Buying That First Home “Expect the Best”

Selling your home is an involved process that affects your family and your future. Before you begin this process, you’ll want to ensure that you have the most up-to-date information. When should you sell? How do you get the best price? What kinds of renovations should be made prior to the sale?

These home selling reports will assist you in answering the many questions that arise during the home selling process. When you’re armed with the right information, and an experienced real estate professional, you’ll be closer to reaching your goal - selling your home fast, and for the best price.

“Expect the Best” Mike
Coldwell Banker Hubbell Briarwood

This is a great price for Colonial Village. Just reduced by $8000.00. If you are looking for that first home, I suggest you visit this property today for your personal viewing.

Principal Residence Exemption Forms Now Available

As a follow up to last week’s e-news alert regarding the Passage of Public Act 96 (see article) which enables home sellers to retain 2 principal resident exemptions for property still on the market after the seller has moved elsewhere in the state, the “Conditional Rescission of Principal Residence Exemption Form #4640 form from the Department of Treasury is now available.

Click Here to Download Form.

Public Act 96 enables a person who has established a new principal residence to retain a Principal Residence Exemption (PRE) on property previously exempt as the owner’s principal residence that is not occupied and for sale by submitting a Conditional Rescission of Principal Residence Exemption Form #4640. The conditional rescission allows an owner to receive a PRE on his or her new property and on previously exempted property simultaneously if certain criteria are met:

• the property is not occupied,

• the property is for sale

• the property is not leased or available for lease

• the property is not used for any business or commercial purpose

*The opportunity to apply and qualify for a conditional rescission begins for the 2008 tax year and is not retroactive to previous tax years.

To qualify for the conditional rescission in 2008, Form #4640 must be submitted to the assessor of the local unit of government where the property is located on or before May 1, 2008. The Board of Review has no authority with regard to a conditional rescission and cannot institute a conditional rescission on behalf of an owner if a deadline is missed or for previous tax years. An owner must annually submit Form #4640 on or before December 31 to verify to the assessor that the property for which the PRE is retained is not occupied, is for sale, is not leased, and is not used for any business or commercial purpose.

The Department of Treasury is in the process of developing a Frequently Asked Question sheet to address various issues related to the new conditional rescission. They hope to have those questions posted on the web some time next week. Form #4640, which includes an instruction page, can also be found at www.michigan.gov/taxes.

If you have any questions regarding conditional rescissions, please feel free to contact the PRE Unit at (517) 373-1950 or email Patrick Huber, Manager of the Property Tax Exemption Section, at huberp@michigan.gov.

If you have additional questions about selling your home in today’s market, feel free to visit my website or call 517-492-3400.

 ”Expect the Best” Mike
Coldwell Banker Hubbell Briarwood

WELL MAINTAINED 2 STORY COLONIAL LOCATED IN COLONIAL VILLAGE SUBDIVISION! ONE OF THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE AREA! 3 BEDROOM, 1.5 BATHS, ATTACHED GARAGE, PARTIALLY FINISHED BASEMENT, FIREPLACE, 2-TIERED DECK SURROUNDED BY PRIVACY FENCE. ALL APPLIANCES INCLUDED. FORMAL DINING ROOM. HARDWOOD FLOORS IN FOYER, LIVING ROOM AND DINING ROOM. CHARMING WOOD BURNING FIREPLACE WITH BRICK MANTLE. CROWN MOLDING IN LIVING ROOM, DINING ROOM AND FOYER. NICE LARGE PICTURE WINDOWS IN LIVING ROOM. HALF BATH CONVENIENTLY LOCATED OFF KITCHEN WITH FULL BATH UPSTAIRS. SLIDING GLASS DOOR OFF KITCHEN LEADS YOU TO A BEAUTIFULLY STAINED 2-TIERED DECK IN PRIVATE BACK YARD. FLOOD LIGHTS OVERLOOKING DECK. THE POCKET DOOR WITH BEVELED GLASS BETWEEN KITCHEN AND FORMAL DINING ADDS A NICE TOUCH OF CLASS. SPACIOUS MASTER BEDROOM WITH LARGE CLOSET. LARGE VERY COZY FEELING REC ROOM IN BASEMENT. HOME WARRANTY. WOW… WHAT A FIND!!!

Visit Mike Bowler for additional information

1555 Holbrook, Featured Home -You’ll love the formal dining room with beautiful a chandelier, living room with gas fireplace and lots of windows for sunlight. This open floor plan showcases the gourmet kitchen with an abundance of maple cabinets, 2 lazy Susan’s, spice drawers, appliance caddy, island with built in wine rack, gorgeous appliances in black, including double door refrigerator, gas range, dish washer and built in microwave, matching composite sink, breakfast bar that opens to the living room and a passage way to the dining room. Additional features include: sparkling hardwood floors, cove trim on the cabinets, cathedral ceiling in the kitchen and living room. spacious finished lower level, family room, with wet bar trimmed in oak and ceramic tile, recessed area for TV and stereo, wired for sound surround, exercise room, a bedroom and full bath, furnace room with laundry tub. Completely dry walled, carpeted and egress windows. Covered composite decking front porch, nicely landscaped lot, underground sprinklers make your lawn the envy of neighbors. Great subdivision, wonderful location easy access to highways.You’ll enjoy almost 2700 sq. ft. of living space on 2 levels.

Holt is a great place to buy real estate and raise a family. Our three children attended the Holt school district and loved it.  Holt schools are ranked in the top 100 schools in the nation.

You will be impressed looking at the demographics. Delhi Township is a growing community. I have serviced the Delhi area and greater Lansing area, in real estate for nearly 30 years, developed two subdivisions and was very involved in the community through clubs and organizations. I am SOLD on this community.

If your interested in learning more about the Delhi area and Holt visit the Neighborhood and Demographics. You can view the selection of real estate for sale on my site.

“Expect the Best” Mike

There’s a great new listing out in Delhi Township, Holt School District I took tonight that will be a wonderful home for that empty nester couple who want to still have a place for the kids to come home on the week ends or for short visits. Check it out here!Pot holes galore, High gas prices, bad news in the media, How do you avoid all this stuff that boils your blood. Here’s a great clip I recieved today from Mr. Positive. I hope you enjoy.

 Oh, by the way, if you think we have it bad on gas prices, check this out:
The price of a liter super gas is 1.40 euros and 1.00 euro is worth $1.52.
The math is enough to make any motorist cry:
3.785 liters = 1 gallon
3.785 X 1.40 =5.30 euros X 1.52 = $ 8.05 a gallon of super.

Stop by my website for updates on the current market in the greater Lansing area. We have acres of diamonds, because real estate is still the best long term investment and it beats renting.

Expect the Best”  Mike Bowler, Coldwell Banker Hubbell Briarwood

My listing in LochWoode Subdivision sold within 3 weeks of listing it for $4,250.00 over asking price, after 4 showings within a 5 day period. When I listed this house I put it on the regular websites our company offers clients, which consist of about 6-7 sites. However, in addition to using Active Rain, I also use Point2Agent Website which syndicates out to Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate, Google Base, Craig’s List, Zillow, Cyberhomes and many, many others. This marketing is part of my plan to get the listing into the hands of consumers with nearly 90%  of all buyers search the Internet prior to contacting an agent.

I am not telling you all this to brag about the quick sale as much as I am trying to stress that just taking the listing and hoping it will sell won’t do it any longer. I also put this home out to Squidoo.comand made a lens for it and the community of Holt, Delhi Township. I Blogged it on 2-3 other Blog sites in addition to Active Rain. I sent copies of this website Featured property to all 200+ agents in our company and several agents from other companies. Within that three weeks there were 47 viewings on the Point2Agent website alone.

My point of sharing all this with you is to share with you that we as Realtors and you as consumers have choices these days that involve making sure that Syndication of real estate listings is part of the marketing plan offered by your Realtor.

In addition to this, the question needs to be asked about Blogging.  Blogging, if done properly, will generate much activity to your listings and website through the search engines, web crawlers and RSS feeds. This is not the vocabulary they taught us in real estate school and still is not today. But, this is extremely important in marketing in today’s market.

Social Networking like Active Rain, LinkedIn,and Facebook are also key marketing components of real estate today. There is so much involved in these social networking sites that benefit Realtors, sellers and buyers that I will discuss on a future post.

Just a side note. Ten of the words above are so new to our vocabulary that they are not even in spell check yet. You are also probably wondering about the price. Regardless of the sub-prime problems, negative news etc their are still great financing programs out there like the Genesis Foundation to help sell homes.

If your looking for additional information on the greater Lansing area on communities, demographics, or homes to search, I would be happy to assist you. “Expect the Best” Mike

Take your pick. If you would have read the headlines today you would think the sky is falling. To bad they have to blend in all the repossessed homes that have been discounted substantially by the banks to clean up inventory. It is not a true picture of the greater Lansing area by any means. Here’s an elementary course in the mean, median, mode, and range pricing that get people confused.

You can get the real facts from the NAR Report, which will show you that this is not a final report and that these are just a selection of numbers. I think the public is being misinformed again.

Well, Today is Friday, it’s Lent, and I’m going to go wrap my fish in you know what!

“Expect the Best” Mike

First impressions make a significant impact on a buyer’s decision-making process!
Once your home goes on the market, it becomes a product. Home Styling or Staging simply allows you to highlight the best of your home and de-emphasize its flaws. It’s not about decorating, but actually turning your home into a model, to appeal to the broadest range of prospective buyers. The goal is to make people feel like they could live there, and the best way to do this is to “neutralize” the surroundings.

Try out these helpful styling tips taken from Setting the Stage - REALTOR® Magazine Online. They’ve compiled the best tips from stagers and real estate pros—things you can do for little or no expense—to put a home in prime showing shape.