Increase your chances of getting your dream house in a competitive housing market, and lower your chances of losing out to another buyer.

1. Get prequalified for a mortgage. You’ll be able to make a firm commitment to buy and your offer will be more desirable to the seller. Work with a local lender who knows the current market.

2. Stay in close contact with your real estate agent to find out about the newest listings. Be ready to see a house as soon as it goes on the market — if it’s a great home, it will go fast.

3. Scout out new listings yourself. Look at Web sites such as REALTOR.com, browse your local newspaper’s real estate section, and drive through the neighborhood to spot For Sale signs. If you see a home you like, write down the address and the name of the listing agent. Your real estate agent will schedule a showing. Your real estate agent can also set you up on a property search that will e mail you homes that fit into your critiera.

4. Be ready to make a decision. Spend a lot of time in advance deciding what you must have in a home so you won’t be unsure when you have the chance to make an offer.

5. Bid competitively. You may not want to start out offering the absolute highest price you can afford, but don’t go too low to get a deal. In a tight market, you’ll lose out. By hiring the right agent, they will do all the negotiating for you, so you get the best price.

6. Keep contingencies to a minimum. Restrictions such as needing to sell your home before you move or wanting to delay the closing until a certain date can make your offer unappealing. In a tight market, you’ll probably be able to sell your house rapidly. Or talk to your lender about getting a bridge loan to cover both mortgages for a short period.

7. Don’t get caught in a buying frenzy. Just because there’s competition doesn’t mean you should just buy it. And even though you want to make your offer attractive, don’t neglect inspections that help ensure that your house is sound.

Provided by NAR.

Working with sellers who have some—but not unlimited—cash for upgrades? Here are budget-minded enhancements you can suggest to make their home stand out.

1. Tidy up kitchen cabinets.

“Potential buyers do open kitchen cabinets and look inside,” says Morrissey. “Home owners can add rollout organizing trays so when buyers peek in, they feel like there’s lots of room for their stuff.”

2. Add or replace tile.

“By retiling very inexpensively, you make a room look way cleaner that it was,” says Javier Zuluaga, owner of Home Repairs and Remodeling LLC in Tempe, Ariz. “Every city has stores that offer $1 to $2 tile, so home owners have to pay only for the low-cost tile and labor to replace a dated backsplash or add a new one. We also use inexpensive tile to upgrade bathrooms.”

3. Add a breakfast bar.

When a wall separates a kitchen from a family room, suggest cutting out an opening to create a breakfast bar. “In one home, there was a cutout in the wall between the kitchen and living room,” explains Matthew Quinn, a sales associate at Quinn’s Realty & Estate Services in Falls Church, Va., who handles estate and real estate sales for family members whose loved ones have passed away. “We left the structure of the cutout, added an oversized granite breakfast bar, and put chairs in front of it. That cost about $600.”

4. Install granite tile instead of a slab.

“Everybody is hot for granite kitchen countertops, but that can be a $5,000 upgrade,” says John Wilder, a general contractor and owner of Fence and Deck Doctor in New Castle, Ind. “Instead, home owners can put in 12-inch granite tiles for about $300 in materials and get very high impact for little money.”

5. Freshen up a bathroom without retiling.

“With a dated bathroom, I recommend putting in a new medicine cabinet for $100 to $150, light fixtures for about $100, a faucet for $50 to $75, and a vanity for $200 to $300,” says Wilder. “And instead of replacing the tile, the existing grout can be lightly scraped and regrouted, which leaves a haze that can be buffed out and will make the tile look brand new. Also install glass shower doors. A French door adds a lot of panache and elegance for $250, and people will notice the door, not the tile. With all that, you’ve done a bathroom remodel for $1,000 to $2,000.”

6. Freshen up the basement.

“If home owners have cement block or poured concrete walls in the basement, suggest they have a contractor fill in cracks with hydraulic cement and then paint with waterproofing paint,” recommends Wilder. “They can then add a top coat to add color. They can also paint the basement floor with a good floor paint, which spiffs it up. The basement may not be finished, but it’s no longer a damp dungeon.”

7. Add a room.

Look for large spaces that can be enclosed to create a new bedroom for just the price of creating a wall. “One time, we closed off a half-wall to an office and added a door to the other side of the room, thus creating another bedroom,” says Quinn. “That $400 procedure, which took a contractor one day, netted about $40,000 in the sales price.” Zuluaga has also added bedrooms inexpensively. “In a two-bedroom house, there was an archway that led to a third room that was used as a den,” he explains. “It had a dry bar where there would have been a closet, so we took out the dry bar and created a closet so the owners had a third bedroom.”

8. Spruce up cabinet fronts.

Suggest home owners update tired-looking kitchen cabinets. Reconditioning is the least expensive move for under $1,000. “If the wood is starting to look shabby from use or contaminants in the air, we take out the nicks and scratches, recondition it with oil, and put new hardware on,” explains Heidi Morrissey, vice president of marketing and sales at Kitchen Tune-Up in Aberdeen, S.D. For $1,500 to $4,000, owners can replace the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, and for $4,000 to $12,000, they can have all the cabinets refaced. “With refacing, owners can change the color of the cabinets by replacing the door and having a new skin put on the boxes,” says Morrissey. “If they have oak cabinets today, they can have cherry the next day.”

9. Replace light fixtures.

“In a foyer and in bathrooms and kitchens,” says Wilder, “replacing overhead light fixtures provides a lot of pop for a little money.” If the kitchen has track lighting, Zuluaga suggests the home owner spend $450 to $600 to have an electrician replace it with recessed canned lights on a dimmer switch to add ambience. For about $700, Zuluaga also suggests installing pendant lights over a kitchen island or peninsula.

10. Tech-up the garage.

“Sometimes we replace the garage door opener with a remote touchpad entry system,” says Zuluaga. “That costs about $425 and makes it look like a high-end system.”

Download a PDF version of these 10 big-impact, low-cost ideas.

G.M. Filisko is a freelance writer for REALTOR® magazine. You can contact magazine staff at narpubs@realtors.org.

One of the million dollar questions for this year is what’s going to happen with the real estate market? Many wonder if home prices will still decline, plateau or actually rise?

My thought for this coming year, especially in the first couple of quarters is that we will see a slight increase in home sales. With the extension and expansion of the Home Buyer Tax Credit till April 30, 2010, I think those who are buying are doing it now rather than later this year.

Traditionally the winter months tend to slow down, however home buyers, especially those that can qualify for the tax credit cannot wait till this spring to start looking for a home. They need to be doing it now.

In the Grand Junction area we have seen 5 consecutive months of declining inventory. Meaning less homes are listed on the market. It certainly is still a buyers market, however the market is not as saturated as it once was. If this trend continues we will start to see a balanced market in our area.

Below are some comments about what 2010 will bring for home prices. I don’t know about you, but I’m a glass half full kind of person, so I expect to see great things for 2010!

Some real estate researchers are forecasting that home prices will fall again in 2010.

· Fiserv Lending Solutions, a financial analytics firm, predicts that prices will decline an average of 11.3 percent in 342 of the 381 markets it covers.

· Moody’s Economy.com foresees another 8 percent drop, with Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada feeling even more pain.

· Shari Olefson, author of Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream, predicts a national average decline in prices of about 10 percent in 2010.

· Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and the most bearish of the bears, says real estate prices could possibly fall another 30 percent before they hit bottom.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Chief Economist Lawrence Yun sees it all differently. He predicts home prices will rise more than 3 percent in 2010.

“The headwind we face is rising mortgage interest rates,” Yun says, “but the compensating factors will be the home buyers tax credit in the first half of the year and increased job creation in the second half.”

Source: CNNMoney.com, Les Christie (01/01/2010)

“Let history be our guide” as the old adage says, and that’s exactly what we need to do when it comes to our current economic situation and more specifically our current real estate market.

Real estate has long been a strong investment. Throughout history we can see those that invested in buying up real estate have set themselves up in an advantageous position for their future. How can you try to do the same?

As many Americans are taking their money out of the stock market, because of the failure of the financial market many more are taking advantage of investing their money in real estate.

I have spoken with many individuals that are so scared about the economy, that they cannot see the forest through the trees. When I tell them that they should invest in real estate they seem a bit confused, the reason being with home prices falling, they think that it is a failing market. The funny thing about real estate is that it is a finite commodity. We cannot make more land, and everyone needs a place to live, so individuals will either buy a home or rent a home.  And even if property prices fall dramatically, as the old adage goes, “time heals all wounds when it comes to real estate.”

Learning from History

Take for example John D. Rockefeller Jr. During the Great Depression developed land and was the sole financier of a vast 14-building real estate complex in the geographical center of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, and as a result became one of the largest real estate holders in New York City. *

I know here in Grand Junction, CO that some of the wealthiest people are ones that bought up a lot of real estate in the Grand Junction area in the 1980’s when the oil shale industry closed up shop and moved out of town. The local economy as well as the national economy was in a downward spiral at that time, similar to today. As the market started to recover they started to develop the land or sold it off and are now financially set.

What a Deal

Let’s take a look at a great deal. In Tolleson, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix, there is a 4 bed, 2 bath, single family home listed for $110,000. What a steal. Even better are the 4-plexes for sale near the colleges and universities in Phoenix that are listed around the same price as this home, and are fully occupied with renters. Naturally this equates to immediate cash flow.

Obviously invest in areas that are desirable for people to live in. Waterfront property is always sought after, as well as warmer and more temperate climates.

Make sure you have investment goals for the real estate you buy. Is this setting you up for retirement, helping you build up your portfolio by attaining more assets. Then when you are looking at purchasing property you can have a gauge to go by.

*(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller,_Jr.)

1. Remove clutter and clear off counters. Throw out stacks of newspapers and magazines and stow away most of your small decorative items. Put excess furniture in storage, and remove out-of-season clothing items that are cramping closet space. Don’t forget to clean out the garage, too.

2. Wash your windows and screens. This will help get more light into the interior of the home.

3. Keep everything extra clean. A clean house will make a strong first impression and send a message to buyers that the home has been well-cared for. Wash

fingerprints from light switch plates, mop and wax floors, and clean the stove and refrigerator. Polish your doorknobs and address numbers. It’s worth hiring a cleaning service if you can afford it.

4. Get rid of smells. Clean carpeting and drapes to eliminate cooking odors, smoke, and pet smells. Open the windows to air out the house. Potpourri or scented candles will help.

5. Brighten your rooms. Put higher wattage bulbs in light fixtures to brighten up rooms and basements. Replace any burned-out bulbs in closets. Clean the walls, or better yet, brush on a fresh coat of neutral color paint.

6. Don’t disregard minor repairs. Small problems such as sticky doors, torn screens, cracked caulking, or a dripping faucet may seem trivial, but they’ll give buyers the impression that the house isn’t well-maintained.

7. Tidy your yard. Cut the grass, rake the leaves, add new mulch, trim the bushes, edge the walkways, and clean the gutters. For added curb appeal, place a pot of bright flowers near the entryway.

8. Patch holes. Repair any holes in your driveway and reapply sealant, if applicable.

9. Add a touch of color in the living room. A colored afghan or throw on the couch will jazz up a dull room. Buy new accent pillows for the sofa.

10. Buy a flowering plant and put it near a window you pass by frequently.

11. Make centerpieces for your tables. Use brightly colored fruit or flowers.

12. Set the scene. Set the table with fancy dishes and candles, and create other vignettes throughout the home to help buyers picture living there. For example, in the basement you might display a chess game in progress.

13. Replace heavy curtains with sheer ones that let in more light. Show off the view if you have one.

14. Accentuate the fireplace. Lay fresh logs in the fireplace or put a basket of flowers there if it’s not in use.

15. Make the bathrooms feel luxurious. Put away those old towels and toothbrushes. When buyers enter your bathroom, they should feel pampered. Add a new shower curtain, new towels, and fancy guest soaps. Make sure your personal toiletry items are out of sight.

16. Send your pets to a neighbor or take them outside. If that’s not possible, crate them or confine them to one room (ideally in the basement), and let the real estate practitioner know where they’ll be to eliminate surprises.

17. Lock up valuables, jewelry, and money. While a real estate salesperson will be on site during the showing or open house, it’s impossible to watch everyone all the time.

18. Leave the home. It’s usually best if the sellers are not at home. It’s awkward for prospective buyers to look in your closets and express their opinions of your home with you there.

If you have questions about real estate in Grand Junction, CO, e mail Andrea with any questions. The market is stable in Grand Junction, but it is still importatnt to make your home stand out amongst your competition.

If you need some staging tips, let the Real Estate Super Diva come by and give you some pointers on your home. ;o)

Andrea Haitz, Broker Associate
“Taking Real Estate to New Heights”
Keller Williams Grand Junction Realty LLC
970-256-9100 office
970-201-3578 cell

Reprinted from REALTOR® magazine (REALTOR.org/realtormag) with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

 Unfortunately many people equate foreclosure with a steal.

You can get a good deal in a foreclosed home, but you have to do your homework and know the market to make sure it is a good deal. Some of the foreclosed homes are not that much below market, to be considered a good deal.

When looking at foreclosed homes, be prepared that the processes takes more patience than a typical real estate transaction, but for the most part they close in the same amount of time as a typical realestate transaction. Also know that the properties are sold “as is”. It’s still a good idea to get an inspection, but you will not be able to request that anything be fixed.

Sometimes when homeowners know their home is going into foreclose, they take anything of value out of the home, such as appliances, light fixtures, even hot water heaters. If these items are removed or missing it could also affect the type of financing you can get on a home. When you purchase the home you will obviously have to replace these items, keep that in mind when you are considering what you are spending on the home.

 As a buyer you still need to look at a fair amount of properties, just as when buying a non- foreclosed home. This will give you the best perspective for your local market and when you come across that home you’ll know you are getting a good deal.

As an end note, do not pay a service for a list of foreclosed homes. Contact a Realtor and they can get one for you for free. I’m happy to help anyone with this.

 Andrea Haitz, Broker Associate
“Taking Real Estate to New Heights”

Keller Williams Grand Junction Realty, LLC

 715 Horizon Dr Ste 225 Grand Junction, CO 81506

970-256-9100 office

970-201-3578 cell

www.AndreaHaitz.com

NAR (National Association of Realtors)  is trying to extend the tax credit for 2010, and even make it better. However it is not a sure thing as of now.

With interest rates low and home price in Grand Junction, CO and nearby areas, low it’s a great time to take advantage of the market.

In some cases you can use the $8000 tax credit to help with closing costs.

Check out www.HousingMarketFacts.com for more informaion.

Andrea Haitz, Realtor

Keller Williams Grand Junction Realty LLC

www.AndreaHaitz.com