rosario ortega’s Blog

So my wife and I have decided to sell our house. It’s an exciting time but decisions like these never come without some level of stress. We put our house on the market last year for a short time but decided to change our minds about 1 month into the listing. In hindsight we weren’t ready to sell and in all honesty neither was our house.

We were just hoping to sell it without doing any work to it at all… just waiting for the buyers to knock down our doors and make us multiple offers (LOL - Those days are over)

So to make a long story short we hung out in the house for another year and built up our businesses. I bought and sold investment property out in the valley with my brother in law and now we’re ready to make a change and go on to the next step in our lives.

Now the market is much slower than it was a year ago but even though that is the case, i’m confident that we will sell quickly and for top dollar. Why do I think that? I’m glad you asked.

1. Marketing- I have recently purchased major advertising space on Realtor.com the #1 website where consumers search for property online(Realtor.com feeds such search engines as AOL, MSN, WallStreetJournal.com and many more) This is very important to anyone looking to sell their home especially in this market. The internet is where people go to look for homes more than the newspaper which only cover about 5% of a sellers target audience. More than 82% of buyers are online everday looking for their future home. So I am taking the majority of my marketing to where the majority of consumers are. In addition to the online marketing I also market locally with flyers and full color listing brochures.
2. Upgrades, Upgrades, Upgrades - It must be done! My wife and I spent thousands of dollars in the past few weeks to get the house ready for sale. Brand new front door and rear sliding door, fresh new exterior and interior paint, new fencing, new gate for the driveway, new fixtures throughout the house, removed all personal photos, upgraded bathroom and more… now its not that we lived in a dump for the past three years. We bought it as a fixer and worked on it when we first moved in. We installed new hardwood floors throughout, we knocked out a wall in order to open up the kitchen into the living room among other things. But the key to selling a house is to prepare it for the next owner and in a sense remove your “Stamp” from the home. Now the house has a fresh clean slate for the next owner to make it his or her own.
3. “Showability” - Now that the prep work is done and people know about it, the next step is to have frequent open houses (with refreshments) and it’s important for the house to be accessible for buyers to come and see once, twice even three times if needed.

* regarding upgrades it’s important to note that there are very inexpensive alternatives to major upgrades that make a huge difference. (check out http://www.duediligencehomes.com/thinkingaboutselling section)

So now here I am… writing this blog while i’m watching the CNN YouTube debate on tivo during my first open house. I’ve had about 5 families come in so far and I expect many more to come in the next few weeks. I firmly believe that the statistics that say houses stay on the market and average of 8-12 months won’t apply to me because I am if nothing else NOT average and neither is my marketing. My goal is less than 60 days!!!

Pray for us.

Take it easy… until next time

“A heart at peace gives life to the body” proverbs 14:30

Rosario Ortega, Jr.

Welcome to rosario ortega’s Blog! This blog will provide you with valuable information, tips, and general insight into the real estate market in Whittier.