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Turning Idle Land into Retirement Dreams – The Story of 99999 Greenspire Dr

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Ben Bogardus, your trusted real estate agent, recently had the privilege of helping Kathy and Dave, a retired couple facing the common dilemma of owning a piece of land that had been sitting idle for years. This is a success story that showcases the power of proactive real estate guidance and the potential for transformation in retirement planning.   **Meet Kathy and Dave** Kathy and Dave found themselves in a situation familiar to many retirees. Kathy was already enjoying her well-deserved retirement, while Dave, still working at his car shop, was of retirement age but unsure of when he would hang up his tools for good.   **The Worst-Case Scenario** This piece of land was part of their nest egg, but it had been sitting there, untouched and unutilized. The worst-case scenario loomed over them – their land might continue to sit idle until the end. Taxes and property insurance payments added to their financial burden, all while the wealth tied up in this property meant they m
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How To Install A Sign

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  Signs are easy way to let neighbors that a property is listed for sale. Directional signs can increase exposure to a broader area and help buyers and buyers’ agents find a property. I get more calls on directional signs than on yard signs. When combined with other techniques such as circle prospecting (calling neighbors to get them information about the listing), signs are even more effective to keep the property top of mind.   Here are the steps to install a directional sign: 1.       Placement – Step back and ask: which direction are most people going to be coming from? Position the sign so that drivers will see it before the turnoff, and angle it slightly to make it more visible. It can be helpful to set the sign and step back aways to see how it might look to drivers. 2.       Installation – Scrape the ground to mark where the pokers of the sign will go in. Using a long screwdriver or similar tool, hammer entry holes to the depth of the pokers. It helps to hammer some, ji
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Is the Zestimate for your home accurate?

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   No. Here’s why:   The Zestimate is calculated with a proprietary formula based on public and user-submitted data: the number of beds/baths, lot size, home size, location, etc. Zillow does not go inside the home and look at the interior/condition. Like weather prediction, these estimates are forward-looking and will always be wrong to some degree.   How accurate? Nationwide at the time of writing, 82.2% of Zestimates are within 5% of the sales price. This might seem pretty good except for one detail: the Zestimate is updated immediately after the property is listed to a number much closer to the list price. This is for the 1.5 million on-market homes for which Zestimates have been calculated. For the 104 million off-market homes with Zestimates, only 39% of those that sell are within 5% of the sales price.   Zillow’s stock price has tanked since a year ago, from a peak of $198 per share on 2/12/2021 to $55 today. This is largely due to their attempt to buy, renovate, and
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How Do I (Reverse) Prospect?

Reverse prospecting is a powerful MLS tool where agents can see if other agents have shared their listing. Here's how it works: buyers’ agents share a listing with their client from the MLS, either directly or via an existing auto-email. The MLS then adds a note to the listing agent’s portal noting which buyers agents sent the listing but not which client it was sent to . The listing agent can then send an email to the buyers agents allowing them to identify the client and follow up with them. In addition, this system will even let the listing agent know if the client has marked the listing as a ‘favorite’.   Here is the nitty gritty of how it works for agents: From the main MLS Matrix home page, hover over My Matrix at the top and click on My Listings Click on any listing, then click on Reverse Prospect at the bottom of the page This displays a list of all the agents who shared the listing with a client To send an email allowing the agent to identify the client, click on the
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How To Price To Sell

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Getting the most money in your pocket from the sale of your property starts with the magic combination of: ·         Pricing Strategically ·         Epic Marketing This blog will give a framework for pricing any property, and a later video will dive into an example with numbers.   First off, if an agent does not refer to the market when they begin a discussion on pricing, that should be a red flag . They are basing recommendations on what they think, their subjective ‘expert’ opinion, as opposed to the concrete objective information coming from the market. Either the agent doesn’t know how to analyze the market, doesn’t want to take the time to do it, or both. There is a role for expert opinion, but only after a through discussion of the market. Every property is a unicorn in some sense. No matter how unique or different the property is, the discussion always needs to start with objective information   Another red flag: if you are interviewing agents for selling your pr
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Successful Buyers Do This

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Implementing these strategies gives you the best chance of finding the right property for you. Successful buyers have their:   Ducks In A Row Most buyers have the tendency to dive in and begin looking at properties right away: scrolling through Zillow, Land.Com, etc. This is the real estate equivalent of scrolling through Facebook newsfeed or Amazon marketplace. The better approach is to have all your ducks in a row before you go. To get the pieces in place you will need to secure a property before starting your search. These include: ·         Get documentation showing loan pre-approval or proof of funds. This will demonstrate to sellers that you can pay for the property and will make sure we are looking only at properties that are within range. ·         Review all the relevant documentation with your agent, including buyer agency and offer documents. Discuss the offer, due diligence, and closing process.   Options On The Table Most buyers focus on what is on market
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Easily Explore Property In 3D!

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Aerial Shots: Drone and Google Earth Imagine yourself settling down into the hot tub on your deck with a cold one in your hand, ready to enjoy the long-range mountain sunset views! That is, unless the property you chose faces north. Or those views are blocked by the ridgeline on the other side of the valley. Orientation and topography are important for every mountain property, whether it is a house in trendy West Asheville or 100+ acres in the countryside. South-facing orientation is preferred for increased sun exposure, especially in the winter when north-facing slopes can stay iced for months. Topography (‘Topo’) determines the best build sites, and whether the view from those sites would be blocked by neighboring properties. The best tool I have found to look at topo is Google Earth; which can be installed here . After installing, select ‘Tools’ in the toolbar, click on ‘Options’, and find the Elevation Exaggeration feature. I typically set this on ‘2’; and then click OK. Voila, t
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