Luxury Real Estate

By Christine Watson
From her blog: Hide Your Personals! Protecting your privacy when selling your home!

Putting your luxury home on the market poses two very personal concerns:

1. Invasion of privacy: that your personal life will be on show;
2. Theft: your personal effects are prey to any “prospective” buyers

De-clutter your property before placing it on the market: this is my first piece of advice for those vendors concerned with their privacy being publicised to the world.

To some it means removing everything from bench tops, cupboards and shelves and to others it means keeping the home clean, neat and tidy. But how do you protect your privacy and hide your personal items?

Your home generally depicts your personal life, showing your taste in furnishings, colours, art, antiques and family photographs. Is opening your home to the public an invasion of your privacy? Absolutely!

 

The experience of Marquette Turner Luxury Homes shows that people buy the home that “ticks most of the boxes”. When selling your home, you should take the distractions away so the buyer can concentrate solely on looking at your home.

Furthermore, we are not great advocates of open inspections in a troubled market and it is important to appreciate that household-contents insurance does not cover the loss of personal effects during a viewing of a property. Remove the opportunity for theft and protect yourself as if you were a celebrity like Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise or Hugh Jackman.

Selling your home can be stressful enough without the concern that someone is taking an interest in your personal life and possessions.

Marquette Turner Luxury Homes we will not allow anyone to view your home without showing their photo identification. If someone objects they are not respecting your home and are not serious about buying the property. Only a luxury agency can truly protect your privacy.


Editor’s Note:
Christine Watson is a Director of Marquette Turner Luxury Homes, a member of Luxury Real Estate in East Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded on Australia Day 2007 by Michael Marquette and Simon Turner, Marquette Turner is a property consultancy company covering the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. Along with Marquette and Turner, now we have a new blogger providing excellent content for the Luxury Real Estate Blog. Wonderful! Thank you very much for the excellent advice, Christine. Don’t forget that both sellers and real-estate agents are at risk at open houses, so it’s best to be as safe as possible. The photo above is from www.flickr.com/photos/jef/1526987585 and it is the copyright of Jef Poskanzer.

By Robert Lockard

I’d like to talk about a topic that is not necessarily a pressing matter for people buying luxury real estate, but which I still find very important: Debt. It is very sad to me to see so many people struggling with the enormous burden of debt.

I recently read a wonderful editorial in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled “The great seduction,” in which author David Brooks points out the astonishing truth about debt. Brooks notes that for the past 30 years Americans have forgotten our noble heritage of frugality and living within our means. We have even forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression that we should not overextend ourselves on credit.

I have heard people argue that easy credit is a good thing because it leads to additional economic growth and a wealth of new capital to expand business operations and ventures. I politely disagree. Yes, debt gives us more money in the short term to grow, but it is a false growth based upon a false sense of stability.

Debt has a way of perpetuating itself. Years ago, homebuyers paid off their home loans as quickly as possible because they understood the disadvantages of being indebted and paying interest. However, now we are encouraged to stay in debt and use our unpaid-for assets as leverage to go into even more debt.

I am not desirous to abolish all debt because it serves a useful purpose in moderation. But I would like to see debt portrayed as less of a convenience and more of an obligation and hardship that should not be undertaken lightly.

Many people who declare bankruptcy do so after facing unexpected medical issues, job loss or other life-changing events. I think that people are smart and that they can make it through these tough times if they are prepared. But many of us are not saving money and we are drowning in ever-growing debt.

I want to see this change. No matter if you are rich, poor or somewhere in between, simply living within your means will help you avoid the unhappiness and stress of living in debt.

The above picture is from www.anxietyculture.com/debt.htm.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. Feel free to share your thoughts on what can be done about this sad issue. I definitely think that people are smart and I hope that we will figure out a solution to this problem.

By Janice Ridge

In recent years, there have been a growing number of real-estate agents putting themselves in harm’s way by meeting a prospect at a house far away from main roads and neighboring houses. The recent death of Lindsay Buziak, 24, who was killed last weekend while showing a luxury home in Saanich on Vancouver Island, has again reminded us that even in an upscale neighborhood there can be dangerous persons lurking about.

It is important to exercise precautionary measures when selling homes, especially when a stranger wants to view a vacant house at an odd time of day. This is even more important when showing luxury properties. There are more rooms, more grounds and more places for strangers to hide out, especially if the house is far away from the main road or if neighbors are few and far between.

When I started selling homes 15 years ago, I was taught a very important rule: never meet a prospect for the first time at the property. Always ask them to come to the office to meet you first, where there are others around, during office hours. If the prospect is not willing to do this, tell them you are sorry, but this is your rule. It is better to be safe than sorry.


Editor’s Note:
As the the Director of Membership at LuxuryRealEstate.com, and herself a licensed REALTOR®, Janice Ridge is devoted to coordinating the efforts of all of the LuxuryRealEstate.com Membership and Account Managers, so that each of our members is given superior service. Like Janice, I am deeply touched by this sad story of a young real-estate agent being killed while waiting to meet a ‘‘buyer” at the property. I already knew that real-estate relationships are based on trust, but I always looked at it from the perspective of the client. The lesson here is that REALTORS® need to scrutinize prospects as well.

By Robert Lockard

Open houses are excellent opportunities to bring potential buyers into a home and let them gain insights that are difficult to convey through written descriptions or even virtual tours. However, there is a potential risk for luxury real estate agents and others to be aware of, according to a recent article in The Chronicle Herald – stealing. Apparently, two women managed to steal $73,000 worth of jewelry and other valuables during several open houses in New York and New Jersey. Thankfully, they were caught and hopefully the belongings were returned to their rightful owners.

I think that most people are honest and kind, so I am sorry to report that we must be less than trusting in some situations. Several brokers give advice in the article to safeguard valuables, such as locking up jewelry, hiding prescriptions, and putting other important items in hard-to-reach or unusual areas of the house. Marking certain rooms as off-limits can be a good idea, as well. It’s good to be careful, even if you really want to make a sale. Carol Burnett, the vice president of Alain Pinel Realtors advised an agent showing a house to bring an assistant if it is simply too difficult to keep track of everybody at an open house.

This is a rather simplistic idea, and I apologize if it’s a little too simple for your taste. I just think this is an important topic to address, even if we all know the phrase, "It’s better to be safe than sorry."


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more.