Buying a Home in Charleston, SC If the Inspection Goes South

You’re nearing your goal of buying a home in Charleston, SC! You have zeroed in on a property, submitted your offer, and heeded your agent’s advice and ordered a home inspection.  

Soooo…what if the inspector finds major issues nobody expected? While most home inspections only uncover small problems that can be fixed easily, some do turn up serious issues. In 2013, 16% of Realtors^® reported sales that went off track due to the inspector’s findings. What’s your best course of action if that happens?

Buying a home after major problems have been identified should only proceed after you know how much time and money it will take to solve them. Whether you are dealing with foundation, roofing, electrical, HVAC or plumbing issues, call a few Charleston area companies that specialize in dealing with structural home repairs, and gather some free quotes. Depending on what you hear, you can then decide to move to modifying your offer or you can walk away and look for another home.

Your agent will be able to assist you in modifying the original offer to the seller. If the issues are truly major and expensive, you may need to negotiate back and forth with the seller to see what they are willing to do. Be prepared to make some concessions, and don’t get frustrated with the process. It may take some time to come to an agreement that satisfies both parties.

As everywhere, buying a home in Charleston, SC is peculiarly both a heavy-duty financial decision as well as one fraught with emotion. People can find themselves tempted to ignore thorny issues simply because they have fallen in love with the home. But since you could end up spending tens of thousands of dollars on repairs, it’s vital to isolate your emotions from the decision.

If the bids you’ve received are astronomical, it could be time to find a better house. But you needn’t despair. This is all part of the process of buying a Charleston home—and a big part of why I’m here to help my clients.  If you’re buying a home this winter, I’ll look for your call!

Interested in selling your Charleston area home? Visit: www.jeffcookrealestate.com

Interested in buying a Charleston area home? Visit: www.discovercharlestonareahomes.com

-Jeff Cook

Jeff Cook Real Estate

Charleston, SC

How a Charleston Home Stager’s Experience Can Pay Off

When you put your home on the market, one of the decisions it’s easy to overlook is whether to engage a Charleston home stager. Especially if you know you have a good eye for décor or have experience in the visual arts, it may not seem necessary to call in a heavy-duty home staging pro to get your place in shape to sell.

It’s certainly not a requirement for listing, but using a professional home staging company can be invaluable for a number of practical reasons:

Your home is lived-in

That does give it a warm, comfortable feeling, but that’s seldom as saleable as a home that presents itself as open and slightly under-furnished. Prospective buyers react favorably when they can easily picture their own belongings in the living spaces. A Charleston home stager is expert at knowing how to achieve a clean, less lived-in atmosphere with a minimum of disruption.

Save on unnecessary repairs and renovations

Most are necessarily so close to the product (their home) that it’s next to impossible to see it with fresh eyes—the way the prospects will. One of the costly fallouts can be decisions to make repairs and renovations that don’t increase the home’s value by as much as they cost. Some such improvements (like over-painting interior or exterior areas) actually comprise décor choices best left to the future owners. A professional stager has field experience and a good sense for which updates are cost-efficient—and which could be counter-productive.

You stand to earn back more than you spend

Engaging a Charleston, SC home stager can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. That might seem like an iffy decision since you can’t know that it will ultimately pay off…but it’s tempting when you realize that successful pros are in business because of their track record of making Charleston houses look great—great enough t become worth more money to buyers!  

 Using a professional Charleston, SC home stager is just one of the ways we create successful home sales.  If you are looking to list your Charleston home in the New Year, do give me a call to get started!

Interested in selling your Charleston area home? Visit: www.jeffcookrealestate.com

Interested in buying a Charleston area home? Visit: www.discovercharlestonareahomes.com

-Jeff Cook

Jeff Cook Real Estate

Charleston, SC

Charleston Real Estate Reflected Overall 2013 Uptrends

It’s time for this Charleston real estate observer to tackle the New Year’s roundup of the Year in Real Estate (along with the traditional disclaimer that, since the actual statistics won’t be tallied until 2014, this has to be a lot more sizzle than steak!) But this is one time in the year when we Charleston residents get to take pause to relax, perhaps put a bottle of bubbly in the fridge for later on, and take a sweeping view of the general direction of things across the land.

If you’ve been reading here throughout the year, you already know that 2013 Charleston areareal estate activity might easily justify chilling a superior vintage champagne: it’s been a pretty darn good year! A smattering of last week’s press reports confirms it:

·         From the East Coast to Oahu (where there was a “1 in 3 chance” that if you sold a house, it was for more than the asking price), reports were of steadily rising prices.

·         The Business Insider reported that the Big Apple “managed to shatter several real estate records in 2013.” One of the records was a tidy listing for a modest little 62,000 sq. ft. private coop residence. Sure, $130 million may sound a little steep to us here in Charleston, SC, but that might be because so few of our digs have 82-foot swimming pools or tennis courts…at least not indoors, inside our five-story apartment atop a skyscraper.

·         More down to earth might be NAR’s assessment that “Housing prices rose faster than expected” — with a lot of credit given to the fact that “affordability remained high.”

·         Another factor: “More first-time buyers” were entering the market due to “rising rents and pent-up demand.”

·         Following suit, the Dallas News was touting a local home market that “came roaring back in 2013;” one that had “builders rushing to keep up with demand for new houses.” 

·         The Realtor® web awarded credit for the strong real estate year to “Low mortgage rates, all-cash buyers, and tight inventories” that sustained the housing market recovery. Our Charleston area real estate saw much of the same.  

·         There was one notably bleak spot: “ACT real estate hit hard by election” the Times reported. “Uncertainty” about election politics had created “subdued performance during the year” and some “negative house price growth.” The best news: this was the Canberra Times – and the country was Australia!

So let’s wish those Down Under a quick turnaround; then, after a relaxing day watching the Rose Parade and a bowl game or two, let’s get ready to charge into an equally dynamic 2014.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Interested in selling your Charleston area home? Visit: www.jeffcookrealestate.com

Interested in buying a Charleston area home? Visit: www.discovercharlestonareahomes.com

-Jeff Cook

Jeff Cook Real Estate

Charleston, SC