Part 2: Exposing your home to buyers. 

  In the real estate world, there are two major rules to selling any property, in any condition, price range or location: 1) Properly price the home. 2) Expose it to buyers. While this seems easy enough, almost everyone gets one, if not both rules wrong.
  Pricing your home was discussed in the last issue, and in short, concluded one should get the property appraised. To expose or advertise a home, one has limited resources. Here are the most common types of exposure: 1) Yard sign 2) Flyers 3) Newspaper ad 4) MLS (Listed w/agent) 5) Open house 6) Internet 7) Distributed Publication
  The yard sign is the most common form of exposure, but many homeowners stop there. Putting a yard sign up is a good way to let your neighbors know your home is for sale, but what about people who live a couple of miles away? What about families across the United States or even the other side of the world? 
  While most sellers never forget the yard sign, a large percentage seems to ignore the flyers. Having a photo flyer in the box is crucial for people to take information with them regarding your home. Your flyer should have a photo of the home and all pertinent facts including your asking price and contact information. The first 30 or so will go to your nosey neighbors, but that can’t be avoided since they are doing their own homework for the future sale of their own homes. Keep your flyers stocked. If you run out, refill the box. Keep refilling as often as needed. 
  Newspaper ads don’t seem to do very well in the Indianapolis area. According to many sources, they are very expensive for what you’ll receive, and don’t yield many results. One person I know spent $242 on a newspaper ad and had 1 phone call, - from a real estate agent. Remember this fact: Only 3% of the population is in the real estate market at any given time.That means 97% of the people who receive the paper won’t even attempt to look for your ad. 

  Another way to get exposure is by putting your home on the MLS. The MLS is short for “Multiple Listing Service” which is the master database that real estate agents upload their listings to. The bad news is this exposure will cost you thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. Some companies offer “Flat-Fee” MLS programs that will put your home on the MLS for an upfront fee. The fee usually costs $700 - $900 and includes limited services. Unfortunately, the home owner is still required to pay the buyer’s agent commission on top of that, which often times can be 3  3.5% of the price of the home. 
  Having open houses work for some people, but it’s important to note that the reason open houses exist are for real estate agents to find new customers, not to sell the home. If the home happens to sell, then great, but it’s actually pretty rare to sell a home that way. It does happen though, so I wouldn’t cross it off your list. 
  The Internet is becoming an ever-increasing way to buy or sell homes. The problem is that there are thousands of websites with homes spread out all over the web. So try to find high-traffic sites with original content. Typically, web-only real estate companies do not work very well, so be sure to use print advertising in addition to Internet exposure. 
  Advertising in a distributed publication (real estate magazine) is one of the best ways to market your home. Typically home magazine ads are much larger than a cost-prohibitive newspaper ad, and they reach a highly targeted audience: Nearly 100% of the readers are in the market to buy or sell a home. 
  The absolute best way to expose your home is to use a combination of the above suggestions simultaneously. The FSBO Store offers marketing packages that includes everything you need to effectively expose your home to over 35,000 home buyers per month.

Stacy Williams owns a three-bedroom house with a full basement and central air-conditioning in a quiet neighborhood on the upper west side of Youngstown, Ohio.

Williams, now 33, was earning $8.05 an hour as a manager at McDonald’s when she moved into the house with her husband, a laborer at a construction equipment manufacturer, and son back in 2004. The couple’s combined annual salary was $33,000. But the purchase didn’t require much of a financial stretch: The house cost $48,000. “If you have the credit score to do it, there’s nothing that can stop you from buying a home in Youngstown,” said Williams, whose plans for the house include a second bathroom.

A fallout from the real estate slump is that once again many homeowners are forced to look for homes that are within their budget. Access to cheap adjustable-rate mortgages gave many Americans the chance to live in homes that under normal circumstances they could have never afforded. People such as the Williamses are lucky that their income matches up well with the average home prices in Youngstown, but if they had lived somewhere more expensive, they might not have been able to buy their own home or would have spent too much, and now could have been facing the prospect of foreclosure.

So what metro areas are most and least affordable? The Youngstown metro area, which has a median income of $52,000 and a median home price of $77,000, is the second most affordable metro area in the U.S., according to the new National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) for the second quarter. BusinessWeek.com used the index to rank the 10 most affordable and 10 least affordable major metros based on incomes and home prices. Indianapolis was the most affordable—91.6% of homes sold in the second quarter could be afforded by median-income households. The least affordable was the New York City-White Plains (N.Y.)-Wayne (N.J.) metro area, where only 11.4% of homes are affordable to median-income earners. (A decade ago, 66.4% of New York-area homes were affordable).

Affordable Youngstown

The New York area became the least affordable large metro in the country for the first time in the second quarter, largely because home prices in the costly California markets have been plummeting. Los Angeles had been the least affordable large metro since 2004, and California markets have topped the list since at least 1991. Unlike other bubble markets, home prices soared in the New York area during the boom but haven’t fallen as far as they have elsewhere.

The most affordable markets, on the other hand, haven’t changed very much. They didn’t appreciate much during the boom, and most aren’t seeing dramatic declines. “The most affordable places are mostly where there are no job markets,” said Gopal Ahluwalia, vice-president for research for the National Association of Home Builders. “There’s little demand.…Nobody moves to a market because housing is cheap. The movement is for jobs.”

Tibitha Matheney, the agent with ERA Tri-Sun Real Estate in Youngstown who helped Williams buy her house, said she represented two other McDonald’s workers who bought homes. She said she has shown customers houses that cost as little as $9,000. The former steel town has struggled in recent decades as that industry has declined and sent jobs overseas. The largest employer is now a General Motors plant.

Matheney adds that some residents take advantage of the low-cost housing in the Youngstown area and commute to job centers in Akron, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. “You can get a lot of house if you really look,” she said. “A lot of times, people say, ‘But it won’t appreciate.’ But it’s still worth it because it’s affordable.” The most expensive homes in Youngstown cost about as much as starter homes in New York City, and you couldn’t even buy a parking spot in New York for what a median-priced house costs in the working-class Ohio town.

Buyer’s Blues in New York

Longtime Manhattan renters Olive Hayes, 64, a New York City nurse, and her husband, Kevin, a Verizon employee, were hoping to spend no more than $450,000 when they started looking for a house more than a year ago. Hayes said she wanted a large apartment with a terrace and a separate living room and dining room. They wanted to buy, in part, because Hayes plans to retire and they will have to give up the spacious two-bedroom apartment they rent from the hospital. It’s located in a doorman building overlooking the East River on 96th Street and First Avenue.

On Aug. 25, the Hayeses closed on a one-bedroom pad in a newly built condo building eight blocks north of their current home. It doesn’t have a terrace and is about 764 square feet, much smaller than what Olive Hayes had originally hoped for. It’s going to be a tight fit for her plants and piano. “It’s not easy. It would probably be $1.5 million for what I’m used to,” she said.

Hayes’ agent, Lynda D. Gray of Bellmarc Realty, said first-time buyers in New York often have to lower their expectations and stretch their finances. “The motivator is the investment,” she said. “You’re not going to have as much space as you like…but you’re going to be able to sell for a profit and possibly buy something outside of the city.”

The 10 Most Affordable Housing Markets

1. Indianapolis-Carmel, Ind.
Median home price: $108,000
Median household income: $65,100
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 91.6%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 73.1%

2. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa.
Median home price: $77,000
Median household income: $52,000
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 90.1% 
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 80.1%

Wikimedia.org/Andrew Balet

Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn

3. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich.
Median home price: $92,000
Median household income: $54,400 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 88.4%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 62.8%

4. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. 
Median home price: $140,000
Median household income: $78,800 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 86.8%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: N/A

5. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich.
Median home price: $112,000 
Median household income: $59,200
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 86.3% 
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 74.8%

Wikimedia.org/Joel Rossol

Toledo

6. Toledo, Ohio
Median home price: $104,000
Median household income: $60,100 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 85.5%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 77.3%

7. Dayton, Ohio
Median home price: $102,000 
Median household income: $59,800 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 85.4% 
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 83.8%

8. Akron, Ohio
Median home price: $100,000 
Median household income: $61,700 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 84.5%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 69.6%

Syracuse

9. Syracuse, N.Y.
Median home price: $98,000
Median household income: $61,000 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 84.2%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: 83.6%

10. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Median home price: $91,000 
Median household income: $54,700 
Share of homes affordable to median-income families: 82.5%
Share of affordable homes in Q2 1998: N/A

View the 10 least affordable housing markets.

Editor’s Note: The metropolitan statistical areas (click here to learn more about MSAs) included in this story were ranked based on the share of homes sold in the second quarter of this year that would have been affordable to a family earning the local median income. Affordability is calculated by comparing the median household income to housing costs, assuming that a family can afford to spend 28% of its gross income on housing. The housing costs were calculated using sales records supplied by First American Real Estate Solutions and include principal, interest, estimated property taxes and insurance. It’s based on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage for 90% of the sales price. The interest rate is a weighted average of fixed and adjustable rates during the quarter as reported by the Federal Housing Finance Board. The median household income estimates are published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The ranking only includes metro areas with at least 500,000 people.

Source: National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index

Zack O’Malley Greenburg 06.30.08, 6:00 PM ET

Steve Schwartz and his wife, Lori, have spent the last 30 years running Schwartz’s Bait and Tackle in Noblesville, Ind. Just 15 miles north of downtown Indianapolis, they sell fishing equipment and rent canoes to locals like Indianapolis Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri and former Formula One racer Derek Daly.

They’ve also discovered something most Americans are still searching for: the ideal place to raise a family. Their sons, Pete and Eddie, 26 and 22, who still help out at the store, are the products of an idyllic upbringing in Hamilton County,

“It’s the best of the best,” says the 47-year-old Schwartz, also a Hamilton County councilman, referring to the area and its quaint hamlets, low crime and desirable cost of living. “It’s a great place to raise your family. It’s safe, it’s fun, it’s affordable and it’s growing.”

In Depth: America’s Best Places To Raise A Family

It’s qualities like these that landedHamilton County atop Forbes’ list.Ozaukee County, Wis., and Johnson County, Kan. came in second and third. All earn high marks for their low cost of living, reasonably priced homes and short commute times. They also offer terrific schools, one of the most important characteristics to consider when choosing a place to raise a family.

“What parents need to look for are communities that have the resources to promote physical, social and cognitive development,” says Dr. Margo Napoletano, a San Diego-based psychologist with 20 years of experience specializing in children and their families. “This includes a strong school system that provides after-school programs.”

Behind The Numbers 
Forbes’ rankings are skewed toward counties with good school districts. Using research provided by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C., we started with a list of the nation’s counties with populations over 65,000. To eliminate under-funded school districts, we isolated 97 counties where more than half of per-pupil spending comes from property taxes.

Next, we knocked off all the counties with average SAT scores under 1,050 (math and verbal combined) or average ACT scores under 22, leaving us with 51 counties.

Raising a happy family requires more than just a good school system. With that in mind, we ranked the remaining counties using 10 data points: cost of living, graduation rate, standardized scores, home price, property tax rate as a percentage of median home price, percentage of homes occupied by owner, per-capita income, air quality, crime rate and commute time.

A long commute “can certainly contribute to stress on a family,” says Napoletano. “If you come home and the kids are already in bed, that detracts from family life, both psychologically and economically, especially considering today’s gas prices.”

Some of the most posh counties in the nation didn’t make the cut because their rankings were tainted by outrageous home prices or lengthy commutes. Westchester County, N.Y., home to ritzy enclaves like Chappaqua and Scarsdale, was sunk by a 31-minute average commute time and a median home price approaching $600,000. Fairfax County, Va., suffered a similar fate.

No. 10: Fishers, Ind.
Population: 61,800
Miles from Indianapolis: 15
Economic development spending: $700 million from 2008 to 2010
Transit: New rail line in the next five years
Pros: Public transportation, growing economy
Con: Minimal downtown

Fishers is growing fast, attracting residents who are young (median age: 30) and smart (over 60% have a bachelor’s degree or more). It has the range of pluses common among our top 10, including a strong economy (lots of life-science companies are moving in), low home prices ($149,700 for the typical house) and good schools (they get high rankings in the state). Though a walkable downtown is still in the planning stages, transportation is already here: Fishers started a commuter bus service to downtown Indianapolis and plans rapid transit via rail in the next two to five years. When it comes to smart planning and sheer livability, other places could learn a lot from this little city in the Midwest.

Part I: Properly Pricing Your Home    

  In the real estate world, there are two major rules to selling any property, in any condition, price range or location: 1) Properly price the home. 2) Expose it to buyers. While this seems easy enough, almost everyone gets one, if not both rules wrong. 
  Pricing your home is no easy task. There are 3 things you can do to figure out the price. 1) Do some homework and figure out what your neighbors have sold for. 2) Have real estate companies pull “comps,” also known as “CMA’s,” or “Comparative Market Analysis” reports for you. Agents can pull up data on recently sold homes that are comparable to your home in an effort to gauge what your home might be worth. 3) You can invest in an independent certified appraisal. 
  The big problem with CMA’s is the hidden motivation that comes with this “free” service. Lets say you were committed to bringing out 3 competing agencies to your home for evaluation/CMA reasons. Agent A says your home is worth $145K. Agent B says your home is worth $150K, and agent C claims they can get $155K for your home. Who would you most likely go with? 9 times out of 10, the answer is agent C. We all want the most we can get for our home. Unfortunately, agents know how this game is played. So the great majority of agents offer inflated price ranges for potential listings. After all, the agents who get the most listings’ make the most money. Using this logic, it’s very easy to conclude that the great majority of homes are overpriced when they enter the marketplace. We as consumers instinctively know this. That’s why when we enter a home that we like, we have the preconceived notion of offering a price thousands below the asking price. We are conditioned to do it because we know a game is being played. 
  That pretty much makes “doing your own homework” out of the question. Often, a homeowner will pull a neighbor’s flyer for comparison reasons. Then the reasoning soon follows that “my home is worth more because I’ve done this that and the other.” Soon, your price is based on your own justifications (and emotional attachment) in addition to your neighbors’ already-inflated price! I’ve seen many people come in with homes priced $10-$30K above fair market value because of what happened above. Guess how many of those homes sell that have fallen into that trap?
  Getting a certified independent appraisal is the only true way to know what your home is really worth. Remember, the appraisal company doesn’t have any hidden motivations. They don’t care what you use the appraisal for, and they get nothing if you sell or stay. Imagine having a certified appraisal sitting out when people walk through the home. How often have you walked through a home to find that someone went out of his or her way to prove what the home was worth? Wouldn’t you feel better about making an offer on a home if a company with no hidden motivations professionally determined its price? The moral of this story is that it’s a whole lot easier to sell a home at fair market value, backed by an appraisal, than one that’s several thousand dollars overpriced. 
  Part II: “Exposing the home to buyers” will be discussed in the next issue.

This beautiful two story home is ready to move in with lots of love, caring, and remodeling done in the last 3 years. Built by a Kitchen & Bath Contractor in 1991 this 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom one of a kind home is being reluctantly offered for sale by the current owners in order to facilitate a move out of state. Living room completely redone this year with an energy efficient Gas Log Fireplace & premium carpet. Master Bedroom complete makeover with premium carpet and all new Master Bathroom with Jacuzzi, premium carpet, luxurious shower with Corian surround installed by Richard’s Bath & Kitchen. Brand new hardwood floor in Formal Dining room. Refinished hardwood floors in Kitchen. Brand new Microprocessor controlled high efficiency Water softener & Reverse Osmosis Water Purifier installed by Culligan (2007). Built in book shelves in Bonus room. New professionally installed Closet Organizers in Master walk-in closets. Concrete driveway Concrete Basketball court. Invisible Fence for dog in front yard. New long-life, lightweight Metal roof ‘DECRA SHAKE’ with the look, ageless beauty & richness of cedar shake. Andersen windows, 6 panel solid-core oak doors throughout, crown moulding details. Gross Living area : 3,843 sq. ft.

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Wow, what a unique home this is! Brand new construction, never lived in. Stunning exterior English Tudor style home complete with turret that doubles as a covered front porch. Warm up with the rustic fireplace in the great room with soaring vaulted ceiling. The kitchen is loaded with oak cabinets, solid surface countertops, island with electric cooktop/eating bar, pantry, ceramic tile floor. Two master suites – one on the main level, and they both have Jacuzzi tubs! Bedroom three shares a Jack & Jill bath with the huge bonus room. Massive storage space with the 2.5+1.5 car garages, full basement and oversized closets throughout.

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* One owner ranch style home * Beautiful upgraded 4″ 1/2″ trim and 5″ floor molding * Located in the popular Spyglass Falls subdivision * Custom wood blinds stay with the house * Oversized living room w/gas fireplace open to Kitchen Bar * 10′ ceilings throughout * ArchiDeck built custom deck * Open floor plan * Custom entryway with new tile * New tile in guest bath and laundry room * Full finished basement with half bath , custom lighting , large Open entertainment area with office and in-home gym * Meticulously maintained * Contemporary Pottery Barn detail * Incredibly clean * Perfect for children of all ages, professional and empty-nesters * Fresh paint throughout * Brushed nickel hardware * Extensive landscaping * New roof * Highly motivated seller * Call anytime for an appointment. Flexible visitation hours.

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Fantastic condo with vaulted ceilings, brick fire-place, and walk-in master closet. Virtually everything is new including fresh paint, new carpet and vinyl floor in kitchen and bath, refrigerator, and 2 year-old Furnace and A/C with air filtration and humidifier. All window treatments including new blinds stay. Immediate occupancy. Homeowner’s dues of $180 a month include water, sewer, trash, lawn care, exterior insurance and maintenance, snow removal, and community swimming pool.

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Beautiful condo overlooking pond in quiet Fishers community. Great location close to shopping, banks, doctors office, restaurants, post office, interstate and Indianapolis. This 2-bedroom with loft has lots of closet space, wood-burning fireplace with patio. New carpet in 2006, and new furnace/AC unit in 2003. Association dues of $185/month covers the exterior building, all ground maintenance, and lets you enjoy tennis, swimming and use of the clubhouse. 2007 taxes $1,002 annually. Let’s make a deal! One-year home warranty included!

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