Top Real Estate Tips That Hold True In Any Market

Anyone who’s ever purchased or sold property knows the real estate industry is a fickle one. Changing demographic makeups, economic conditions, interest rates and other factors play a role in how “good” the market is for a buyer or seller, and in a few short years, prices in any given area can dramatically shift.

Despite the ebbs and flows of local and national real estate markets, there are certain things about the homebuying and selling process that remain constant. We asked a panel of Forbes Real Estate Council members to share their evergreen tips for prospective buyers and sellers that hold true regardless of market conditions. Here is what they had to say:

Experts in real estate share their timeless tips.All photos courtesy of Forbes Councils members.

1. Always Conduct Thorough Research On The Current Market

Although real estate values fluctuate due to local supply/demand dynamics and broader national economic considerations, it’s important to remember that properties always sell for no more or less than what the market will bear at that time. Whether buying or selling, do your research, plot your data points, use a variety of resources so that you’re confident in your list or offer price. – Garratt Hasenstab, The Mountain Life Companies™

2. Don’t Reject Low-Priced Offers Without Negotiating

Selling your home can feel like giving up something you love, so a low-priced offer can leave sellers feeling insulted. Homebuyers base their offer price largely on their own affordability, but will consider raising it if the location is just right or if there is value in renovations already done. Stay open to negotiations and working with the buyer rather than turning down a low-priced offer. – Beatrice de Jong, Open Listings (YC W15)

3. Buy Whenever You Can

There’s never a wrong time to buy. There is only a wrong time to sell. If you look at real estate trends over the last century, prices go up and down and we have booms and busts. The buyers who win are the ones willing to ride the wave, see a purchase through the cycle. Buy when you can, and hold till the sale is profitable. – Courtney Poulos, ACME Real Estate

4. Get Into The Rental Market Where It Makes Sense

People will need shelter for the rest of their lives. With the life expectancy what it is here in the in the U.S., that’s a lot of rent to be paid. Buy what you need now and do it in an area where the population is on a rising and sustainable course. – Michael J. Polk, Polk Properties

5. Factor In The Fees

In real estate, there are middlemen and a lot of them — the escrow company, the title company, the brokers, the lender, etc. Each one of them is taking a drop from the well. While these fees will all likely go down, they aren’t ever going away and buyers and sellers need to accept that. – Ridaa Murad, BREAKFORM | RE

6. Buy A Home To Secure Personal Rent Control

Although the real estate market fluctuates over time, there’s one thing would-be first-time homeowners often overlook. Yes, there are tax advantages. Yes, you paint the walls any color you want. Yes, you build financial equity. But you also have a built-in rent control. With a fixed-rate mortgage, you’ll know what your house payment will be for the next 30 years — not so when you’re a renter. – Eileen Lacerte, Hawaii Beach and Golf Properties

7. Always Invest Based On Location

Regardless of the interest rate or transaction environment, good locations with strong demand and access to transportation infrastructure will continue to outperform in the long run. Location is certainly the evergreen factor telling you where to invest. Interest rates and transaction volumes are better indicators of when to invest. – Marc Rutzen, Enodo Inc

8. Find Trustworthy Partners In The Real Estate Process

In an industry that is heavily commission-based, it is very important to find and work with trustworthy and genuine individuals who will have your best interest at heart over their own pocket. – Engelo Rumora, List’n Sell Realty

9. Keep Your Home’s Condition Pristine If You’re Looking To Sell

Well-maintained houses always sell faster, even in a slow real estate market. Buyers appreciate houses that look move-in ready and are updated versus those that need a lot of work. In a hot real estate market, most houses sell quickly. But during a cooler market period, buyers can get very picky, so it will be the nicer ones that continue to sell. – Jeremy Brandt, We Buy Houses®

10. Be Selective And Don’t Be Afraid To Walk Away

The old real estate adage is true: You make your money when you buy, not when you sell. By being selective about your real estate purchases and using larger amounts of cash in the transactions, you insulate yourself from the ebbs and flows of the market. Deals don’t always work, so do not be afraid to step away. Sometimes the best investment to protect principal is no investment at all. – Blake Plumley, Capital Pursuits LLC

11. Approach Negotiations From A Collaborative, Not Competitive, Standpoint

It’s a mistake to go into real estate negotiations thinking that the other side is your adversary and to be fixated on a specific price. The goal should always be working together to come to an agreement that satisfies both parties. Digging in your heals can sabotage a negotiation. Take a step back and put yourself in their shoes. What’s a win-win for everyone? – Brad Le, Climb Real Estate

12. Find An Experienced Local Real Estate Agent

The internet has changed real estate forever. Home sellers and buyers can get more information about real estate than ever. But what they can’t get online and can only get from a local real estate agent, is that insider knowledge. That local “go-to” agent who is a neighborhood expert knows things about the homes and the community you just can’t Google. Their value will never change. – Lane Hornung, zavvie

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And, Remember That A Home’s True Value Is Determined By The Buyer

No matter what the market conditions are, one aspect always remains the same — the true market value of a home is only equal to what a buyer is willing to pay. Just because a seller believes their home is worth a certain amount of money, it does not mean that the ask will be equal to what a buyer believes to be an appropriate “bid” price. – Matt Pettinelli, CapGrow Partners LLC

High-End Furniture Made From River Garbage

Forward-looking Dutch firms are bringing something of a sea change to corporate furnishings by equipping boardrooms with whale-inspired furniture — chairs and tables made out of plastic plucked from the sea by tourists.

This year, 14 Netherlands-based companies were the first to purchase Plastic Whale’s first collection of Circular Furniture. The set included a 3-foot-long boardroom table inspired by a surfacing whale (with oak wood legs reminiscent of its skeleton), eight chairs channeling the creature’s tail and lamps honoring the barnacles that call its skin home. There’s also an acoustic wall panel with waves that are akin to the pleats on a whale’s throat.

This collection — a joint effort between Plastic Whale, LAMA Concept and Vepa Project Furniture — features surfaces made from wood and mostly waste material. And that waste is pretty special: Each of the 1,000-plus plastic bottles it takes to make a table, the 60–80 for the chairs and the 20 for the lamps has been fished out of Amsterdam’s canals by hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

Which means every Plastic Whale chair a Dutch executive sits on is the result of thousands of tourists who decided plastic-fishing was a better use of their time than eating another weed brownie.

Plastic-fishing is a popular tourist activity in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Marius Smit started Plastic Whale in 2011 after seeing reports on the magnitude of waste in the world’s oceans — he decided he could help tackle the situation at home in Amsterdam. Using the organization’s current motto to “stop talking, start doing,” Smit began organizing “fishing trips” through the city’s waterways, where they caught garbage instead of dinner. Visitors spend an afternoon cruising the canals — the boats look a lot different from others on the canals — with a long net in hand, scooping up floating debris. Fun!

Today, plastic-fishing is a popular tourist activity in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam, attracting volunteers from all over the world. Around 6,300 people fished in June 2018 alone, and there’s already been an overall 70 percent participant growth in 2018 compared to 2017. “This year we’re breaking records every week,” says Pauline de Boer, of Plastic Whale’s marketing team.

Until a year ago Plastic Whale had been using the recycled bottles to make the boats for the fishing expeditions. But when the company needed a new lunch table, well, it decided to try its hand at furniture. The next step was designing furniture for other businesses, in particular the Dutch companies that had been longtime fans of its foraging mission. “We noticed there are so many companies who want to contribute, and they all need office furniture,” says de Boer. Naturally, the furniture would be designed after the “biggest mammal of the world” that gave the organization its name, explains de Boer.

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Right now, at 19,800 euros, the Circular Furniture table and chair set isn’t destined for the average household, in neither product nor price, but Plastic Whale is hoping to change that soon, according to Gertjan de Kam, Vepa’s manager of marketing, design and development.

There’s a growing market for it. Interior Design named furniture pieces from recycled and repurposed materials as one of five big trends of 2018, and several companies showcasing recycled materials made appearances at Milan’s 2018 Furniture Fair.

Open Source Developers Improve Networking, Storage and More

The open source Kubernetes container orchestration project this week shipped its second release of the year, with improvements to networking, storage and more.

Kubernetes, under direction of The Linux Foundation, focuses on automating deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications.

Kubernetes 1.11, announced yesterday (June 27), includes several new features, with project backers especially highlighting two features that have graduated to general availability: IPVS-based In-Cluster Load Balancing and CoreDNS as a cluster DNS add-on option. The release team said these result in increased scalability and flexibility.

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“IPVS (IP Virtual Server) provides high-performance in-kernel load balancing, with a simpler programming interface than iptables,” the team said in a blog post. “This change delivers better network throughput, better programming latency, and higher scalability limits for the cluster-wide distributed load-balancer that comprises the Kubernetes Service model.”

The newly generally available CoreDNS, meanwhile, provides a flexible, extensible and authoritative DNS server. “CoreDNS has fewer moving parts than the previous DNS server, since it’s a single executable and a single process, and supports flexible use cases by creating custom DNS entries,” the team said. “It’s also written in Go making it memory-safe.”

The team also highlighted several storage enhancements — including improvements to the Container Storage Interface (CSI) — which it said have been a focal point for the past two releases. Other new storage functionality includes support for online resizing of Persistent Volumes and for dynamic maximum volume count, which are now both alpha features.

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Project backers noted the open source community contributions from hundreds of developers and others, with special thanks given to release team leader Josh Berkus, the Kubernetes Community Manager at Red Hat.

Galusha: Fishing With Mulberries

In these days of hi-tech lures, and all the other fishing equipment, who would think that something as simple as a mulberry could catch huge fish? That is exactly what happened when back in 2007 the “Dan’s Fish ‘N’ Tales” TV crew was invited by to fish for carp and catfish, using mulberries on Railroad Lake in West Lake Park.

The first thing is selecting the right berries to pick. There are normally four stages of color — green, red, red/purple and purple. The two best are the red/purple and purple. The red/purple will stay on the hook better because of the firmness, but the purple will milk out into the water more. Be sure to keep the berries cool. Don’t leave them in a metal can that is setting in the sun. This will cook the berries to the point of being too soft, and not holding to the hook. They will also become much messier to put on the hook, which is a problem even with firmer berries.

The technique is so simple that anyone can do it. The only thing to remember is to have heavy enough line. In fact, I had two fish break off, one of which was on 15-pound test braided line. It is suggested to use at least 20-pound test.

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The hook used was a number 2 Daiichi bait hook. I would also suggest trying a Daiichi Circle Wide, which will be great for holding the bait, as well as hooking the fish much easier.

Hook the berry in the firmest and largest portion, being sure to get it as close to the center as possible, which is best for holding to the hook.

The best locations, naturally, are where mulberry trees are hanging over the water. When the trees are full of fruit, as they are at this time of the year, there is a constant chumming, which draws fish in to the area. Be sure to target the areas first where fish are seen actively feeding under the trees.

The biggest problem is the berry stain. It can get on your clothing, boat carpeting, and most of all, hands. The purple stain is a perfect indication of what an angler has been using. There is no hiding this bait. However, a good hand cleaner, and brush will remove most of it. As for the clothing, I poured a full cup of Cheer Free and Gentle detergent on the stain, and threw the shirt in with the remainder of the washing.

During the show’s taping we ran into a couple of locations where the catfish were striking on every cast. This type of activity is not uncommon when the trees are in a “full fruit” condition. In fact, a 12.3-pound grass carp on camera. Our biggest never made a television appearance, as they found a way to break the line, or straighten the hook.

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The baby food revolution had been brewing for a while

At the turn of the twentieth century, women started having their babies in hospitals and turning to doctors instead of midwives. They also began to trust in science as “the ultimate authority,” writes Bentley, and modern mothers increasingly turned to child-care experts who, spurred on by the discovery of vitamins, encouraged them to feed vitamin-rich babies solid foods.
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This went against longstanding baby feeding wisdom, which held that mothers should take their time introducing solids. But as America industrialized, that wisdom started to change thanks to the growing canned goods industry and a rising advertising industry that excelled at selling it.

Gerber was at the forefront of that movement, says Bentley. The new, processed baby foods hit grocery store shelves right as women’s child-rearing practices were becoming more industrialized, thanks to modern advances like electricity, washing machines, and other mom-friendly tech.

During the 1950s, “the age at which infants were commonly first fed solid foods plummeted.” Suddenly, thanks to a combination of industry and advertising, convenience foods for babies were all the rage. Baby food sales tripled between 1949 and 1951, notes Bentley, and women were barraged with messages—many from doctors—that they should feed their babies convenient, nutritious baby food. By 1958, she writes, 90 percent of mothers reported feeding their babies commercial baby food.
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This didn’t sit well with old-school doctors, who still stuck to the traditional wisdom about when to start babies on solids. They suggested that mothers were feeding their babies solid food in an attempt to compete with other moms to produce the healthiest, largest offspring.

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Health officials to end industry-funded study of alcohol’s possible health benefits

The National Institutes of Health used money from the alcohol industry to help pay for a study that ultimately was expected to cost $100 million. Adding private money to taxpayer dollars for research is legal under certain rules. The problem: An NIH investigation concluded Friday that a small number of its employees had close contact with industry officials that crossed those lines.

Some of those interactions “appear to intentionally bias” the study so that it would have a better chance of showing a benefit from moderate alcohol consumption, said NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak.

Those employees, from the NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, then kept their interactions with industry secret, he said, after the NIH started the appropriate process for asking companies or other outside groups to help fund a research project.

Those actions cast “doubt that the scientific knowledge gained from the study would be actionable or believable,” Tabak told a meeting of the NIH director’s advisers.

Another concern: Some outside experts who had reviewed the study plans raised concerns that it was too small and too short to address the potential problems of a daily drink — such as an increased risk of cancer or heart failure — and not just potential benefits such as a lowered risk of a heart attack.

“Purely on scientific grounds, I never really quite understood why this trial was being done,” Dr. M. Roy Wilson of Wayne State University told NIH Director Francis Collins after hearing the investigation’s conclusions. People who have a glass or two of wine — himself included, he said — “don’t do it for health reasons.”

The research was supposed to track 7,800 people who were assigned to take either a drink a day, or totally abstain, for several years. Only 105 people had enrolled by last month, when Collins temporarily suspended the study after a New York Times article first raised questions about the funding policy violations.

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