Kansas City Real Estate Video Blog with Chris and Shannon Lyon

Are You Selling to The Right Buyers?

There are many great Kansas City area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (913) 735-3822 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today we want to talk to you a little bit about a large portion of buyers who come out in the early winter months: relocation buyers. One thing to keep in mind is a lot of people don't realize is that our relocation market in Kansas City starts a lot earlier than people think. Often times, people trying to take advantage of relocation buyers wait until April or May to put their homes on the market because that's when they think transfers come in. However, this isn't always the case. Most transfers get their relocation packages in January and we see an influx of clients coming down President's Day Weekend and during spring break.

If you are thinking about putting your home on the market and you want the most qualified group of buyers out there, who are non-contingent and ready to make a purchase, it's important for you to give us a call sooner rather than later. If you want to take advantage of this great relocation buyer market, we want to put your house on the market no later than January 30th.

If you yourself are relocating to another area, you will probably get a relocation package from your employer. One thing people with relocation packages don't realize, however, is that they can choose the agent you hire to sell your current home. If you don't, your company will hand the listing over to a list of referrals who only do relocation business and often times don't have a lot of money to spend on marketing or aren't very aggressive when they try to sell your home.

If you have a relocation package, we would love to help you out. We are very experienced with relocation and would love to help you get your home sold using our proven techniques.

If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We hope to hear from you soon!

Don't Sleep on the Holiday Market

Today we want to dispel a few myths about listing your home during the holidays. A lot of people think it's a pain to get involved in the market at this time of year or they think buyers aren't looking, but that might not be entirely correct.

Buyers who are shopping for homes during the holiday season during the cold winter months are serious buyers. They aren't out on a Saturday afternoon, in December, because the weather is nice and warm. While you may not have as many showings during the winter season, the showings you do have will be with serious buyers who want to buy a home.

We have a ton of buyers out there looking for homes. With lower inventory, those buyers are waiting for the perfect home, and your home could be it.

You could potentially get a higher price for your home in this market because we are still seeing bidding wars on the best properties. Most of these buyers are desperate to buy before the end of the year and you could see a 1-2% profit now that you won't be seeing in the spring.

One other thing to note is that homes typically show better during the holidays. We encourage you to decorate your home for holiday showings because buyers are more emotional during the holidays, and are more likely to make a quick decision.
If you have any questions at all about real estate, don't hesitate to give us a call, text, or email. We'd love to hear from you!

How we helped Andrea sell their home with our preparation of their house

"We were really impressed with how they got our house ready for sale. The Realtor came over and had her entire team there to prep the house and take pictures. We had looked at other homes that were just a giant mess so we really appreciated their preparation. They constantly were in communication with us and always answered my questions. We’d definitely recommend them! "

Metro Area Prices & Affordability

"INFOGRAPHIC: 4th Quarter 2013 Metro Area Home Prices and Affordability."Economists Outlook. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

Real estate continues its comeback in KC

There are many great Kansas City area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (913) 735-3822 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Welcome to my video blog! The real estate market made a big comeback in 2013, and the best news I'll be sharing with you today is that we expect the good times to keep coming in 2014! With that said, let's take a look at the numbers and see how they'll change throughout this year:

In 2013 we saw a rise of 9.7% in price appreciation. Will it be the same for 2014? While I don’t have a crystal ball, I predict about a 7.5% increase for this year.

With that information, a lot of people want to know if it’s better to sell now or wait until your home is worth more. Well, let’s look at an example:

Let’s say the home you live in right now is worth $200,000. With a price appreciation of 7.5%, your home’s worth increases a whole $15,000 in just one year. $215,000 by 2015; sounds great, right? Remember though that a benefit for the seller is likely a loss for the buyer. So if you’re selling your home and buying another in the same market you’ll be affected by those price appreciations on both sides.

What about interest rates? Our market was propped up by some record breaking low rates this year, but I’m sure we’ve all heard about their steady increase. Right now rates are at 4.5%, but expect that percentage to increase steadily over the year. I predict that by 2015 we’ll be around 5.5%. It may seem small, but that 1% increase affects you greatly throughout the life of your loan. For example: a newly purchased house at $400,000 would incur an additional $85,000 of interest if purchased at 5.5% interest as opposed to 4.5%.

The numbers point to one conclusion: Now is the time to sell your home! If you’d like to get the ball rolling, give me a call at 913-302-5511 or email me at sold@soldbylyon.com.

Thanks for joining me today, I hope to hear from you soon!