Living in Santa Fe Blog

Key Benefits of Using a Barker Broker When Selling Your Home

No matter the season or the current state of the market, selling your home with a Barker Realty broker comes with key benefits that are more important than ever.

And right now, Santa Fe ranks as one of the top 10 places where homebuyers want to live, according to data from Realtor.com.

Real estate has become a digital experience for both buyers and sellers. We’ve embraced video conferencing and virtual walkthroughs and adopted a completely digital transaction process using the latest tech.

Meeting our client’s needs includes a home marketing system that utilizes social media and online marketing as well as traditional print ads and direct mail.

Let’s delve deeper into the five key…

287 Views, 0 Comments

What Sellers Need to Know About Home Staging

Enter “home staging” into a Google search and more than 135 million results will pop up. It’s evidence that home staging has long been a part of the real estate selling process.

What do Santa Fe home sellers need to know about home staging in today’s market? While your Barker broker is the best source of information about home staging for your particular property, many real estate professionals and industry experts agree that home staging is a critical element when selling a home.

Survey Says Home Staging Matters

In fact, a 2021 National Association of REALTORS® study on home staging provided a few findings we thought worth sharing.

• Eighty-two percent of buyers’ agents reported that…

383 Views, 0 Comments

2022 Q1 Market Report

Over the winter we felt a little cooling take effect. Some homes sat on the market longer and prices seemed to catch their breath. That reprieve was short-lived, however, as we enter the traditionally most active buying and selling seasons: spring and summer. Our market is beginning to show some changes where buyers are choosing to sit by the sidelines as sellers push the boundaries of pricing. Distressed properties – once too undesirable for investors or DIY’ers – are finding new life and buyers are evaluating areas not traditionally sought after, much to the benefit of those localized sellers. Here at Barker Realty, we’re meeting with our brokers and clients daily to evaluate strategies, negotiations, and expectations as the market changes.

265 Views, 0 Comments

Downsizing Goals for Buying a Home in Santa Fe

According to the Pew Research Center and labor force data for Q3 2021, half of the American adults age 55 and old are now retired.

Retirement and real estate matters are often linked. Many retirees decide to move to a different home, community, or area of the country. According to a Merrill Lynch and Age Wave study, 51 percent of retirees moved into a smaller home.

If downsizing your home is one of your real estate objectives, our agents at Barker Realty can help. Santa Fe has long been a place for retirees to buy real estate. The pull factors are numerous: a stunning natural setting, a warm climate with low humidity, an outstanding art scene, and abundant recreational opportunities for…

323 Views, 0 Comments

Resources to Inspire a Southwestern Color Palette for Your Santa Fe Home

Vibrant but mellow, exotic but homey, bold but soothing, the Southwestern color palette can lend an enchanting feel to your Santa Fe home. This is a design scheme that draws more from your own inspiration than from a rigid style guide. Just think of everything you love about New Mexico, and put that into your home.

Looking for Santa Fe real estate where you can create your own Southwestern color scheme? For over 50 years, Barker Realty has proudly served Santa Fe and our community, providing the highest level of service, expertise, and professionalism in Northern New Mexico. No matter your price point, no matter your desires, our brokers can help you achieve your real estate goals.

…

2170 Views, 0 Comments

Homeselling Tips for Winter Sellers

Santa Fe temperatures may be chilly, but the Santa Fe real estate market is staying hot.

In an article published January 1 in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Barker brokers Stephanie Duran and Juli King from Team Duran/King noted that low inventory and high demand have kept the winter market active and seller-friendly.

As Team Duran/King told the Santa Fe Mexican, “Normally, the amount of listings coming on the market during the winter season seems to really slow. Because the housing market is so strong right now, and the impact of the Omicron variant has created more uncertainty, we are finding that Sellers are deciding not to wait to list until the spring.”

“Buyers are also not taking a break…

296 Views, 0 Comments

2021 Q4 Market Report

Santa Fe has more buyers than homes. Mortgage will play a critical role in the coming year. According to Bankrate, mortgage rates have reached their highest levels since April 2020. Given the two previous years’ appreciation and the potential for higher interest rates, now might be a good time to evaluate your real estate value and adjust your strategy and thinking as necessary. At Barker Realty we have more than 70 real estate professionals who can help you think about your real estate strategy for 2022.

At the end of 2020, we thought we had seen it all, but 2021 proved us wrong. The rate of change in our real estate market has been hard to quantify but here we have some standout numbers: an increase of nearly 12.5% in the number of sales and a…

278 Views, 0 Comments

Spotlighting Our Cherished Santa Fe Nonprofits

As a locally owned and operated Santa Fe real estate brokerage, giving back to the community has always been a defining characteristic of our business model. We are passionate about supporting and bettering our community.

As Barker Realty President and Qualifying Broker David Barker says, “It is, and always has been a part of our family and business culture to nurture and improve the heart and soul of Santa Fe. Supporting Santa Fe’s nonprofits strengthens the community we cherish so deeply.”

During this special season of holiday joy and cheer, we’re putting a spotlight on the nonprofit organizations we’ve supported this year. We invite you to support these and other nonprofits that work year-round…

261 Views, 0 Comments

A Primer on Santa Fe Architectural Styles

A rose by any other name, sure, but let’s suppose you’re talking about music. What’s a phrase? What’s a bar? What’s a “legato”? What does “staccato” mean?

You don’t need an education in music theory to be able to say “Boy, that sure is pretty,” but it helps to know your terms to get the most from an in-depth conversation. The same goes for architecture.

If you’ve been in Santa Fe for a little while, then you probably wish you had a nickel for every time you looked at a home or building and said “Boy, that sure is pretty.” Those five words are rarely untrue in Santa Fe, but if you’re ready to take that conversation to the next level, here’s what you need to know.

Adobe: That Southwest…

374 Views, 0 Comments

2021 Q3 Market Report

Elation or frustration? We’re at risk of sounding like a broken record in reporting new record averages and extremely low inventory, yet here we are! The unpredictability of the current market continues to surprise even our most seasoned brokers. Some trends have remained steady, however: move-in ready homes in desirable neighborhoods continue to attract multiple buyers and command a premium, buyers continue to flock to Santa Fe for its quality of life and to take advantage of their newfound career flexibility, and until current construction catches up with demand we will see prices remain high.

After 2020 we thought the average price would continue to creep upwards as demand never waned. Now in the final months of 2021, that prediction still holds…

251 Views, 0 Comments