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I’ve been selling real estate in the LA area for fifteen years, and during that time I’ve seen dramatic swings in market demand, countless revisions to purchase contracts, and major procedural shifts—most recently around how agent commissions are disclosed. Technology alone has completely transformed the day-to-day business of real estate. When I started, electronic signatures were barely a thing, and most clients signed every document in person with me. But I think the most significant change I’ve experienced is a shift in buyer mindset—specifically, how buyers approach the search for and purchase of a home.

Today’s first-time buyers grew up online. They’re immersed in constant streams of information: videos, 3D walkthroughs, street views, social media stories, and advice from countless “experts” offering opinions on pricing, timing, and market trends. These tools didn’t exist when I began my career.  Buyers are now more informed than ever, but all that accessible information can lead to second guessing. Many buyers feel overwhelmed by competing perspectives, and because of that they struggle to make decisions with confidence.

Agents often joke that we’re part Realtor, part therapist—and that feels especially true today. With anxiety levels rising, buyers need more reassurance throughout every stage of the process. Ultimately, understanding buyer perception is key to a successful transaction on both sides. Homes in niche neighborhoods like La Canada Flintridge often hold decades of memories, and translating that value to today’s buyers takes both care and perspective. Sellers must think more like advertisers, tailoring their marketing to the specific mindset of today’s buyers, while buyers benefit most from guided confidence—focusing on their own goals rather than an idealized version of the home-buying experience.  

Kari Carson

DRE #01903828

(818) 424-5537

kari@karicarson.com

Neighborhoods Served: La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Glendale, Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Greater LA area

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The answer to this question is determined by many different factors, including the type of property you are selling, the city in which the property is located, local rent control ordinances and the length of time the tenant has been in the property. I’m going to treat this scenario as a single-family home, not under rent control, with tenants on an existing lease.

If the intention is to close your home sale without the tenants in place, the first step is to give them notice that you do not plan on continuing their tenancy. You’ll need to give 30 days’ notice if they have lived there less than a year and 60 days’ notice for a year or more. Legally, you may proceed with listing the house while the tenants are still living in the property. However, this can pose significant marketing challenges. 

With tenants in place, you have very little control over how the property looks for showings. It complicates your ability to do pre-marketing prep work such as painting, cleaning and staging, and these steps are extremely important if you are trying to maximize your profit. Your tenants would need to cooperate with your requests for showings, which need to be made at least 24 hours in advance. They are under no obligation to tidy the house or leave the property during showings. Listing with tenants in place can also be a red flag for buyers who want to owner occupy, because they may be concerned about the possibility of the tenants refusing to leave. 

The bottom line is if you are looking for the highest possible sale price, and your tenants only have one month left on their lease, your best option is likely to wait until the property is vacant to put the home on the market. That being said, if you absolutely need to sell as quickly as possible, an experienced Realtor can help you to navigate a tenant occupied property sale to minimize the impact of these challenges as much as possible. 

Kari Carson

DRE #01903828

(818) 424-5537

kari@karicarson.com

Neighborhoods Served: La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Glendale, Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Greater LA area

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One of the most common questions I hear from buyers at open houses is: “Do you have an offer deadline?” Buyers in the Los Angeles area are generally pretty savvy and well aware of the strategy of listing agents setting a specific date to review offers. But many sellers don’t fully understand this approach—or the pros and cons that come with it. Here are a few things to consider:

As a seller, you can choose to review offers as they come in, or you can set a deadline for buyers to submit their offers. Promoting a deadline can create urgency, encouraging buyers to act quickly. It can also signal strong interest in the home and help generate multiple offers at once, which often gives sellers more leverage to negotiate a higher price and better terms.

That said, setting an offer deadline can be a calculated risk. If a deadline is heavily promoted but no offers come in, it can weaken your positioning and make buyers question the level of interest in the home. In some cases, buyers’ agents may even skip showing the property if they feel they don’t have enough time to prepare a competitive offer. Deadlines can also be less effective for highly unique properties that may not naturally attract multiple offers at the same time.

Ultimately, the decision to set an offer deadline should align with your overall marketing strategy. If your home is well-priced, in a competitive area, and supported by strong marketing, a deadline can be a powerful tool. But if you’re not in a rush or are waiting for a very specific type of buyer, a more flexible approach may make more sense.

Kari Carson

DRE #01903828

(818) 424-5537

kari@karicarson.com

Neighborhoods Served: La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Glendale, Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Greater LA area

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This is one of the questions I’m asked most often during listing appointments, and it’s definitely smart to think strategically about timing your list date if your personal situation allows for flexibility.

Our local market does tend to follow a familiar seasonal cycle influenced by weather, school schedules, and holidays. Unsurprisingly, activity typically slows between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, as many buyers are focused on holiday spending and travel during that time.  But sellers should also be mindful of other holiday weekends that can impact a listing launch. Realtors often try to avoid bringing homes to market right before Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, or Labor Day, since many buyers travel during those weekends, which can reduce open house traffic.

Another surprisingly slow time of year in our area is July and August. I recently spoke with sellers who had been advised to list in July to attract buyers hoping to enroll in our Blue Ribbon school districts. However, La Cañada and Glendale schools typically begin in mid-August, and enrollment periods usually open the February prior. As a result, buyers who are specifically purchasing for schools are often house hunting in the spring rather than waiting until summer. Because our neighborhoods are so closely tied to school calendars, July and August tend to become vacation and back-to-school months for many families, making late summer one of the quieter periods of the year for real estate activity. Even many local Realtors schedule their own vacations during that time.

That said, we are fortunate that the consistently low inventory in our foothill communities helps maintain strong buyer demand year-round. So if you end up needing to list your home in December – or during another traditionally slower season – there is absolutely no reason your home can’t still sell quickly. It simply becomes more important to recognize current market conditions and price strategically. And remember: listing during a slower time of year can also mean facing less competition from nearby listings, which can help offset having fewer active buyers in the market.

Kari Carson

DRE #01903828

(818) 424-5537

kari@karicarson.com

Neighborhoods Served: La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Glendale, Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Greater LA area

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With the market in our area continuing to perform well and prices starting to rise above the pre-recession peak, many home owners are beginning to consider cashing out their equity in their current property in order to trade up to a larger home. If you are a homeowner who bought in 2011 or 2012 near the bottom of the market crash, you could be in a particularly good position to move up. However, if you need to sell your current home first in order to purchase a new home, it’s important that you understand how contingent offers work and how to best protect your deposit money throughout the process.

If you’d like to move forward with making an offer on a home before the sale of your current property, but you need the funds from your sale in order to buy, you are writing what is called a “contingent offer”. Along with your offer paperwork, you will submit a form called a COP, which stands for “contingency for sale of buyer’s property.   The COP is hugely important to the process because it sets clear timelines for moving forward and it protects you against getting into a situation where you are contractually required to move forward with a purchase, but are unable to do so because you haven’t sold your current home.

There are three main points of negotiation included in the COP. The first is the length of your contingency. Ideally, you want the contingency for the sale of your home to remain in place until you close both properties (which is often done concurrently on the same day). However, some sellers will try and negotiate that you reduce that contingency to a shorter term – they may ask that you remove your COP after two or three weeks regardless of the status of the sale of your current home. Be sure to carefully consider whether or not you are comfortable removing the COP based on your situation. If you end up removing the COP and then run into a problem that cancels or delays the escrow on your current home, you could be at risk of losing any deposit you submitted on your replacement home purchase.

The second item specified in the COP is the length of time you have available to get your current home into escrow.   If your home is already in escrow at the time you make your offer, this item hold less importance. However, if you are making an offer before putting your current home on the market, this stipulates how long you have to get your home under contract. It is common for sellers to give buyers 14 – 21 days to get their home under contract. If you are unable to get your home into escrow within that time period, the sellers are allowed to cancel your contract. It’s important to note that if the sellers decide to cancel based on you failing to meet the timeline set for your own home sale, they are not able to keep your deposit as long as you have not removed the overall contingency for your home sale.

The final item noted on the COP deals with the sellers’ ability to market the home and accept backup offers while you are in escrow. The COP has an option that allows the sellers to accept your offer, but continue to market the house. If they get a better offer that is not contingent, they could then cancel your escrow. It’s important that you modify this term on the COP to prevent the sellers from having the right to basically kick you out of your sale if a better option comes in. There is a section in the COP that allows you to prevent the sellers from canceling your sale to accept a backup offer for a set amount of days. Ideally this amount of time would be the entire term of your escrow, but it’s more common for it to match the amount of time the sellers have given you to get your current home into escrow.

Buying and selling at the same time can be complicated and stressful process. However, if you understand the rights afforded to you by your COP, you can make sure that you have covered yourself against any unexpected issues that may arise!

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When I sit down to talk with homeowners to discuss listing their house for sale, I often hear them express feelings of anxiety about entering the selling process. There are many common concerns that initially come up for sellers. How can we get the most money for our house? How can we navigate this process with the least amount of stress on us? This anxiety can be compounded when sellers need to get their home sold quickly. There is often a perception by buyers that sellers will be willing to accept a lower offer in order to sell their home right away. However, in today’s market, there is no reason why a home can’t sell extremely quickly at a high price. Understanding the main three factors that affect a home’s length on the market can help sellers complete the sale process with a quick and positive outcome.

One of the most overlooked factors contributing to a home’s length on the market is accessibility. How easy is it for buyers to see the house? It can be inconvenient for sellers to accommodate showings if they are still living in the house, but making the house available for buyers to view is a vital part of the process and is especially important if you need a quick sale. The best way to allow for increased showings is to have your Realtor install a lockbox at the house. This allows licensed agents to access the house without relying on your listing agent to be present at every showing (which isn’t always possible or practical). Typically if you are still living in the home, your agent will direct other Realtors to contact her to set up appointment times that she will then confirm with you. Ideally, you would leave the house during that viewing window and allow the buyers to walk through with their agent alone. Having your listing agent hold public open houses on the weekends can also help to increase showing traffic.

The second factor that affects length of time on the market is perhaps the most obvious one: How does the house look (or in industry speak, does it show well)? Putting in the time and energy to present your home in the most positive light can be crucial to making a quick sale. You don’t necessarily have to spend thousands of dollars on staging to give your home popular appeal. Most sellers can make a huge difference by simply putting 50% of their belongings into boxes and stacking them in a closet or the garage. Buyers want to be able to envision themselves in the home and it is much easier to do that when sellers remove personal items and the excessive “stuff” that often clutters up a home. Some houses may need more help than others – your listing agent can help you determine whether you might benefit from some new paint, landscaping or minor repairs around the house. If you need to sell quickly, you may be tempted to simply throw a sign in your yard and let buyers in without making a single change inside. However, these kinds of changes can usually be made within a few days and you’ll find it’s well worth the minor delay in order to increase the value of your house dramatically.

Lastly, sellers obviously need to carefully consider where they set their list price when they are aiming for a quick sale. This doesn’t mean undervaluing the home by setting a rock bottom price – but it does mean avoiding the “let’s just put it at this high price and see what happens” kind of approach. Listen carefully to your Realtor’s advice about the comparable sales in your neighborhood and try to stay objective. Every seller feels their home is worth more than “that one that sold down the block” but try to see your home through the eye of a buyer. Along with your home’s selling points, make sure you understand potential negatives to your home as well and how those issues might affect the overall value. The advantage that you hold in a seller’s market is that it is very difficult to sell your home for less than what it is worth. If your agent somehow unintentionally advises you to list your home for to little, the market will likely bring in hordes of buyers and the price will be driven back up to where it should be through the bidding process. However, if you list your home to high, it is likely to compare poorly with similar, lower priced homes and could sit on the market for months with few buyers coming through. You only have one chance to make a good first impression – once buyers identify your house as overpriced, they are more likely to submit lowball offers under the assumption that you are now desperate to sell.

The Los Angeles area is currently experiencing a healthy seller’s market, which is great news for homeowners looking to sell. However, taking the time to educate yourself about the selling process is still important and can greatly increase your chances of having a positive selling experience. If your home is priced appropriately, shows well, and is easy to see, it’s likely that your home will sell very quickly for a strong price!