Richard McDeid's (ourhome) Blog

Maximizing Interior Appeal You want your home to look as spacious, bright and clean as possible. Also the home should look neutral – without a lot of your personal and sentimental objects - so buyers can begin to imagine living there. Here are some tips to enhance your home’s interior appeal to ...

Maximizing Exterior and Curb Appeal When preparing to put your home up for sale, your first concern is the home's exterior. If the outside, or "curb appeal" looks good, people will more than likely want to see what's on the inside. Here are some tips to enhance your home’s exterior and curb appe...

Get Your House Ready to Show to Buyers A house that "sparkles" on the surface will sell faster than its shabby neighbor, even though both are structurally well maintained. From experience, REALTORS® also know that a "well-polished" house appeals to more buyers and will sell faster and for a high...

How Long Has Your House Been on the Market? Professional appraisers sum up their entire body of knowledge in three words: " Buyers make value." Your home is worth as much as a buyer will pay for it. If your home has been on the market for months, it’s a clear message that the property may not be...

Showings and Open Houses To prepare your home for viewing, make it as bright, clean, cheerful and serene as possible. Always look at your home from the buyer's point of view. Your REALTOR® will probably find a tactful way to suggest that you be absent while the house is being shown to prospectiv...

The Basics of Marketing Your Home Your REALTOR®’s marketing efforts and considerations will include advertising, showing the property, how long the house has been on the market and whether you're buying another home. Your home should be listed, whenever possible, through a Multiple Listing Servi...

Sellers: Calculating Your Net Proceeds When an offer comes in, you can accept it exactly as it stands, refuse it (seldom a useful response) or make a counteroffer to the buyers with the changes you want. In evaluating a purchase offer, you should estimate the amount of cash you'll walk away with...

Buyers: the Seller's Response to Your Offer  You will have a binding contract if the seller, upon receiving your written offer, signs an acceptance just as it stands, unconditionally. The offer becomes a firm contract as soon as you are notified of acceptance. If the offer is rejected, that's th...

Contingencies - “Subject to” Clauses If your offer says "this offer is contingent upon (or subject to) a certain event," you're saying that you will only go through with the purchase if that event occurs. Here are two common contingencies contained in a purchase offer: The buyer obtaining specif...

What is in an Offer? The purchase offer you submit, if accepted as it stands, will become a binding sales contract (known in some areas as a purchase agreement, earnest money agreement or deposit receipt). So it's important that the purchase offer contains all the items that will serve as a "blu...