Sun Valley, Idaho

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New Listing: The Village Green at The Valley Club

_TTP1038 copyBrand new construction in the prestigious Valley Club, the Wood River Valley’s only private country club. Located on a pond overlooking the 18th green of the new Tom Fazio 9. Exceptional finishes throughout this well designed home offer an inviting setting for family and friends to enjoy for years to come. Bank ownership means excellent value and priced to sell immediately. Call for a showing today!

5 Strategies to Imporve Your Credit Score…And Why You Want To

Here’s an interesting article from guest blogger Shanna Wroten-Tucker    Shanna.Tucker@Benchmark.US

It seems that as consumers we are increasingly held hostage by our credit scores. Most people know that lenders offer better loan terms to those with higher scores, but there are other ramifications as well. An insurance agent once told me that credit scores more highly correlate with insurance claims than does a person’s driving record. As a result, our insurance premiums are impacted by our credit scores. More and more frequently employers and government licensing agencies are using credit in their evaluation of prospective workers. And, I’ve even heard rumors that the I.R.S. uses credit scores to pre-screen for income tax audits. All good reasons to actively manage your credit scores. Here are some tips that will help you: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s A Girl!

My wife Kristen and I joyfully announce the birth of our third (and final!) child.  Honor Jules Coulter was born on July 9th at 4:19 AM.  She weighed 7lbs. 13oz. and was 21 inches long.  She and mom are doing great.  Brothers Charlie (6) and Andy (3) couldn’t be happier. 

Honor Jules Coulter

How to And How Not to Sell Your Home: Part Four

 

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of How to And How Not to Sell Your Home!

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4. Get rid of your clutter! While things like furniture and lawn chairs are ok, a potential buyer doesn’t want to see pictures of your dogs and cats, family mementos and other bits and pieces you leave around your house. They would much rather picture their things in your house, and your child’s stuffed animal collection could be preventing them from doing so.

DON’T:

4. Limit yourself to your broker. Two out of three buyers start their search online, so put yourself out there! Put your home on yahoo.com, craigslist.com, trulia.com, zillow.com, homes.com. You can even sell your house on ebay (it costs $150, and it’s noncommittal, so you can back out even if someone bids.) Many a good house has gone unnoticed because no-one knew about it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t necessarily sell through a broker, it just means you have many other options instead of or alongside with.

Good luck and happy selling!

How to And How Not to Sell Your Home: Part Three

 

Welcome to the third installment of How to And How Not to Sell Your Home.

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3. Add curb appeal. Not only is a house with a nice garden attractive to the eye, its attractive to the buyers interest– a house that comes with a nice yard means less work for the buyer if they buy the house, whereas a house with a trashed yard can not only hide or push aside the other (better) qualities of your house, it makes the buyer think of spending hours weeding the garden, mowing the lawn, planting flowers/hedges/trees. You don’t need to spend a lot of time or money in the garden to get this desired curb appeal: simply keeping the lawn mowed, the weeds at bay and adding a couple of flowers or other foliage here and there can do wonders.

DON’T:

3. Not take the first bid. Many homeowners will get a bid right away and not accept it. Because someone was so interested in your house right away, that means there must be loads of other people who will make a bid. Wrong. Chances are, the buyer has been looking for a while and your home happened to fit the bill. That does not mean that there will be a bidding war over your home. If that first offer is good, then don’t be so quick to reject it: if you do, you might have your house on the market for hundreds and hundreds of days. Of course, if the offer isn’t right then you don’t have to accept it just in case no one else bids. But if the offer is what you were looking for, then why wait?

Good luck and happy selling!

How to And How Not to Sell Your Home: Part Two

 

Welcome to the second installment of How to And How Not to Sell Your Home. Keep reading to find out how you can make your home more marketable!

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2. Keep your house in good shape inside and out! The last thing a buyer wants is to buy a house and then spend years and even more money fixing it up. Just because you’re selling doesn’t mean you can let your house go into disrepair. A potential buyer would much rather notice the nice views and expensive wood floors your house boasts than the leaks in the master bedroom and the overgrown lawn filled with weeds, but if the latter is present, the former doesn’t always make up for it. You don’t have to go all out, just keep your house in good shape.

DON’T:

2. Hire the wrong broker. Ideally, a good broker should do 90% of the business. You also want to look for a broker who is enthusiastic about finding you a good buyer. A broker who seems disinterested or who is flaky is not the broker you want to be working with. Ask family or friends for recommendations to help you find the perfect broker. Also, you can always change brokers– just because you initially worked with one doesn’t mean you’re obligated to stick with him/her throughout the whole process.

Good luck and happy selling!

Accelerated Reverse Auction Starts Today!

Sun Valley Log Home Most everyone is familiar with a traditional auctions.  Well, reverse auctions are a different and interesting sort of beast. As a leading and widely accepted real estate site states, “The popularity of reverse auctions in recent years has increased, as auctions in general are becoming the preferred way of buying real estate and goods of all kinds.”

As the name suggests, reverse auctions are those transactions in which the roles of buyers and sellers are reversed.  For example, en a traditional auction, most commonly known as a forward auction, buyers compete to obtain a property, with the selling price increasing as the buyers keep raising their bids in an effort to outlast each other.  A real estate reverse auction, is just the opposite.  In the case of a reverse auction, the seller steadily drops their price until they find the price point. Sellers drop their price until they reach market demand.

Aside from the distressed property sales, the “reverse auction” is essentially Read the rest of this entry »

Why Should I Buy a House Now???

With housing prices continuing a downward spiral (housing analysts expect the prices to drop another 8% this year), it might seem to some that it is not a good time to buy a house. Why not wait until the market is more stabilized? Here’s why:

It’s a vicious cycle.

In the words of Mike Castleman, Sr. of Metrostudy, we are “not suffering from what would normally be considered an oversupply of housing– [we're] suffering from tremendous underdemand” (Bottome Line Personal, Volume 32 Number 14, page 5). What has happened is that people lost their Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s that in the Jet?

Bill Gates?  Oprah?  Probably, and with the annual Allen and Company event in Sun Valley there are many more corporate celebrities on hand.  Each year the investment banking firm Allen and Company from New York holds this summit of the best minds in the media and technology sectors to share thoughts and ideas.  Right here at the Sun Valley Resort.  Behind closed doors, high profile meetings and conversations take place that shape the future of media and technology as we know it.  Some of this years attendee’s include:  Bill Gates billionaire founder of Microsoft, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett billionaire investor, Rupert Murdoch News Corp media mogul, Mark Zuckerberg founder of  Facebook, Tom Brokaw, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Harvey Weinstein of Mirimax Films, Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger.  And many more.

For about 4 days Friedman Memorial Airport looks like LaGuardia with corporate jets stacked ten deep waiting to pick up and drop off their high profile passengers.  This event has come to represent a highly anticipated and appreciated event by bringing a ton of national media attention and exposure for Sun Valley.  Plus, the CEO’s are invited to bring along family members who provide a huge financial shot in the arm for local businesses.  Hop in your jet and come see us next year.