If you are selling your home as part of your RELOCATION, and planning to buy a new one in your new location, you really need to understand about INVENTORY and how it can impact the decisions you  need to make.

Inventory will affect the price you will determine for listing your home so it is positioned well in YOUR particular market.

Bbut inventory will also impact the options you will have in your new location. A well-informed agent WILL understand this and be able to provide you with the information you need most so you can be an informed consumer.

If you need help in finding a qualified agent in your area, please feel free to let me know. I have a huge network of agents I know around the country becuase of my substantial Internet marketing plus my professional certifications (Certified Residential Specialist or CRS for one).

I wrote a warning to buyers, and agents, recently. It had to do with ot opening the refrigerator door in homes they were touring that are distress sales - bank owned properties, and vacant short sales and foreclosures.

Here's why you don't open that refrigerator door.

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If I can provide more information about Carlsbad and surrounding areas, or the housing market in general, or otherwise assist you in your homes search, please contact me by phone or text at (760) 840-1360 or email me at JDowler@remax.net.

All content copyright © 2009 Jeff Dowler

I have mentioned, on more than one occasion, my writing on ActiveRain, the largest real estate social and informational network on-line with over 128,000 members of the RE biz.

I suspect many of you have been there as a result of links to articles posted here on Relocation A to Z. I have been a member of ActiveRain for over 2 years now, with almost 1000 articles written. The membership when I started was a little over 6,000 folks.

ActiveRain, or AR as it is fondly called, is a powerful consumer tool (see link below)

There are many thousands of articles on AR written by REALTORS like myself, mortgage brokers, staging professionals, home inspectors and others in our business. These articles have to do with communities all over the US, housing, things to do and places to visit, as well as a wealth of information useful to buyers and sellers.

A recent article by founder Jon Washburn indicated that while AR is a powerful peer-to-peer platform, it is even more powerful as a consumer tool, with about 9 times as many consumer hits as members, and a growth rate in 2008 of about 200%.

Relocation is tough, and you probably need some help to get through the process.

Here are the highlights of some services you can expect if you are moving to Southern California.

Community information - Here are just a few community profiles in my service area – Carlsbad, Encinitas, San Marcos, Cardiff, Solana Beach.

Market Conditions - I provide monthly market reports on communities like Carlsbad, Encinitas and Cardiff but can customize reports for you for any North County San Diego community.

MLS listings

Photos - My Carlsbad Video and Photobloggery which I update regularly has plenty of photos and videos about the area to give you a feel for the San Diego lifestyle.

Videos – one of the best ways to get a feel for a home and the community is through video. Here’s an example of a community video. And here’s one of a listing of mine.

Phone Tour  

Buyers Handbook - the Buyer’s Handbook Summary is on my website on my homepage and can be downloaded at any time.

Websites for research

Help for Sellers Too – check out my

for some helpful information.

Read the full article on my service offerings here.

As a seller with a property to sell as part of your relocation, you have a huge task ahead of you. Selling your current home in order to buy a new one is a big piece of this.

If you are like many folks, you NEED to sell in order to buy another home. And in many markets this is a challenging undertaking given inventory levels, competition, pricing shifts and more. So how does one accomplish this successfully.

Working with a REALTOR who has the CRS designation (is a Certified Residential Specialist) is one of the best decisions you can make. Here are some reasons a CRS will benefit YOU, the homeowner.

An agent with the CRS designation must complete a number of intensive 2-day classes on a variety of real estate topics to benefit consumers (a favorite class is the one on listing strategies - all the things that we can do to help you market and sell you home effectively; another is technology - kearning all about the many ways technology shuld be used to effectively makret a home, commununicate, and run a successful real estate business).

There is significant time commitment on the part of an individual who decides to gain this designation, and the training classes are some of the best available in the real estate world.

We must pass an exam for each class we take, so you can't just sit there pretending to learn but must demonstrate this before being awarded credit for the class toward the overall CRS designation.

Classes involve significant interaction among attendees so there is a huge opportunity to further learning from others in the business

All candidates for the CRS designation must meet certain production requirements, either a minimum specific number of transactions (the minimum is 25 transactions, or $8 million in production with a minimum of 10 transactions within a 2 year period). This means you MUST have substantial experience as a real estate agent in order to become a CRS. Another great benefit since you will be able to work with someone who has demonstrate significant real estate experience.

Having a CRS is likened to having a Ph.D., and it's considered to be THE most rigorous designation (only about 4% of all REALTORS posses this certification). And many CRS  agents continue to attend classes or to repeat classes as they are revised,  and to participate in the CRS organization either nationally or at the local level (as I do on the Board of Directors for the Southern California Chapter of CRS).

Don't you want someone who has the best knowledge and training, and can provide the competitive edge YOU need to sell your home?

One last thng to consider. You will need someone in your new location to help you BUY a home. A CRS can make the right connections to other CRS agents around the country and find you the best person with THE SAME training and experience.

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If I can provide more information about Carlsbad and surrounding areas, or the housing market in general, or otherwise assist you in your homes search, please contact me by

phone or text at (760) 840-1360 or email me at JDowler@remax.net.

All content copyright © 2008 Jeff Dowler

What IS the real estate world coming to?

You bet. There are tons of predictions floating around, and everyone wants to know:

• will my house sell?
  
  • When will the market hit bottom?
    
    • Should I buy or sell now or wait?

Whether you believe in the power of St. Joseph to sell your home, wish your REALTOR had a crystal ball, or are one of many folks who consult psychics on a variety of subjects, predictions seem to be the mainstay of our housing market these days.

Read more about a growing trend.

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If I can provide more information about Carlsbad and surrounding areas, or the housing market in general, or otherwise assist you in your homes search, please contact me by

phone or text at (760) 840-1360 or email me at JDowler@remax.net.

All content copyright © 2007 Jeff Dowler

Selling your Carlsbad home is a challenge. And you want to know that the REALTOR you hire will get the job done. Of course I am assuming that you have priced the home to sell, since we know that no matter how much marketing you do, an overpriced home will not sell.

Read: What’s Important to You as a Seller?

This is not so much about how to go about finding the right agent, but more about what will the listing agent do for you.

Read: What do You Want to Know About Your Agent?

Also: What Kind of Agent do You Want?

There are many strategies a listing agent can employ in order to help you find the right buyer for your home. The operative word here is CAN: some agents take the easy (or lazy) way and do the minimal work needed to get a home sold, or don't have a clue about Internet marketing where most of today's buyers are.

Gaining the maximum exposure in today market is critical since there is so much competition. Buyers are being picky and are not willing to pay more than what they perceive market value to be. So, to reiterate…PRICING is the most important thing you can do to sell your home. And of course your home will be free of clutter and personal items (i.e., staged), and repairs will have been taken care of. Assuming that is on target, then, what sorts of things might you expect the agent you are considering hiring to provide you with regarding to marketing and advertising?

• Standard offerings
  • listing in the MLS – accurate information, no typos hopefully, and lots of high quality photos
  • signage in the yard
  • attractive feature sheet in the house and in a brochure box (there is some debate about the brochure box)
  • An ad in the local newspaper, an open house or two (or perhaps one every weekend – hmm, is that what you really want, given we know few homes sell this way?) and broker caravan
• Other offerings
  • Single site webpage or blog (see 6547 Calle Valperizo for an example of a blog I am using for my newest listing)
  • Unique URL for YOUR home (see above)
  • Virtual tours – these are easy to do and pretty common, yet lots of agents DON’T use them…and buyers say they WANT to see them. Here’s an example.

• Written marketing plan – many agents do not have one and look at you like a deer in the headlights if you ask to see one. How do you know what they plan to do to target market YOUR home?
• Lots of photos – buyers tell us they WANT to see photos, lots of them. Some buyers will not even look at a listing that has no photos…and many don’t. Here is an example of a slide show of a recent listing of mine.
• On-line flyers and postings on multiple websites – here is a Vflyer for my latest listing. This gets posted on multiple sites. And there are dozens and dozens of real estate website where your listing should be (Trulia, Realtor.com, Zillow are just a few of the big name ones that get the most Internet traffic).

• Video – is there a video of the home, or better yet the community? Here is an example I did.
  

There’s more, but you get the idea. Don’t short change yourself. Selling your home is TOO important, if you are really serious about it.

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If I can provide more information about Carlsbad or surrounding communities, and the housing market in general, or otherwise assist you in your home search, please contact me by phone or text at (760) 840-1360 or email me at JDowler@remax.net.

If I can provide more information about the housing market in general, or otherwise assist you in your homes search, please contact me by phone or text at (760) 840-1360
or email me at JDowler@remax.net.

• Are prices stable or trending up or down?

• What are the conditions for your particular price range (in some areas the low end market is doing very well, while the mid range is much slower)?

Start your CARLSBAD HOMES SEARCH here (and other San Diego communities)

Download FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS here

Visit CARLSBAD COMMUNITY REPORTS for profiles on communities, subdivisions and neighborhoods (including other areas)

Are you a first time home buyer. Check out FIRST TIME BUYER CENTRAL.

I have started to use a new application that I believe will be helpful for both buyers and sellers.

Map My Pix allows me to put photos on a map that are easily viewed by clicking. The viewer not only sees the photo (or a tourist site, home, etc.) but also the location.

I see some great utility and plan to use this is a number of ways for clients.

1. I will include the map with relevant photos in my on-line listings (check out the first one here to see the Mapping with Photos in action) for buyers to learn more about my listings
2. I'm going to start using the mapping in my listing presentation so sellers will see yet another way in which I use technology, and how will use it when I list their home!
3. My relocation buyers will receive a map with the photos of the homes they will be touring when they meet with me for their house-hunting trip.
4. I will also share copmmunity profiles and a map with photos of the areas my relocation clients are interested in (e.g.,photos of restaurants, sights, parks)

What do you think? Will this be helpful?

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Start your CARLSBAD HOMES SEARCH here (and other San Diego communities)

Download FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS here

Visit CARLSBAD COMMUNITY REPORTS for profiles on communities, subdivisions and neighborhoods (including other areas)

Are you a first time home buyer. Check out First Time Buyer Central.