Seg #1

Dave: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, I'm Dave Burnett along with Thom Dallman with CORE Group Realty, coregrouprealty.com call 933-7777 for any questions you may have about what you learn today on today's show. Now that's the purpose of this show Thom, and that is to educate people to give them the power to go out to either sell or buy that house with knowledge and power.

Thom: Exactly, knowledge IS power!

Dave: It really is, and for a transaction for the average person, we don't do this very often, so you can either stumble into it blind, and just blind faith, or you can have some knowledge to go into it and see how you can go about getting the best deal possible.

Thom: Better prepare yourself to better negotiate and to make sure that you're getting through the transaction smoothly for sure.

Dave: Now, I gave the website, coregrouprealty.com, and that is CORE with a C, C-O-R-E, coregrouprealty.com because on that website, there is a tab and I love this one because it kind of gives our listeners and those that go to coregrouprealty.com that head start because it's called Coming Soon and it's properties that .... kind of like a car once it gets traded in, hasn't been thoroughly cleaned, hasn't been thoroughly gone through but it is in the process of it, but you can get a head start.

Thom: Yup! We usually put them in there a couple weeks prior to getting it into our MLS, so it's kind of an advanced competitive edge if you will against those other buyers out there. We've talked in the past about it being a seller's market right now, inventory is really low so it's really important to really be on top of things and know what's coming on so you can be the first one in there and the first one to write an offer on it and hopefully get that accepted quicker.

Dave: And the nice thing this week, there's three listings right there of coming soons.

Thom: Yeah! Three new coming soons that will be listed here before too long so some great options for a wide variety of home-lookers all the way from a condo all the way up to a nice 5 bedroom in Boise.

Dave: Shall we just jump right in?

Thom: Let's do it! Let's start with the condo. We have a nice little condo right up off of Overland and Maple Grove area. It's 8882 West Candlestone Court, it's a nice little 2 bedroom 2 bath condo, 943 square feet with a carport attached with it. It does have a storage shed so if you have any of your little things that you need to put in storage it's got that available to you. It's at the New Castle Heights subdivision up there and it's listed for $128,000. Nice price point for being here in South Boise.

Dave: And actually it's fairly convenient to the freeway.

Thom: Oh it's convenient to everything!

Dave: If you work in Nampa or you work out in Micron out that direction it's easy access.

Thom: Just pop down Overland and jump onto the connector and get downtown within probably 10 minutes?

Dave: Oh less than that probably, I'm thinking 7 minutes to get from there to downtown so it is very conveniently ... and once again what is the address?

Thom: It's 8882 West Candlestone Court, Boise, 83709 zip code and once again that's 2 bedroom 2 bath condo at $128,000. Nice price point.

Dave: And I can't emphasize this enough, if you want to see these listings you can go to the website or you can call 933-7777 that's the phone number and with the customer care team here if you're having trouble with the website they can help walk you through that, how to find it or get it set up so you can go look at these properties.

Thom: We always have someone ready to show these properties at a call.

Dave: And what's number two on your list of coming soon?

Thom: Number 2 is another Boise one, this one is on the other edge of the spectrum so this is a 5 bedroom 3.5 bath on a half an acre. It's in 5 Mile Estates subdivision and the address is 3879 Baja Way in Boise, ID. 83709 so once again on the South side. This is fully fenced with a dog run, garden space, RV parking, and a big trend right now is for chickens so this does allow chickens. Shop, hard wood floors, once again it's a 5 bedroom and it's listed at $350,000. 

Dave: That's a very spacious home!

Thom: 2692 square feet. Yeah a nice big spacious home, on a half an acre which is awesome. .55.

Dave: That's about right, you start getting up above half an acre, that's a lot of land.

Thom: That's a lot of land to mow and maintain and landscape for sure.

Dave: Exactly but half an acre that's really ideal to give you space and room from your neighbors ...

Thom: And let those chickens roam!

Dave: Free range chickens, you gotta like that!

Thom: Exactly, so once again that's 3879 Baja Way in Boise and it's $350,000.

Dave: Alright and number 3 on the coming soons?

Thom: Number 3 we're going to move out to Nampa, we're going to look at 1310 W. Blaine Ave in Nampa and it's a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath in the Westbrook subdivision. 1553 square feet, single level home at $147,000. It has a bonus room in it, skylights, walk in closet, bamboo flooring which is a nice alternative flooring so 1310 W. Blaine 1553 square feet at $147,000, nice price point as well.

Dave: And let me explain this on bamboo flooring, if you're not familiar with it, no it's not bamboo well, it is bamboo but it doesn't look like the reeds. It's a very nice hardwood looking floor, durable, I had it put in my house, love it.

Thom: Very durable! We had a house once that had it as well and our dogs never could scratch those floors as much as they tried.

Dave: Yeah it's funny when we first talked to the flooring people they said "Well, we could put bamboo flooring in" and I have this picture of these reeds from Asia being put on my floor, but that's not the case at all.

Thom: They're really beautiful, beautiful texture to them.

Dave: Now I will give the warning on this. Properties are selling very quickly. This is on the coming soons so they're not listed to anyone but CORE Group Realty's website right now so you might want to get a jump on this and take a look at these before they get listed in the MLS.

Thom: Exactly, get that competitive edge.

Dave: So get out there and take a look at those.

Thom: We do have a just listed as well if we wanted to chat really quick about that.

Dave: Sure!

Thom: 2089 W. Lonesome Dove Street in Meridian, so nice Meridian home. It's a 5 bedroom 2 bath on .2 acres in the Turtle Creek subdivision, nice 3 car garage for that family that has multiple cars and what not.

Dave: Or if you have a car and a bunch of stuff.

Thom: And a whole lot of stuff, true! Split bedroom floor plan so the master is away from the rest of the bedrooms. Fully fenced, storage shed, irrigation and that's 2,015 square feet listed at $239,900. Really nice price point for Meridian a great area too, that Turtle Creek subdivision. 2089 W. Lonesome Dove Street in Meridian for $239,900.

Dave: So that's great, we have three on the Coming Soons, one on the new listing that's been put up. Have you seen a slow down at all in the market place or is it continuing just to really cook along?

Thom: It's really cooking along still! We kind of go back and forth with fluctuations, it depends on the day but my buyer's team is really busy writing contracts right now so we've got that going on and the listing team as we can see have some good Coming Soons and so forth so the inventory is still low, still a great time to get your house listed and get it sold for optimal dollar right now.

Dave: As we get into the dog days of Summer, people are preparing for the Fall and school ahead so some people trying to make that move now so you might want to get online and look at coregrouprealty.com and take a look at the website and again, I can't emphasize enough how important it is when you get a real estate agent that that company has a really active and easy to use website. And that's something that CORE Group, you've really put together.

Thom: Our home search site is so user friendly, so easy to go in there, navigate and look for homes. It gets a direct feed from the MLS every 15 minutes so it's the most accurate information you can find in a user friendly format. All through the website!

Dave: And that's something you may want to do, if you're actively looking for a home, go ahead and click Core Group Realty as a favorite so that way you're not having ... you can just go to favorites and look at it and see what maybe new has come up.

Thom: What's new, and we also have a great blog section in there too that talks about all kinds of different ... we post these on there for one thing so you can listen to the radio station or any show if you wanted to go back and refresh your memory but the blog's also got useful tips on decorating your homes, staging your homes, getting your homes ready to list, what to expect as a buyer, just a great amount of information on there.

Dave: Now if I wanted to search by like school districts that ability is in ...

Thom: Yup, that ability is in our search function so once you go to home search the home search section you'll have the option to go into more details and pull down a little thing that will give you school districts to search for.

Dave: when it comes to people that have school age kids, that's a big deal.

Thom: That's a big deal, yes.

Dave: Making sure they stay in the same school district and/or if you're looking for a specific district that way you can get that done as well. Coregrouprealty.com that is the website for you to go to check out to find out more information and of course 933-7777 is the phone number to call about. A minute here, tell me, brag a little bit on your Customer Care team if you would.

Thom: Oh my gosh, they're awesome. They're not licensed so it's just somebody that helps you out with the website, helps you navigate, if you have just general questions about the area they can help you with that. Always available and always helpful. They're a great couple of gals that we have working with us.

Dave: So whether you're looking for help with the website or even if there's open houses going on they can list where those open houses are.

Thom: Yup they'll know where they're at and be able to list those as well. 

Dave: Perfect, it is the perfect combination, the website, and of course the Customer Care line which will take care of you. Buying a home if you haven't done it in a while, very different than it used to be once upon a time back in the day when you got that for sale sign and stuck it in the yard and got an agent and drove all over town all day long. We want to encourage you to go to the website coregrouprealty.com and of course you can always call 933-7777. Going to be talking to Michelle Guth with Diversified Mortgage coming up, find out what's happening with those interest rates, are they staying the same? Are they going to be moving? Of course we're in, as everyone knows, election year this year and always there's change on the horizon so we'll talk to Michelle coming up here in a little bit and of course more with Thom Dallman who is the co-owner and designated broker of CORE Group Realty. As we continue, this is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz here on 580 KIDO.

Seg #2

Dave: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz I'm Dave Burnett along with Michelle Guth with Diversified Mortgage, equal housing opportunity. As you talk about finances and everything happening with the world of finances and Thom, as we know, money makes the world go around when it comes to buying.

Thom: Sure does!

Dave: OK so Michelle we've seen rates kind of go up, kind of go down, we've heard rumors of rates perhaps coming in from your angle and from Diversified Mortgage, what have you heard?

Michelle: Well, we've seen a little bit of volatility with rates over the last month with the events and Brexit, we did see a decrease in rates but the rate lock advisory right now is suggesting that most people suggest most people lock their rates because there is some volatility in the market with the potential of a rate increase.

Dave: OK let me stop you right now.

Thom: That was a mouthful.

Dave: Well just in that, you used the term "locking rates" which maybe to you, you deal with every day for Thom, he deals with it every day. "Locking rates," I know that it means that I'm setting my rate for what my loan's going to be, but exactly how does that work and what does it mean?

Michelle: That's a great question Dave, let me tell you.

Dave: That's why I ask because honestly, I know that it means that my rate is going to be set in place but I don't know for how long, I don't know how that works. Is it to my benefit? Is it to my detriment? What does it mean, "locking rates?"

Michelle: Well, I think "Lock" is the key term so often times I'll have clients say "OK, well if I lock my rate but rates go down I can get the lower rate?" It's like no, that's why you're locked in, so basically typically what will happen with the lender is once you're under contract and the property's been identified, we can then consider locking in your rate which secures the rate for the life of the loan from the time that you establish that lock. That can be from a period form typically 15 days to all the way up to 15 months, but the further you lock out it starts to impact your interest rate and the pricing associated with that rate because the lender has to take a lot of risk to secure a rate for a client several days out, so a typical rate lock period is normally 30-45 days.

Dave: Now what happens if there's something in the Title search or something happens and the whole process bogs down, is that going to affect me when it comes to ... let's say I get a 15 day lock, am I getting that right? But let's say the process bogs down, what happens?

Michelle: You have the capability of doing a lock extension, there are fees associated with that, but if rates are worse and you want to extend that lock you certainly have that capability. Let's say for example rates have improved, and your rate's expiring, you can let that rate typically expire, you're not going to get the benefit of the better rate, but you're not necessarily going to have to pay the lock extension fee either. So there's different things we can do and considerations we'll look at but normally we have options if there is a delay in the process.

Thom: And just to add to that too, on the negotiating side and the buyer's side, there are options as well if it does extend and because of something that happened because of the house or seller issues or stuff like that, we can sometimes negotiate that into the contract for the sellers to pay that extension or things like that. There's always room around being able to negotiate that extension as well.

Dave: So who is it that makes the call on locking a rate? Is it the real estate agent? Is it you Michelle at Diversified Mortgage? I mean, obviously it's a person getting the loan but who kind of makes that call that we need to lock a rate.

Michelle: Typically it's going to be the loan officer being in communication with the client so in most cases we have different rate alert advisories where we follow on a daily basis just to watch what the market's doing and when we start to see a lot of volatility if we do have clients that are still floating on their rate, we're normally reaching out to them and giving them the option to lock in. Inevitably it's up to the consumer to determine when they'd want to lock their rate but the loan officer's going to try to give them their best guidance and suggestions based on what's happening in the market at that given time.

Dave: So at what process in buying a home do you lock a rate? I mean, obviously you've got the earnest money you've put down, it's not at that time necessarily, I mean is it? When is it that you want to lock your rate?

Michelle: Normally once we have a fully executed contract and we're secure with that property then we can look at locking in from day one all the way up until about a week before closing. Some people will elect to float and they don't want to lock the rate if the market suggests that there might be some price improvement then they have the option of just floating on it and keeping an eye on it on a daily basis but a lot of people with rates being so low right now, they want the peace of mind of not having to worry about the potential of a rate increase and they just lock as soon as they go under contract.

Dave: And rates, they aren't as low as they've gone, but they're pretty doggone low.

Michelle: They're still incredibly low, we're onto too far off from historic lows so it's still an incredible time to consider locking in on a property.

Dave: OK, very good, so, you just threw out that "locking in," we've talked about it for five minutes now! Because I mean it is a term that could save me money and it's also something that, again, you deal with it every day for me it's another one of those terms in there it's like OK, now what does that mean?

Michelle: Well and I think it's worth mentioning too for those that are considering building a property for example, we have a program as well that's called lock and build so we do have those extended lock programs where if you're worried about your interest rate we can do up to a 6 month rate lock. Again, there’s fees associated with that and different rules, but we do have the capability of doing those extended locks if you're worried about your rate.

Dave: So that's if somebody's building which is going to take time? Is that what you're telling me?

Michelle: Correct, exactly. 

Dave: Alright because obviously if you're building you're not going to get it done in 30 days.

Thom: Not typically!

Dave: Not going to happen there. So Thom, as far as you have dealt and worked with Michelle for so long there at Diversified Mortgage is that typical that you'll lock the rate every time?

Thom: Pretty typical, I think for the most part people get them locked because they don't want to have to, like Michelle said, deal with the volatility of the market and so forth, so it's probably an average 50-50 I guess, I mean Michelle could probably attest to it a little bit more.

Michelle: Typically people elect to lock pretty early in the process so again, just because the worry with the market moving around and normally, we will give them kind of a bench mark within their comfort level for payment and then show them how much their payment is going to be impacted for every 8th change in rate. Because rates change in 8th increments on the lending side, so we'll kind of give them a bench mark that if rates go up an 8th or a quarter percent, this is the impact to your payment versus if they go down. A lot of times when they see what the actual difference is in the payment and they think that they're waiting in the hopes that the rates will go down they see how minimal the impact is to payment, a lot of times they say yeah maybe it's not worth the risk to see if they happen to go down and my rule of thumb always is, is there's a lot more room for them to go up than there is to go down with where we're at in the current market, so it comes down to their risk tolerance but all's we can do is give them the best guides and let them make the decision.

Thom: I think that's one of hte best things to attest to is Michelle's always good about well here's what's going to happen if any of the rates change taxes come in a little higher on a property, she's always there to give that information to the buyers is what their payment's going to be with any kind of change to the parameters of their searches and so forth. They're really good about being there and present with what the changes are going to be.

Dave: OK here's another stupid question. Locking in on a loan, is that ... can you do it with all kinds of loans? VA loans? Traditional loans? Does it happen with all of them? Or are there some that are exempt from being able to lock in on?

Michelle: No, all of them have rate lock periods, so once we get closer to the loan closing then that's where we have to be locked in because we talked about in past segments where we have that three day waiting period for the three day waiting disclosure so we have to have the rate secured, several things in place, then we have to do something called a loan estimate, where we re-disclose the terms of their rate lock once they lock in. So that's why we say at least a week before closing is where we have to have that secured so we can get through the final stages of the loan process.

Dave: So your relationship with Thom and his group with the real estate agents but with the customers, you really have to have somebody in the financial end that has a great relationship because there's a lot of communication that takes place.

Michelle: Oh, without a doubt. It's, I mean it's the biggest investment in a person's life and we want to make sure that they're well-versed and educated throughout the process so they're going through with hopefully as little stress as possible and feeling well-educated and know exactly what's happening throughout the entire loan.

Dave: Michelle Guth who is with Diversified Mortgage and Michelle, how does somebody get a hold of you if they want to call your office and talk about getting that loan or getting pre-approved for a loan? How do they get a hold of you?

Michelle: You can give us a call at 853-7878 or visit our website which is dmgloans.com.

Dave: Now, I had a chance recently to stop by your office and meet several of the people, I want to give you a second just to give Thom a little while to brag on his customer care team, give you a chance to brag about some of your people a little bit at Diversified Mortgage who really is there to help you. Tell me a little bit about some of your people.

Michelle: Oh, it would be an honor. I am extremely fortunate. Most of my team have been in the industry anywhere from 10-30 years and they've worked with my company for many years. In my industry you can see a lot of job hopping, but we do consider it is a DMG family, so we have long term standing relationships with all of my staff, and just a great team environment, they treat every transaction as if they're working with a family member so I think we definitely try to set the bar high with that level of service and just showing that we truly do care that it's a relationship based transaction, not a transaction. We want to be there for them after the loan closes with any questions, in the hopes that if they have that move up property or their kids are buying homes that we want to be that resource for them. And I think they'll find in just dealing with my team that they're going to get that service level that we truly care about them and their transaction.

Dave: If somebody's listening today, and sorry Thom but let's say they're not working through CORE Group Realty, let's say they're working with brand Z real estate, can I as the buyer, can I request a mortgage company? Or do I have to go with who I'm told?

Michelle: You always can go with whoever you feel most comfortable with. I mean, by all means real estate agents have their lenders that they like to work with and there's reasons for that, usually there's a comfort level and a skill set that they know they're going to get by referring them to their loan officer but by all means you want to feel comfortable with the person you're working with.

Dave: I'm just saying that in that there are people who listen to this show, that maybe now have heard you and feel comfortable, I mean, they get to know you and hear what you say and trust you, so I guess I was just wondering if I have a different real estate agent and they say let's go over this and you say, "Could we call Michelle at Diversified Mortgage?" you can do that though.

Michelle: Absolutely, we would love to work with all of the consumers out there and CORE Group's a great agency but we recognize that not every person listening is going to be working with CORE Group, and they're not going to be working with Diversified, but we're happy to be a resource for any consumer out there.

Thom: As always, we encourage everybody to interview, to reach out to multiple whatever in whatever industry they're in and talk to people and get someone that you're comfortable and trust.

Dave: Well see and that's what I like is we talk with Thom every week is that he's not "You HAVE to use CORE," it's just "use a professional," you know, protect yourself that way and in the loan industry at least several years ago it was like, there were agents everywhere but of course I think the down turn in the economy got rid of some of the flakey people but interview and talk to your folks and find out, make sure you're making the right choice.

Michelle: Well, and even that you're getting all of the product offerings, we've talked also in other segments where certain large institutions don't always offer all programs available to all consumers, including like our state bond programs, so you may find a loan officer that you really like but they may not necessarily be offering you all products available on the market so that's where I think it makes sense to even talk to a mortgage banker like Diversified Mortgage where we have those product offerings that are not offered with all institutions.

Dave: Very good, Michelle Guth with Diversified Mortgage, again if somebody wants to get a hold of you and talk to you? How do they reach you at your office?

Michelle: Just give us a call please 853-7878.

Dave: Alright, we will continue on the other side, this is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, more with Thom Dallman coming up here on 580 KIDO.

Seg #3

Dave: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, I'm Dave Burnett along with Thom Dallman with CORE Group Realty. Coregrouprealty.com that is the website to go to if you ever have questions about any of the vendors of course that you work with at CORE Group Realty whether it's Michelle Guth or one of the others, you can find that list there on the website as well.

Thom: Preferred service providers list is right there on the right hand corner.

Dave: In a way, it's kind of an endorsement by you that these are people that we use and that we trust.

Thom: Exactly, people that we've had good relationships with, good experiences with, our clients have kept using them and have reported great things about them, so definitely people worth reaching out to.

Dave: Well that referral system that is in a day and age where you can open the yellow pages and eenie meenie chili beenie and pick somebody out, but you just don't know.

Thom: You never know.

Dave: It's where something that you deal with on a regular basis. And something that I'd like to ask you about, you know I've talked in the past about that home that went up for sale in my neighborhood and it was on the market for forever, well they finally sold here. A couple weeks ago, yeah the sign finally came down somebody new is moving into it this week, but what was interesting is, is I got one of the flyers that they had in there, and it was listed for a lot less money than my house is listed for.

Thom: Yeah, that happens sometimes.

Dave: But I suddenly started thinking, this is a home that is just a block away from mine.

Thom: Probably looks similar to yours maybe?

Dave: Yeah, it's a little bit smaller but it was $100,000 less than what mine has been ... told mine has been worth. How does that work when it comes to comparisons?

Thom: Oh that's an interesting question to ask!

Dave: Well it was depressing because I suddenly went, "wait a minute"...

Thom: Oh no it can be depressing and on the other side of things, it can be depressing if an agent comes in to tell you what they think that your house is worth in today's market and you see those houses next door selling for more than what they have said. We run into that quite a bit where people are just like "Well I just don't understand how the house around the corner is selling for $100,000 more than what you're telling me my house will sell for. So when we're looking at homes, we do a really extensive comparison to like-homes. The house next door or down the street, may not be the same square footage, we always double check square footage.

Dave: Well and that's an obvious.

Thom: Yes within that 100-200 square foot similarity because there is there's that concept of the price per square foot when you compare a house $100 per square foot that price is going to adjust accordingly. But we don't only look at that, we look at a wide range of things from number of bedrooms to the garage space, to how many cars can park there, we look at the yard size to compare, to make sure we're looking at similar yards because there may be that house that sold down the street for $100,000 less may be wedged in between two houses with maybe something not attractive behind it.

Dave: Which is kind of the case, it's in between ... I have a bigger lot and a little more square footage.

Thom: So you're going to get a little bit more of a price point for having that bigger lot.

Dave: Now is it also something that you take a look at when you go in and look at a house, let's say they have nice oak hardwood floors? And the other house has buck-99 carpet.

Thom: The amenities inside the house are a huge difference to a lot of people will compare their homes to other homes and the other home may have granite counter tops, hardwood floors like you said, engineered floors, they may have decorative molding inside the house in the living spaces and so forth that could afford a little bit more of a price point for just the appeal of it and so forth. The inside amenities; huge part of what helps with pricing if you just have the average carpet, average laminate counter tops then you're probably going to be a little bit less than the house next door that has granite and hardwood.

Dave: Is it something that you ... do you not want to be the most expensive house on the block?

Thom: You sure don't! The most expensive house on the block, the biggest house and the most amenities in there doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get the highest price.

Dave: Unless you plan on living there forever.

Thom: Exactly, if you're going to live there for a long time then yes it's worth it for your personal pleasure of enjoying those amenities but just don't expect the price out of them because you still do have to compare to your neighbors and so if you have all of the amenities and all the nice stuff and all your neighbors are not there the price point's going to be affected a little bit.

Dave: Well, let me ask you this, it's kind of on the subject but a little bit off. What are the biggest mistakes that you've seen in your experience that people do to their homes that increases the people too much you can't re-coup. Is there a thing? Is it the hard wood flooring, is it the granite counter tops? In general, what is it you really should think about before you put that in your home if you're planning on selling in the next few years?

Thom: I would say really keep a good close eye on what your neighborhood has going on in it. If you're in a neighborhood where there's no granite, there's no hardwood floors, there's no anything like that, you might not want to invest that money because it's going to be harder to compare your house once it does come up sold. So it's really a matter of really taking a close look at your neighborhood and the surrounding areas, even going out most appraisers will go out one mile after they've looked within the subdivision of your house and see what other homes are selling for that have similar amenities so really just take a good look at the surrounding area around your house and what those homes have.

Dave: You know, it just dawned on me. Google maps might be a good thing to do to check and see how many swimming pools there are in the neighborhood before you decide "Let's put a swimming pool in here!"

Thom: That's funny because we were just discussing at a meeting we had here earlier this week, we have a house that is having a hard time selling that has a swimming pool and the fact that there are just not a lot of people out there wanting the swimming pools, so swimming pools may not necessarily be the thing right now, although I'd love a swimming pool in this 100 degree weather.

Dave: I would too as long as I had somebody to take care of it!

Thom: Exactly! You do have to take some consideration when you're putting in the pool, once again, we've talked about this in the past too, just that longevity of how long you're going to use it for, so you get the benefit of the pool for yourself versus if you're doing it just to try and sell it, it does not add as much value.

Dave: In your opinion is there kind of a year mark of how long 5 years, 10 years, let's say you want to put a pool in, there's no other pools in the neighborhood, how long do I really need to ... how long do I need to wait to really ...

Thom: I guess it really depends on the size of the pool is, how much you're going to invest in it, if you're going to spend $50,000 into a really nice pool with nice rock fixtures and water falls and stuff like that, you might want to live there for a good 10-15 years before you look at selling.

Dave: So I guess you just have to make the decision, it's worth the investment for me to enjoy this. Whether it's granite counter tops or hard wood floors. What are some of the other things, comparables.

Thom: That we look at? One of the biggest things that we look at too is the functionality of the house. A lot of people don't think about the functionality of their homes compared to others. So a perfect example is, you can have 2,000 square foot home with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, say, that has everything centralized around the main living space, the split bedroom design, something like that. Or you can have a 2,000 square foot home that has a lot of hallways, so they're kind of separated by hallways. 2,000 square with 500 square foot of that being hallways, can really kind of diminish the value a little bit because of the fact that you're losing that little bit of space of hallways so your bedrooms are going to be a little bit smaller, even though the square footage is the same. A good listing agent will take that into considering when they're looking at homes and looking at the functionality of the home and so forth and, where's the living space in comparison to the rest of the house? Where's the master compared to the other bedrooms and things like that.

Dave: Since an open floor plan where you didn't have all hallways is a good idea.

Thom: Exactly, because it utilizes the most square footage and actually has that square footage as living space.

Dave: But if you go back to the 1970s and floor plans out of the mid-70s there were a lot of hallways!

Thom: Oh yeah, everything was all separated and all segregated.

Dave: You've got the hall closet, then the bathroom off the hallway, and everything is ...

Thom: And nobody wants to hang out in their hallways, really.

Dave: All's you gotta do is vacuum them and walk up and down them. See, I hadn't even thought about that. Size of bedrooms, let's say you have a master bedroom that's 12x12 or you have one that's 16x16?

Thom: It's going to make a difference; it's going to make a big difference. I've actually been working with some clients that are ... they very specifically do not want small bedrooms. So they're very particular about the bedroom size, it's very important to them, so that excludes a lot of the especially the homes that were built in the downtown area and the 40s and 50s, they had smaller bedrooms, and of course that's where they're looking so a lot of those houses get excluded because of their bedroom sizes. So there's definitely a little bit more value especially to these buyers specifically for bigger bedrooms.

Dave: Do we see homes now, and I know I'm sweeping with a broad brush here, but are homes still getting bigger or are they getting more conservative and a little bit smaller because I'm going to be honest with you, you go putting 5,000 square feet in a home and it's for 2 people, that's a lot of home. But, you see homes not uncommon 3,500, 4,000 square feet.

Thom: I wouldn't say that they're getting bigger, I'd say that they maintained a specific size and so forth so I wouldn't say that yeah there's a trend for bigger spaces, it's more functionality and life-style. There's a big trend towards figuring out the lifestyle especially for custom home builders, they're looking at the lifestyle of the family that's buying and building the house to really accommodate what they really are looking for. If you have a family that loves hanging out in the living room and watching movies together and stuff like that, they're going to work on space that's more centralized around the living room. I'd say it's less about the space and more about the use of that space.

Dave: Thom Dallman with CORE Group Realty. By the way and the nice thing is, coregrouprealty.com, that is the website. If you have a question, maybe something we talked about here and sparked ... and I always get these questions while we're talking, if you have a question we didn't touch on, you can always get Thom's email there as well, and just shoot him a note and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have here on the program as well. And if you want to get a hold of the folks at CORE Group Realty, it's a perfect way to do it, coregrouprealty.com, or they have their customer care agents on standby right now for you. 933-7777 the phone number. If you're going to do comparisons, and that's something that one of your folks here at CORE Group can help you with.

Thom: Our listing agents love to help out with that.

Dave: They are experts in their field so give them a call 933-7777. This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz on 580 KIDO.

* Segment #4 was a re-run from a previously aired show*

Thank you for joining us, Michelle. 

Michelle Guth
Diversified Mortgage


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