An Organized Closet in Less than an Hour

Looking to buy or sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home,click here for a FREE Home Price  Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at (706) 621-6085 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

I recently found a good video on HGTV that I thought would be helpful to you if you're preparing to sell your home. It's essential that when you show your home to buyers, it's clean, organized, and decluttered. You'll want to empty out your closets, or at the very least, get them organized.

One thing you can do to get organized is to put up shoe hangers in your doors, and store everyday items inside them such as cleaning supplies, utensils, or anything else that you can fit in them.

Another way to cut down on clutter is to get organized. Use labels, or pick up storage bins to keep items like cords or wires in.

A tip for organizing your closet is to divide your clothes into four different sections: hang, sell, donate, keep, and fold. Once you have something marked out for every category, you can then organize your closet in any way you see fit. Here's an extra tip: you can use belt hangers to hang your necklaces and other jewelry.

I just thought this video would be useful for organizing your home whether you're selling or if you just want to tidy up a bit.

If you need any assistance with staging, decluttering, or selling, please don't hesitate to contact me!

What Are Appraisals and How Can They Affect Real Estate Transactions?

Looking to buy or sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price  Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at (706) 621-6085 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today, we tackle a few very important topics. Many people are unaware of what an appraisal is and why it's necessary during a real estate transaction.

When an appraisal is ordered by the bank during the selling process, a licensed appraiser will perform a report to determine whether the sale price on the contract is a fair market price. Usually, this is just a formality, and the sale price comes in close to what the home is appraised for. However, sometimes issues arise.

While the TRUE market value is what a seller is willing to accept and what a buyer is willing to pay for a home, the bank still wants to make sure they are protected from lending too much. The appraiser comes in to offer a third-party opinion of the contract price and determines whether the value can be justified.

Occasionally, we see the appraised value come in less than the purchase price. Why do we see that? Well, in a rising market where prices are rising and homes are going under contract for more money, appraisers are bound to use past sales history; if home values are rising quickly, by the time an appraiser gets their hands on past sales history, the value of the home in question has already risen substantially. This results in an under-appraised home, and since the bank will only loan money based on that appraised price, this creates a problem for the borrower who needs the full amount to complete the sale.

If this happens, there are a few different ways this could play out. One thing that can happen is the buyer can dispute the appraisal. If it's found that poor comparables were used to find the value, sometimes the appraisal will be adjusted to make it come in at the value it should. In other circumstances, we've seen the borrower leave their lender and go to a different one and start the process over. Often, the second appraiser will get the value to come in where it needs to be.

The appraisal is an opinion of value, and sometimes two different appraisers find different values. Typically, the buyer doesn't have to leave their lender, as appraisers will sometimes adjust their report if it doesn't come in where it needs to be. Also, the seller will sometimes agree to decrease the price of the home to the appraised value. Another option is for the buyer to agree to pay cash for the difference between the appraised value and the seller's price. Of course, meeting in the middle is yet another way to avoid having the deal fall apart.

Most of the time, we see homes appraise, but it's better to know your options should a low appraisal come in. If you have questions about this topic, or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're proud to be your Athens real estate resource!