Have you heard of the term "broom clean"? This term is used to describe the condition in which a seller or renter must leave a home. Broom clean homes are, at a minimum, free of any excess stuff, such as personal items and debris, and have been swept or vacuumed. An offer to purchase includes language that states a home shall be left in broom clean condition by the seller. Moving is a lot of work, and sometimes sellers simply run out of time to do a final sweep. Why does cleaning your home and removing personal property matter? A home not in broom clean condition can delay the closing or, worse yet, the buyer may demand money off! Our job is to be aware of issues like this ahead of time. We find it vitally important to educate our sellers about these expectations set forth in the contract to avoid problems on closing day. To steer clear of these costly delays, it's a great idea to use a reminder system. We have a great checklist to help sellers navigate through the move-out process. Please feel free to reference this list to help ensure you have a successful move and closing day. Taking the time to broom clean your home before your closing day will save you money, time, and possibly the loss of the best-fitting buyer for your property!   To get your FREE Checklist click the link below! 👇 Yes! I want a Checklist!

Sellers; have you been thinking about placing your property on the market, but have hesitated to do so because you are uncertain of where you might find your next home? If this describes you, rest assured you are not alone; this is a common concern that sellers have in today’s real estate market. At Castle Rock Realty, we aim to provide peace of mind and confidence in the process of selling your current property and finding the next ideal home that best fits your needs and dreams! One of the most unique and valuable qualities the agents of Castle Rock Realty have to offer you is their innate ability to be creative and innovative problem solvers. Each agent brings a personalized skill set to the table when working with you to prepare your property to be placed on the market, as well as strategically planning for the purchase of your next home following the sale. If you have a home you have been thinking of selling, but you have put the thought aside to see what happens with the real estate market in the future, we encourage you to call us today and talk with one of our agents about your concerns; we look forward to hearing from you and discussing the array of services and solutions we can provide in achieving your home-ownership dreams!

Seller’s did you know that 46% of homes are selling above list price in today’s market? When you list your home with Castle Rock Realty, our agents price your home according to market conditions. Our agents will advise precisely where your home should be priced to get the most offers. Pricing your home too low can make buyers assume that there is something wrong with your house AND more importantly you are leaving money on the table.  Pricing your home too high can make people shy away from looking at it and is likely to sit on the market for a longer period of time.  However, pricing your home right will generally lead to tremendous buyer interest and demand. When you price your home just right, you will typically draw in multiple offers which puts you in a GREATposition as a seller. A multiple offer situation generally leads to an OVER list price offer.  Contact one of our experienced agents at Castle Rock Realty to discuss your home’s value.

  Have you tried to sell your property in the past with no luck?  We have a solution for you! Whether you tried to sell last year or five years ago, the market HAS changed! In fact the average home price is up 9.5% from last year. If you had your home for sale 5 years ago prices are up on average 30%! These numbers are astonishing! Sellers are gaining in this market so our encouragement to you is if you have tried to sell your home in the past and felt unsuccessful, NOW is YOUR time to make a gain in the market. Call today to talk with one of our agents about successfully selling your property!

    Do you want to know one of the cheapest and easiest ways to make your home more attractive to buyers?  DECLUTTERING!  
Decluttering is essential when selling your home because it helps create a clean, spacious, and inviting environment that allows potential buyers to visualize themselves living in the space. 
When a home is cluttered, it can be difficult for buyers to see the actual size and potential of the rooms, and it can also make the house feel cramped and overwhelming. Clutter can also distract buyers from the home’s positive features, making it harder for them to imagine themselves living there. 
By decluttering your home, you can create a more neutral and appealing environment that will make it easier for potential buyers to see themselves in the space. Decluttering and organizing can increase the likelihood of receiving offers and ultimately selling your home more quickly and for a higher price. Additionally, decluttering can make the moving process more manageable by reducing the number of items you need to pack and transport to your new home. For more expert tips on selling your home, contact one of our agents at Castle Rock Realty to get you the successful results YOU deserve.

“If you had the option to build wealth for someone else or yourself, which would you choose? Yourself, of course! When you rent a home, you are doing the exact opposite. I know not everyone is in a position right now to purchase a home, but if you’ve been renting and on the fence about buying a home… Now is the time. It’s the best way to build wealth for YOURSELF.  And if you’re one of those people that think your credit score isn’t high enough or your debt to income ratio is too high, you should give us a call.

Home prices are rising! Everything costs more! Supply Chain issues! We’ve all heard about these things on the news lately – but what does it mean for YOU? And how can you protect yourself from rising costs?  We’ve got an answer for you.  Prices are rising across the board. How do you guarantee prices aren’t going to rise on where you live? You can’t! That is – unless you buy a home. When you rent, your monthly rent can rise at any time…and probably will this year. BUT if you buy a home with a fixed interest rate – what you pay for where you live will stay the same for 15-30 years! (Oh, and did I mention interest rates are lower than they’ve ever been?) Inflation shouldn’t stop you from buying a home in 2022 – it should be the REASON you buy a home in 2022!

    When you are thinking about selling your home, you want to choose a company that offers more services to cater to your specific needs. We have a team full of experienced agents who are trained experts in contract negotiations and marketing, ensuring your home is sold with ease and peace of mind. We offer an extensive marketing program, and we have a customer database of over 25,000 buyers. When you list your home with us, we put your home into a drip campaign, showcasing it to those qualified buyers. Along with our customer database, we have a significant social media presence and advertise your property on over 100 websites. We provide professional photography and videography for all our listings. It is more important than ever to have quality photos that showcase your home's best features in today's market. In these times, more and more buyers are searching for a home online, so having a video tour of your home online holds great value. Many buyers won't even look at a home if it does not have a video. At Castle Rock Realty, we believe it is vital to have videos and professional photos, and we offer these services at no extra charge to our customers. Castle Rock Realty offers an enclosed moving trailer for our clients to use, free of charge, when selling with us. We understand that moving is stressful, and we strive to alleviate the stress involved. Our team has weekly staff meetings to discuss current market conditions, enabling us to collaborate as a team and produce positive results. Regularly, our team attends training seminars, marketing classes, and team-building events. Education and training have always been the keys to our success at Castle Rock Realty. To learn more about selling your property, please reach out to one of our team members today at Castle Rock Realty.

Despite the chilly weather, the spring market is just around the corner. You may be thinking about what you can do now to get your home ready so that you can sell it when the market warms up. Here’s five must-do tasks that you can begin to tackle now that will make the home selling process smooth and simple: Rent a storage shed or pod Decluttering is typically chore #1 for anyone preparing to sell. We all have those random items taking up closet space, cabinet space and free space throughout our homes. Take those random items that you don’t use on a daily basis and put them in storage before your home is on the market. Holiday decorations, off season clothes, books, and memorabilia can all be safely tucked away, making your home (and the storage areas in it) appear more spacious and open.  Buy natural light bulbs  While this may be a small thing to do, it can have a big impact, making your home appear brighter, especially in the winter months. People tend to like a lot of light when looking at homes, and it actually makes your home look bigger. Changing the bulbs in your home to LED natural light bulbs creates the best images when your home is photographed. Natural light bulbs are not a big investment, costing approximately $15.00 for 6 bulbs. If you don’t want to change all of the bulbs in your home, start with changing them in the important living and kitchen areas. Give your house a deep clean  First impressions are important- so it is vital that you have your home in tip top shape and free of clutter when it is time for photos and showings. Make sure your countertops and table tops are clean and open. Lightly scented air fresheners can help as well, but be careful not to have anything that is too strong in smell. We also recommend a whole house cleaning, by professionals if possible, prior to photos being taken and potential buyers beginning to tour your home. Call a handyman  Take a walk through your home, but look at it through the eyes of a buyer. Pick everything apart, from the leaky faucet that you have ignored for months to the squeaky door that you don’t hear anymore. Create a list and decide what you can handle personally, and what you will need a handyman to help with. Fixing these small items now means potential buyers have less to pick apart when they are viewing your home. Find an agent’ While we’ve listed this last, deciding on your listing agent could be one of the first things you tackle. Your agent can help you make good decisions on how to prepare your home long before you put it up for sale. To find the right person to help, you should research online and also by asking people in the community who they have trusted in the real estate world to help them. It is important that you do your research to make sure that the agent you pick knows the community, knows values and will be an advocate for you. Selling in this competitive market is exciting but can also be intimidating. Using a trusted Realtor to guide you through the process is a wise choice. If you are thinking about selling your home and would like to know more about how our team goes above and beyond for our clients, please reach out!

Preparing your home for the holidays can be very stressful – especially when you add Christmas programs, holiday parties, Secret Santa exchanges, and other celebrations into the mix. You want to enjoy the season and the magic of Christmas, but sometimes all of the extras can get in the way of enjoying your home during the festivities. Here are some simple tips to help you make your home holiday ready, without robbing you of your time. Scents of the Season Place some holiday scented air fresheners throughout your home. The smell of Christmas in the air just puts you in the holiday spirit!  Something as simple as air fresheners can help create the sense of Christmas. Build a Fire  Nothing creates warmth and ambiance more than a crackling fire. If you have a fireplace, build a fire and curl up in front of it. If you don’t have that luxury, you can create a similar effect by playing a fireplace scene on your television from the streaming video service of your choice. No Shame in an Artificial Tree  We know it’s hard to beat a real tree, but artificial trees have come a long way and they are less of a mess and less of a fire hazard. Plus, they make clean up and tree maintenance so much easier. Add Real Garland  Bring in some live garland as accent pieces throughout your home. Especially if you opt for an artificial tree, real garland provides a nice texture and the natural scent of pine. Focus on Main Spaces Don’t stress out about decorating every room of the house for Christmas! Stick to the main living areas and areas that you will use for entertaining and forget the rest. If you feel the need to decorate the kid’s bedrooms, just put a small artificial tree in their room, and let them decorate it however they would like. This gives them a sense of pride and also takes a task off your plate. Christmas is a time to enjoy the beauty of the season with our family and friends. We love entertaining and hosting our friends and family, but don’t let the stress of preparation get in the way of the real reason for this beautiful season. Best wishes for a lovely holiday from our family to yours!

We have all experienced hidden fees, and can all probably agree that they are annoying! For example, you book a flight, pay for your flight in full and then you get an email just before your trip that you can pick your seat for a FEE. And then when you get to the airport, you need to pay a FEE to check your luggage. All of a sudden, your flight is $100 more than you planned because of these hidden costs. It’s frustrating as a consumer to be faced with hidden fees when they could easily have been disclosed up front. Or if they were disclosed up front, it was most likely in difficult to read fine print. I think we can all say that hidden fees have surprised us at one time or another, which is both frustrating and annoying.   No Extra Fees to Use Our Services, Ever Because of that, at Castle Rock Realty we work very hard to be transparent about costs and fees. Your agreed upon commission is what you will pay. If you are listing your home with us, we do not charge extra for professional photography or videography like many companies do. If you are buying a home with us, we will not charge you to look at a property. We also do not charge a transaction or administrative fee.  If you are comparing real estate companies, many real estate companies use a la carte pricing. This means you pay the commission plus more for videography, photography, internet marketing, transaction fees and so on. When you list with Castle Rock Realty, it is OUR promise to you that you will have absolutely NO hidden fees. We take on those additional expenses as a company simply as a cost of doing business and providing the best possible service to our customers. At Castle Rock Realty we don’t ever want our customers to be caught off guard by hidden fees, therefore we don’t have any! To learn more about our full service real estate company and everything we do to delight our clients, please reach out to us today.

As you look into financing options for purchasing a home, you might see something called PMI being calculated into your costs. PMI is “private mortgage insurance.” If you are a first time home buyer especially, it’s difficult to come up with the funds for a 20% down payment. PMI is a lender’s protection and compensation for taking a risk on a buyer with a smaller amount of money to put down. PMI costs between 0.5% and 1% of the mortgage annually, and insures the difference between 20% equity and the smaller percentage the buyer put down, in case the lender has to foreclose on the home. Conventional Loans and PMI There are advantages to buyers for loans that require PMI. Primarily, it allows buyers to get into a home without having 20% down. Once you have made enough payments on your home over time to get to the point where you have 20% equity, the PMI payment goes away. Keep in mind that you will likely need to inform your mortgage holder that you reached the 20% mark in equity, as most mortgage holders won’t automatically remove it. The disadvantage of PMI is the cost. You will have an added expense every month in addition to your mortgage. The best way to handle a loan with PMI is to try to pay extra towards the principal of your mortgage per month to try to gain equity as quickly as possible. If your current loan has PMI included, and you are curious if you are at the 20% equity mark for your home, reach out to us and we can help you figure out your home’s current market value.  What About FHA and VA Loans? PMI works differently depending on the type of loan. If you use an FHA loan, PMI can last for 11 years, or possibly for the life of the loan. This is important to consider when looking at different loan programs and terms. VA loans, however, do not require any down payment and there is no PMI. There are many things to consider when purchasing a home. Your financing options are one of the bigger pieces of the puzzle because you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you are financially strapped, or get yourself into a 30 year mortgage that turns out to be too much for your comfort level. PMI can be a very useful resource as it gives more people the ability to become homeowners. Just make sure you consider the long term effects of the loan program and PMI. If you’d like to speak with someone about home financing options, we would be happy to connect you with some lenders that we know and trust. Reach out to us here and we’ll help you get started!

When I first got started in real estate and was learning the nuances of the purchase contract, my trainer told a story that has stuck with me to this day. She was working with a couple buying a home from a widower that had lived in it for numerous years, but was moving out of the area to start a new life. He had actually signed the closing papers a day earlier than the buyers, and when they arrived the morning of the walk through, the house was totally empty as expected, but all of the kitchen cabinets were gone as well.   Imagine the surprise and confusion! A few phone calls later, it was ascertained that the older gentleman had actually built the cabinets himself and assumed that they were his personal property and not a part of the house itself. The contract to purchase, however, defined them as ‘fixtures’, not unlike a dining room chandelier, so they should have stayed.  (He did return and re-install the cabinets.) This could have easily been avoided if the agent and the seller had talked about personal property and conveyances.      How can you tell if an item in a home will convey?     Most people don’t buy or sell homes often, so it’s easy for buyers and sellers to make assumptions about whether personal property or fixtures are included in the sale of a home. Also, other parts of the country have different customs about what they leave behind or take with them. In Texas, for example, people tend to take their refrigerators with them from home to home. As a general rule of thumb, appliances are included. But to avoid confusion on what stays, personal property should ALWAYS be addressed in the offer to purchase. Appliances should be specifically named in the offer so there is a clear understanding between buyers and sellers.  There is protection for both buyer and seller for having these items spelled out in writing. Let’s say as a buyer you are planning on the appliances being left and you get to your final walk through and they are gone. If it wasn’t specified within your offer, technically there is nothing you can do about it. Conversely, as a seller, if the appliances weren’t included in the offer and you leave them there, the buyer could make you remove them. This could delay your closing while you arrange for removal and disposal, because the buyer does not have to close until they are removed. In the earlier example, the seller could have specified in the contract that he wanted to take the cabinets with him. Since he didn’t, the buyers were within their rights to ask for them to be brought back and reinstalled. Furnishings are another kind of personal property that should be addressed in an offer to purchase. As a buyer, if you are asking for furnishings to be included, you may want to just attach a bill of sale to the offer to purchase and buy them from the seller separately. Lenders generally do not want personal furnishings on the offer because they are only lending on the value of the house. They don’t want to get into putting a value on furnishings as well.      What’s the difference between a fixture and personal property?     Whether or not an item in the house is considered a fixture that conveys with the house, or personal property that does not, can sometimes be tricky to ascertain. Items like brackets for wall mount televisions, custom drapery, chandeliers, and floating wall shelves all fall into a gray area. The seller and buyer may not make the same assumption based on whether the item is permanently affixed to the home. The best way to handle it is to spell out conveyances on the offer to purchase, so both parties can come to a mutual agreement on what will remain with the home. This is yet another reason we recommend hiring a Realtor to represent you. A good agent pays attention to the small details that could add up to big problems if missed. Looking for a great Realtor to help you? We’d love to chat and hear about what you are looking for in your next move. Please reach out to us here!

As a consumer, do you ever think about price versus worth?   This summer, we gave up mowing the lawn at our house because my husband was putting in more hours at work and he simply didn’t have the time to cut the grass.  At first we thought it was ridiculous to pay someone to cut our grass, but we quickly learned that his time was better spent working or spending time with our family. His time was worth more to us than the rate we would need to pay for someone to mow the lawn. (And honestly, the company we hired did a much better job than my husband could.) You may be falling into a similar trap yourself when you think about what you think you could do on your own, versus what it would cost to hire help. In today’s competitive real estate market, you may be tempted to sell your home on your own because sales are happening so quickly.  When you think about the dollars you would spend on the real estate commission, it’s very tempting to say ”I’ll just do it myself.”  Avoiding Costly Missteps  When does price versus worth come into the equation? Working with a professional typically provides more benefits than what you can calculate from their actual price. Utilizing the skills of someone with years of experience helps you avoid problems that could be costly or actually leave money on the table that you would have otherwise saved. When it comes to selling your own home, have you considered that most offers are 10 pages long, thick with details, plus several more pages of specific addendums?  If you aren’t aware of the terms and contingencies in the offer and addendums, that’s how you leave money on the table and possibly put yourself in a harmful offer situation. Also, using the skills of a professional gives you top notch advice, marketing and advertising that will bring more buyer interest and stronger offers. Think about it: when your car needs an oil change.. would you rather take it in to have a mechanic change the oil and give your vehicle a safety check?  Or would you rather buy the oil, take a Saturday afternoon and change your oil, then have to get rid of the oil.  (Never mind the professional safety check of your vehicle to look out for additional issues!) Few people would say that they would rather change their own oil.  It is a matter of price versus worth.  Your time is valuable, so you trust someone that is trained in oil changes to take care of it for you.   The same is true in real estate.  Your time is valuable and your investment is precious.  Why not protect your time and investment by trusting a real estate professional to guide you through the process? Our team is full of true professionals with tons of happy clients. If you are thinking about selling your home (or buying one!), we would love the opportunity to earn your business. Please reach out to us!!

No credit, no debt, great mortgage  If you are looking at buying a home in the near or distant future, don’t buy things on credit if you’re planning on getting a mortgage. Yes, it is wise to have credit built up for your credit score, but you won’t qualify for a mortgage. Lenders prefer to see a debt-to-income ratio (also known as DTI) smaller than 36% with no more than 28% of that debt servicing your mortgage.  A debt-to-income ratio is calculated by dividing total recurring monthly debt by monthly gross income.  DTI = total recurring monthly debt / monthly gross income (maybe insert graphics on this)  Avoiding Getting Denied  Once your mortgage is pre-approved, your loan then goes through underwriting. Underwriting, appraisal, and loan document preparation can take anywhere between 21 to 60 days. Once done, your lender will run your credit and if your debt ratio has increased, they can deny your loan.  We have seen buyers turned down days before closing their dream home because of appliances and furniture credit. Or worse, the buyer will have their mortgage turned down because of a new car on debit.  All of these can be avoided by resisting the temptation to buy things before you close a new home.  Our Agents Can Help  If you would like to check your debt-to-income ratio, we encourage you to talk to a local lender and get pre-approved into getting your own home. Castle Rock Realty can help you find a lender in your area, find listings that are a great fit for you, and answer any questions you may have along the way. Talk to one of our agents now!

Our Team had a meeting a few weeks ago to talk about what we could do to help the kids and teachers have a great school year. One of our ideas was to host a back-to-school supply drive for students, but then we took it a step further to create the drive to benefit our teachers as well. We are so excited to announce that we are hosting a back-to-school supply drive! We want to help as many students and teachers as possible in this school year—so this school drive is to benefit all students and all teachers. We all know that teachers get to about mid-schoolyear before they start digging into their own pockets, either for supplies that they need for their classrooms or for things that kids in their classes need. We appreciate the hearts of teachers and their true ability to put other’s needs before their own, so we want to try to relieve them from that burden. Teaching our children is so important and we want to show them how much we appreciate all that they are doing for these young people.  From now until Tuesday, August 24 we will be hosting a school supply drive for things that teachers commonly run out of during the school year. Please visit our social media pages to see the list of specific items that students and teachers need. Check the pinned post on our Facebook for the most up-to-date list, or visit our Instagram for more posts and appreciation of our teachers. If you have a specific school that you would like your donation to go to, please let us know that when you drop off your donation and we will be sure to get it to that school district. We are accepting donations at all four of our office locations until Tuesday, August 24, 2021. Offices are located at: 104 W. State St. Mauston WI403 Madison St. Mauston WI 403 Madison St Suite A, Mauston, WI 53948 102 S. Main St. Necedah WI (inside the Bank of Mauston building) 241 2nd St. Reedsburg WI

With the real estate market being a very strong seller’s market, many sellers are tempted more than ever to try to sell on their own without an agent. The common misconception is that you will save money by not using a realtor which is untrue. There are several reasons that using a realtor will actually save you money. 1. Staging and updating your home is important. An agent will point you in the right direction when deciding what repairs or updates to make when you are getting your home ready to list. We know the key things that will bring you more money and we know which things to avoid when updating your home for the market. If you put money into the wrong areas in your home, you most likely won’t see a return on that investment of time and money. 2. Contracts are complicated. Did you know that the average sales contract with addendums is 15 pages? That is 15 pages of small print that our agents know inside and out. If you are reviewing a contract on your own, it is very easy to miss something in the fine print that could end up costing you thousands of dollars or even worse, costing you a lot of wasted time when a deal falls apart due to small print that you missed.  3. Do you want to let just any unqualified buyer into your home? You don’t want to let just anyone into your home for obvious reasons, but how do you as a homeowner stop them? Our team understands the importance of pre-qualifying our buyers before we ever bring them to your home. We take it seriously that you have hired us to protect your home, and that is just what we will do by pre-qualifying the buyers before showing them your home. 4. You want someone that will protect your largest financial investment. When you try to sell your home on your own, you do not have access to the critical details of where the market is for pricing. You may hear people talk about what things are selling for but that does not mean that you have the professional skill set that our agents have to price your home. Our agents know the market, they understand values and they also understand pricing inside and out. When you price something too high, you will turn buyers off and they may never look, if you price it too low, you are leaving money on the table. Our ultimate goal is to get you top dollar for your home based on current market conditions. 5. Negotiation is KEY! When you try to sell For Sale by Owner (FSBO), you immediately lose your negotiating power. Buyers have this ability to play on the seller’s emotions so then you are negotiating based on emotions rather than facts and values. Our team helps to guide you through that process, we allow you to feel the emotions and have the experience all while guiding you through the process and helping you make decisions based on dollars and cents. Our number one goal is for you to be emotionally happy with the sale all while walking away with your financial investment protected.  Before you try to go it alone, talk with one of our professionals to discuss listing your home and protecting your investment. Have a more specific question? Give us a call at (608) 847-6020 to learn more.

Mauston, WI. May 06, 2021 – Castle Rock Realty announced that Pat Connors has sold to one of his Realtors of 24 years, Bobbi Brandt. In 2019 Pat decided it was time to start to wind down a little, so he sold part of Castle Rock Realty to Bobbi. Pat worked closely with Bobbi for a year training her leadership skills and the behind-the-scenes of running a successful real estate company. Bobbi then bought Pat out in 2020 when she felt comfortable with flying solo. On April 30, 2021, Pat sold the last piece of the real estate puzzle to Bobbi, which is the building located at 104 W. State St. Mauston. Although Pat is technically “retired” from real estate he still plays a large part in Castle Rock Realty. When problems arise, he is there to offer words of advice to Bobbi. His role is still crucial to who Castle Rock Realty is as a company, as he brings humor and light to difficult situations. Pat is the foundation of Castle Rock Realty and his leadership is like no other. Pat founded Castle Rock Realty in 1983, and with a drive to serve the community he was able to expand into the successful Realty company we know today. He established a company built on strong morals and a value of family which is what has created our company to be full of people that are all like family. Pat is a true entrepreneur so as he grew Castle Rock Realty, he also began to expand into other businesses including developing land with other developers, condo developments, purchasing Meadow Valley Log Homes, and then purchasing several Culver’s franchises. Pat and his wife Tanya also have a Clydesdale horse farm which has grown into quite a business for them. From the beginning, Castle Rock has continuously proven to be the leader in the community. Castle Rock Realty agents are dedicated servants to their community, to their craft, and most importantly to their clients. Bobbi and the rest of our team plan to continue to do business the same as Pat always did, honestly and fairly with a heart to serve others.