Savvy Home Selling Tips for Bergen County Homeowners

With the spring market fast approaching, several area residents hoping to list their homes for sale and attract top dollar bids attended the “Successful Strategies for Savvy Home Sellers” seminar on Tuesday, March 19, at The Iron Horse Restaurant in Westwood.

The free event, which included a complimentary lunch, was hosted by a panel of home selling experts, who spoke about and answered audience members’ questions on a wide range of real estate-related issues. Topics covered included the state of the market, mortgage interest rates, pricing your home to sell, professional photography and home staging tips, transfer and exit taxes, securing mortgages and lines of credit, what home improvements are worth the expense, environmental remediation issues, and much more. The presenters used numerous real-life examples of past and current client transactions to answer specific questions posed by audience members.

“Whether you’re thinking of selling two years or two months from now, there are a lot of details you need to know,” said panel presenter Carolee Chirico, a broker associate with Keller Williams Valley Realty, who has more than 35 years of experience and in-depth knowledge of the local and regional real estate market.

“Preparation is everything,” emphasized Randy Douglass, a broker and partner at Keller Williams Valley Realty in Woodcliff Lake. “We try to offer advice and counseling to provide you with all the necessary tools to net the most money on your home investment and to make the process—from start to finish—as stress free as possible.”

For the most part the experts’ outlook was upbeat and encouraging. “It’s not the crazy market it was in 2016 when you could virtually put any price on a property and have it sell quickly. Now you need to price it right, but you can still do well. It’s still a healthy market with great, stable interest rates,” said home mortgage consultant Shane Force of Atlantic Home Loans. Force noted that he and his team do the majority of their business throughout northern New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, giving them first-hand knowledge of the latest developments in fluctuating market trends and rates to effectively and quickly move loans through the approval process and towards successful closings.

Janice Gatto, a Montvale-based lawyer who has successfully closed more than 8,000 real estate transactions throughout New Jersey, addressed issues specific to northern Bergen County and in particular, the Pascack Valley and surrounding municipalities. Her concise, knowledgeable and easy-to-understand explanations of some of the complex legal aspects had attendees taking careful notes.

John A., a Hillsdale resident, found all of the speakers and their advice “helpful and informative.” He and his wife are planning on listing their house in the near future in order to buy another smaller home in Long Island to be nearer family. The panel of experts weighed in on his questions relating to the relative pros and cons of whether to sell before, during or after buying a new property.

Ellen Lauria, another local resident also hoping to sell her family home, said she came away with several useful pointers, as well as shared some of her own cautionary tips for navigating the home selling process, including coping with oil tank removal complications. “It’s good to know you’re not in this alone,” she commented about the friendly exchange of ideas between panelists and participants.

Brian Distefano, a Rockland County resident who is currently working with the Keller Williams team on finding a home in the Bergen County area, had this to say: “I’ve bought and sold four houses in my life, but now I’m looking in Jersey and working with these folks, and have found them to be absolutely top-notch. Whether it’s relying on my real estate team to find me precisely what I’m looking for at a price I can afford or calling Janice to consult on some legal questions, I have nothing but high praise. They’re incredibly responsive to all my needs and concerns.”

Raji B., a retired empty nester who now finds himself rattling about in a five-bedroom, six-bath home in the Township of Washington, came to the event out of curiosity. “My wife and I designed and had this house built and we raised our three sons here. But now she’s gone, the house is too big, my taxes are too high, and it’s time to move on,” he explained. “I just don’t know where to begin or how to go about this, so when I got a brochure telling me about this seminar, I decided to check it out.” He left the presentation with business cards and a new perspective on possible options.

“We put these talks together because we were getting so many calls from people who were overwhelmed and unsure. They had questions like ‘Do I need to sell before I buy? What are the local market selling trends and forecasts? How do I price my home? Does staging really matter? Is hiring a real estate attorney necessary?’ One of our aims with these ‘lunch and learn’ presentations is to answer any and all questions prospective sellers and buyers may have,” said Kelly Hagan, a Keller Williams’ buyer’s agent and one of the organizers of the home selling seminar.

“We’re here to help every step of the way,” Hagan added, noting that the free catered lunch talks have been so well received that they’ve been holding them about once a month. The next one is scheduled for some time in mid-April, according to Hagan. (For more information, call her at 551-206-4095.)