Friday, November 22, 2013

How to sell my home/ property?

Perhaps this is one question that have made it to the top 20 list of main questions that a seller asks. 

I know it is quite challenging and sometimes can be down right frustrating, but I came across this article that may help you understand better on 

"Why can't I sell my home"?
Reading this article may help you see a clearer picture and how to improve on that:

By EU­GENE MA­HALINGAM
20131020-124321.jpg The en­vi­ron­ment for sell­ing a home is not with­out its chal­lenges, es­pe­cially in a tough prop­erty mar­ket.

But for a few un­for­tu­nate in­di­vid­u­als, try­ing to sell off their prop­erty (even in good times) can be next to im­pos­si­ble, no mat­ter what they do!
The fol­low­ing are rea­sons why some po­ten­tial sell­ers have prob­lems dis­pos­ing off their homes.

Bad lo­ca­tion
We all know this one – when its comes to suc­cess­fully sell­ing your prop­erty, it’s all about lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion. What amounts to good or bad lo­ca­tion is ac­tu­ally quite ob­jec­tive. But se­ri­ously, how bad is “bad?”

Ac­cord­ing to Malaysian In­sti­tute of Es­tate Agents (MIEA) pres­i­dent Siva Shanker, there are some lo­ca­tions that no­body wants to live in.
“This could be at a T-junc­tion, next to an ox­i­da­tion pond or even a power sub­sta­tion,” he tells StarBizweek.
  1. Siva adds that many buy­ers are also re­luc­tant to pur­chase homes lo­cated near over­head power lines. “We have a set stan­dard based on guide­lines by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion on how far these lines need to be away from the homes. But re­gard­less, buy­ers still pre­fer not to live in ar­eas where there are power lines near by.”
I have personally managed and sold properties around these areas. However I too, as a seller and a marketing agent was a bit fearful of these power lines, but the more I sold these projects, I did allot of research and it seems that it is safe - provided if the developer follows the ruling and the approval of the government. Usually if a property is on it's way for an "OC" approval, all is good! 
  1. Carey Real Es­tate Sdn Bhd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Nixon Paul says most Malaysians can be quite su­per­sti­tious about where they choose to live. “Peo­ple are re­ally into the feng shui el­e­ment. Houses with the num­bers four (4) on them, are typ­i­cally dif­fi­cult to sell. “And this is even among non-Chi­nese buy­ers, who fear that they might not be able to sell the prop­erty in the fu­ture.
  2. “A house sit­u­ated next to a sew­er­age fa­cil­ity or a ceme­tery can be a prob­lem when to sell,” he says.
Well this again depends on the target market. Some people that are used to living in such environment since childhood days have no problem with such place. Cemeteries are after all more quiet and peaceful on an overall. Sewerage areas are more of an issue as it protrudes the smell senses that is undeniable - so you might want to consider about it matter. 

Ter­ri­ble con­di­tion
You’re not go­ing to be able to at­tract buy­ers if your home looks like it could col­lapse at any time.
“A di­lap­i­dated place over­grown with grass and where the walls are full of cracks or leaky roof is un­likely to at­tract any buyer,” says one in­dus­try ob­server.

Siva how­ever feels that a run­down prop­erty could ac­tu­ally be a bless­ing in dis­guise.
“I feel that it’s bet­ter to buy a dump for a cheaper price, and then spend some money to re­fur­bish it into its for­mer glory, or some­thing even bet­ter.”
Siva says many Malaysian buy­ers can­not “vi­su­alise” the po­ten­tial of a di­lap­i­dated home.
“The av­er­age buyer can’t see what a house that is in ut­ter dis­re­pair can be turned into, be­cause all they see is a home that is in ter­ri­ble con­di­tion.

Very true, how would you feel as a car buyer that is buying a second hand car. Some people cannot see past the uncleanliness and cosmetics rather then the true value of the property (which is the more important part), but only judge on face value. It is an important factor to consider this because MOST buyers will only buy what they see. 
Show me a guy who doesn't want to spend a single cent to tidy and upkeep his property and I'll show you a property that is undesirable to most potential buyers.

“On the other hand, when he vis­its a de­vel­oper’s show unit, he is so cap­ti­vated by what he sees be­cause it (the show unit) looks so amaz­ing. In his mind, he thinks he’s pur­chas­ing that prop­erty but what he’s ac­tu­ally buy­ing is an empty shell.”

Siva says spend­ing a bit of money to spruce up a place can be ben­e­fi­cial. “Why not spend RM20,000 to spruce up a place worth RM500,000 so that you can sell it for RM550,000?”

He says the sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar even for ten­an­cies.

“Most land­lords are also un­will­ing to ren­o­vate a place to make it look more at­trac­tive. In­stead, they would rather wait for a con­firmed ten­ant and then only ren­o­vate.
“This may not even hap­pen (se­cur­ing a ten­ant).
“This is where home-stag­ing comes in,” says Siva.
The con­cept of home-stag­ing, which is aimed at im­prov­ing the prop­erty’s ap­pear­ance in the eyes of po­ten­tial buy­ers (with the ul­ti­mate goal of a quick sale and for a bet­ter price tag), is pop­u­lar es­pe­cially among coun­tries in the West.

Stag­ing usu­ally in­volves some­thing aes­thetic, im­prov­ing the de­sign, or­gan­i­sa­tion and over­all ap­pear­ance of a prop­erty.
In some in­stances, the po­ten­tial suc­cess of sell­ing your home can be de­pen­dant on the con­di­tion of your neigh­bour’s prop­erty.
“If your neigh­bour’s house is run-down or di­lap­i­dated, your house can also be­come af­fected,” says Nixon.

Un­rea­son­able prices
Another in­stant where prop­erty can be hard to sell is when the seller sets the price of the prop­erty ridicu­lously high.
“This is a typ­i­cal case of over­pric­ing, where the owner is just greedy and the ask­ing price is too high.
“And be­cause of this, the prop­erty re­mains in the mar­ket for­ever,” says Siva.

Loans
He adds that in re­cent times, strin­gent loan ap­provals have also made it tough for pur­chasers to get a loan.
“You might find a buyer, but then he might have a prob­lem get­ting a loan.”
Un­der Bank Ne­gara’s re­spon­si­ble lend­ing guide­lines, which were im­ple­mented on Jan 1 last year, loans are now ap­proved based on net in­come com­pared with gross in­come pre­vi­ously.

These statements made by these professional spokes persons are all relevant and true. 
How do I know? Because I am involved in the property business myself and whatever comments in the blue colour fonts are my personal take on the article. 

Hope that helps! 


Source: The Star

No comments:

Post a Comment