Sharon Wager "Your Blue Jean Agent"

Yes, now. You hear about how it's a buyers' market, sales are down, prices are sliding... so why is now a great time to sell?

Stop and think about what the market was like when you bought your house, and how much equity have you gained over the years. Is most of your (assumed) equity because the market has made such gigantic gains in the past five years or so? Did you buy your house in a buyers' market?

If you did (buy in a buyers' market), you're in an excellent position to sell in a buyers' market. Not only are you in a position to still turn a profit, but most likely you can undercut all of your competition. Think about this - you really want to make $80,000 profit, which would price you right along with the three houses for sale up the street and around the corner. You could list at the same price, or a couple thousand dollars lower... and sell in three months, just the same as the neighbors. Or, you could price aggressively, say $7000 - 10,000 cheaper, and sell in a couple of weeks. How much would it cost you to keep your property on the market for an additional 2 - 3 months? It's an old but familiar story that the longer a house is listed for sale, the less money you are likely to realize from it. Factor in any price reductions taken over time, additional cost of upkeep on the property, and potential time lost from work to accommodate showings (hey, you've got to clean and turn on lights before buyers get there, right?), chances are that it will add up to pretty close to your initial price differential.

If your current house sells now, then it also strengthens your position as a buyer. First, at allows you to write an offer contingent on successful transfer of title, as opposed to contingent on the sale of a house (no "recall notice" to worry about). Second, you're buying in a buyers' market, you can be a little picky about your purchase, instead of feeling like you should put an offer in because the property is availalable and generally meets all your criteria (the old feelings of we'd better take what we can get or there will be nothing to get).

Even if you bought your house in a sellers' market, now can still be a great time to sell, if you price aggressively. The trick is finding a balance point between what you need to clear and what's a reasonable price. Mix in some inventive marketing, push your internet presence - heck, those help regardless of when you bought your current house - and you can sell.

The advice here isn't that you should automatically cut your profit. It's that you should understand how the real estate market is fluid. It epitomizes classic free market models: supply and demand determine the price. It's a little tough to sell surf boards here in Syracuse, NY. But if you were to advertise on self-booking travel websites and in local travel agencies, and additionally offer 15% off to anyone with plane tickets to Hawaii, you're going to sell some surf boards.

Remember, this is a buyers' market - more houses for sale than buyers to buy. It is not a dead market. Houses are still selling because buyers are still buying.

That is singularly the easiest and most difficult question to answer. But what about market conditions / holidays / winter approaching? You can't answer the primary question with those questions. So when is the right time to list your house for sale?

The easy answer is when you're ready. But don't give up yet. Market conditions, holidays and seasons can affect your timing in some cases, but it still depends on when you're ready.

The difficult part is knowing when you're ready. There are so many different factors to take into consideration. The single biggest to consider has got to be your motivation. What motivates you to consider selling? Some motivators seem as though they are out of your control, such as a job relocation. In essence, you always have a choice: move with the job, or find a new job and stay put. In a more realistic view, however, that choice doesn't always hold water. The same is also true if you're unable to make your mortgage payments. If you try to stay, are you going to end up in foreclosure?

Once you acknowledge and understand your motivation, you need to establish a time frame that works reasonably well, and has flexibility to it. Real estate transactions don't follow a set time frame, and you need to be prepared mentally for such situations as selling too quickly, or not quick enough, or problems resulting from home inspections and appraisals.

For many people, the main motivation isn't a need, but a want. They want more bedrooms, a bigger yard, less maintenance, less house to clean, a better school district. It's a little more difficult to pin down a time frame because your motivation isn't based on necessity. It's not uncommon to hear this type of potential seller say, "I'm not going to sell my house unless I find the right one to move into."

Hold it, right there for a minute. The next question to ask yourself as a potential seller is, "Am I in the position to be able to buy the next house without selling this one first?" If you can, then great! Move forward to the free parking square and take a breather. If not, whoa! Back up. If you can't buy without selling, and you're not going to sell unless you've purchased... aren't you in a pickle? How are you going to buy, if you can't buy without selling first? Kind of like putting the cart before the horse isn't it? Plain and simple, if you must sell, then you must list first. Otherwise you're not gong to be able to submit a solid, reasonable purchase offer. Sure, you can put one together, and run the risk of being bumped by another buyer. But that assumes that the seller accepts your contingent offer, which many will not. Sellers want their house sold, not "kind of sold". As a seller, would you stop all marketing efforts and tell everyone, "Yes, our house is sold if the buyer can sell his house first?"

Now let's back up to our potential buyer sitting parked. Are you sure you're in a position to buy without selling? There's one simple step you can take to reassure yourself. Call a qualified mortgage rep and make sure. Let them pull your credit, give him or her your financial information, and let them tell you yeah or nay. In fact, all potential buyers should complete this step before going to look at houses. Why? 1) What if you find out that you don't qualify for a mortgage at all? 2) What if you're out looking at $300,000 houses and find out later you only qualify for $200,000? You'll hate everything in your new lower price range. 3) Why would you want to make sellers rearrange their schedule to accommodate your showing when you don't even know if you can buy the house? What if your showing cost them an extra $20 for daycare and $10 in gas while they drive around for an hour with the dogs, or they spent two hours super-cleaning, when they should have been in bed because of the flu? Don't think they should just deal with it because their house is for sale, it's just thoughtless and rude, and I'm sure you would appreciate the same consideration when your house is listed for sale.

Some time has passed, you understand your motivation, have a basic time frame in mind. Now you need to find out how your time frame works with the current market conditions, including holidays and changing seasons. This is when the knowledge and experience of a Realtor is going to come in handy. And, while it may not seem like it, it is one big part of the commission you pay the broker.

"What???" you say. "But they can answer that in under five minutes!" Yes, but how many years did it take them to garner the experience to know the market and its fluidity? You want a straight up honest honor from agents, and his or her expertise can save you time and money, and that's part of what you pay for. You might think that seasonal waterfront property won't sell when there's a foot of snow on the ground. Well, here in central New York I can tell you honestly that yes it will! Why? Because the new owner wants to be able to use it as soon as spring arrives, not two weeks before it has to be closed up for the winter.

What I'm saying is that the answers a Realtor gives you may very well surprise you, and have you rethinking your time frame. This is going to hold particularly true with sellers that don't have a lot of time to work with. If you must sell quickly, you're going to need an aggressive and experienced agent to get the word out about your property, be able to work any offers that come in to your advantage, and have the ability to keep an accepted contract together.

Don't think that holidays, slow market conditions, or poor weather should stop you from listing your home for sale. Holidays and a slow market might mean that it takes a little while longer, but not necessarily. Price and location can help or hinder your time frame, regardless of holidays and market conditions.

So when is the right time to list your house for sale? Only you can really answer that, but don't forget to take in the advice of a local Realtor because you may be surprised at the answer.

I've been "spoken to" twice today about why I haven't been blogging much lately, so I'm here to explain. Having an unknown person email... well that sort of pushes me into a response.

I was off. I took some time off, and it's been okay. I had a very good month in July, and as the deals started closing, I realized that I was in a good position to take a couple weeks off. It's not that I didn't want to work. I wanted to spend some time with my kids before they went back to school, and then I wanted to clean my house while they were in school and couldn't mess it all up behind me.

That's what I wanted. It's not what I got. I did get to spend several stressed out days with the kids before school started. Mostly we were fighting our way through jam packed stores, avoiding potential fist fights over the last green two pocket folder available for sale in the county. Dodging pushy cell phone sales reps and twinkies who swear they can make my nails look better than ever ((not possible - I have awesome fingernails, all on my own, thank you)). Personally, one of my least favorite back to school experiences, trying not to slug the idiot blonde. In an attempt to get me to try and buy her products, she proceeded to spray my eight year old son in the face. I just have to wonder - is the Carousel Mall to Destiny project so short on funds that they have to rent center aisle space to just about every ridiculous vendor known to infest Syracuse? Destiny may end up the second biggest mall in America, but in my mind it's going to take some time and overhauling before I think of it as anything more than a "destiny-tion" to avoid.

My apologies, I've digressed. School started with few problems, and my sister and I celebrated by spending the day in Skaneateles. We had a great lunch at the bakery (their bread is incredible!), and did a little early Christmas shopping. On the second day of school, everything was going along fine until 9:30 in the morning, when I got a phone call from the middle school. I had to go pick up my 8th grader, who had a migraine. Who also ended up home again on Friday. Which led into the weekend, and my oldest came down with a nasty cold. That he shared with everyone else in the house, including me, and the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, should you ever have need of an all night animal hospital in central New York, I highly recommend the one in Baldwinsville. One of the pups and I were there last week after she ate Asiatic lily and tulip bulbs. It was a lot of fun, leaving the house at midnight with a sick puppy (ooo! Sick Puppies, Welcome to My World!), particularly the next day when I got to clean up my car. My wonderful car has now been christened "the pukey car."

So now a month has gone by and it feels like I only had one day off, that one day in Skaneateles. I returned to the working world today by going out on tour, even though my 8th grader was home from school again. I don't feel rested or relaxed, haven't spent very much quality time with the kids, and my house is not clean. I did manage to tackle some landscaping with my sister's help. It is an accomplishment.

I think I may actually get more done now that I'm back to work. I will work hard now, get caught up on some blogging and market reports, and maybe I'll even pick up a few listings along the way.

The central New York 2008 Parade of Homes is just around the corner, September 6 through the 21. The Parade represents many things to many people, and has become an anticipated event.

For the vast majority, it is an opportunity to dream a little. They are beautiful houses, typically done up "full tilt", and are impressive to see and experience, even if you don't think you'll ever own one. They also present some of the latest trends in decorating and, although less visible, latest technology in new construction. For some, this is the chance to walk through a house that has a floor plan you might be considering. You also get the chance to meet and talk to the builders directly and find out what they can do for you (and where).

For Realtors, it is an opportunity to catch up with each other and socialize, meet prospective new clients, soak in the new trends and tech themselves, and figure out how the different designs, set ups and floor plans might work for their existing clients. For builders, there is the added bonus of showing off a little bit, strut their stuff. Those are some top notch builders going into there. I think they deserve it.

But for everyone, even if they don't realize it at first, it is an opportunity to give to an organization that gives to the community. The Parade raises money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and I can't think of any better reason than that to attend.

For details, check out http://www.hbrcny.com/parade.html

When you don't know an area very well, you tend to discredit it as a place to live. Or you frantically try to find out as much information about it as you can. Well, I'm here to help you discover some of the ins and outs of living in Camillus.

Online map services and GPS systems can help you get from place to place, but they don't always tell you when you're driving out to Gillie Lake for the first time, you start to think you've gone wrong somewhere even if you haven't. They also won't tell you that drving past the high school when summer school lets out is like target practice, except you're not supposed to hit the students targets. Most importantly, they don't tell you that the easiest way to get onto 690 from Fairmount is to take Milton Ave. to Horan to 695. Sure, you can take Genesee Street to 695, but if your timing is off you'll get stuck at every light. By the way, Fairmount is part of the town of Camillus, but it's not a village. It is where you'll find a fair chunk of the local businesses.

Some things are pretty easy to figure out, like grocery shopping. There's Wegman's and P & C, plus the WalMart Supercenter, all easily accessed. If you're a Price Chopper fan, you'll have to go to Western Lights. I humbly admit that I lived in Syracuse for several years before I knew how to get to Western Lights, because whenever I asked someone for directions they would say things like, "Oh, you know, you go up Onondaga." Wait. Onondaga Road crosses Onondaga Boulevard, not to mention that there's also Onondaga Ave., Onondaga Creek Blvd., Onondaga Lake Parkway and Onondaga Street! I was a transplantee here, folks, I needed specifics. At any rate, I've digressed.

Back to the list of the obvious. Most of what you need on a regular basis can be found on Genesee Street: pharmacies, restaurants, fast food, gas stations, banks, dry cleaners. But don't forget about the smaller businesses on Milton Ave., down in the village, and the recently revamped plaza at the corner of Milton and Hinsdale. Diagonal from the plaza is the Home Depot plaza, also undergoing some changes. I saw that Dunn's Tires, currently on Onondaga Road near Milton put up a big sign that they will be moving to Home Depot plaza soon.

A little bit trickier to get to are some of the schools. Especially East Hill Elementary, and if you've got kids that are playground age, you're going to want to know how to get there because they have a fabulous playground. From Genesee Street across from Orchard Village, turn onto Parsons and go to the end. Turn right, and there's the school. I cannot begin to tell you how many different ways people would swear to me were easier. Getting to Stonehedge and West Genesee Middle is pretty easy, it 's just a little annoying to and from Hinsdale Road. Vanida will get you there, and it has a light at the corner of Genesee.

What Camillus doesn't seem to have is a book store. We have stores with books in them, but for me it's just not the same. There is a used book store in Westvale Plaza in Westvale, and for times when I don't want to deal with Carousel Mall, it serves me well.

Now, one of the nice summer time things about Camillus has got to be the ice cream shops. The ones my family frequents are on Milton, Genesee and Chapel Drive. They're all pretty close to each other, and they're all close to the ever popular Fairmount Glen Miniature Golf course.

One last little thought, and that's Shove Park (pronounced with a long O), because in many ways it is the quintessential park: grass, trees, multiple play areas, a stream with a bridge, ball fields, and up top is the ice rink. I was glad to see that someone (the town?) put up small directional signs to it a few years ago. But in just case, from Genesee St., just west of the fire station, take Whedon Road to Slawson and the entrance to the park will be on your left.