Making An Offer

This is one area where even experienced buyers and sellers tend to look for expert advise. There is a very good reason for this. This is where the rubber hits the road. What happens in a day or a week will have a huge impact on the lives of everyone involved.

One good way to get leverage in this situation is to understand a basic principle of real estate negotiation. You must want the deal less than then other side in order to maximize leverage. To put it another way, you must be willing to let go. Also, you should know exactly what your plan will be before beginning the negotiation process.

KeithMaki.com - Daily Updates, Timely Info!

For Sale By Owner

Just a few thoughts about people selling their homes themselves. If you are successful, please let me know what you did. It is a known fact that only a small percentage of for sale by owner homes sell before they are eventually listed with real estate. The ones that do sell (about 1 in 14), usually had a buyer lined up, or they priced the home 10% - 20% below the market price and a buyer happened upon the property and took advantage.

My recommendation: You will most likely benefit from selecting a personal realtor to help you find the property that will best serve your needs. Why? Because your realtor should be able to help you determine the going market price for any property you are interested in. This will help you get a good value, and more importantly prevent you unknowingly paying more than you should.

KeithMaki.com - Check it out, learn something good.

DOM - What does that Mean?

DOM stands for Days on Market. This is the stat that many people find interesting but few truly understand. It is not profound in and of itself, rather, it can give us a clue as to how the market has been behaving recently. Ideally, this will put us in the best position to negotiate on a purchase or sale with maximum results!

Here are last weeks stats taken from KeithMaki.com:
Average Days on Market for New Pending Listings: 125 DOM
Average Days on Market for New Closed Listings: 123 DOM

However, these stats are somewhat misleading because there are a small number of homes that have been on the market more than a year that just sold or went pending. Here is a more detailed breakdown:

Pendings from Last Week: 40 - This is what the market is like (last 7 days).
0 - 30 DOM: 13 - this is the biggest by far! About 1 of 3 went pending in 30 days or less.
31 -60 DOM: 3
61 - 90 DOM: 3
91 - 120 DOM: 4
121 - 180 DOM: 7
180 - 270 DOM: 4
271+ DOM: 6

Closed Last Week: 23 - This is what the market WAS like (one to two months ago)
0 - 30 DOM: 3
31 -60 DOM: 4
61 - 90 DOM: 2
91 - 120 DOM: 7 - This is the biggest by far.
121 - 180 DOM: 2
180 - 270 DOM: 2
271+ DOM: 3

KeithMaki.com - Expert research and market analysis!
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Be Picky

Right now in the Central MN residential real estate market the inventory is growing. I update my website weekly and daily with the latest data about the market and what is actually selling and coming on the market.

Last week 106 new homes were added to the 2500 existing listings for sale. Only 38 actually sold last week. So the trend right now is for buyers to have more and more choices as the weeks go on. That being said, the good houses do sell first.

KeithMaki.com - See the good houses daily!

Know the Market

When it comes to winning at real estate, you must know the market. How can you do it? Well, you could spend hours a day researching the market through the commercially available websites like EdinaRealty.com, Realtor.com, and others. Or you can hire a realtor to do all the research for you.

Most people end up with a realtor after spending significant time themselves. This is both good and bad. The good is that they do get the benefit of a real estate expert (at least some of us are experts). Today I was told that most realtors are "lazy." I don't know how true that is, I suspect it is the case with some and not with others.

My website: www.KeithMaki.com is a hybrid, you have all the do-it-yourself functionality of the big websites (I utilize the same technology as EdinaRealty.com), with the added benefit of expert research and market stats. Check my site out if you want to know what is really happening in the market.

KeithMaki.com - Know your stuff!

Passion or Money?

There is a famous study that was conducted on 1500 people in the 1980s. The question was simple: Will you pursue money first or will you pursue passion first in you work. The answers were not surprising: of the 1500, 1250 people said that they would pursue money, the other 250 said passion would be their goal.

The results of the study were staggering! Only one of the 1250 people that said they would pursue money first was a millionaire 20 years later. While that may not be so surprising. . .101 of the 250 people that said they would pursue passion first were millionaires 20 years later!

So if you love what you do with a passion, you are far more likely to succeed on a BIG level!

KeithMaki.com - Find out how much I love what I do (and how I can help you)

Know Who You are Working With

It is important to select the right Realtor for you. I believe strongly in the positive impact I make in the lives of those I come in contact with on a daily basis. Any good agent should be able to articulate exactly what makes them special and worth doing business with. So if you have been working with an agent, why don't you ask them why their clients choose to work with them and see what they say. Here is why my clients work with me.

KeithMaki.com - Know your stuff!