A few months ago we announced the top 12 do-it-yourself (DIY) home improvements for people selling their home.

With the environment and sustainability in the hearts and minds of many Americans, HomeGain has also surveyed Realtors for the top 9 GREEN DIY home improvements.  Nearly 1,000 REALTORS® responded to the survey.

While the results show that green home improvement projects may not be as popular as traditional non-green improvements (percentage of Realtors who recommend them), the GREEN trend does seem to be catching on as people realize the benefits. (See Realtor comments below.)

According to a McGraw Hill study, 70% of homebuyers would rather buy a green home than a non-green home in a down economy. The Management Information Services/ICMA has said that “landscaping, especially with trees, can increase property values as much as 20 percent.” According to Move.com, to date, around 1,100 Realtors have earned the NAR Green Designation (out of 1.3 million registered Realtors in the U.S.).

Based on national average cost and return on investment (ROI) to sellers…

The top 5 GREEN home improvements that Realtors recommend to home sellers are:

1. Plant native trees and plants ($141 average cost / $399 average price increase / 284% average ROI / 65% of agents recommended)
2. Replace air filters ($76 cost / $201 price increase / 266% ROI / 63% recommended)
3. GREEN home staging ($223 cost / $445 price increase / 199% ROI / 47% recommended)
4. Weather strip and caulk doors and windows ($169 cost / $313 price increase / 185% ROI / 68% recommended)
5. Install programmable thermostats ($146 cost / $249 price increase / 170% ROI / 62% recommended)

The complete 9 GREEN home improvements are as follows:

Continue reading this post

Last week we met with Realtor® survey respondents and members of the press to discuss the results of the Q4 Home Prices Survey of Realtors on HomeGain Radio.

Thanks to the 20+ Realtors and members of the press for their participation!

If you didn’t have a chance to attend, listen to the 30-minute real estate press call here:

News coverage of the December Home Prices Survey includes: Boston Globe, Real Estate Economy Watch, UPI, Dallas Dirt, RISMedia, Epoch Times, Inman News, Sellsius Blog, DS Magazine, Housing One Magazine, OC Metro Magazine, Staten Island Real Estate News and many more. Read all news stories

Interested in receiving the PPT presentation and video? Find it on HomeGain Webex under “Recorded Sessions”.

Listen to more press calls

On the call from HomeGain.com: Jessica Gopalakrishnan, Peter McCullough, Matt Malmgrem and Louis Cammarosano

This is a pretty common question this time of year. I think the answer depends on your personal situation. I met with two homeowners within the last week that want to list their homes and both couples asked this same question.

My advice was that there is no reason to wait because it was not going to disrupt either of their holidays.

If either of them were having visitors for the holidays or was a large family with kids running around the house all day I probably would have advised them to wait.

Here are 5 reasons to list your home during the holiday season:

1.  This time of year many Realtors are taking time off or advising their sellers to wait until January to put their home up for sale. That means fewer listings are coming on the market. Wouldn’t you rather be 1 of say 10 new listings versus 1of 40? Your listing will be noticed more to those who are actively looking. There are always buyers on the sidelines waiting for new listings. Many of them receive new listings daily via email. Listing your home during the holidays might mean that you stand out more amongst all of the other new listings.

2.    If a home buyer is looking during the holidays there is a strong chance that they are motivated to purchase.

3.    The first time home-buyer tax credit has been extended. This might have created a sense of urgency and motivation for some to buy. Continue reading this post

I’m in my fifth year of owning my brokerage and every December seems to have the same outcome.  We sell tons of homes all year long, and then the Christmas Season comes along and home sales slow to a crawl.  It’s been this way year in and year out.

The other day I was thinking about this subject as our normal December takes place.  Yes, it’s a typical December.  Half my real estate agents are on vacation or going on vacation and most of our buyers are coming into town in January or February.

I thought to myself, this is really the best time to buy a home, isn’t it?

Let’s think about it logically.  Selling homes in the current market has been a challenge to say the least.  However, the best priced homes always have multiple offers because everybody is looking for the deal!

Most of the homes we have under contract this month are great deals with very low prices…not so great for my brokerage, but great for the customer.

It dawned on me as I tried to figure this out, why are we having so many low priced homes all of the sudden?  The answer popped out like a rocket.  These homes are under contract because nobody else is out buying homes right now…they are all waiting!

The homes we currently have under contract are usually homes that would receive 10+ offers but at this time of year, there are  no other offers.

So why is this a benefit to home buyers out there this month? Continue reading this post

I’m a big believer in hiring people to take on tasks that I do not enjoy or do not excel at these days.  Of course, these days I do not sell homes because of my dedication of running my Real Estate Brokerage and belief that in order to grow a company, it wouldn’t be possible if I continued to sell homes…as much as I miss that part of the business.

Of course these days I’m also very busy with The eHomes Realty Network and helping my members.  With this said, over the past 2 years we have tried to figure out a program where a person is hired to make all follow up calls for my real estate agents.  Before I get into this, let’s take a step back for a moment.

As most of those who know me know I’m addicted to lead conversion.

I find it extremely interesting and for most, very difficult.  I have also found that by implementing consistent systems to convert leads to customers for life, we have become stronger and stronger each year.  One of the weakest links for most Agents is follow up.  Most Agents don’t have a hard time making the first phone call to their leads.  The struggle is in making the follow up phone calls and keeping up with them as your database increases.  The more leads you have in your system, the harder it is to stay on top of your leads.

My agents are no different.  They are great people but have the same flaws as most when it comes to follow up.  I decided a couple of years ago that if I am going to take lead conversion to the next level, I will need to start the Lead Conversion Administrator (LCA) position.

We started out by having one LCA and she was making the initial phone calls for 7 Agents.

Along with this, she also learned how to master Continue reading this post

On average, how likely are you to respond to an offer you received in the mail? Retailers, Realtors and many other professions spend millions of dollars each year mailing paper letters and mailers to potential customers. Is it worth it? Take this quick HomeGain poll to see where your opinion falls in with other Realtors and real estate professionals!

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