Welcome to the Trank Real Estate Blog!
When the first spring day comes along (as opposed to the first day of spring), a goodly proportion of Elma’s residents feel the annual pull toward the garden store aisles. Even those who’ve stoutly resisted ordering seeds, gardening tools, or any of the other back yard paraphernalia the catalogs kept hawking all winter can succumb to this particular Call of Nature.
Burpee, Scotts and Miracle-Gro shareholders can relax: spring has sprung.
The Western New York spring real estate selling season s...A few weeks ago, an eye-catching article surfaced on the Investopedia web site—one with the arresting title of “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” I have always assumed that for prospective Western New York home buyers, the answer to that question varies by the individual circumstances. But if there is a more cut-and-dried universal answer, it would certainly be good to know it. Definitely worth reading.
Despite its name, Investopedia is not an encyclopedic history of investing. Its own his...If anyone involved in East Aurora real estate were to try to pick a word to characterize the mortgage industry as a whole, “sentimental” wouldn’t be among them. Especially over the past several years, “frustrated” might be apt, or “hog-tied.” Mortgage issuers been hampered by tough rules developed in reaction to the sub-prime mortgage mess. They certainly wanted to issue more mortgages, if only for their own profitability, but until recently, the lending guidelines made that difficult.
In any c...Trying to ferret out which features home buyers value most is no simple matter, even though that’s of particular importance when you have a Western New York house for sale. Updated kitchens and bathrooms are always near the top of the ‘most desired’ features compilations; and I’d put ample storage right there with them. It may not come to mind when you ask prospects what they value the most, because it’s a “feature” that’s so much an integral part of a home’s design—but a house for sale with sma...
East Aurora real estate trends don’t always trace patterns that are precisely identical to those in the rest of the state or nation, but sooner or later the local market almost always responds similarly. That’s because there is a certain amount of momentum—positive or negative—that is automatically spawned by the good or bad real estate market news reported in the mass media.
So when last week’s Commerce Department report on new residential home sales was released, Western New York real estate...For many Western New York parents of high school seniors, these are hold-your-breath days—the time of year when college acceptance letters begin showing up in East Aurora mailboxes. If all goes well, after settling on a school, next comes tackling the array of decisions that follow. Chief among them: where he or she will live. Many parents tend to take the common course, assuming that a college dorm is automatically the best answer—but a college’s room-and-board plan is actually only one of the...
Staging is to an Elma home what packaging is to a supermarket product: a vital element that can supersede all others. Product managers rely on advertising and marketing efforts to create awareness among consumers, just as homeowners use their Realtor’s marketing know-how (the listing, web page, signage and all their other advertising initiatives) to bring Western New York prospects to the door. Then, just as well-designed, attractive packaging is what finally moves a product off the shelf, it is...
