This gives you the advantage if you know how to capitilize on it.  Your home needs to look, show and BE better than the short sale down the street that is 10% less than your listing price.  Here are some quick items that can shorten your sales time and maximize your selling price:

1. Consider doing a home inspection.  Have a neutral 3rd party inspector come through your home and find items that need to be fixed, prior to putting your home on the market.  You may be constantly be walking by that handrail that is falling off the wall or ignoring that leaking faucet, but a buyer will see that.  More importantly, if you get an offer, the buyer’s inspector will find these items and it could mean the difference between saving and losing an offer.  Make the repairs prior to putting the home on the market.  Remember that you may need to disclosure any material facts that the inspector turns up.  The cost for an average Eden Prairie home pre-sale inspection will run around $350.
2. Make the minor repairs.  Fix all the small items such as the dripping faucet, the squeaky door, the missing cabinet handle.  You might spend less than $200, but those small items can make a big impression on a buyer.  They see that as a proxy for the overall maintenance of the entire house, including the big ticket items such as the furnace and roof.  If you are too busy or not good with tools, hire a handyman for 3-4 hours.  Give him a long list and tell him to get as many done as possible in a set number of hours.
3. De-clutter.  I am constantly amazed when I go into homes and find they have 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag.  Every closet is full, the garage is so full that you can’t park in it and there are too many pieces of furniture in each room.  Even large 3-4000 square foot Eden Prairie homes can look tiny when full of clutter.  Again, use a professional organizer or stager to come in and give you an assessment of your situation.  Clean out, clear out.  Don’t expect to do this 24 hours before you list your home.  This is a longer term project that must be done months before.  If necessary, rent a storage pod and fill it with extra stuff if you just can’t part with things.
4. Clean, clean, clean.  You may be OK with dirty windows and dog hair on the carpet, but your buyers are not.  Clean the carpets and furniture.  If you can’t get the stain out, replace the carpet or cover the furniture.  Dust everything, wipe down the baseboards and tops of cabinets.  Pull everything out of the refrigerator and clean it out.  Clean the garage, wash the floor.  Put things in neatly stacked boxes.  Tell the kids they need to put their shoes and clothes away.  If you can’t do it, hire a professional.  For about $150-$300, you can easily have your home cleaned like you have never seen it before.

Doing these small things can help your home shine and compete against those foreclosures and short sales.  This will allow you to maximize your sale price and minimize your time on the market.

1. Spend time with your significant other dreaming about what things you want in a home.  Maybe it is a main floor laundry, maybe it is a larger kitchen, another bedroom, a 3 car garage, good schools.  List all these items that you want in a new home.  Include both features about the house such as hardwood floors and a three car garage, but also about the community and neighborhood that are important to you such as good schools, walking distance to parks, close to church.  Prioritize that list as well as spend time deciding if those wants are really necessary.  You may want to have a 6 car garage and tennis court, but can you afford that on your house budget?  Eden Prairie real estate has many different wants to offer so getting your list together first is important in order to set your priorities.
2. In this housing market, the financing is actually much tougher than finding a home to purchase.  Ask around, get referrals from friends and family for a fantastic mortgage person.  Do not get locked into the first one that you meet.  If you have anything but perfect credit and solid employment, consider shopping around if any one particular mortgage person says it will be difficult to get you a loan.  Different loan officers specialize in different loan products.  Have the mortgage person tell you what qualify for and make sure you feel comfortable with the mortgage payment.
3. Find an Eden Prairie Realtor that knows the market.  This should be someone that understands where the best values are in Eden Prairie homes right now and may even have some personal listings that they can get you into prior to them hitting the market.  Interview this Realtor over coffee or lunch and see if they are someone that you will enjoy working with.  If not, find another agent.  You will be spending a lot of time on the phone and touring houses with this person.  You need to respect, trust, and enjoy him or her.
4. Have your real estate agent set up a property search on the MLS for you.  It should come automatically to your email everyday with new listings that have just come onto the market.  Make it a habit of reviewing that email immediately.  You will want to be the first to see the new Eden Prairie homes for sale when they hit the market to insure you get first shot at making an offer.  Getting the emails automatically is also critical so you stay involved in the process and do just wake up and 30 days have gone by with you doing nothing.
5. When you find a home that you are interested in, make an offer.  Your Realtor will do the legwork and guide you through the process.  That is what they are getting paid for, use them.  If the offer is accepted, let the mortgage person recommend a title company/closer.  They will know who is the best and who you can trust.  Get your real estate agent to recommend a home inspector.  Have them go through the house to find any major problems that you did not see during your showings.

Buying an Eden Prairie home is a fun and exciting process if you do your preparation work up front and surround yourself with good people.

New listings, in Eden Prairie houses, were down again for the 3rd month in a row as seller’s are seeing the fall coming, school starting and the true price of their houses, they are choosing to wait to sell their properties until the spring of 2010.  We have also seen that banks are not putting as many REOs on the market.  This trend has been slowing for most of 2nd half of 2009.  This is due to the government bank bailout where the banks in response for taking the money, agreed to postpone foreclosures for a time.  That time expired in May.  Banks restarted foreclosure filings in June and July, but because of Minnesota’s 6 month redemption period, most of those homes will not hit the market until January or February.

Closed home sales were up 85% in October over October 2008.  This is a fantastic jump.  While I am not sure this means that we have turned any corner, we are reducing the inventory of properties for sale, which is great for the Eden Prairie real estate market.  It helps both existing and new listings coming on the market.  The stats show this dip in inventory in both single family detached home inventory which fell almost 14% over October 2008 and townhouse-condo inventory which fell almost 22%.

The jump in closed sales and dip in new listings pushed the average days on market until sale down slightly (2%) to 131 days.  While not great, it is an improvement.  Unfortunately, in 2009, the market has still added 12 days over 2008.

Median and average sale prices for Eden Prairie houses took another beating in October both dropping around 15% from 1 year ago.  Year to date we are also seeing home prices down by 10-11%.  It is remarkable that even in a such a desirable area such as Eden Prairie that prices have dropped that much.  On the positive note, it is far less than other hard hit areas that have seen their property values drop by as much as 40%.

If you are looking to sell your Eden Prairie Home or looking to buy one, it is best to speak to someone that understand the market and area.  Call us today.