Some Useful Home Staging Tips

Home staging is a great way to maximize your sale price. Here’s what you should focus on.

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The first impression your home leaves a buyer with is the most important. When we bring a buyer through a home, we have one good shot at showing it in its best possible light. Here are a few home staging tips you can use to capture that light when it comes time to sell.

It’s important to know that buyers really care about kitchens and bathrooms. It’s also important to know that before they even make their way to those rooms, 75% of buyers have already made up their mind about a home by the time they get out of the car. Observe your home as a potential buyer, and pay close attention to its curb appeal. Note how it feels to walk up the driveway to your house to get an idea of what buyers see. Is there fresh paint? Does it smell nice?

We are the No. 1 team in Charleston.

Here’s the good news: Our market is on fire. Inventory is down a whopping 17%, which means buyers have fewer homes to choose from. Because of this, homes can take anywhere from 30 to 90 days to sell. During this period, we want to present your home in its best possible light to the buyers on the market. Because we are the No. 1 team in Charleston, we have the ability to bring our technology, our resources, and our marketing to you to ensure that your home sells in the shortest time period and for the most amount of money.

If you have any questions for us about home staging or anything else related to buying or selling a home, give us a call or send us an email. We are always here to help.

4 Renovation Tips that Will Help You Maximize Your Home’s Value

If you’re looking to make some renovations and improvements to your home, here are four tips you can follow to maximize its value.

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Which improvements and renovations can you do to your home to maximize its value?

First, keep your renovations moderate. When you’re attempting to do a renovation or an upgrade, ask yourself one question: Will the majority of buyers coming through this home appreciate this renovation, or will I have to do it again if I decide to sell this home at a later date? 

Second, pay attention to curb appeal. Your curb appeal creates the first impression of your home. In our office, we abide by something we call the three second rule. This means whenever we bring a buyer to a property, they will determine whether they want to seriously consider purchasing that property or not within the first three seconds of pulling in the driveway. Spend some money on landscaping and other areas out front to make your home more inviting for any prospective buyers.

Spend the majority of your money in kitchens and bathrooms.

Third, have as much hardwood flooring in your home as you can. Buyers love neutral, hardwood floors. If you can’t afford to install hardwood floors, make your current flooring as clean and neat as possible. 

Lastly, spend the majority of your money in kitchens and bathrooms. These are the places in the home where you’ll get your best return on investment. You can typically achieve a two-to-one return on investment, meaning you’ll get $2 in return on the sale of your home for every $1 you spend. 

If you have any questions about how to maximize your home’s value or you’re thinking about buying or selling a house, feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to help you.

Pet Owner? Follow These 4 Rules When Listing

If you’re a pet owner looking to sell your home, there are four rules you need to follow.

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Are you a pet owner looking to sell their home? If so, there are four rules you need to know. 

1. Remove the pets from the home. I know it’s a challenge, but when I bring a buyer into your home I want to show it off in the best light possible. A cat or dog following a buyer around the house might make it difficult for them see all of the features that your home has to offer. 
2. Take a long look at the backyard. Make sure holes are filled in and pet toys are put away. I want a buyer to be able to envision having picnics or their kids playing in the backyard, so making sure it’s manicured is essential. 
Ask a friend or neighbor to come over to see if they notice a smell.
3. Eliminate any pet odors inside the home. I own a dog, so I understand that you might not always pick up on scents. Ask a friend or neighbor to come over to see if they notice a smell. If they do, we can install Glade plug-ins or have the carpets cleaned. 
4. Get rid of any potential pet hair. Our goal is to have multiple showings with multiple buyers, so you need to vacuum before every showing. This makes sure a buyer with allergies doesn’t get a bad impression of your home.

If you have any questions about this topic, or if you have any other real estate questions, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I’m always happy to help.

3 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers

Are you a newlywed or someone buying your first home? Follow these three tips to make life easier on yourself.

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If you're a first-time homebuyer or a newlywed buying a home, these tips will help you:

1. It's all about the budget: Your house is more than just a mortgage payment. Over time, you'll have to pay for maintenance and insurance. That's why we recommend you pay between 25% and 35% of your household disposable income toward that mortgage payment. 
2. Location, location, location: Think about school districts even if you don't have kids. When the time comes to sell in the future, it'll be easier if you're in a positive school district. 
Think about school districts even if you don't have kids.
3. Communicate about the top features of the home: During our free buyer consultation, we'll get a list of features that you and anyone living in the home would like to have. Then, we compare the lists and merge them into one list of must-haves so we can find your dream home.

If you have any other questions about preparing to buy your first home, give us a call or send us an email. We'd be glad to help!

What I Think We'll See in the 2nd Quarter Market

With the first quarter in the books, I wanted to give you some predictions for the second quarter here in the Charleston market. I think it will be an amazing time to get your house on the market.

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With the second quarter underway, I wanted to give you my predictions for the upcoming months here in the Charleston market. 

The first important thing to note is that there was a lot of pent-up demand last year because of the storms we had and because of the election. The first quarter of 2017 was absolutely amazing though with more people putting their home on the market than normal, more sales, and more people moving to Charleston. This is a testament to the market because the first quarter is typically one of the slowest quarters of the year. 

So what does it all mean for the second quarter?

Everybody wants to move during the summer when the kids are out of school and the days are longer.

Remember that even more people get their homes ready to go on the market at this time of year. They want to move during the summertime when the kids aren’t in school and they have more all-around flexibility, along with longer days. The real estate market typically has the highest turnover rate in the second and third quarters.

However, it’s important to remember that all the people planning to move to Charleston are planning their move during this period. That’s why if you’re considering selling your house, now might be the absolute best time. We can help you figure out exactly what you need to do to get your house ready for sale because now might be a perfect time. 

If you’re thinking about selling your house or you have any other questions we can answer, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I’d love to help you out!

What 5 Statistics Define the Charleston Real Estate Market?

How has the Charleston real estate market improved over the last year? Here’s what the numbers tell us.

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I just got a report with all the latest statistics from the Charleston real estate market and I wanted to share some of the most important numbers with you. These five statistics paint a promising picture of our market and show just how far we’ve come since the recession.

1. New listings. Almost 23,000 new homes have come on the market in the last 12 months.

2. Home sales. How many homes were sold during the same time frame? Some of you may be under the impression that every home that comes on the market is selling. However, that’s not what’s happening in reality. Out of those 23,000 listings, only 17,700 sold. That means there are between 5,000 and 6,000 properties that failed to sell. Regardless of what you think about the market, I encourage you to make sure that your Realtor has a strong marketing plan in place to sell your home. That's really the only way to guarantee a sale in this market.

It is taking an average of 11 showings to sell a home.

3. Median sale price. This is intriguing. During the recession, the median sale price was around $180,000. Today, it’s at $240,000. It’s increased by over $50,000 in the past five years, but there are people who still think their home won’t sell. If that’s the impression you're under, I invite you to give us a call. If you tell us how much you owe and how much you’d like to sell for, we would be happy to give you our honest, professional opinion if that is doable.

4. Market time. How long does it take a home to sell on average? Over the past 12 months, the answer is 58 days.

5. Average showings. Finally, let’s look at the average number of showings it takes for a home to get an offer. Right now, homes are getting offers after an average of 11 showings.

If you’re interested in learning more and taking a better look at these statistics, you can view them in their entirety here.

If you have any other questions about Charleston real estate, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you.

A Unique Opportunity for You

Today I have a unique opportunity that I wanted to share. We're looking to add salespeople to each of our locations to serve the thousands of leads we've generated this month.

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I've been working in real estate here in Charleston for 13 years, so I've seen the highs, the lows, and a lot of other things in between. During that time, I've developed one of Charleston's first real estate teams, which has expanded into multiple locations.

We're looking to add two or three salespeople at each of our four locations.

In the past 30 days, our team generated 3,813 leads of people who are either moving to the area or who live here already and are thinking about moving. About two-thirds of the leads we generated are from outside the area by people looking to move into Charleston. Did you know that 53 people move to Charleston every single day? We can get you in front of those people looking to buy a home here, and that’s a huge opportunity!

Within our team, we share these leads with our agents, and we literally are not able to get to all of them currently.  We need YOU!   We're looking to add two or three great salespeople to each our four locations.

If you're interested, just reply to this email and it will go directly to Jeff , 100% confidential, or visit www.JoinJCRE.com.

What Do Rising Interest Rates Mean for You?

Interest rates have crept up and are on the rise even further. How can you take advantage of this knowledge?

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Have you heard? Interest rates are on the rise. What does that mean for your home’s value? That is exactly what I wanted to discuss today.

The entity that sets interest rates, the Federal Reserve, meets on a quarterly basis. In 2016, they increased interest rates in two of their four meetings, including the one in December. They have predicted that this year they will raise rates in three out of the four meetings.

Let’s just say they go up 1% from 4.5% to 5.5%, which is what many experts are predicting. Logic says that is still an amazingly low rate, and based on 20- and 30-year trends, it is. However, here is what that increase means for you specifically if you’re trying to buy a home.

This is the time to buy or sell before they go up.

If you get approved today for up to $300,000 at 4.5%, just a 1% increase will greatly affect your buying power. With a 5.5% rate, you would only be able to afford a $270,000 home and your mortgage payment will end up about the same as it would have been with a $300,000 home at 4.5%.

If you’re trying to get the maximum amount of money possible out of your home sale, now might be a good time to consider putting your home on the market. There are a lot of buyers out there looking right now and the more potential eyeballs looking at your home, the better. On the flip side, if you plan on purchasing a new home in the near future, it is a good idea to take advantage of the money while it’s cheap and before rates go up.

If you have any questions for me or if you are looking to buy or sell a home in Charleston, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you and discuss your specific situation further.

How Do You Know You’re Picking the Right Mortgage Lender?

Picking the right mortgage lender can be tricky, so here are some of your options to help you choose what’s best for you.

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There are so many options out there in the lending world. You have online banks, brick-and-mortar banks, and non-depository institutions like us. How do you know which one is right for you?

There are different factors to consider, such as rates, fees, and services. Without going from bank to bank to bank, how do you establish that? Let’s examine your options.

With an online bank, you’re a one-time client for them. After your business is completed, they’re not thinking about you ever again, so they don’t have the motivation to service you properly and make the process as easy as possible.

My team can take great care of you.

With brick-and-mortar banks, their end goal is to make you a customer so they can sell you additional products like car loans, IRAs, bank accounts, etc.

With non-depository institutions like us, our goal is to create that continual referral source by providing outstanding customer service, great rates, low fees, and making the mortgage process as easy as possible. 

If you have any questions or are in need of a great lender, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to helping you!

How Do You Finance a Tiny Home?

If you want to buy a tiny home, can you finance the purchase? Chris Gonzalez from Tabor Mortgage is here to tell you how.

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A lot of people are downsizing and moving into tiny homes. Chris Gonzalez from Tabor Mortgage is here to answer the question, “Can you finance a tiny home?” 

The answer is yes, but it may not be the traditional mortgage that you’re thinking of.

There are only two ways to finance a tiny house.

First, you should know that there are a few different types of tiny homes out there:

1. A trailer you can move. 
2. A tiny home on land you can own. 
3. A tiny home on land you rent from a development. 

That said, there are only two ways to finance a tiny home. One option is to apply for a personal loan from a local bank. The other is to get an actual RV loan from your local bank.

If you have any other questions about financing a tiny home, you can reach Chris at (843) 840-4821 or Chris@TaborMortgage.com. As always, if you have any real estate questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you!

Merry Christmas From Our Team!

Today I wanted to stop by with a message for you as we head into the Christmas season.

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I wanted to stop by quickly today and just say merry Christmas. I want to thank everyone for your support this year and in years past.

There's one thing I wanted to share with you today.

How you been outside lately and seen the stars and the amazing landscape, sunset, and the moon? If God was able to create all of this, and you still have a beating heart, you still have a purpose in life. Not only did God create all those amazing things, He breathed His very life into creating you.

Remember the reason for the season.

This Christmas, reach out to those around you and love your neighbor. Be encouraged and cheerful, and remember the reason for the season!

I look forward to hearing from you soon! Merry Christmas!

How Can You Buy a Charleston Home With No Money Down?

Today I'll explain the four best ways to buy a home with little or no down payment.

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Many times we see buyers who are ready to own a home but just don't have the money for a down payment. Did you know you can buy a home with very little or even zero money down? Today I wanted to share the top four ways you can do this in the Charleston market.

Since interest rates are low, it's still a fantastic time to buy a house. These are the ways you can take advantage with little or no money down:

1. VA (veterans) loan: You can buy a home if you're a veteran for 100% financing. 
2. State Housing: This is a grant for your down payment. Depending on your income and the county you're buying in, it could be repaid or it could be completely forgivable. 
State Housing is a down payment grant that can be totally forgivable.
3. USDA: This lets you buy a home in what's considered a rural area. Many areas around Monk's Quarter, Goose Creek, and Summerville are still considered rural because of lines that were drawn many, many years ago. This loan also lets you finance 100% of the price.
4. A gift fund from a relative or family member: This lets you buy a home with a conventional down payment, but you utilize it as a gift from a family member or relative that's applied directly to the home purchase.

At the end of the day, if you have about $1,200, we can get the seller of the home you want to buy to pay the majority of the closing costs. The $1,200 will allow you to get the property inspected and put down your earnest money so you can buy the home.

With a 620 or better credit score and gainful employment, we may be able to help you get into a home with little or no money down. If you have any questions about qualifying or you're interested in buying a home in the Charleston area, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to help you out!

Why It's Better to Own a Home than Rent One

Owning a home is better than renting a home for many reasons. We broke down the five main reasons to buy a home instead of renting one.

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There are five main reasons why you should own a home rather than rent one that I wanted to share.

The first reason is that you build equity with each mortgage payment. Say you take out a mortgage for $200,000. Every time you make a payment, that $200,000 balance continues to drop and your equity increases. The second reason is that you enjoy many tax benefits by being a homeowner. At the end of the year when it's time to file your taxes, the interest and other things you've paid can be deducted to release your tax burden.

The third reason is that buying a home is actually cheaper than renting in the long term. Say that $200,000 mortgage we talked about has a $1,200 a month payment, and you have a friend who rents a $1,200 a month home. The following year, your mortgage payment will still be $1,200, but your friend's rent is probably going to go up by $50 or $100 per month, and will continue to increase at that rate every single year. In 30 years, you'll still be paying $1,200 a month, and your friend could be paying up to $4,000 in rent!

Buying a home is actually cheaper than renting.

The fourth reason to own a home rather than rent one is that you will establish a solid credit history. Every single time you make a mortgage payment on time, your credit score continues to rise, which helps you in other aspects of life like getting better rates on insurance, cell phone payments, and anything else that requires credit.

Finally, homeownership is healthy for families and the community. Just think about what happens in a home – the word "homemaker" comes to mind. Family comes over for holidays, friends come over for a cookout, neighbors become closer, kids are raised in the home, and relationships get stronger. It's truly a wonderful thing.

If you have any questions about homeownership or you're interested in buying a home in the Charleston area, give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you and help you out.

Happy Thanksgiving from Our Family to Yours

I’d like to pass along a quick message of gratitude this holiday season and encourage you to do the same for those around you.

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With all of the holiday noise and Black Friday messages flooding your inbox, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Happy Thanksgiving from the Jeff Cook Real Estate Team.

I know that I personally am so grateful for my amazing family, my incredible wife, Sarah, my two children, Ava and Jason, and our dog, Johnny.

I’d also like to give you a challenge. It’s very easy to get caught up in everything going on during the hustle and bustle during this time of year, but I’d like you to pick one person you know and one person you don’t know and lift their spirits this Thanksgiving.

We are better together when we love and encourage one another.

Not everybody is as fortunate as we are to have a great holiday season, so it’s important to make sure everybody knows that they’re appreciated.

At Jeff Cook Real Estate, this is our mission. This means that my job as the team leader is to empower my team so that we can empower the whole community. We are truly better together when we love one another and encourage each other.

Again, I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Enjoy your time with your friends and family and don’t eat too much turkey!  

What Does the Charleston Market Look Like?

The latest numbers are in for Charleston. We are excited to share them with you today.

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We’ve got the latest numbers for the Charleston real estate market and we wanted to share them with you today. So far in 2016, 19,000 homes have been listed on the market and 14,000 of those have sold. A large percentage have sold, but there will always be homes that don’t sell for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s because they are priced too high, they're unable to accommodate showings, or they simply go too long without an offer, not every home will sell.

This year, the median price in Charleston is $239,000, a 5.7% jump from last year’s median price. Our average sale price is also up by around 4.5% to $320,000.

Last year, we had about a five-month supply of inventory at this time. Right now, our supply is at 3.6 months. What we mean by this is that if no more new homes came on the market after now, it would take 3.6 months to sell all the homes on the market at the current rate homes are selling. Anything below five to six months is considered a seller’s market, so that’s what we are in right now in Charleston.

Buyers are more reluctant to pay full price.

I do want to caution you that in this fourth quarter, we have seen a growing trend of buyers becoming a little reluctant to pay full price. However, a lot of people are taking their homes off the market right now before the holidays, so you have a window of opportunity to sell high now.

If your home is eligible to be shown during the holidays, I recommend you get it on the market right now. You can get ahead of the January rush that will come and get your home under contract while there is less competition and more serious buyers.

We are in a tremendous market for home sellers. If you have any questions for us or you’re thinking or buying or selling, give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to come out to your home and give you a complimentary home valuation to show you what you could really sell for this holiday season. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

You're Invited to Our Annual Jeff Cook Real Estate Pie Giveaway!

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This is the Jeff Cook Team's favorite time of year because it gives us a chance to express what we're thankful for. Right now, I am thankful for my health and that of my beautiful family. I'm also thankful for all of our wonderful clients, who are the life blood of our business. This is our way of thanking our past clients for their business and referrals. To show you how much we appreciate the support, you can come by one of our four locations for a free pie! For more information, watch this short video.

How do I get my Thanksgiving pie?

1. Please RSVP by Monday, November 14th, 2016 with:

•  Your name
•  Your email address
•  Your choice of Pumpkin or Apple pie
•  A location to pick it up

2. Pick up your pie at our Jeff Cook Real Estate office on Tuesday, November 22nd, between 12 - 6:30pm at one of these locations:

• Historic Summerville: 105 S Cedar St, Summerville, SC 29483
• Oakbrook: 10050 Dorchester Road, Suite 120, Summerville, SC 29485
• West Ashley: 821 Orleans Road, Suite 102, Charleston, SC 29407
• Mt Pleasant: 311 Johnnie Dodds Blvd #181, Mt Pleasant, SC 29464

Click Here to RSVP!

How Will the Election Affect Our Housing Market?

With the presidential election just weeks away, many people are concerned about what effect this election will have on the housing market. In reality, things look good no matter who is elected.

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As the 2016 election nears, we find that several aspects of business are affected. What does that mean for the housing market?

One of the leading indicators of where we’re headed is consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is the willingness of an average U.S. citizen to purchase or finance a large asset. What we have found is that consumer confidence tends to remain high as we approach the election.

The National Association of Realtors says the housing market did show resilience and had its best first quarter of the year for existing home sales since 2007.

The dream of homeownership is still alive.

According to Fannie Mae, home sales should pick up heading into the future season. The main reason for this is declining mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, forecast housing continues to maintain its momentum through the remainder of 2016.

The outlook of the national housing market is projected to stay strong through the remainder of the year. The dream of homeownership, the American dream, continues to remain stronger than the fear of uncertainty in the next presidency. As we approach this election, the market is still strong and it is still a great time to buy and sell in Charleston.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you soon.

How We Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

As 2016 comes to a close, I just wanted to remind you that we can help you reach your goals for the coming year.

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I just wanted to thank our Realtor community for everything that they’ve done this year to help us achieve our goals. With the help of the community, we were able to make all of our transactions a win-win for all parties involved.

With the new year approaching, I just wanted to ask you one question: based on what you’ve done this year, have you achieved all of the goals that you set for yourself? Were you able to meet or exceed the number of home sales that you set out to sell? Were you able to service the number of families that you wanted to? Did you bring in the income that you desired?

My team and I were able to service over 800 families this year, which is absolutely tremendous. We hope to push this number toward 1,000 or 1,100 this coming year.

Did you achieve all of your goals for this year?

If you have any interest in chatting a little bit more about a potential new real estate career with our team, I’d love to talk with you.

With the support of the Realtor community this year, we were also able to open our Johnnie Dodds office this year, located at 311 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. in Mount Pleasant. This is in addition to our offices on 821 Orleans Rd. in West Ashley, in the Oakbrook/North Charleston area, and in downtown Summerville. We have three or four positions available at each of these offices, and the agents in our office are rewarded with leads, a steady stream of contacts, as well as a business plan that allows them to reach the income level that they desire.

If you have any interest in joining our team, simply give me a call or send me an email and I’ll keep your response 100% confidential. I would love to chat with you to see if we can get your real estate career to take off in the coming year. I look forward to hearing from you!

Help Us Rebuild Charleston

Hurricane Matthew didn’t hurt real estate prices in Charleston, but there are still many out there who need help. Would you like to join us in assisting them? 

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Today we’re in the city of North Charleston in a neighborhood called Park Hill. Hurricane Matthew just rolled through here a couple of days ago, and the majority of the houses along the street I’m currently standing at have flooded. We decided to come down here and lend a hand to the people in this community because that’s what we do in Charleston.

A lot of people have been asking me what all this storm’s impact means for the real estate market. Overall, this won’t hurt Charleston’s real estate prices. Just because this is a hurricane-prone area doesn’t mean that the market suffers after one hits.

Get in touch with us if you’re interested in assisting those who have been affected.

If you’re interested in assisting us with rebuilding this neighborhood, you can get in touch with us on Twitter at #rebuildparkhill or visit our website we’ll soon be launching called rebuildparkhill.com. There you’ll also be able to see pictures of some of the houses that we’ve worked on to get a better idea of the devastation and how we’re rebuilding.

We’re still in business, so if you have any questions please give us a call or just reply to this email. We look forward to hearing from you!

How to Knock 8 Years off of Your Mortgage

I wanted to share one of my favorite tips for homeowners with you today. There are a couple really simple and easy ways you can shave eight full years off of the life of a 30-year mortgage at a fairly minimal cost.

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There's a really simple and effective trick for paying off your 30-year mortgage in just 22 years that I wanted to share with you. In fact, there are two ways.

Say it's tax refund time or Christmas, and you've come across a little extra money. Did you know that if you make a 13th mortgage payment each year, you'll knock eight years off of the life of your 30-year mortgage?

The second strategy is especially helpful for those who get paid on a bi-weekly basis. Instead of making a monthly mortgage payment, talk to your mortgage company about setting up bi-weekly payments on your mortgage. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, making half of your mortgage payment every two weeks rather than a full payment every month equates to making 26 half payments over the course of the year. Of course, that equates to 13 full payments a year instead of 12, which you would get by making one full payment per month.

Both options will save you thousands in interest!

Just like in the first scenario, you would knock eight years off of your 30-year mortgage. Think of the savings in interest!

If you have any more questions about this topic or you're thinking about buying or selling a home, give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you!