Get to know Troy!
Troy is a Full-time Licensed Real Estate Professional specializing in Digital Marketing and Social Media techniques to maximize exposure, time on the market and profitability for his clients. Troy’s passion for unprecedented client service coupled with his unique value proposition has helped him build a reputation as an invaluable ally when selling your home. Troy keeps his mission simple: to help his clients and friends make the journey of buying or selling a home as enjoyable as possible. His belief is that buying and selling property should be fun as well as rewarding, and he is there to make sure that is the case with each client.
When he’s not spending time with clients, Troy and his wife Terri enjoy live music, traveling to the beach, hanging out with friends and family, watching major sports, and playing with their two dogs Dakota and Kinsler. Troy also gives back to the community and is founding a non-profit charity named, “aChance2Play” The mission will be to help raise money for less fortunate kids to get more involved in sports, music, and theatre arts.
How would you describe the state of local real estate in 2018?
The local Real Estate market in Plano and the surrounding areas is still thriving but has shifted a bit. What I mean by this is the inventory is still low, but there are still more buyers than homes to sell. Also, interest rates have increased a little and will continue to rise slightly in 2018. Coupled with the change in the tax laws some buyers are now qualified to purchase a lower price home.
What is one piece of advice you have for local homeowners looking to sell?
If you are looking to sell, I recommend to follow my 3 P’s of selling your home.
Prepare
Not only must you prepare the house to sell but as the home owner, you should be preparing to move. I see a lot of homes with personal items still on the walls or the shelves. Pictures of the kids or grandkids. Stacks of those vinyl albums from the 80’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love those things but you want buyers to vision your house as their home. They need to be able to make it their own. In addition, most buyers do not want to have to do any repairs, no matter how minor they may be. They want move-in ready, so if you have an accent wall, go ahead and spend $100 to paint it. The more neutral the better that way you can appeal to more buyers. The more people you attract to your home, the more offers you will receive.
Price
Showing sellers how important it is to get pricing right is critical. By not pricing your home correctly can cost you money, not only from the sales price for but how long it takes to sell. I know how frustrating this can be to show your house every night and 7 times on Saturday and Sunday for 3 or 4 weeks, so it is my goal is to not let this happen.
Most agents will use a CMA (Competitive Market Analysis) and try to “guess’ what the market trends are. While this is not entirely wrong, you should also understand the motivating factor of the seller and the buyer, what draws buyers to this neighborhood, shopping, schools, etc.
Another point is most sellers usually think their home is better than the neighbors that sold for $15,000 over asking price and in 3 days. While this may be true, you can never be accurate without taking into consideration any updates and upgrades, size of the house and the yard, or other motivating factors.
Promotion
Here’s where we get into the details of our marketing strategy. Understanding how to promote the property so you get the most activity is crucial. You may have noticed, I used “Marketing Strategy” and not “plan”. By leveraging a strategy you are being more efficient in your marketing efforts which in turn will get your home in front of more people and create more activity.
With the advancement and growth of the internet and social media there are several ways to accomplish this and get the best value. These include, SEO (Search Engine Optimization on Google), Facebook Ad Campaigns (Facebook is the best medium to promote to a targeted audience as well as Retargeting), videos, and Craiglist. By leveraging all of these new techniques, it is almost certain your home will be seen by more people and for a lower cost than traditional methods.
What is one piece of advice you have for those looking to buy in Plano?
If you are looking to buy a home in Plano, I would recommend getting pre-approved first. By being pre-approved the seller will take your offers more seriously and you will know your buying power before you even begin looking. By knowing your buying power, it will keep you focused on homes that you can actually afford and shorten your time of searching and position you better to negotiate the best deal for you and the seller.
Are there are any interior design trends you’ve seen on the rise? Which flooring style is desired by homeowners/homebuyers in the area?
Lavender is the color for 2018. This can be in accent walls, flowers, or even throw pillows. Anything to give your room a little color that pops. For flooring, hardwood flooring is always popular and in Plano it is a must have. In addition, I am seeing a lot of bleached or blonde wood flooring as well as fume-stained woods for a stronger color and grain. Another popular choice are concrete and textured tiles. Textured tiles that give you the look and feel of the real wood or stone so when you walk on it not only does it look like the real thing but the texture feels like it too.