When you list your home, you want to generate as much interest as possible. We're finding that featuring your home's strongest photo, inside or out, is an effective way to grab buyers' attention. The traditional curbside photo is fine, but it doesn't always tell the strongest story for your home. You might have a stunning kitchen - like our listing in Westmorland. We had photos taken of both the kitchen and the exterior. As you can see, the home is lovely inside and out. In this case, we've featured the kitchen as the first photo in the listing, because buyers will be more excited about this feature.

A home we recently sold in Faircrest is in a similar situation. The home has a gorgeous, modern kitchen. The exterior is very nice and well kept - but

Listing your home doesn't require an overwhelming amount of work up front. You can plan and prepare, with enough time to complete needed projects well. If you prepare well, you should be able to sell it quickly in the current market, and for a great price. In order to make a listing successful, our team puts this marketing plan together in bite-size pieces:

1. Work with a Professional Home Stager. Your listing agent may offer to pay for this service. We do this as part of our marketing plan for all of our clients. The home stager can go through your property, rearrange furniture, relocate decor and offer you good tips for maximizing the beauty and functionality of your home. The stager can also recommend paint colors, flooring changes or new light

The Madison real estate market has changed from the fever pitch that characterized the months of March, April, May and June. The graph below shows how the market is changing. Each bar represents a snapshot of the single family home market taken mid-month. Each number reflects the percent of all Madison single family home listings that had an accepted offer at the time of the snapshot. 

What Does the Data Say about the Spring Market?

If you were searching for a home in March, April, May or June, over 50% of the listings you viewed online were already under contract and scheduled for closing. These were wild and crazy times. Many new listings sold in a matter of days or even hours - after receiving multiple competing offers. Some buyers put their

Let's face it. Winter in Wisconsin is long, cold, and, while often it is pretty, it's also messy. Trees are bare, landscaping is rarely visible, and your home can't have the same curb appeal that it has in warmer weather. Take this listing, for example. The home is in excellent condition and offers fabulous views. But the drab gray of winter keeps you from appreciating the rolling hills and beautiful views behind it.

In this case, we didn't have access to a previous season's photo. We posted interior photos first. The listing sold successfully, but it could have shown even better, with seasonal photos. That's why we recommend that you start a collection of exterior photos now. When you list your home, you'll be able to show it at its best, and create

In a hot real estate market having the right focus can make all the difference between buying or missing out on your dream home. One good way to focus your search is to target properties which don't yet have an accepted offer. At Mad City Dream Homes our search tools make it easy to exclude listings with accepted offers from your search results. 

Download our free property search app to see which listings have accepted offers and which ones are still available for sale. 

Excluding Accepted Offers from Search Results

As an example, let's suppose you'd like to search for all Monona condos which don't yet have an accepted offer. Here are the settings for your search:

• Enter "Monona" in the location field.
• Select "Condo" as the property

Have you ever come across a listing online and wondered if it already has an accepted offer? This is one of the most commonly asked questions we receive from buyers who have been searching for homes on the internet. At Mad City Dream Homes, we make it easy to identify which listings have an accepted offer.

Identifying Listings with Accepted Offers

When you search for properties on Mad City Dream Homes, you'll see one of three different statuses that appear by each listing.

Some listings will display a status of "active". 

Other listings will display a status of "offer-show". 

Still others will display a status of "offer-bump". 

What do These 3 Statuses Mean?

"Active" means the property does not have an accepted

Selling your home is a big deal. Some of your most important personal and family goals hinge on the success of your sale. Of course you have a lot of money, time and energy on the line, too.  

Choosing the right real estate agent can make all the difference between having a positive and a negative home-selling experience. Below are 8 questions which will help you select the right agent for your sale. 

Listing Agent Question #1

Why are you in real estate? This is an open-ended question that has no one right answer. Hire an agent who has a passion for real estate that goes well beyond making a sale. For example, an agent may truly value the trust that is earned and the relationships that are built during the home-selling process. She might enjoy

Sometimes in real estate we get too wrapped up in quantity. We tend to measure ourselves by the number of closings or the volume of sales that we have in a year. As a home or condo seller, your concerns are more about quality. For example, when you hire your listing agent, how do you know you're getting a good one? Fortunately there are 3 simple measures that will help you answer this question. 

View our home selling results here. 

Measure #1: Listing Success Rate

A listing can either sell or it can expire. This simple measure identifies the percentage of an agent's listings that actually sell.  We calculated the listing success rate for the entire South Central WI MLS on May 17th and found that the average listing success rate in 2016 is 68%.

These days a lot of our real estate news comes from social media chatter and headlines. In this post we summarize the latest market trends with some objective data straight from the MLS. Here are the latest scoops on the 2016 Spring markets in Fitchburg, Madison, Middleton and Verona. 

Fitchburg Homes and Condos

Inventory is tight in both the single family home and condo markets. Below are a couple of quick nuggets followed by more market info on our SlideShare real estate page. 

• Fitchburg single family home inventory is especially tight for properties priced under $400,000. Right now there is only 1 month of supply for listings in this price range. Sixty-two percent of these listings are under contact and scheduled to close soon. 

Where are the hottest markets in Dane County? In this post we take a quick look at the larger markets in the western half of the county, specifically Fitchburg, Madison, Middleton, and Verona. 

We use two key measures to gauge market momentum - months of supply and the percent of listings with accepted offers. When we use these two statistics there are two markets which stand out above the rest. 

Dane County's Hottest Condo Market

Condos are selling very well across all of Dane County, but the Verona condo market is the market that stands out above all others. Right now there are only 1.5 months of condo inventory available for sale in Verona. Amazingly, 64% of the condo listings in Verona are under contract and are scheduled to close soon.