What price would you put on your home?

It may be tempting to set a high price for your home and attempt to beat the market. However, the soundest strategy is to price your home correctly from the start. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Buyers are always looking for the newest listings. The most activity – and the highest and best offers – typically come in the first 21 days a home is on the market. So if you overprice your home and then reduce the price, you lose precious time as well as the excitement that a new listing generates.

2. A house takes on a reputation fast. Even after you lower the price, prospective buyers may be wary, wondering why your home has been on the market so long. You have lost a strong negotiating position and, in the end, may even have to settle for less than market value. That’s why it is so important to make the most of your entry into the market.

3. The higher your home is priced, the fewer qualified prospects you will attract. Buyers compare houses. They are looking for the home with the most amenities at the best price. But instead of making an offer on your home, these buyers are out viewing other that they perceive to fall within their price range. by overpricing, you are actually helping to sell other, more competitively priced homes. You are highlighting their value at your own expense.

4. A disparity between your asking price and your home’s appraisal value can quickly become a deal-breaker. We must be able to defend your price to the appraiser, and the lender must be able to justify it to the market. If your home’s appraisal value is lower than your asking rice, your buyer could back out at the last minute.

Pricing your home correctly is essential to your home selling success. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your home and today’s market.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

The Ohio Finance Agency (OHFA) administers Restoring Stability: A Save the Dream Ohio Initiative to help an estimated 53,000 Ohioans who are at high risk of default or foreclosure.

OHFA worked with Save the Dream Ohio partners to develop a comprehensive, statewide strategy to distribute federal funds and help as many Ohioans as possible. Through Restoring Stability: A Save the Dream Ohio Initiative, the State of Ohio designed four programs to help homeowners who have a temporary or permanent reduction in income.

Ohio has been awarede $570 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Hardest-Hit Fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The programs include:

• Rescue Payment Assistance Program: Provides a payment to the mortgage lender to help delinquent borrowers become current on their first mortgage.
• Partial Mortgage Payment Assistance Program: Provides up to 15 months of assistance for unemployed homeowners while they search for a job or participate in job training.
• Modification Assistance with Principal Reduction Program: Provides an incentive payment matched by an investor to reduce the mortgage principal balance so a loan modification may be possible.
• Transition Assistance Program: Provides an incentive payment ot the mortgage lender and homewoners to assist with short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure to help homeowners exit homes gracefully.

The Concord Mortgage Group can offer further information on these programs, as well as information on mortgages and refinancing options. Call Jodi McCoy Vermillion for information at 614-212-6929.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

It’s a common thought that real estate is not very active during the holiday and winter months. However, The Raines Group

You can sell a home in the winter!

sells homes during all seasons and historically has posted strong sales during the months of December and January. Those who have their homes on the market during this time typically are ready to negotiate offers, while the buyers tend to be serious, qualified people who are ready to make the move. These conditions are ideal for bringing sellers and buyers together!

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

It’s obvious that The Raines Group isn’t like other real estate teams. Consisting of 16 agents and a support staff of 8, the team has brought together nearly $100 million in sales volume in 2011, approximately 276 transactions. This number is far more than the average realtor or team, especially in Ohio, and even outperforms their own number from last year, which earned them a coveted spot in the top 100 real estate teams in the country. And it just keeps getting better.

The team operates differently from other teams, in many ways. One of the things that sets them apart from other teams is their ability to focus and set clear goals for themselves. Last week, the team took a day to look at where they have been, where they are, and where they are going, both personally and as a professional team. They shared their goals on vision boards, had lunch, and broke into smaller teams for a fun, competitive exercise.

Here’s a brief video remembrance of the day.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

Tonight at the Scioto Country Club, Real Living HER was awarded the 2011 Best of Business Award for “Best Real Estate Brokerage”. The award was based on votes by the readers of Columbus CEO magazine for the third consecutive year!

The Raines Group was proud to hear that Real Living HER was selected among the room full of the best business leaders in their professions from throughout central Ohio, and is happy to be a part of an award-winning brokerage.

Visit www.Facebook.com/RLHER to see a picture of the trophy.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

The Raines Group recently listed the following homes – enjoy these videos of them. For a personal showing, call 614-855-8700.

2939 Breezewood Lane, Galena, Ohio

7336 Berkley Square, New Albany, Ohio

585 Clifden Court, Sunbury, Ohio

If you are interested in the latest videos from The Raines Group, please subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Click here to view our channel and subscribe.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

The Raines Group of Real Living HER was named one of America’s top real estate professional teams by The Wall Street Journal and REAL Trends.  The team is now a member of the “The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals,” a prestigious national awards ranking sponsored annually by the two respected publications.  The Raines Group is now ranked in the top one half of 1 percent of the more than 1 million REALTORS® nationwide.

The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals was announced on September 6, 2011 with four separate categories honoring the top 250 residential agents and agent teams for excellence in:

• Individual Sales Professionals – Sales volume
• Individual Sales Professionals – Transaction sides (in each real estate transaction, there are two sides that can be represented by a real estate agent: a buyer’s and a seller’s.)
• Team Professionals – Sales Volume
• Team Professionals – Transaction sides

According to The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals, The Raines Group had sales volume totaling $70,892,266.00, ranking the team 82^nd in the nation, and first in the state of Ohio. The Raines Group also closed 202 sides, placing them 132^nd in the nation, and second in the state of Ohio. They are one of the few teams to rank in both volume and sides.

“The best individual agents and teams – including The Raines Group’s award-winning efforts – were nothing short of phenomenal considering the challenging real estate market,” said Steve Murray, founder of Denver-based publishing and communications company REAL Trends, which compiled the list.  “Ironically, if you look at the top 250 in each category you will find that collectively, their sales volume and transaction sides held up quite nicely compared with the market as a whole.”

“Becoming a member of such an elite group as the The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals is an incredible accomplishment in any market, but what The Raines Group did during these challenging times is impressive on so many levels,” said Marti Gallardo, vice president, Global Sales, Vertical Markets Advertising for The Wall Street Journal.  “Their efforts topped 99.99 percent of the more than 1 million REALTORS nationwide.”

“I am absolutely thrilled to be named to The Thousand,” said Sandy Raines, CEO of The Raines Group. “Even with the market’s challenges, it’s incredibly gratifying to help clients find their dream homes as well as help them sell their properties quickly and for the highest price possible.”

The four lists of the The Thousand can be found at:

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/individual-sides

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/individual-volume

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/team-sides

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/team-volume

Columbus will soon be getting a big boost of electricity!

The Ohio State University and Clean Fuels Ohio will receive a combined $1.4 million from the federal government to help prepare central Ohio for the deployment of electric vehicles.

OSU will receive $907,026 to help with training programs for electric-vehicle engineers, one of seven such awards in the country for colleges.

Clean Fuels Ohio will be given $500,000 to deal with various issues related to electric vehicles, including charging infrastructure, safety training and even zoning issues. The nonprofit group is one of just 16 in the nation to receive money from the Department of Energy’s Clean Cities initiative.

“By developing the next generation of automotive engineers and preparing communities for plug-in electric vehicles, these projects will help reduce our nation’s dependence on oil imports, create jobs, and help America capture the growing global market for advanced vehicles,” said Steven Chu, secretary of energy, in a statement.

Clean Fuels Ohio will work with a wide array of other groups on its project, including the Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research, the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force, regional planning commissions and the governments of Columbus and several other Ohio cities.

The project will “benefit individual motorists, fleets, and municipalities and will facilitate economic development in the electric vehicle industries,” said Sam Spofforth, executive director of Clean Fuels Ohio, in a statement.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.

If you live in the Columbus area you undoubtedly have been to one of the enumerable parks and playgrounds that dot our fair city’s landscape.

KaBOOM!, a national non-profit dedicated to building and renovating playgrounds, and the USA Weekend magazine that reaches 49.5 million readers in 800 newspapers recently drew up the list of their 2011 playful cities and communities. Of 151 cities recognized there were 5 given top honors and Columbus had the honor of being one of those 5.

Columbus shares the “playful city distinction” with cities from corner to corner of the continental U.S.: Auburn, Wash., Hartford, Conn., San Francisco, Calif. and Orlando, Fla.

Whetstone Park of Roses

With 46 walking/ biking paths, 228 parks, 18 public pools, 3 major dog parks, 8 nature preserves, a 16 acre skate park, and 4 floral gardens including the Whetstone Park of Roses featuring over 11,000 total roses and the Topiary Garden Park (a living recreation of Georges Seuaat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte).  Columbus is well deserving of this honor.

Columbus is clearly a great place to work and play, Here are a few fantastic examples of programs and activities going on in the play department right now.

An ongoing glassblowing workshop at Franklin Park Conservatory.

Various camp opportunities for youth.

Sellect Fridays, Rhythm on the River at Bicentennial Park.

September 18th, Annual Community Open House FREE day At COSI!

For those wanting to know more about individual parks  check out the Columbus Parks and Recreation site.

To find a park near you check out this link to the Parks and Recreation interactive map page!

If you are looking to buy or sell a property in New Albany, Gahanna, Blacklick, Westerville, or another Central Ohio community, please contact The Raines Group. We offer professional real estate advice and are happy to help you achieve your real estate goals. Please contact us today via our online contact form or by calling The Raines Group at 614-418-7417.