"House Forensics"

Caveat, Sellers

It's not an ironclad rule of house hunting, but in general I think it's safe to say that more sophisticated Buyers head to the basement -- er, lower level -- first.

Why?

That's where they can inspect the foundation (or at least the part of it that's visible), the mechanicals, and look (smell) for water intrusion.

So, that's what I assumed my client this morning was up to when he headed downstairs.

It turns out, though, that his first stop was the utility room, where all the old paint cans were stored.

He wanted to see to see if there was any fresh paint, and if so, presumably what had required attention.

And?

There was a very old can of Rustoleum, but otherwise nothing that could be considered incriminating (if you have a sense of smell -- which I don't -- anything freshly painted is also pretty easily detectable).

The Beauty of an Ugly House

Making Sure That "Ugly is Only Skin Deep"

No matter the price bracket -- OK, maybe not at $5 million-plus locally -- virtually every home represents a list of trade-off's for prospective Buyers.

Better location, smaller size. More square feet, worse condition. Great condition, not as good location.

And so on.

So, of the various attributes on most Buyer's lists, which is one of the best to be flexible on?

My personal candidate is curb appeal.

Buyer Trade-off's

Home Buyers naturally flock to homes that have curb appeal -- and tend to avoid ones that don't.

The resulting discount spells opportunity for Buyers who otherwise couldn't afford a particular neighborhood, or are willing to trade curb appeal for, say, extensive updates.

The only trick is just to make sure that, to paraphrase that famous line, "ugly is only skin deep."

Gauging Sunday Open Traffic

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

What does a Realtor with some spare time in a new city do on a Sunday afternoon?

Check out some open houses!

In fact, I just had time to go through a few, but here are a couple stray observations:

--The Southwestern equivalent to the Midwestern "ranch" or "rambler" is a "villa-style" one story (Spanish architecture, tile roof, open floor plan, lots of patio's and sliding doors, etc.).

However, with no basement or upper level, a Scottsdale home (pictured above) with 4,000 finished square feet actually has a foundation size of . . . . 4,000 square feet!

By contrast, in the Midwest, a typical 4,000 square foot home would be a two-story, with perhaps a 1,700 square foot foundation.

The much more vertical floor plan would then typically have about 800 FSF in the lower level, 1,700 on the main, and the remaining 1,500 up.

--How do you tell if the agent hosting the open is accurately reporting traffic?

Put it this way: if the open is advertised as 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and you arrive at 3:40 p.m. to find the Realtor hitting all the lights . . . it wasn't great, no matter what they say.

That's especially the case if they don't appear to be especially stressed or rushing somewhere -- in other words, you can rule out an emergency for their having to leave early.