Sold in Just 12 Days for a Record High Sales Price in Cerritos CA neighborhood!

This story should be close to the perfect Real Estate Transaction.  A family of brothers and sisters inherited a property in Cerritos CA from their parents trust.  They decided to sell it and contact my wife, Karen, who is a Master Home Stager expert.  She coached them through a number of changes to prepare the house for sale including scraping popcorn ceilings, replacing fixtures, remodeling one bathroom, refinishing all the hardwood floors, numerous repairs and discussing Home Staging.  The family spent about 4 months preparing the home and then contacted me to list it.  I had offered them my “List with me, and I’ll stage for Free” offer and they gladly accepted once they heard about the marketing that goes along with it.  Karen brought her crew in and staged it.  It was absolutely beautiful,  almost stunning!  It went on the Real Estate market on 12/8/11 and I then launched my special Marketing and Internet Strategy.  We distributed about 1,000 fliers and loaded numerous websites.  There were about 145 visitors to the first weekend Open Houses and the offers soon followed.  We negotiated with the top two buyers and sold in just 12 days on the market.  We had attracted an all cash buyer and sold for $550,000.

This sales price of $550,000 was the highest sale price for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home,  1,468 sq ft (+/- 10% sq ft) in the neighborhood.  The previous highest sale was in April 2007, almost 4.75 years earlier.  We were able to complete a very quick 17 day escrow and close on January 6, 2012, just 29 days from the day it went on the market.   This is pretty phenomenal when the average home in Cerritos is on the market for an average of 140 days.

The real success story here is the testimonial from our clients. Here is a copy of their letter.

Dear Dan and Karen,

We, the trustees of our parents’ Cerritos property want to sincerely acknowledge your excellent professionalism, impeccable customer service and marketing achievements.  Karen’s superb & elegant staging of our Cerritos home surpassed our expectations and obviously hit the mark since we had offers only after one week of its listing. Your marketing efforts and consistent follow-through as well as your kindness will never be forgotten.

I believe our parents[our angels] along with the team of Dan and Karen Keating were all instrumental in this miraculous sale!! Miracles do happen and this is an example of one which took place at Christmas time in Cerritos!

Thank you and thank you!

Warm regards,

Clarissa Morris, Trust Executor

Karen and I spent a few months working with these home owners to prepare this house for sale.  It went through a lot of remodeling including new tile floors, refinished all the hardwood floors,  new paint inside, general repairs, scraped & painting all the popcorn ceilings and many other items.  They also worked on the landscaping, cleaning out all the old furniture and cleaning up the garage.   The home was finished in early December and was just listed for Sale.   It really came out quite nice.  It now looks like a showcase home.

It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, single story, 1,468 sq ft single family residence on a large corner lot on a cul-de-sac.  The lot is 6,457 sq ft and is located near Bloomfield and Artesia Blvd near the Cerritos Town Center. 

Here is the MLS summary

Standard Sale! Beautifully Staged Home! Remodeled / updated. Granite counters, cathedral ceilings, New interior paint, refinished hardwood floors, Fireplace, bathrooms updated, Master Bedroom suite with walk in closet, some stainless steel appliances, recessed lighting in Kitchen, blinds on windows, large spacious kitchen with bar stool counter, scraped/painted ceilings – no popcorn here, nice landscaping, large patio, fruit trees & enclosed back yard great for kids/pets. This is a corner lot on a cul-de-sac street. Located in ABC Unified School District! Excellent family neighborhood, close to shopping. Must See this home – It is beautiful!

See all the photos at: http://www.coasthomestaging.com/12516-Springsnow-Circle-Cerritos-CA-90703.html

Here are a couple photos:

Address:  4322 Knoxville Ave, Lakewood, CA 90713

MLS P804217    3 bedroom, 1 Bath, 1,210 sq ft.    Lot is 5,457 sq ft.  

Price – $439,000

more photos at  www.coasthomestaging.com/Lakewood-4322-Knoxville-Ave.html

I’ll include some before and after photos as well and describe some of the work that was done from the initial Home Staging consultation.   Karen Keating, our Master Stager from Coast Home Staging, is preparing to stage this really gorgeous home.  It’s fairly small at 1,210 sq ft, but it’s beautiful and a great family starter home.  The exterior paining and front yard stone work is complete and landscaping has started.

Details of the actual bill are in the link below.

ftp://leginfo.public.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0151-0200/sb_183_bill_20100507_chaptered.pdf

Articles this week in the Los Angeles Times and the Press Telegram show that home sales have increased 4 of the last 5 months.  The unemployment news was also good with the lowest level of applications since July 2008.  These are both excellent indicators that will help the market and economy.  Now, pare that with low interest rates generally in the low to mid 4 range and you have an excellent opportunity to save some serious money.   

Ready to look for a project home ?  Sign up on our website and get a FREE Listingbook account so you can search the MLS yourself.  Find that perfect home or project you are looking for.  You can also call us to have us do some searches for you and we can target price ranges, neighborhoods, types of homes/condos or any other criteria.

Details & Definitions

Short Sales – A situation where a home owner needs to sell their property and the value is lower than what is owed on the loans.  With the market situation in the past 4 years, many homes have dropped in value.  Additionally, many home owners have refinanced homes, taken out seconds, or added a line a credit to the point where the loan balances exceed what the house can be sold for.  We can help work with you and your bank to work out a solution to avoid foreclosure.  A short sale generally does not impact your credit nearly as bad as a foreclosure can.  Most Short Sales will only impact your credit history for 2 to 4 years, where a forclosure is more severe and generally lasts 7 or more years.

Notice of Default (NOD) – This a letter a home owner will receive from their mortgage company or bank if they are a few months late on their house payment.  Once a home goes into default, the home owner only has a certain amount of time to catch up on the delinquent payments or the bank / mortgage company will schedule a Trustee Sale date.   Many banks are giving some extra time to home owners to resolve problems and will allow more time if the home owner is actively trying to clear up the situation by processing a short sale or loan mod (modification).  This process can also be called pre-foreclosure.

Foreclosure – The Trustee Sale date is when the financial institution schedules a sale date with the court to take control of  the property and/or sell it to pay off the debts.  This process is called a forclosure. Once a house is sold in a Trustee Sale, it generally means the home owner / renter must vacate within days.  The financial institution takes control of the foreclosed property and it becomes an REO (Real Estate Owned) property, meaning that the mortgage company or bank now owns the property.  Having a foreclosure on your credit history can do some serious damage and takes many years to fall off.

What do you need to buy a home ?  Good credit helps a great deal.  Having more than one income per household can help.  Also, having some money to help pay for closing costs as well as a down payment is required.  How much will completely depend upon how much home you can afford.  Not sure where you stand ? Call me and I’ll schedule a meeting with a Loan / Mortgage company to talk about getting you pre-approved.  Pre-approval is different than getting pre-qualified and means the bank will pre-authorize how large of a loan you can get so you’ll know exactly where you stand.  It’s based upon your income and expenses.  It will help you understand what your price range is on home afforability, which will also help show you what areas and neighborhoods you can afford.  So, if your ready to puchase a home, don’t change jobs, and don’t buy large expensive items that can change your credit (buying a car, furniture, new loans,  adding more credit cards, etc).  Wait until you are in your new home before considering any of these items that may affect your credit.  

Buying a home will greatly depend upon the offer that you work with through your Realtor to present to sellers.  The stronger the offer, the better your chances are of getting your offer accepted.  There are home loans available for as little as 3% down payment.  This is for an FHA (Federal Housing Administration) loans but there are restrictions on the condition of the home being purchased.  It generally needs to be in very good condition or the buyers may need to qualify for a repair loan to get it into acceptable condition.   To improve your chances of aquiring your ideal property, a larger down payment and lower financing will certainly help.  Ideally, 20% down payment and excellent credit scores can be ideal, but those with 10% down and OK credit can still get some great deals. 

Consider what kind of home you want.  A fixer upper or one already in move in condition.  Evaluate what features you want in your new home such as number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, yard size, location, community, schools, etc.  A good Realtor can help define your needs to make sure you are looking for the ideal property by asking the right questions.

It’s a great time to buy Real Estate.  Both home prices and interest rates are very low and now is probably the best time to see that homes really are affordable for many people.  Sign up on my website to get a FREE Listingbook account and search the home market yourself to see what is out there.  Regardless of what you do, educate yourself on all aspects of home ownership and I promise you will be glad you did.