Barb Hutchinson - SW Idaho & Eastern Oregon Homes

BRAND NEW HOMES OPEN FOR VIEWING!

Seven brand new homes in this lovely neighborhood will be open every Saturday afternoon from 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. throughout the month of April. So stop by and take a look. Six different builders are represented, and the homes start in the low $190's. All visitors will have the opportunity to win a $30 gift certificate to the new Mackey's Steakhouse & Pub in Ontario AND two free lunch certificates at Quiznos in Ontario! The homes are:

• 1831 Uehlin Drive
• 2030 Uehlin Drive
• 2060 Uehlin Drive (and the one directly behind 2060 Uehlin)
• 2130 Uehlin Drive
• 2150 Uehlin Drive
• 2220 Uehlin Drive

DIRECTIONS: From Highway 95 in Payette, go east on 7th Ave. N, take the second right on Uehlin Drive (watch for the big open house sign on the corner). For a map, click here.

Barb Hutchinson is a Realtor with RE/MAX Tri-Cities in Fruitland, ID. She sells real estate in SW Idaho (including Fruitland, Payette, New Plymouth, Parma, Emmett, Weiser) and Eastern Oregon (Ontario, Nyssa and Vale in Malheur County). If you are interested in buying or selling a home, call Barb today at 208-707-4663 or visit her website at www.BarbHutchinson.com

On Saturday, April 5, 2008, 2nd chance Animal Shelter will be holding a dog adoption event in the parking lot at Lonnie's Market on the corner of Highway 95 and 1st Ave S in Payette. The dogs will all be from the inmate training program at Snake River Correctional Institute. All the dogs from that program are house trained, crate trained, leash trained and have basic obedience training. Liberty Tax Service will be offering additional fun activities for the kids, so stop by and have some fun! For hours of the event, you can call 2nd Chance Animal Shelter at 208-452-PETS

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Barb Hutchinson is a Realtor with RE/MAX Tri-Cities in Fruitland, ID. She sells real estate in SW Idaho (including Fruitland, Payette, New Plymouth, Parma, Emmett, Weiser) and Eastern Oregon (Ontario, Nyssa and Vale in Malheur County). If you are interested in buying or selling a home, call Barb today at 208-707-4663 or visit her website at www.BarbHutchinson.com

I just wanted to let everyone know about a business in Fruitland that I've discovered - The Biz Zone (formerly Going Postal Business Center). They changed the name because they started doing more than just shipping packages. It is owned by Ken and Julia Bishop.

They now do printing of all kinds, including letterhead, business cards and newsletters; color and B&W copies, binding, folding, laminating, and gift wrapping. They provide packing services and supplies including custom-made boxes, fax service, notary and more.

They do a great job - I am getting all my listing flyers, posters, catalogs, etc. done there now. Their prices are reasonable and the quality is excellent, I am happy to report! And I can just email them whatever I want done and they do it and call me when it's ready to pick up.

I talked to them about doing direct mailing and they can do the letters, reply envelopes, folding, inserting the letters into envelopes, and mailing everything, the whole kit and caboodle, and IT'S AFFORDABLE TOO!

The Biz Zone is open Monday-Friday from 8:30 To 5:30, and is located at 100 N. Whitley Dr (Highway 95) in Fruitland. I am thrilled to find a business like this in Fruitland that can handle so much of my load as a real estate agent. Talk about convenience!

Barb Hutchinson is a Realtor with RE/MAX Tri-Cities in Fruitland, ID. She sells real estate in SW Idaho (including Fruitland, Payette, New Plymouth, Parma, Emmett, Weiser) and Eastern Oregon (Ontario, Nyssa and Vale in Malheur County). If you are interested in buying or selling a home, call Barb today at 208-707-4663 or visit her website at www.BarbHutchinson.com

In 2007, 151 residential listings were closed in Ontario, down 19% from 2006. The average price also dropped a little bit, from $134,763 in 2006 to $130,707 in 2007.

However, the average days on the market in 2007 was 78, down from 113 in 2006. So fewer homes sold, but they were on the market a shorter period of time.

As for my predictions, I believe that 2008 will be a reasonably strong year for homes priced below $150,000. There is still good financing available for those homes with low down payments, and since first time home buyers do not have to sell their current home before they buy a new home, I predict that homes in the "starter home" price range will be the easiest to sell with proper marketing.

There will also be some great opportunities for investors out there - I am seeing rents starting to rise and the availability of decent rentals is getting tighter. So now is a great time for people looking for rental property to add to their portfolio. If you have been thinking about buying your first rental property, maybe the time is right for you to make some progress towards that goal.

The higher end market is where we are seeing most of the problem - a larger than usual number of homes on the market and much slower marketing times, so some additional patience will be necessary by sellers of homes over $200,000.

Who will have the best of both worlds? I predict that buyers currently in starter-price-range homes (those under $150,000) will be able to sell their homes and then get a good deal on the larger home they have been thinking about moving up to. So now is a great time for those types of buyers to be jumping into the real estate market.

Barb Hutchinson is a Realtor with RE/MAX Tri-Cities in Fruitland, ID. She sells real estate in SW Idaho (including Fruitland, Payette, New Plymouth, Parma, Emmett, Weiser) and Eastern Oregon (Ontario, Nyssa and Vale in Malheur County). If you are interested in buying or selling a home, call Barb today at 208-707-4663 or visit her website at www.BarbHutchinson.com

There are many agents out there who only have one answer when their sellers ask them why their home has not sold: Lower the price. But that isn't always the answer (it‘s the easy answer, but not always the correct answer). It is up to the agent to take a hard look at why the home is not selling and recommend things that need to be done to properly market the home. In the current Payette and Malheur County markets, it is imperative that a home is seen as the best buy currently on the market. How do you do this?

I had a seller who purchased a house 6 months earlier and moved into it. The house had been on the market a while and they were able to get it for $125,000 (it was originally priced at $150,000). It was a very nice, well-maintained home with plenty of square footage, but it had really outdated paint and carpet (avocado green to be exact). They cleaned, painted, and had new flooring installed at a cost of about $8,000. Then 6 months later they got a wonderful job opportunity in a town 200 miles away. We put the house on the market for $160,000 and a couple of weeks later another agent brought some buyers to look at it. As they drove into the driveway, the buyers commented that they had already seen the house when it was on the market a year earlier and they didn't like it - the house was very dated and it would cost $30,000 to update it. The agent had seen the home on an office tour a couple of weeks before and she had really liked it, so she convinced the buyers to go in and take a look. When they got inside they were absolutely amazed at the transformation and loved the house, so they drove back to the office and made a full price offer. So, in essence, they paid the seller $35,000 to do cosmetic fix-up because they had no vision or imagination (which 80% of buyers DON'T), and they seriously over-estimated how much it would cost to do the work on the house (which 80% of buyers DO). If the sellers had not done the updating on the house, my guess is that it would have sat on the market for a very long time and it would have been difficult for them to even break even.

In another example, I listed a home that had been on the market for over a year with two other agents. It was in a very nice location and a Market Analysis showed that the house was priced correctly. But the home had kitchen carpet and almond-colored appliances. I asked the seller's to replace all the appliances with new stainless steel units and to replace the kitchen carpet with slate-look ceramic tile. The upgrades cost the seller about $6,000. We raised the price on the home by $10,000 and it sold within six weeks.

I took another listing that had been on the market over a year. I asked the seller to complete several minor repairs on the property and raised the price - we had a full price offer on it in two weeks.

It seems to me, when homes have maintenance issues or dated decor, it doesn't matter whether you lower the price or offer a "decorating allowance", the buyer still perceives the house as less desirable and they want to low-ball the price even more (if you can even get them to make an offer). If a buyer decides that it will cost $10,000 to repair or re-carpet a house, that is what they will reduce their offer by, it doesn't matter where the price is at that moment. That is why I always try to convince a seller to go ahead and make the repairs or redecorate with paint or carpet rather than lower the price, if condition is the issue. Then the buyers aren't discounting the price in their minds when they are looking at the house and thinking about how much work it needs.

So the answer is finding an agent who really understands the market and the psychology of buyers minds and how they think. Yes, sometimes we are all guilty of taking an occasional listing that is priced too high and the answer is to lower the price. But, rather than just a knee-jerk reaction, the agent should carefully analyze what the REAL reason is that the home has not sold and adjust accordingly. That is what sellers hire us for, after all.