3 Reasons Not Search for Homes on Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com for Bellingham Real Estate

September 21, 2014 by Michael Eisenberg

3 Reasons Not Search for Homes on Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com for Bellingham Real Estate

The big 3 in Real Estate search, ZTR, better known as Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com have become the dominant players in Real Estate Search. But they are not the best way to find a home. What they do is aggregate listings that are syndicated from all kinds of sources, mostly the multiple listing services or MLS’s across the country, the places that real estate agents post their listings for sale.

Realtor.com was founded by Realtors and has been recognized as the official site of the National Association of Realtors.

All 3 sites have the same basic business model – they Sell Advertising to Real Estate Agents.

They can be a good place for those getting started in their search, they have pretty graphics to entice you. However being a professional, I can give you 3 Important Reasons Not to use Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com, when looking for Bellingham Real Estate:

1. No Way to Check the Status of a Listing. On the national portals, listings show up online and often stay there even after they either sell, expire or are withdrawn. It is frustrating to find a home you want to see to find out it is already under contract or sold.When using a more local site (such as this one), you will only see a property if it is actually available . The best way to find accurate information is to search on a site like this one that pulls their data directly from the local Multiple Listing Service. If a house comes on the market you will see it on a local website, the same day. not always true for the large national companies.

2. Their Zestimates are usually way off the mark. A computer algorithm to find home values will never be as accurate as a real estate professional who is familiar with the local market and can come and se the condition of your home to determine a realistic price.

3. Advertising. All 3 of these sites generate their huge incomes by selling advertising – primarily to Realtors. They take our info. and then sell it back to us to put our face and contact info. on their site. They also sell ads to a variety of other businesses that have nothing to do with looking for a home – supermarkets, moving companies, insurance companies, software companies looking to capture consumers eyeballs.

These are just some of the many reasons to use a local real estate website when searching for property in Bellingham. And if you want more local information, I am here to help you.

More Kudos to Bellingham, we rank in top 10 in the nation for work-life Balance

August 6, 2014 by Michael Eisenberg

NerdWallet, a consumer advocacy website, puts Bellingham residents at number 9 in the nation when it comes to balancing work and play.

Thee website used data from the U.S. Census, looking at four categories to create the ranking. Looking at the data, Bellingham residents worked an average of 33.4 hours a week, had an average work commute time of 17.5 minutes, paid $866 a month in rent and had average annual full-time income of $41,117.

That gave Bellingham a score of 73.82, putting us in the top 10 out of 536 cities they looked at. At the top of the list was Bloomington, Ind. (79.40), followed by Provo, Utah (78.03), and Gainesville, Fla. (75.81).

Dale, Va.,was at the bottom of the list, as were six cities in California that were in the bottom 10. The towns at the bottom of the list had long commute times averaging around 40 minutes and rents about $1,500 a month.

“We have found university towns and towns with strong health care industries come up a lot on our lists,” said Divya Raghavan, an analyst for NerdWallet. She a;so said cities that have a lower cost of living did well, because it meant that people didn’t have to work extra hours to make ends meet.

For details, go to nerdwallet.com. You can find a link to the study by clicking this link.

NerdWallet’s top ten cities for work-life balance:

Bloomington, Ind.
Provo, Utah
Gainesville, Fla,
Eau Claire, Wisc.
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Iowa City, Iowa
Colege Station, Texas
Eugene, Ore. Bellingham, WA
Kalamazoo, Mich.

Top 6 Ways Bellingham Sellers Sebatoge the sale of their Homes

January 29, 2014 by Michael Eisenberg

In a recent poll of over 1,000 real estate agents, Active Rain, an online real estate community, found the top mistakes home sellers make while trying to sell their homes.

Top 6 Ways to Sabotage the Sale of Your Bellingham Home

1. The home is overpriced
2. It is difficult to set a showing time
3. The seller is unwilling to depersonalize or declutter the home
4. Unpleasant odors
5. The seller is unwilling to negotiate with buyers
6. The seller refuses to make repairs

These mistakes are just as true in Bellingham as anywhere else. It is our job as agents to educate sellers on these and other aspects of the home selling process that may send potential buyers running from your home. Pet odors can be an especially difficult one to deal with with some sellers who love their pets and don’t even notice a problem and might even be defensive about it.

I wanted to show a home to an out of town buyer last weekend, but the seller didn’t want to show their home on the weekends. Well those buyers will never get a chance to see a home that fit their criteria and they may have considered buying.

I remember a time I was showing homes to a young couple in the Bellingham area . I made an appointment to show the home, yet when I opened the door the seller had not disarmed a load alarm that went off and a loud recording kept repeating over and over that the police were being
notified in English and Spanish. Needless to say, the couple decided to move on to the next home in their search.

Price Your Home Right.

Pricing your home right as soon as it is listed will help get your home sold quickly for top dollar. Starting high with the thought of having negotiating room or “we’ll come down in price if it doesn’t sell in a few months” can cost a buyer time and money.

Let Me Help You Avoid These Mistakes

I wish stories like this weren’t so common, but they are. A good real estate agent spends plenty of time with their sellers before their house ever goes on the market to avoid these expensive mistakes. I always tell my home sellers the truth and educate them about the realities of the market. If you are considering selling your Bellingham home, call me at 360-739-6981. I can help you avoid the most costly mistakes that sellers make.

Data provided by ActiveRain.com.

ActiveRain is an online community of real estate professionals who exchange best practices, write real estate blogs, and get free education from the industry and their peers.