Author: Marlowe Clark

Top California Cities, According To Forbes

Forbes has compiled a list of its top 10 California cities to live in, aggregating data from various different sources. Their methodology includes comparisons of population, median home price, cost of living, personal income per capita, unemployment, community well-being, and crime rate. The community well-being score is itself an aggregate score taken from the ShareCare Community Well-Being Index. Note that all of the criteria used by Forbes are objective measures focused on health and economic stability; they do not factor in self-reported happiness of residents. According to Forbes, the top 10 California cities to live in are Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vallejo, Oxnard, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield.

It’s unclear whether Forbes considers high or low population to be preferable, but the measurement is still useful in calculating crime rate, which Forbes provides in raw numbers as opposed to in proportion to population. Forbes is also only reporting on violent crime; nonviolent crime is far more common. California has a rather high violent crime rate in general compared to the US average of approximately 0.4%. But San Diego, the #2 city in Forbes’ list, has a violent crime rate lower than the national average at 0.38%. The city with the lowest median home price is #10 on the list, Bakersfield, whose other primary attraction is also one of its most detested qualities — it’s a major business hub, and therefore also a major traffic hub. Interestingly, the top city, Sacramento, holds a rather middle-of-the-road position in all categories, instead of being particularly strong or weak in any one area.

Photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash

More: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/best-places-to-live-in-california/

Wells Fargo Shifts Focus Away From Mortgage Lending

Wells Fargo is one of the biggest banks in the nation as well as one of the top mortgage lenders. In fact, it was the number 1 mortgage lender in 2019. However, that’s about to change. 2019 was also the year that Wells Fargo acquired a new CEO, Charlie Scharf, who inherited a company under strict scrutiny as a result of a 2016 fake account scandal. Among the changes Scharf is making is a massive shift away from mortgage lending to focus mainly on investment banking and credit cards.

According to Wells Fargo exec Kleber Santos, investigations into the 2016 scandal also revealed that their mortgage lending business was simply too large in scope. The implication is that it was too difficult to manage oversight of all the facets of the company, and that mortgage lending was the one that needed to be trimmed down. Wells Fargo will not be completely eliminating its mortgage lending business, but it will be cut down dramatically to prioritize existing customers and borrowers in minority groups.

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

More: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/10/wells-fargo-once-the-no-1-player-in-mortgages-is-stepping-back-from-the-housing-market.html

Risk Of Overappraisal Increasing As Prices Slow

When prices are changing rapidly — whether they’re going up or down — there’s always a risk of appraisers not being able to catch up. Most of the data available to appraisers is at least a week old, usually a few weeks. Most of the time, this is good enough, but not when price fluctuations are happening quicker than that. It’s expected that prices will be dropping rapidly throughout 2023 and 2024, which increases the risk of overappraisal. This is especially harmful to buyers who may end up paying more than the home’s actual value, immediately falling into negative equity. Lenders also want to avoid this, since they can incur losses when lending to a buyer who is suddenly in debt.

It’s not an issue that can be eliminated entirely, but luckily, there’s a way to at least mitigate it. In 2007, Fannie Mae encouraged appraisers to start including an assessment of the current market direction. Since 2009, oversight for appraisals is not handled by Fannie Mae but rather by appraisal management companies, but its still good advice. It means that even if the appraisal is off by a bit, involved parties will know in what direction the error is likely to be and can plan accordingly. Fannie Mae suggests that the assessment be limited to the neighborhood of the property in question and include data on recent price changes, average days-on-market, and inventory.

Photo by Paul Volkmer on Unsplash

More: https://journal.firsttuesday.us/the-danger-of-high-appraisals-in-a-spiraling-housing-market/88193/

Home Sales Volume Below Pre-Pandemic Seasonal Lows

Home sales volume tends to follow a similar seasonal pattern each year. It most often peaks in the middle of the year, falls off rapidly once winter arrives, and is at its lowest point the following January before restarting the cycle. The pandemic didn’t completely upset the pattern, but there were some noticeable shifts.

2020 could actually be described as having two cycles — one in the first quarter and one during the rest of the year. The first cycle peaked just before lockdowns in March, while the seasonal variance was on its upswing, before crashing down to the lowest point of the year in May. The peak of the second cycle was towards the end of the year. Home sales predictably shot up as the year entered June, but then continued their slight upward progression. The second cycle did reach bottom in January, as expected, but the low was significantly higher than prior years, as pent-up demand was still high.

The first half of 2021 seemed fairly normal. Home sales volume increased fairly steadily until the summer months. The peak was higher than normal, likely for the same reason the year started at a higher point. But the decline in the latter half of the year was quite a bit sharper than usual. The trough in January was lower than that in the beginning of the year, despite coming down from a higher point.

The shape of 2022 was rather odd. Like 2020, the peak was actually in March. But this time, it wasn’t because of a pandemic. It was the realization that we’re at the start of a downward cycle in the housing market overall. There was no steep increase just before June; it just continued to decline, though there was a minor upward bump later in the summer. The data is not yet available for December or January, but considering November’s home sales volume was already lower than the trough in January 2019 — the most recent trough of a normal cycle as well as the lowest value during a normal cycle in the past decade — and sales are continuing to decline, one can expect the numbers will be quite low.

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More: https://journal.firsttuesday.us/california-home-sales-volume-ends-2022-in-a-free-fall/88172/

Under A Third Of California Homeowners Are Mortgage-Free

If you’re just looking at the raw numbers, California looks pretty good as far as homeowners living free and clear, that is, having paid off their mortgage or never having had one. 2.4 million households belong to this category, third in the nation, just below Texas at 2.9 million and Florida and 2.5 million, and followed by New York at 1.7 million and Pennsylvania and 1.5 million.

This sounds great, until you realize that the top five most populous states are — you guessed it — California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania. While there are a lot of people living free and clear in California, as far as percentage of homeowners, it’s near the bottom of the barrel at just 32%. Only four states are faring worse, Colorado and Utah at 30%, Maryland at 28%, and D.C. at 24%. The top five states for share of free and clear homeowners are West Virginia at 53%, Mississippi at 51%, North Dakota and New Mexico at 47%, and Louisiana at 46%. However, Louisiana is the only one of these states in the top 25 of population. Compared to California, both Texas and Florida are actually doing very well, ranked at number 11 and 12 respectively in share of free and clear homeowners.

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More: https://www.ocregister.com/2023/01/02/one-third-of-california-homeowners-have-no-mortgage/

A Third Of Nation’s Happiest Cities Are In California

Financial technology company SmartAsset has used federal and local data to compile a list of what they consider the happiest cities in the US. SmartAsset ranked the largest 165 cities according to 13 different metrics, focusing on personal finance, well-being, and quality of life. Among the top 50 cities, 17 of them are in California, just slightly over a third.

Not only that, but California actually boasts the city with the number 1 spot, Sunnyvale. Five other California cities are in the top 10; these are Fremont at #4, Roseville at #7, San Jose at #8, Santa Clarita at #9, and Irvine at #10. Of course, since these are aggregate scores, the cities in the top 50 don’t necessarily perform well in every category. For example, even though Hayward, CA is ranked a rather respectable #17, it ranks among the lowest in finance related categories. The four top 10 cities not in California are Arlington, VA at #2; Bellevue, WA at #3; Frisco, TX at #5; and Plano, TX at #6.

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More: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/majority-of-uss-happiest-cities-in-california-heres-where/

Build-To-Rent Market Rapidly Growing

A build-to-rent community is a community in which single-family homes are build solely for the purpose of renting them out. It isn’t a new concept, but it’s been under the radar for quite some time, comprising only 3% of the single-family residence (SFR) market. As just one of many changes in the type of demand brought in the wake of the pandemic, that number is now up to 12%.

Many people who transitioned to work-from-home needed more space for a home office. That meant looking for a larger home. For renters, that often wasn’t possible, since they were priced out of the homebuying market. But what if they could rent the type of home people normally would buy? In a build-to-rent community, they can. The SFRs in such communities have significantly more space than apartment units, and while they are certainly more expensive to rent than apartment units, rising home prices meant renters definitely couldn’t buy if they weren’t able to before. It’s definitely possible to find SFRs that are not in a build-to-rent community, but looking for such a community guarantees it, and also comes with community amenities.

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More: https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/those-who-cant-afford-a-single-family-house-are-turning-to-build-to-rent-communities/

Cash Sales At An Eight Year High

According to a report from real estate brokerage Redfin, the share of home sales that were paid fully in cash reached 31.9% as of October 2022. This is the highest value since 2014. It’s been steadily increasing since April 2020 when it immediately plummeted down to 20.1% due to lockdowns, a record low. At the time, the general trend was downward, though the share of cash sales went up and down in cycles, and continues to do so. Now, the trendline is going back up.

There are actually a couple of different reasons for the shift, depending when you’re talking about. After the lockdowns, mortgage rates had a period of extreme lows, followed by extreme highs after federal intervention. Finally interest rates are starting to fall back down, but throughout all of this, the cash sale share was still trending generally upwards, albeit with some dips as usual. It’s not that mortgage rates don’t influence share of cash sales. They can actually influence it quite a bit, but at least since the pandemic, in the same direction for either extreme. In the first year since the pandemic, cash sale share shot up rapidly because low interest rates increased demand, which in turn increased the attractiveness of cash offers. Once interest rates skyrocketed during a time of already high prices, lower-income earners were effectively kicked out of the running entirely. This left wealthy buyers who, of course, didn’t want a high interest rate mortgage if they could avoid it, so they paid cash because they had the means to do so and it was the best financial decision for them.

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More: https://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news/redfin-all-cash-home-sales-highest-level-2014

CDI Releases 2021 Report On Wildfires & Insurance

The California Department of Insurance (CDI) has provided the latest update to their resources on the effect of wildfires on insurance. Statewide data on policy counts is now available for 2021, and county-level and zip code-level multi-year data has been updated to 2021, going back to 2015. You can also view archives of older statewide data up to 2015. In addition to policy counts, the CDI has compiled updated info on coverage limits, premiums, losses, and claims.

Also available are additional resources for those wanting to know their wildfire risk or looking for insurance. A report with a large amount of data, including but not limited to coverage amounts and losses for each zip code, is available for download under the “SB 824 Wildfire Risk Information” header of the CDI’s Rate Filings page. This data is from 2018-2019. There is also a list of insurance companies offering incentives for wildfire safety, last updated in November, as well as a searchable list of insurance companies and real estate agents that work with high-risk areas.

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Links to the above resources can be found here: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/200-wrr/DataAnalysisOnWildfiresAndInsurance.cfm

Pandemic-Motivated Home Features Still Increasing In Popularity

When the lockdowns hit, homeowners very quickly realized what their homes were lacking in terms of comfortably getting through the lockdown period. The result was a shift in which home features were most in demand. People began to favor more outdoor space so they weren’t stuck inside, home amenities, and variable living space, among other things. While the virus certainly hasn’t disappeared, lockdowns are no longer in effect, masks are no longer mandatory in most cases, and people are gathering together more. But the lockdown-era trend shifts continue to be apparent.

Backyards are a popular feature, with 22% of listings highlighting them. Patios and pools are also the focus of an increasing amount of marketing, with 13% of listings mentioning patios and 11% calling attention to the pool. Home gyms are also increasing in popularity. Of course, this doesn’t prove that buyers want more outdoor space and home amenities, but it does say that’s what agents think buyers are looking for. The same is true of multipurpose spaces. The ideal kitchen now includes a kitchen island, which has the flexibility to be used as a dining area, workspace, or entertainment table. It’s even extending to the way the home is organized — open-concept living had been popular for a while, but it’s now fallen out of favor as people realized they had no private or quiet spaces with everyone at home at the same time. The motivation for this shift is no longer present, but the experience seems to have changed peoples’ minds about open-concept living.

Photo by Alen Rojnic on Unsplash

More: https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2022-12-19-Backyards-are-Zillows-must-have-home-feature-for-2023

Conservation Efforts Hope To Restore Endangered Salmon

In the last 80 years, a particular species of salmon, the Chinook salmon, has not been found in the wild in one of its previously most important areas, the McCloud River in northern California. The Chinook salmon has been endangered since 1994, possibly as a result of dam construction, but it’s gotten worse in recent years. They’re also dying off in the Sacramento River, which is becoming too warm for many young salmon to survive. Now, a joint conservation effort between the State of California, the federal government, and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe of Native Americans is looking to reintroduce Chinook salmon to the McCloud River.

There isn’t anything wrong with the McCloud River itself. It’s still a good spawning point for Chinook salmon, even with climate change threatening young salmon in the Sacramento River. The problem is that they can’t actually get out because of the dams. This new conservation effort seeks to aid them with human intervention. They transported 40,000 Chinook salmon eggs to the McCloud River and measured how many spawned. About 90% of the eggs hatched. The next step was to help them along their migratory route when it came time. In order to do this, they’ve recaptured the salmon along their migration, bypassed the upper Sacramento River, and redeposited them in the lower Sacramento River. This has been successful, but the next step is still a work in progress. The group hasn’t quite decided the optimal way to get the adult salmon to return. Options include an additional recapture and redeposit, the construction of a fish ladder, or the demolition of some dams. The first two options would use a route across the Shasta Dam, while the last would involve smaller dams and a new route.

Photo by Brandon on Unsplash

More: https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/chinook-salmon-california-mccloud-river/

California Pay Transparency Law Takes Effect

In recent years, a few states have created laws regarding pay transparency in an effort to reduce discriminatory wage gaps. Colorado was the first to introduce a statewide law in 2019, though it didn’t take effect until 2021. New York City’s law will soon expand to all of New York. A new law just took effect in Washington as well as our own state, California, on January 1st. California’s law requires that companies with at least 15 employees post pay ranges in their job listings, as well as requiring that current employees have access to the pay range for their current position. The penalty for violating this requirement is between $100 and $10,000 per violation. The first violation only gets a warning as long as the information is added. Some companies also don’t currently have pay bands — the new law requires them. Companies with at least 100 employees will need to provide more detailed information.

Unfortunately, the new law may have to contend with some resistance. In New York City, employers chose to display incredibly wide price ranges. This doesn’t help prospective employees at all to figure out how much they would actually be getting. In one extreme example, Citigroup claimed a range of $0-$2 million, though they later said this was a computer glitch and changed it to something more reasonable. In Colorado, employers created remote job openings — with the stipulation that they could not be in Colorado, so the state requirement didn’t apply to that listing. Colorado’s method probably wouldn’t work in California, since California has such a large population that employers would miss out on a huge segment of potential employees. But New York City’s method is actually already in use in California, even without a requirement to list pay ranges at all. This is because prospective employees tend to disregard a listing entirely if there’s no pay range provided.

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More: https://calmatters.org/economy/2022/12/california-pay-transparency-law/

More Counties Saw Declining Home Prices In November

Home prices have begun their decline after a period of incredibly high prices. More regions of California are following suit. In October, 22 of the 51 tracked counties (California has 58 counties) recorded a decline in median sale price from the prior year. In November, this increased to 33 counties. Only two broad regions of California experienced price growth from the prior year, the Central Coast, with an increase of a mere 0.1%, and the Inland Empire, with a 2.1% increase. In all regions, prices are down from October to November. Prices are declining for both single-family residences and condos.

The largest changes from November 2021 to November 2022 occurred in Napa County, an increase of 29.4%, and Mariposa county, a decrease of 27.2%. The biggest positive and negative changes between October and November 2022 occurred in Tehama County, an increase of 10.8%, and Santa Barbara County, a decrease of 28.3%. Home prices are not the only thing declining. Home sales volume has also dropped precipitously since November 2021, decreasing in every single county except Mendocino County, which saw an increase of 4.5%. Mendocino is also one of the counties in which prices are still increasing. In most counties, the decrease in sales volume hovered around 40-50%, though some were higher or lower. The decrease reached as much as 68.9% in San Benito County, but was only 12.5% in Glenn County.

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More: https://www.car.org/aboutus/mediacenter/newsreleases/2022releases/nov2022sales

Southern California’s Industrial Vacancy Rate On The Rise

Unlike office spaces, the industrial sector wasn’t particularly negatively affected by the pandemic. People still needed warehouses and manufacturing sites, perhaps even more than before. Indeed, the vacancy rate actually started dropping since the lockdowns, the beginning of which was the peak point in recent years. In most areas of Southern California, the vacancy rate for industrial leases reached its lowest point in the first half of this year. Since then, vacancy rates are starting to edge back up, but are still far below the pre-pandemic peak.

In San Diego County, the industrial vacancy rate increased from 2.00% to 2.56% between Q2 of 2022 and Q3 of 2022. The peak was just above 5% in Q2 2020. In Los Angeles County, the increase was from 1.11% to 1.68%, with a peak of 3.17% at the start of the pandemic. Despite the Inland Empire’s very low vacancy rate of 0.88%, it’s actually higher than the Q1 and Q2 numbers. But it’s nothing compared to the pre-pandemic vacancy rate of 3.92%. Orange County is an exception — the industrial vacancy rate has actually continued to decrease, from 1.23% in Q2 2022 to 1.05% in Q3 2022. Its peak was also later, in Q3 2020, at which point it was 3.1%.

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

More: https://journal.firsttuesday.us/socals-industrial-leasing-performance-peaked-in-2022-now-trending-downward/

What Exactly Is A First-Time Homebuyer?

The answer to this question may seem obvious. Of course a first-time homebuyer is just anyone who is buying a home for the first time, right? Well, not exactly. What the phrase is actually referring to is someone who is eligible for a given first-time homebuyer program, usually a lender’s loan program. The lender doesn’t care whether it’s your first time buying or not, only whether or not you are eligible for the loan.

It’s not entirely misleading, though. At least for the criterion related to homeownership, those buying for the first time would qualify. But even that criterion is slightly different; it commonly only requires that you not have owned a home within the prior three years. Moreover, there are multiple other qualification criteria for first-time homebuyer loans. They usually include requirements for down payment, credit score, proof of income, employment history, and a maximum debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. Typically, the down payment requirement is between 3% and 20%, the minimum credit score is 500 for FHA loans or 620 for conventional loans, two or more years of employment are required, and the DTI ratio must be no more than 43%. These numbers, as well as the specific criteria, could vary, both by region and by lender.

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For more information as well as information about specific first-time homebuyer programs, see: https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/who-qualifies-first-time-homebuyer

Eviction Protections In Los Angeles To End In February

The country’s longest-lasting eviction protections are due to end February 1, 2023, at least in Los Angeles, as confirmed by the City Council. The protections have been in place since March 2020, as a response to COVID-19. Despite federal and many local protections ending much earlier, the city’s tenant protections have remained in place the entire time.

The eviction moratorium was certainly financially beneficial for many people who were unable to work during lockdowns, but might otherwise have been expected to continue to pay rent. However, the actual reason for that particular moratorium was fear of the spread of the virus. The economically-motivated tenant protection is currently slated to remain in place until February 2024. This is the prohibition on raising rent for rent-controlled units, of which there are over 650,000 in Los Angeles. Some things are still in a bit of a limbo, though. There are still eviction proceedings going on as tenants are, in fact, still expected to pay at least a portion of their rent, despite the eviction moratorium. Some landlords don’t even want tenants anymore, but can’t find a legal reason to evict them, as their tenants haven’t done anything wrong. The end of the moratorium will erase some confusion. Some City Councilmembers are looking to re-implement some specific protections, but haven’t come to a consensus.

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More: https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-12-16/la-finalizes-end-of-eviction-protections

The Rules Regarding Partial Rent Payments

With the current economic climate affecting tenants’ ability to pay rent on time, as well as increasing rent prices pushing away some prospective tenants, some landlords may want to accept partial rent payments in order to retain their tenant rather than risk vacancy. This is, in fact, something landlords are allowed to do, and there are specific laws around it. If the regulations are followed, it doesn’t need to cause a legal mess down the line when the landlord wants to recover the unpaid portion of the rent.

The mere act of accepting partial rent doesn’t actually require a form at all. Since it benefits the tenant and it’s the landlord that must agree to it, it’s not a conflict unless the landlord wants to recover the rest of it. If the landlord is feeling generous, or desperately wants to keep their tenant, they could simply accept partial rent and take no further action. But there certainly are legal avenues for the landlord to recover it. The landlord could issue a partial payment agreement which states the amount received, balance due, due date of deferred balance, the tenant’s promise to pay the deferred amount, and an explanation of the consequences of nonpayment.

If the landlord doesn’t want to use this form, the rules for any nonpayment can apply. The rules vary by property type, but regardless of property type, the landlord would issue a three-day notice. This could be a notice to pay, a notice to perform followed by a notice to quit, or a notice to pay or quit, depending on the type of property. It’s also important to note that in the case of partial payment for residential property, the landlord cannot reclaim repeated partial payments if they are using the three-day notice. If the landlord has already accepted a partial payment, then accepts another partial payment for the same rent period during the notice period, the notice is no longer valid.

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More: https://journal.firsttuesday.us/accept-partial-rent-retain-a-tenant/87390/

The Four-Step Process To Find The Best Tenants

Especially if you’ve never done it before, finding tenants for your rental property can cause a lot of anxiety. Plenty of things can go wrong — maybe your tenant doesn’t pay the rent; maybe the place gets trashed or your items are stolen; maybe you don’t find a tenant at all and it’s left vacant. Thankfully, there are some things you can do to make sure you find both more and better applicants.

The first step is to make tenants want to live there. Depending on the neighborhood, it may be true that many tenants don’t actually care what the property looks like and just want a roof over their head. But you’ll get those applicants regardless, so you should focus on making your property look and sound good to tenants who are truly looking for a place to call home. Proofread your listing and include attractive photos. Step two is formalizing the application process. There are several good questions to include on the application. You’ll want to have contact information, including full name, address, and contact information for supervisors, emergency contacts, and previous landlords. You also want to verify their identification and make sure their income is high enough to pay the rent. The third step is very important: You need to actually use that information. Call their supervisor and ask about their work reliability, and talk to their previous landlords about any specific concerns you may have. The last step is to meet the prospective tenant in person. You can get a good idea of what a person is like with just a single meeting, but it’s a lot harder if all your communication was by phone or email. If something feels off, you should trust your gut and find a different tenant, even if it’s only to spare you some nervousness.

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Simple Fixes To Improve Home Safety

Accidents can always happen, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t minimize the risk. This is especially true if you have elderly or disabled people in your home, but homes have safety hazards even if you don’t. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to reduce the risk significantly.

One solution that can actually also save you money is to upgrade your lights. Some older homes may still have incandescent lightbulbs. These are generally dimmer than LEDs and also use more energy. Upgrading to LEDs can decrease the risk of bumping into things in the dark while also reducing your energy costs. Most people are aware of the risks of slipping on wet floors in the bathroom, but many don’t have a proper solution for it. It’s easy to install grab bars on the wall or in the shower to help stabilize you. Speaking of slipping, it’s important to minimize tripping hazards. These can be obvious ones like cables running across the floor, or they can be things you don’t normally think of like tassels on rugs. Cables can be rearranged or taped down, and you can either fold tassels under the rug or purchase a new rug without tassels.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

Should The Seller Be Present At An Open House?

When you’re trying to sell your home, trying to work in open houses around your schedule can be frustrating. That’s true regardless of whether you want to be there or not. But is one better than the other? Should you schedule them for times when you will be there, or when you won’t be there?

Ultimately, it’s up to you. In general, though, if you choose to be there, it should be because you want to be there. Buyers actually don’t tend to want to talk to the seller so much as the agent, since the agent is usually the one who can answer any questions they might have. Of course, if you’re an outgoing sort of person, you may feel excited to welcome them. If not, though, it’s best to leave, otherwise things can get awkward for everyone involved. Buyers want to be able to imagine themselves living there, and that gets more difficult when it’s obvious that you live there. There is one practical benefit to staying, though — if any problems arise, you will already be there to sort them out.

Photo by Marissa Daeger on Unsplash