realtors help with all of the above.
Often we are asked to go through a Green Lake home and give the seller a check list of some of the items above. We also usually hire a Stager and a housecleaner on your behalf. Selling Green Lake real estate requires knowing what Green Lake buyers want. Curious what YOUR Green Lake home value is and what’s been selling in the neighborhood?
Contact us and we can help or at least answer any questions you might have.
By Courtney Cooper, Realtor, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate, courtney@cooperjacobs.com, 206-850-8841, on April 26th, 2010%
 The tax credit deadline approaches faster than ever now - you need to get a purchase and sale contract signed around by this week if you want to take advantage of the current home buyer tax credit. That is the fact, but don’t allow that to impact your decision process when purchasing. Being under the gun over a tax credit seems pretty silly when trying to make a much bigger decision overall. My suspicion is that there might be quite a bit of buyer remorse when those IRS checks come in. You would hate to be sitting with your $8000 in a home that as you look around just does not feel right.
My suggestion instead is to take your time and really find the home that is going to work for you and your goals. Choosing a home in a rush over a credit which is tiny when compared to the purchase price overall is like buying a brand new car because they give you a free junky toaster. It’s a little gimmicky.
Why not take your time and find the perfect property and let your Realtor negotiate it to make up for not getting that free toaster… I mean credit? The competition will be less fierce as the feeding frenzy ends and the pressure will be lessened so that you can really focus in on whether or not the house truly works for you! You can find current inventory here: Seattle Real Estate
By Molly Cartwright, Realtor, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate, Molly@CooperJacobs.com, 206-841-6800, on April 23rd, 2010%
Green Lake Real Estate Home Values: April 2010. Green Lake real estate has never been so affordable! It’s Spring! And it’s tax credit season – well at least by April 30th.
Let’s take a look at the current Green Lake real estate market for single family residences (no Green Lake condos or Green Lake townhouses). There are 59 active Green Lake MLS listings, 13 pending homes, and 10 sold homes in the month of April. 8 out of 10 Green Lake homes sold did so in less than a month. The other 2 were multi million dollar homes and they took 120 days.
Average sold price in Green Lake right now for April 2010 is $343,333 for a two bedroom. $501,650 for a 3 bedroom, surprisingly lower for a 4 bedroom at $437,000 and finally for 5 bedrooms and up it’s on average $800,000 and up.
Of course there are many reasons to make Green Lake your next home.
There’s the 2.8 mile paved loop on the inside or the 3.2 mile dirt loop on the outside of the lake’s parameters. Turn Pike Pizza is amazing and one of a kind, even though the name sounds too familiar. Super Jock and Jill sports apparel and #1 running shoe retailer of all time. SPUD Fish n Chips – they must have grandfather rights cause this place has been a staple of Green Lake since 1940 and it’s considered a historical sight. Okay, so if that’s not a reason to live in Green Lake then…
Maybe you’ll enjoy Mockingbird Books next to Rosita’s: the all-time favorite kids place to eat while Mom or Dad suck down a margarita. And those all those who wondered if there was a popular bar in this 35′s something 2.5 kid neighborhood…yes! You can’t miss the nightlife (which begins at 2pm) at the Little Red Hen! So you see, Green Lake has both major franchises like Starbizzle and Title Nine Sports. But it also has Urban Cafe (where you get a FREE coffe with cake or pie!) and Skinlogic.
I live and breathe Green Lake. Why? Because for me, it’s safe, affordable, awesome location, great schools, and I can run 2.8 miles and grab a Zeeks Pizza and Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream right after.
Interested in knowing more about Green Lake? Living in Green Lake since 1996. Molly@CooperJacobs.com
By Molly Cartwright, Realtor, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate, Molly@CooperJacobs.com, 206-841-6800, on April 7th, 2010%
F.A. McDonal School Re-Opens In 2011
…and we couldn’t be happier. For 29 years this vacant school has served as THE neighborhood hub for the Green Lake and North Wallingford ‘hoods: you name it and it’s got it: play structures, picnic tables, roller skating, basketball, a larger than life neon diagraham of the United States, kickball, dog park, a site for many movies…
Now we get to have our cake and eat it too! F.A. McDonald School turns the lights back on and ready for kids K-5 to take ahold of the halls again in 2011. And we still get to use our neighborhood hub for all the activities we’ve gotten used to … just on the off hours of school time.
The F.A. McDonald blogspot is a great way to get informed about the new school – see if you’re in the Seattle school boundries, or check on teacher hiring status:
April 8th, 4 PM to 5 PM, John Standford Center, Rm 2700
April 15th, 6 PM to 7PM, John Standford Center, Auditorium
May 13th, 4 PM to 5 PM, John Standford Center, Rm 2700If you’re interested in the Third Community Workshop to wrap up the Improvement Plan and get your voice heard on the equipment and supplies needed for our new revitalized school, then head to the Green Lake Elementary on April 27th at 7:00pm. Friends of McDonald School has all the developing news. This extraordinary group of folks have really made great strides in improvement our community! Thank you so much! Cooper Jacobs RES has been busy placing families in homes within their preferred school boundries. Be it John Stanford in Wallingford, F.A. McDonald in Green Lake, or even N.E. Seattle with View Ridge Elementary, Wedgwood Elementary, and Maple Leaf with Olympic View Elementary. We’d be happy to help you too. For many, schools are the glue that makes our communities stick together.
By Courtney Cooper, Realtor, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate, courtney@cooperjacobs.com, 206-850-8841, on April 6th, 2010%
 Wallingford, Green Lakes’s close neighbor –
This weekend is the big Nationwide Realtor Open House Event and I wanted to highlight the open houses being held for this great occasion:
In Wallingford from 1-4 on both Saturday and Sunday, 4333 Wallingford Ave N will be held open – come see this neighborhood gem ready to move in – large spaces with tons of charm!
Wallingford is very close to Green Lake with this home being about a one mile walk to the either Lake Union or Green Lake depending on which direction you go. You can check out all Wallingford Homes For Sale – we are happy to give you a private tour. The site sweeps the MLS for Wallingford Seattle homes every 15 to 20 minutes.
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