Melanie Curley Thousand Islands Realty, LLC

You have decided that you want to sell your home, but how do you arrive at a list price? Your first step is to ask yourself what is more important, the price you get for your home (money) or how quickly your sell (time). Human nature is to want it all: top dollar and a quick sale - typically the two don't go hand in hand, therefore you will need to determine your primary goal.

If your top priority is moving quickly, you will need to price your home at or slightly below the current market value. If you have time on your side and want to get top dollar you can perhaps list just SLIGHTLY above current market value. Let's examine each option a little more closely.

For either option your real estate agent will perform a Competitive Market Analysis (CMA) to provide you with an estimate of your home's fair market value or the price that educated buyers will pay based on recent sales of homes similar to yours. For the quick sale scenario you will want to price yourself a little lower than your competition and your home has to outshine every other home in your price point. A potential buyer needs to walk into your house, form an emotional attachment AND see that the value of your home is much greater than the competition.

 For the money option you need to be sure that you don't price yourself too far above your competition. Pricing too high will in the long run, cost you money. It is likely that you will lose showings as agents and buyers will know that your home is overpriced. If obtaining the maximum price is your top priority you need to have all the bells and whistles inside and out in order to entice a buyer to purchase your home instead of one of the value priced homes. If your property doesn't fit the bill you might be staying in your house for a long time until the market catches up with your price. Holding out for a high price is a greater challenge in a buyer's market.

Whichever option you choose you need an experience agent to give you the facts about the current market. Because real estate is market specific, you can't rely on the national news. You need to know what is happening in your area.

How sad that we are living in a time when you really have to watch your back. Recently there have been several cases of scammers targeting individuals looking to rent a house.  One scheme involves the scammers putting an ad on popular sites such as Craig’s List. They take pictures and information from a legitimate real estate listing and create a new ad listing the property for rent instead of for sale. The scammers also search public records to gather information about the house and to obtain the sellers names. By having the proper owners names their letters to prospective renters look real. As part of the scam they may put the rent at a price that is below market value; this generates a lot of activity. Prospective renters respond to the scammer via email and the scammers will email them back stating that they have left the country and cannot show them the house.  The renters will have to go by the information and pictures in the ad.  They are instructed to wire the first and last month’s rent and sometimes even a security deposit. Because the rent is such a good deal people don’t want to lose out so they forget about checking carefully to make sure this is legitimate. The scammers can collect rent from several people on the same house. Most of the internet scams that we see involve addresses out of the country. That should be your first red flag. The other warning sign is a price that sounds too good to be true. The third and most important red flag is being asked to wire money with the promise that the keys will be mailed to you. Please don’t fall for this or any other scam.