They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  In the case of the real estate market, a good picture can be worth thousands of dollars.  In a recent Wall Street Journal report, the use of nicer, professional photos increased home sale values anywhere from $934 to $116,076. The article details the specifics of how the figures were calculated. Professional quality photos of a listing can increase the sales price.  In addition, listings across all price tiers with such photos receive an average of 61% more views than home listings taken with point and shoot cameras.

Try to use a professional photo for your listing

Perhaps the most surprising statistic of all is that only 15.4% of the homes in the data set were marketed using professional quality photos.  While homeowners and brokers may balk at purchasing a DSLR camera ($500-$1,000+) for the simple purpose of illustrating a listing, consider that a professional photographer can do the work for you for $100-$500, a worthy investment considering the potential payback.

Homeowners often spend funds preparing the home for sale yet overlook investing in the photos to illustrate the beauty of their home.  It's important to note that potential buyers these days often begin their home search on-line.  In most cases, the first vision they have will be the photo posted with the listing.  To quote another well-known adage:  You only make a first impression once.  Why not spend a little extra, or choose a broker who does, to get a good quality photo that illustrates your home's true value.  For more information, please contact Greybeard Realty.

There are several signs that larger homes, often known as McMansions, may be headed the way of the dinosaur...or at least the albatross.  The American Institute of Architects survey in 2010 indicated that close to 60% of respondents noted that homes were getting smaller while the remainder reported that home sizes were staying the same.  [...]

The Commerce Department just released housing start numbers for January 2011, and they showed a 14.6% increase to an annual rate of 596,000 units.  That figure was up from an annual rate of 520,000 in December, but economists warned that statistic could be misleading.  They said the majority of the increase could be attributed to apartment construction, not single family construction.

 In fact, single-family home permits, which is viewed as a more stable indicator of new homebuilding activity, stayed flat for the month. Again, however, economists noted that the figures alone did not tell the whole story.  They said that staying flat in this case could be seen as positive news.  Given the harsh winter weather, making new construction more challenging, some experts had predicted a decline in new building permits.

Building Permits on the Rise

In addition, future housing permits declined 10.4% from last month to 562,000 falling short of the 575,000 figure that a national survey had predicted. Once again, however, economists qualified the numbers by saying that the December future housing permits were perhaps artificially high as people hurried to beat more stringent building restrictions anticipated for 2011.  For more information, please contact Greybeard Realty.

There are some new housing numbers that may indicate an improvement in the home sales market in the months to come.  Nationally, new home sales jumped 17.5% in December which increased sales of new homes to their highest levels in 8 months.  Economists had expected a 300,000 unit increase for the period.  Instead, there was a seasonally [...]

Annual numbers for real estate sales for 2010 have been released by MLS, and at first glance it's hard to find much good news to hang your hat on.  A quick scan down to the percent change shows negative numbers in every category except one---and that one shows no change at all.  Those declines hold true for both Buncombe County and Black [...]

If you have dreamed of owning an Asheville rental cabin of your own, you may be interested in the information presented recently in the Wall Street Journal. The article indicates that second home sales in some markets increased at dramatic levels last year. According to the article, the soaring sales levels can be attributed to deeply [...]

2010 Montreat Real Estate Year in Review

2010 was a bounceback year for the Montreat homes market.  Nine homes were sold throughout the year, compared to only 3 in 2009.  Such a number of homes sold had not been seen since 2007, before the downturn hit the area.  Even in the very peak of 2006, the number of homes sold was [...]