As the news about how much your home equity has increased in just the last 12 months is hitting the masses, homeowners are going to be thinking strongly about selling.

The average home in Snohomish County has seen there equity increase by 19% over the last 12 months.

NWMLS Infosparks

If you find your self in that category there are 3 things homeowners need to know in 2021.

TOP 3 THINGS HOMEOWNERS NEED TO KNOW IN 2021 WEBISODE

1. KNOW THE HYPER LOCAL MARKET CONDITIONS

Every market is a little different. It is important that you know what is going on in your local real estate market. Your city, neighborhood or even subdivision.

For Example: At the time of this post Condos is Edmonds are selling on average of 22 days on market while Condos in Seattle are selling on average of 39 days on market.

Every month we prepare a detailed housing market analysis for both Snohomish County and Seattle that you can read here:

Snohomish County Housing Market Report

Seattle Housing Market Report

If you would like us to drill down a little bit and create a Neighborhood Market Report that will show you exactly how your neighborhood or development is doing CONTACT US

2. KNOW ALL YOUR OPTIONS FOR GETTING YOUR HOUSE MARKET READY

Now more than ever your home needs to be Market Ready Day One. More and more people are looking for homes that are move in ready. It is actually pretty rare that we find buyers that are interested in fixer uppers.

Oftentimes, Homeowners will think that because we are in a sellers market that they do not need to do anything to get their home ready to sell. That is partially true. You will probably end up selling your home but for a significantly lower price and often more hassle along the way.

A good real estate agent will have resources available to you to get the work done that is needed for putting your home on the market. A great real estate agent will handle it for you.

In order to make the most possible amount of money on your sale there are a few things that you should count on doing:

1. New Flooring (or in like new condition)
2. New Paint (or in like new condition)
3. Yard Completely Landscaped
4. Roof, walkways, driveways, etc, Cleaned or Pressure Washed
5. Everything in Good Working Order
6. Windows Clean
7. Move Out Clean
8. Staged
9. Home Vacant
10. Comfortable Temperature and all Lights Left On

Or perhaps you are in a situation where getting an instant cash offer would be more beneficial.

Either way The Madrona Group has programs and resources available for all your needs. Such as the:

MARKET READY PLUS PROGRAM

With this program you can borrow equity against your home with 0% interest to make minor updates and repairs to your home to get it ready for sale.

Sometimes all it takes is new paint and carpet to make a house shine.

There are some stipulations and restrictions to this program.

How it works: 

1. First, The Madrona Group real estate team will explain to you how the Market Ready Plus+ program can help maximize the salability and value your home and property
2. We need to make sure that you have 15% Net Equity in your home.
3. Then, The Madrona Group will recommend enhancements in order to get your home and property ready to go on the market.
4. Next, sign a 6 month listing agreement with The Madrona Group and complete the application for enhancement budget.
5. The Madrona Group will submit your application for enhancement budget.
6. Once your budget is approved, it’s off to the vendor selection and vendor approval.
7. The Madrona Group will assist you in the recommendation of vendors and the submission of information for vendor and enhancement approval.
8. Once approved, it’s time for the vendors to go to work.  The best part – no money out of your pocket is required!  John L. Scott will pay the vendors directly once the work is completed.
9. Your home is now Market Ready and listed for sale.
10. John L. Scott will collect payment for the vendor enhancement services on the day of settlement with no interest or fees charged to you.

Examples Of What You Can Enhance:

• Landscaping
• Lighting
• Minor Plumbing
• Carpet
• Decluttering
• Cleaning
• Staging
• Minor Electrical
• Paint

You Can Watch The Video Here: https://www.themadronagroup.com/use-home-equity-to-get-ready-for-sale-john-l-scott-market-ready-plus/

INSTANT PURCHASE PLUS PROGRAM

WE CAN GET YOU A FIRM CASH OFFER WITHIN 48 BUSINESS HOURS

With this program we have the ability to present you with an instant cash offer for a house in Seattle without putting it on the market.

That means:

• No Cleaning
• No Landscaping
• No Staging
• No Pictures
• No Open Houses
• No Night Time Showings
• No Waiting For An Offer

Just getting an offer and planning your move out.

How it works:

1. We fill out a property checklist and along with photos we submit your properties information to the John L. Scott buyers department.
2. We will present you with a firm cash offer within 48 business hours.
3. We will discuss the difference between taking the cash offer and putting your home on the open market.
4. If you accept the cash offer an estimator will perform an in-person home assessment of your property.
5. If major repairs are needed a credit for the repair costs will be requested.
6. You decide on a settlement date that works best for you.

You can watch the video here: https://www.themadronagroup.com/instant-cash-offer-for-your-house/

Does either of these options sound like something that you would be interested in?  Would you like to learn more about it? CONTACT US

3. EXPLORE ALL YOUR OPTIONS WITH A RESIDENTIAL SPECIALIST TEAM WORKING FOR YOU

Buying and selling homes can be complicated if you don’t have the right team behind you.

From keeping up with all the changing contracts and forms, to staying tuned in to the latest hyper local market data, to knowing how to get your house Market Ready, to making sure that you are getting the best rates and terms on your home loan, to knowing about all the latest programs that are available to assist you in your real estate journey.

During any given real estate transaction you will be working with a ton of different vendors such as:

• Escrow Closer
• Loan Originator
• Stager
• Photographer
• Cleaner
• Loan Processor
• Landscaper
• Painter
• Contractor
• Loan Underwriter
• Title Officer
• Buyers or Sellers Agent
• Transaction Coordinator
• Home Inspector
• Appraiser
• Builder
• Escrow Signer
• HOA
• Septic Inspector
• Geo Technician
• Well Inspector
• Sign Installer
• 811 Dig
• Videographer

The job of a great real estate team is to make all of that feel easy.

TOP 3 THINGS HOMESOWNERS NEED TO KNOW IN 2021 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

hey everybody i’m jason fox with John L Scott Ballard the madrona group

hi everybody i’m joe kiser with john l scott ballard the madrona group

today we’re going to talk to you about
the top three things that every
homeowner needs to know about getting a
home ready to sell
in today’s market as you know jason you
know the market’s really crazy right now
it’s actually very limited inventory and
it’s creating this very competitive
market
yeah it’s true i mean basically every
offer we turn in right now or every
offer we receive on every listing is
multiple offer everything and we’re
usually competing with anywhere from
eight people
up to 42. yeah yeah i was just going to
talk about that we just got that email
the other day that we were
looking at a house at 42 offers and
things are going well above asking price
and yeah and we’re seeing things that
you know used to be a little bit out of
the ordinary
that are becoming kind of uh accustomed
to every single offer now like
um having extra money down towards low
appraisal
yeah or people just waving financing
entirely and
you know that’s why more than ever it’s
it’s important to work with a top-notch
agent right now to understand
the risks that people are putting
themselves in to get a home
with the way this market is working and
like even if you’re not thinking about
selling right now as a homeowner i mean
i would probably be considering checking
out and getting the actual market value
of my home i’m curious to know
like some of the numbers that we’re
seeing are um
pretty high you know so i think it’d be
a good time to go out there and find out
what the value of your home is
yeah i think it’s really important you
know if you were looking at even numbers
from just a couple of months ago it’s
been such a swing
and the property values have increased
so much that
as a homeowner it is good to know kind
of where you sit and what’s going on
with the market because it’s changing so
fast
one of the common misconceptions might
be that well if the market is that hot
then maybe i could just throw my house
on the market exactly the way it is
right
but of course you know we know that it’s
real important that every house be
market ready day one
even though the market’s really
competitive out there that buyers are
really still looking for that move-in
ready
home you know they want to move in and
you know a lot of them are working from
home right now and so they need this
place that’s ready to go and that’s
what’s
really making them uh get really
competitive and give favorable terms to
the seller
yeah which is you know what we’ve been
seeing right is that a lot of people are
moving out of the city
towards the suburbs because they’re
looking for more space
they’re looking for more bedrooms and
maybe a home office and they’re looking
for yards
but when you’re out there doing that
looking and there’s um you know not many
listings look at
people want to see something that they
can envision themselves in they can
create that emotional tie to
and so that means making sure that the
house is clean making sure it’s
decluttered making sure it’s staged
making sure it’s photographed with the
very best
photographers light and bright fresh
paint you know carpet it goes a long
ways and that’s really gonna
spur on this competition and you know if
you weren’t thinking about selling but
now you want to sell
you know it puts you in a position to
where you’re gonna really have a lot of
say and you’re not gonna have to take a
lot of risk and you’re gonna get the
terms that really
accommodate your needs if you find
yourself in that position where you’re
looking to
upsize or find some more room or
whatever and you go out there and you
find that dream house like right now
is this perfect time to maximize the
value of your sale
because we are seeing home prices go up
like you know to record highs right now
in addition you know when you’re getting
ready to buy the interest rates are so
unbelievably low that you know our
buying power has been increased
significantly yeah and we know that most
of this
actually happens with a dream people
aren’t really thinking about buying and
then they’re on a sunday drive
and they’re you know having a nice easy
day and they realize hey this is a
really cute neighborhood and see a house
for sale i wonder
i don’t know how often that we get the
call where you know people aren’t really
looking but they want to see what it
takes to make it happen and so
it’s a great time to capitalize on both
ends now with the with the low interest
money
absolutely well as talked about you know
it’s best to have a home that’s move-in
ready and you know that can be an
overwhelming thought
you know people spend somewhere upwards
of six months to do that it’s money out
of pocket
and so sometimes that makes people kind
of just step back
you know but one of the nice things is
is that we’ve got programs to help with
that in fact we come in we do the work
we you don’t take any money out of your
pocket up front and we get the house
market ready and
and time is of the essence right now so
to have a contractor come in and be
efficient and take that off your plate
can really streamline the process and
make it easy for you and get you out
looking at houses quicker
so what you’re telling me joe is that uh
you as an agent are going to come in
you’re going to find the contractors for
me we’re going to find the money to get
this done
we’re going to get my house market ready
so we can get the most amount of
eyeballs possible so we can get the
highest value for your home
and i don’t have to worry about any of
it that’s exactly what i’m telling you
yeah
it’s uh sounds like a pretty awesome
program it is it’s a great program and
john scott’s worked on it it’s called
market ready plus and it’s a john l
scott program
and it puts you in the driver’s seat to
get out there and take advantage of
these low rates and get the house that
you’re dreaming about
yeah so if we got a house that’s uh
maybe a little cluttered and here’s one
thing
big question we get joe what’s uh people
are always asking us what should i do to
get my house ready
right and i think bottom line we’re
always going to tell you kind of the
same things
we’re not looking for major renovations
we’re not looking for huge updates
you’re probably just not going to get
the roi
when you take on those big projects
probably almost always carpet
almost always paint and flooring
definitely a good deep clean which we’ll
take care of for you
definitely getting it clean or
decluttered and staged which will take
care of you
yeah and sometimes there’s even bigger
projects you know you might be
intimidated there’s a roof that needs to
be replaced and we can actually help you
with that too
really what we’re trying to create is
this experience so when a potential
buyer walks into your house
it feels like home maybe there’s some
tweaks and things they want to change
but
they can come in and it’s clean and it’s
inviting and they want to sit there and
talk to their agent about it and
sometimes after we get an inspection
done some things do pop up you know some
deferred maintenance and you know things
always kind of find a way but
the program also is going to take care
of that for you no money out of pocket
so we can just get this thing ready to
sell
and uh that’s what the program does for
you so you mean as an agent if i hire
you you guys are going to come in and
take care of all that even through the
inspection and it’s not going to cost me
money
yeah nothing out of pocket it’ll come
out at escrow it’ll come out of the
equity of the home but we can get it
ready to go so that we can get the most
amount of people in there and
and get it bit up as high as we possibly
can and take advantage of this market
with
some of those fixes you know jason even
as a couple of years ago programs like
this for sellers just didn’t exist you
know if the work needed to be done it
was on
on the seller’s dime you know and
oftentimes that would delay putting it
to market
um or if it came up in in an inspection
and
they wanted to move forward it would
cost them a lot of money right then and
even like the stress of like having to
manage all that to find the contractors
to put up the money
to manage the program you know it’s
really stressful and inconvenient so to
have a program that you can just sit
back and let somebody else take care of
that
it’s pretty nice you know jason there’s
another program we’re really excited
about too to roll out you know a lot of
people are in a selling position but
you know for safety issues they don’t
want people in their home or they just
want speed efficiency and convenience
and
and so they really don’t want to go to
the open market and invite a bunch of
people into their home
and in that case we have a program
called instant purchase plus
so joe we both know that putting a house
on the open market
having it market ready day one is that’s
the best scenario and that’s what’s
going to produce the
the highest amount of uh sales dollars
but
um you know you some of our sellers find
themselves in a position where maybe
that’s just not
possible maybe they you know like you
mentioned want to feel a little bit
safer have less people in the house
you know that i could see where a
program like that would be real helpful
like
maybe i just want somebody to come in
and offer me all cash
yeah you know that happens all the time
too you know some people just really
aren’t comfortable
you know they they can’t let go of the
process and just let it happen they’re
too stressful of a process for them
maybe they’re moving across country
whatever the case is that some people
just
really don’t want to open themselves up
to the market like that and they just
want the security and the peace of mind
of knowing
they got a fair price and that they can
move out on their terms there’s
definitely pros and cons to getting an
all-cash offer from an
investor but i think it’s definitely
something that we should take the time
and investigate and check out
not all homes are going to qualify you
know not investors aren’t looking to
just buy every home out there but
instead of trying to track down
investors and find one that works for
your home
you know you can contact me and i’ll
reach out to the investors and see if
your home qualifies
maybe if you get an all-cash offer it’s
generally going to be a little bit less
than if you put it on the open market
chances are yes in this market in
particular as there’s so much
competition out there on the open market
you’re probably going to net a higher
offer if you were to bring it out to the
open market
yeah and there are fees involved with
this i buyer program but
the best thing to do is just give us a
call we can go over some of the pros and
cons with you and figure out which
program works best
you know jason then i’m curious with all
these programs and everything out there
all these eye buyers wall street getting
into it
this is important today that people
still work with an agent
yeah that’s a great question joe and one
i’m sure a lot of people are asking
themselves right now
can i just go sign up for this program
can i just get my house ready
and i think the answer is absolutely um
obviously i’m a little bit biased but i
think the
power of having a great team behind you
in this market
is super important because one
everything is happening so fast
right and so it’s so important that we
have all of our eyes dot and our t’s
crossed
but the other thing is is that um
there’s still a lot of negotiation
involved in this
and so i think having somebody that will
negotiate
on your behalf and fiercely is very
important right now
yeah and as these programs come at you a
million miles an hour it’s important
that someone can actually sit down
explain the pros and cons of it and
really make sure what’s the best
situation for you and your family so you
don’t
make an emotional purchase that maybe
wasn’t putting you in the best situation
or opening yourself up to liability that
maybe you expose yourself because you
just weren’t
quite sure what was going on so it’s
important to be able to look at all the
options
that’s right and that’s where you know
having a team it’s not just
the real estate agent but it’s you know
if you do decide to buy it’s the lending
team it’s the title and escrow team it’s
having the power of
john l scott behind you not just the
madrona group and
the um 90 years that of experience here
locally in the pacific northwest
and just knowing how to navigate this
challenging time
all the different forms and all the
different
uh unique situations that we’re seeing
today
you know jason you started out by saying
you’re biased and i certainly am too you
know and i do believe now more than ever
with all these programs it’s very
confusing and so it’s more important
than ever to have an agent
but don’t take our word for it you know
go talk to someone that just went
through a transaction
whether it’s someone at john scott or
they went through it on their own or
with a friend or a family member’s agent
and just ask if they thought they could
have done that without an agent working
for them
yeah it’s uh it’s a whirlwind it’s
stressful
it gets a little bit uh crazy out there
and so yeah having somebody
on your side having a team backing you
up right now
i think provides a level of comfort that
we just can’t really even explain in
this video
i mean for example the the multiple
listing service just revised all the
forms
because of the liability and the
situations people are getting into
to get these homes yeah it’s true we’ve
never seen so much
red they uh when they changed all the
forms they showed all the changes they
made
and these forms are just red red red red
and it’s just based on
correcting the forms to match the the
market that we’re in right now it’s
it’s really hard to understate how much
change has actually occurred over the
last
six to eight months yeah i think in six
to eight months we’re going to look back
and realize like we were in the middle
of a huge industry change and you know
to be have your finger on the pulse is
very important right now
yeah and it’s lucky that we do have you
know so many agents in our office and so
many team members that are out there
doing deals
doing listings putting this up together
so that we can stay on top of every
change
and always know exactly what move to
make well you know jason i think right
now what every every homeowner should do
is they should know
what their home’s worth like now more
than ever it’s important to know
what their home’s worth and what the
demand on their home is it’s it’s an
awesome opportunity right now to maybe
cash out put a nest egg away
for retirement or maybe your house has
increased in value so much
that you can go and find your dream home
right now there’s possibility that
wasn’t maybe possible a year ago and
maybe we don’t need to live where we’re
living
and we can still have the same life if
we were to move where we want to live
yeah which is actually kind of a funny
story because my
wife and i were looking at listings the
other day and
we saw a house that we were like holy
moly that meets all of our check boxes
and we didn’t even think about that
possibility until we saw that house and
now today
you know we’re out looking at houses uh
with a view
in edmonds that it wasn’t just a few
months ago just because we saw a listing
and the awesome thing is is that our
house now currently
is valued at like a hundred thousand
dollars more than it was just a few
months ago
these are unprecedented times do
yourself a favor reach out to us
let us evaluate your home let’s let’s
look at the situation you’re in and
let’s see
is it time to do something thank you so
much for watching this uh webisode with
joe and i
uh where we talk about the three
important things that every homeowner
needs to know about the
current conditions of the market today
we really take pride in bringing you
the most relevant and informational
pieces that we can
and we look forward to continuing to
bring that to you in the meantime