Two years ago you bought a Spring Texas home. In return for buying a home, our government gave you an $8,000 tax credit.  It was a sweet deal!!

Today you just found out your employer is moving its corporate office.  Your 10 minute drive to work will turn into 50 minutes. You want to sell your Spring Texas home and move because a 50 minute commute to work will drive you insane. The only thing holding you back from listing your house is you would have to repay the $8,000 tax credit since you haven’t lived in the home for 36 months.

If you sold the home, you have to repay the entire $8,000 tax credit if:

1. the home ceased to be your primary residence within 36 months after the date you purchased it

AND

2. you sold the home for a gain of $8,000 or more. The sale must be made to a person unrelated to you.

To calculate the loss or gain on the sale of your house: 

1. Calculate Net Sales Price.  Sales Price – commissions / Realtor fees – advertising expenses – legal expenses = Net Sales Price

2. Calculate Adjusted Basis. Purchase Price + legal fees + recording fees + survey fees + owners title insurance, if paid by you + cost of additions or improvements = Adjusted Basis of home

Loss or Gain on the sale of your house = Net Sales Price – Adjusted Basis of home

If your gain was less than or equal to $8,000, you would owe the IRS the entire amount of the gain.  If the gain was more than $8,000, you would owe the IRS $8,000.

If you sold your Spring Texas house for a loss, you would NOT have to repay any of the $8,000 tax credit.

I admit it’s a tad bit complicated. It wouldn’t be an IRS rule if it wasn’t.  Contact your tax accountant and seek guidance as you may be able to move without having to repay the $8,000 tax credit.

Prudential Gary Greene Realtors is the only HOUSTON based brokerage to break into the Top 100 on RisMedia’s list of Top Brokers in the Nation.  In 2011, Prudential Gary Greene completed 6,509 real estate transactions with a sales volume of $1,576.526,862 ranking 55 and 53, respectively.

Thank you to all the buyers and sellers our brokerage had the opportunity and the pleasure to service in 2011.  When you are ready to sell your Spring Texas house, give us a call at 281.804.8626.

List with the local leader.

What do curtains, shelves, fireplace screens, television brackets, and garage hooks all have in common?  They are all items that at one point in time in my career as a Spring Texas Realtor I had to request / beg buyers to allow sellers to take with them.

In real estate all items are negotiable which includes curtains, shelves, fireplace screens, television brackets, and garage hooks. It’s the timing of the negotiations that dictates whether the negotiations will go smoothly or will be a challenge.

Negotiating items to be retained by the sellers goes smoothly before the house is in contract. Negotiating items after the house is in contract now that’s challenging.

Before you put your house on the Spring Texas real estate market, you need to plan for the end otherwise known as closing day. To do this slowly walk from room to room in your house and make a list of all items that would be considered permanently installed, built-in, or a related accessory that you want to retain possession of after closing day.

Provide your list to your Realtor so the items may be identified as exclusions in your listing. Better yet, remove all items you want excluded from the sale of your Spring Texas house before you even put it on the market.

Read also:

• What stays and what goes when you buy a Spring Texas house
• Who repairs the nail holes?  Sellers or Buyers?
• What is a sellers temporary lease back and do you need one?

On a recent Saturday, I had scheduled showings to view 8 homes in Spring Texas. There was one home in particular my buyers were extremely anxious to view.  The home was within their budget, it had been recently updated, it had a good size backyard, and it was on a greenbelt. This Spring Texas home checked all the boxes on their list of criteria.

On our way to the front door, we chatted about all how wonderful the neighborhood was and how convenient it is to I-45.  I accessed the box with my Supra Key and grabbed the key to the front door. For the next 15 minutes I tried to open the front door. I tired the top lock. I tried the bottom lock. I turned it to the right. I turned it to the left. I put the key all the way in. I put the key 7/8 of the way in. I jiggled the key.

No luck. The key was not going to open the door. In one last attempt to gain access to the house, I went around to the back of the house looking for another door that the key just might work in. No such luck. The back door was a sliding patio door.

I returned to the front of the house where my buyers were peeking in the window. I told them we could reschedule the showing for another day and hopefully by then the sellers will have the key working. Their response was “No, let’s just move on”.

What one thing can you do to increase showings on your Spring Texas house?  Get a key that easily unlocks your front door.

Read also:

• How to increase your home’s list price and attract more buyers
• 7 tips on showing your house

You’ve had your house on the Spring Texas real estate market for 30 days now and in that time you’ve had only 1 showing. Are you getting your fair share of showings or is your competition averaging more showings than you?

If your Spring Texas Realtor is utilizing the Centralized Showing Service to schedule your showings, then the answer you seek is within reach. Our showing service provides us with the ability to run numerous market reports.

My favorite is the showing report. I can select a price range with $5,000 increments, a zip code, and a date range and see how many showings have been scheduled and the average showings per listing. No more guessing. The report shows you if your listing is getting its fair share of showings.

To the right is the showing report from April 8, 2012 – May 8, 2012 for zip code 77379.

Disclaimer: The number of showings does not include the showings on the listings that did not use the Centralized Showing Service to schedule the showing.  But the majority of Realtors use the service so it does provide a good representations.

Read also:

• How to increase your price and attract more buyers
• 7 Reasons why your house won’t sell 
• Top 5 things you can do to sell your house faster

Selling your home, whether it’s located in Spring Texas or Katmandu, is not fun. It’s a hassle, it’s stressful, and down right inconvenient. It would be so much easier if buyers would just look at the photos of your house and then submit an offer. Some day that may actually happen but until it does, buyers want to view your house in person.

As a seller you want buyers to feel comfortable and spend as much time as possible in your home.

You want buyers to envision themselves living in your home and do to that you have to leave for showings.  But what about your pets?  What are you going to do with them during showings?

Unless you’re including your pets in the sale of your Spring Texas house, they need to be made invisible during showings.

But what’s that you say … your pets will be fine during showings because they are friendly. Maybe or maybe not.

Let me share some of my personal experiences on showing homes with pets ….

1. Two big fat cats were left free to roam the house.  My buyer opened the door to the attic to see if there was any available storage.  Big fat cat came out of nowhere and ran straight into the attic. We spent the next 15 minutes trying to get one cat out of the attic and keep the other cat from going into the attic.

2. ”Friendly” dog in the house. Before entering the house, we rang the doorbell. “Friendly” dog did not like us ringing the doorbell. He loudly let us know that this house was his house.  We decided not to enter his kingdom and went to view the next house on our list.

3. ”Friendly” dogs in crate in bedroom. As soon as we entered the house, dogs began incessantly barking. In hopes that the dogs would calm down, we viewed the backyard first. Plan didn’t work. Dogs were still incessantly barking. We couldn’t focus on the house so we left.  The house and its dogs did leave a lasting impression for the rest of the afternoon … in the form of a headache.

4. Dogs in the backyard. My clients were anxious to view the home’s backyard as it was advertised as a “Backyard Oasis”.  Unfortunately, we did not get to experience the “Backyard Oasis” because two big black German shepherds greeted us at the back door.

Your pets are great because they’re your pets. But don’t let them get in the way of you getting your Spring Texas home SOLD.

Read also:

• 7 Tips on showing your home 

It’s a new day and a return to the green for Gary Greene Realtors. After a successful 12 year affiliation with Prudential Real Estate, Gary Greene Realtors has decided to return to its green roots and team up once again with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate.

In addition to new tools, articles, and video, the affiliation with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate will bring crucial relocation business to Gary Greene. Most importantly relocation business from Cartus Relocation, the preferred relocation company for Exxon Mobil.

Beginning in 2014, Exxon Mobil will be relocating 10,000 employees to their new campus that’s currently under construction in Spring Texas.

Houston is going to turn green as Gary Greene Realtors changes out their 3,000 yard signs from Prudential blue to the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate green.

It’s December and your house is on the Spring Texas real estate market. So the question is do you decorate or not?

Go ahead and decorate but do so within reason. The year that your house is on the market during the holiday season is not the year to recreate a scene from the Griswold’s Christmas vacation. Nor is it the time to display your collections of 50 snow globes and 100 Santa Clauses.

Scale down your decorations to a wreath, Christmas tree, and a nativity scene. You don’t need to be a bah hum bug but you don’t want to over do it and have your holiday decorations eat up valuable square footage. Buyers like spacious rooms and homes. They don’t like small rooms and cramped quarters.

Number 1 on the list of the Top 10 Healthiest Housing Markets for 2013 is …..  drum roll, please ……  Houston Texas.  Based upon a city’s job growth, vacancy rates, and foreclosure rates, Trulia.com determined the healthiest housing markets. Houston and San Francisco came out on top due to their solid fundamentals.

1.  Houston, TX

2.  San Francisco, CA

3.  Bethesda -Rockville – Frederick, MD

4.   San Antonio, TX

5.   Austin, TX

6.   Seattle, WA

7.   Omaha, NE

8.   Peabody, MA

9.   Fort Worth, TX

10. Louisville, KY-IN

The housing prices in other markets have experienced a wild roller coaster ride in price fluctuations but not Houston.  The Houston real estate market continues to outpace other markets because of its job creation. For the majority of people it all starts with a job.  If you have a job, you have an opportunity to buy a house. Granted you need a good credit score and money for a down payment too.

If you want to lock in a historically low interest rate and are ready to buy a house, give us a call at 281.300.3141.  We are licensed Realtors with 10 years experience serving the Northwest Houston area of Tomball, Spring, and the Woodlands.

Start your search for Spring Texas homes for sale

The decision to sell or not to sell is not always an easy decision.  Sometimes it’s only after the you have signed the contract that remorse sets in. Maybe your situation changed or maybe your net proceeds is going to be significantly less than what you thought.  If you have changed your mind and no longer want to sell your Spring Texas house, what do you do?  Can the buyers make you close if you don’t want to?

You and the buyers entered into a legally binding contract in which you agreed to sell the buyers your house at a defined price and by a defined date.  If you decide not to sell your Spring Texas house, you are in DEFAULT of the contract.  In section 15 of the real estate contract: “If Seller fails to comply with this contract, Seller will be in default and Buyer may (a) enforce specific performance, seek such other relief as may be provided by law, or both or (b) terminate this contract and received the earnest money, thereby releasing both parties from this contract.”

Bottom line: No matter what your reason for not wanting to sell your house, you entered into a legally binding contract to sell it. If you don’t fulfill your obligation and close, the buyer may or may not sue you for specific performance.

Read also:

• What are sellers closing costs? 
• Do you Buy or do you Sell first?

Here are 8 reasons why you should list your Spring Texas house during the holidays instead of waiting until after the new year.

1. Buyers who are looking during the holidays are SERIOUS buyers. You will receive fewer showings but the showings you do receive are by motivated buyers.

2. There’s fewer homes on the Spring Texas real estate market during the holidays. Fewer homes means less competition. Less competition equals more money.

3. After the holidays the number of homes on the market increases. More competition equals less money.

4.  Not all buyers celebrate the same holidays.

5.  Your house looks festive and shows better during the holidays.  Go ahead and decorate for the holidays but be careful not to overdo it. This is the year to display only 20% of your Santa Claus collection.

6.  Buyers have more vacation days and time to look during the holidays.  Showings increase during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

7.  Buyers are relocating to Spring Texas all year round including during the holidays. We are currently working with relocating Exxon Mobil employees who have planned house hunting trips during November and December.

8.  Buyers time the purchase of their homes to coincide with the expiration date of their apartment leases. Leases expire in all months not just in non-holiday months.

Should you get your Spring Texas home inspected before putting a For Sale sign in the yard?  Yes or No ? Both answers have advantages and disadvantages.  

Yes – The advantages of getting your home inspected before listing it are:

1. repairs could be made for less money.  Instead of hiring licensed technicians which is whom the buyers would want to perform the repairs, you could hire a handyman or do the repairs yourself and save money.

 2. provide buyers with comfort in the overall condition of the house. You would provide the inspection report to buyers and identify the items that were repaired. Buyers would feel confident in the overall condition of the property.  They may still have another inspector inspect the property.  The buyers inspector may find items that were not identified by your inspector.

No – The advantages of NOT getting your home inspected before listing it are:

1. reduce your cost of sale.  On average a mechanical and structural inspection costs $425. Instead of spending money on the inspection you could spend the money on the buyers requested repairs.

2. money’s spent on the right repairs. All buyers are not alike.  A repair that one buyer may think is an absolute must another buyer may consider to be no big deal.

3. no reports to scare away buyers. In Spring Texas, sellers are required to disclose and to provide to potential buyers any written inspection reports that were prepared by licensed inspectors within the last 4 years.  Sometimes buyers are scared away from a property because they interpret the inspection report incorrectly. Buyers may fail to take into consideration the items that are common for the age of the house or were not code at the time the house was built.

I always recommend sellers do not get their home inspected before I list it for sale.  I want potential home buyers to fall in LOVE with my sellers house first and then we will deal with its condition.

Read also:

•  What are the sellers closing costs when selling a home in Spring Texas ?
• Top 30 things to do before listing your Spring Texas home for sale

Are you getting ready to list your Spring Texas house for sale?  Before you list take the time to see, smell, and experience your house as a potential buyer.

See:  Look at your house through fresh eyes. Enter your house through the front door. Does the door need to be refinished? Does the door frame need a fresh coat of paint?

Look up, look down, look all around your house as this is exactly what buyers will do.  And when buyers do this what will they see.  Will buyers see cobwebs on the light fixtures, dust on the fan blades, and dust on the a/c return vent?  Will they see walls needing a fresh coat of paint and baseboards with a coating of dust.

Buyers are not understanding of your busy schedule. A schedule that’s filled with dentist appointments, band practice, and basketball games. Buyers buy clean and fresh.

Smell:  What do you smell as soon as you enter your house?  Do you smell last night’s dinner?  Do you smell a litter box that is overdue for a clean out?  Do you smell the stench of stale smoke?  Do you smell burning meditation oils?  Unless it’s the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies buyers are turned off by odors.

Experience: Does your house feel as warm and inviting as a model home? Or are buyers going to feel like they are invading your personal space?  Do you a wall filled with personal photos and college diplomas? Buyers fall in LOVE with model homes because the furniture is right sized for the space, the area is free of clutter, and the rooms have been staged. Model homes feel as if someone lives there but no one in particular. Buyers are able to envision themselves living in the space.

Looking for specific list of what to do to prepare your house for sale?  Here’s our list of the TOP 30 things to do before listing your Spring Texas house. 

Read also:  6 things to remove before listing your house

Light and Bright is what buyers want.  In the 13+ years that I have been a Spring Texas Realtor, I have had maybe, maybe 1% of my buyers request a cave. So if buyers want light and bright, then light and bright is what you need to give them.  That is if you want the most money for your house.

Five things you can do to make your house light and bright:

1. Turn on all lights for showings including under cabinet lighting, over head lighting, lamps, and even the light above the stove. A house shows the best with all its lights on.

2. Open all blinds for showings. The blinds don’t need to be pulled all the way up but they should be open.

3. Repaint. Dark paint colors add to the cave like feeling.  Lighten the rooms up with a fresh coat of paint.

4. Install LED bulbs. Maximize lighting in dimly lit rooms by installing LED bulbs in the light fixtures.

5. Remove the solar screens. Now this is a hard request for some sellers to agree to do because they installed the solar screens to keep the house cool. Beside buyers should appreciate and want an energy efficient house. I agree on both points.  But things change when your home goes from being your home to a product that we are selling. Homes with solar screens on show dark and buyers don’t want a cave.  They want a light and bright house.

Read also:

• 6 things to remove before listing your Spring Texas house
• 7 reasons why your house won’t sell 

Having to leave for a 2 hour showing window especially when you have kids and pets that have to be removed is a pain.  It would be really convenient if you could some how be informed when the Realtor and buyers have finished viewing your house.

New technology enhancements have made your wish a reality.

If your Realtor uses a SUPRA box which most Spring Texas Realtors do, you now have to ability to receive an end of showing notification. The end of showing notification identifies the name, phone number, and email of the Realtor that accessed the box, the time the box was accessed, and the time the showing ended.

The majority of Spring Texas Realtors aren’t aware that this technology exists so you may need to request your Realtor to do some research.

End of showing notifications are not available on combo boxes.  If your Realtor uses a combo box, you should consider hiring a different Spring Texas Realtor. The code for a combo box can be given out to anyone. Combo boxes do not provide any protection to you and your property.

Read also:

• What you should do to prepare your house for sale
• Top 6 things to remove before listing your house

When you’re selling your house, you want a neutral paint color that will appeal to just about all buyers and their individual decorating and furniture styles. If you choose too dark of a color, it will make the room feel small.  If you choose too light of a color, it will make the room feel sterile and cold.

In the early 2000s, the go to neutral color used by builders in their inventory homes in Spring Texas was Summertime by Pittsburgh Paints. But that was then and this now and buyers tastes have changed.  The Summertime paint color is now considered to be too light.

My go to color that I recommend to Spring Texas home sellers is Kilim Beige by Sherwin Williams.  The walls of the formal dining room in this photo have been painted Kilim Beige. It’s a great neutral color that makes baseboards, crown moldings, and fireplace surrounds stand out.  Kilim Beige also compliments dark and light counters and earth tone flooring.

If the tile and counter top colors are the gray tones, my go to color is Storm by Benjamin Moore. It’s a cool and light, medium tone of gray.

Read also:

• What you should do to prepare your house for sale
• Top 30 things to do before putting your home on the market

It’s a new day and a return to the green for Gary Greene Realtors. After a successful 12 year affiliation with Prudential Real Estate, Gary Greene Realtors has decided to return to its green roots and team up once again with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate.

In addition to new tools, articles, and video, the affiliation with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate will bring crucial relocation business to Gary Greene. Most importantly relocation business from Cartus Relocation, the preferred relocation company for Exxon Mobil.

Beginning in 2014, Exxon Mobil will be relocating 10,000 employees to their new campus that’s currently under construction in Spring Texas.

Houston is going to turn green as Gary Greene Realtors changes out their 3,000 yard signs from Prudential blue to the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate green.

It’s December and your house is on the Spring Texas real estate market. So the question is do you decorate or not?

Go ahead and decorate but do so within reason. The year that your house is on the market during the holiday season is not the year to recreate a scene from the Griswold’s Christmas vacation. Nor is it the time to display your collections of 50 snow globes and 100 Santa Clauses.

Scale down your decorations to a wreath, Christmas tree, and a nativity scene. You don’t need to be a bah hum bug but you don’t want to over do it and have your holiday decorations eat up valuable square footage. Buyers like spacious rooms and homes. They don’t like small rooms and cramped quarters.

Number 1 on the list of the Top 10 Healthiest Housing Markets for 2013 is …..  drum roll, please ……  Houston Texas.  Based upon a city’s job growth, vacancy rates, and foreclosure rates, Trulia.com determined the healthiest housing markets. Houston and San Francisco came out on top due to their solid fundamentals.

1.  Houston, TX

2.  San Francisco, CA

3.  Bethesda -Rockville – Frederick, MD

4.   San Antonio, TX

5.   Austin, TX

6.   Seattle, WA

7.   Omaha, NE

8.   Peabody, MA

9.   Fort Worth, TX

10. Louisville, KY-IN

The housing prices in other markets have experienced a wild roller coaster ride in price fluctuations but not Houston.  The Houston real estate market continues to outpace other markets because of its job creation. For the majority of people it all starts with a job.  If you have a job, you have an opportunity to buy a house. Granted you need a good credit score and money for a down payment too.

If you want to lock in a historically low interest rate and are ready to buy a house, give us a call at 281.300.3141.  We are licensed Realtors with 10 years experience serving the Northwest Houston area of Tomball, Spring, and the Woodlands.

Start your search for Spring Texas homes for sale

The decision to sell or not to sell is not always an easy decision.  Sometimes it’s only after the you have signed the contract that remorse sets in. Maybe your situation changed or maybe your net proceeds is going to be significantly less than what you thought.  If you have changed your mind and no longer want to sell your Spring Texas house, what do you do?  Can the buyers make you close if you don’t want to?

You and the buyers entered into a legally binding contract in which you agreed to sell the buyers your house at a defined price and by a defined date.  If you decide not to sell your Spring Texas house, you are in DEFAULT of the contract.  In section 15 of the real estate contract: “If Seller fails to comply with this contract, Seller will be in default and Buyer may (a) enforce specific performance, seek such other relief as may be provided by law, or both or (b) terminate this contract and received the earnest money, thereby releasing both parties from this contract.”

Bottom line: No matter what your reason for not wanting to sell your house, you entered into a legally binding contract to sell it. If you don’t fulfill your obligation and close, the buyer may or may not sue you for specific performance.

Read also:

• What are sellers closing costs? 
• Do you Buy or do you Sell first?