Full Service Baton Rouge Real Estate Management

Name: Milton Lakvold Real Estate
Address: 9035 Bluebonnet Blvd, Suite 3, Baton Rouge, LA, 70810
Telephone: (225) 752-5155
Price range: $$

Whether you’re buying your first home or selling your tenth, we at Milton Lakvold Real Estate want to be part of the process. Specializing in residential sales and property management, we serve our buyer, seller, and investor clients by providing reliable, accurate, and intelligent advice backed by nearly 30 years in the local Baton Rouge market.

What Our Buyers Can Expect

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Quality Information

The consumer who has the best information is the one who will make the best decision. To us, providing quality information is not only limited to answering the questions that the buyer poses or only showing them the properties they select to view. It involves getting them to think about their purchase more like a business transaction. Is what they buying located in a high growth, slow growth, or no growth area? How has the market responded in the past to this property or this development? Is it priced correctly (and believe it or not, sometimes it’s low)? Are there any negative or positive compensating factors? Is it functional? We understand that to most consumers there is an emotional aspect to buying a home and their decision doesn’t have to match ours. We only want to give consumers the most accurate and valuable information possible in order for the best decision to be made.

Creative and Detailed Negotiating Skills

What sets agents apart is the advice they provide. That’s worth saying again “what sets agents apart is the advice they provide”. Sometimes transactions are very black and white and involve no real creative or elaborate tweaking to the wording of contracts. But sometimes they’re not. We believe in boldly and aggressively representing our client’s interest. This often involves more than simply filling in the blanks on a generic form. We have the ability to recommend courses of action and phrases to insert to any offer that are both protective and positive.

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Advocacy for You Only

We believe that with two parties to a contract (buyer and seller) there should be two agents. The parties should never share the same agent. Dual Agency, where one agent represents both buyer and seller of the same transaction, is a totally legitimate way of doing business in Louisiana as well as 45 other states. But our opinion is that just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s the best choice. If you were the plaintiff in a court case, would you use the same attorney as the defendant?

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Loyalty

Our focus is on relationships not sales. How long the process takes or whether or not the buyer buys is not a concern. We simply want to be there when needed and our loyalty to their interest will never fade.

Best Buyer Tips

Choose your agent wisely. Most people choose their agent based on whoever they know involved in Real Estate. This site probably won’t change that and in a lot of cases that’s not a bad idea. The problem is it’s not always a guarantee that you’ll get exactly what you need as far as advice or service. Knowing you like someone as a person is fine but knowing that they’re good at their role may be a different story. Having a referral from someone who has personally worked with the agent is typically the best way of choosing an agent.

Your agent’s advice probably trumps that of others. When all you do is Real Estate, you tend to get pretty good at it. As agents, we’re not here to dictate to you what to do or to tell you what you should like. We’re here to educate you on the market, your rights and responsibilities, and the typical responses we’ll likely encounter with sellers. We know this because it’s what we do and have done probably several hundred times. Other people who offer you their opinion do so based on the one or two houses they’ve bought therefore they cannot give you the same perspective.

Don’t pass on a house because of a picture. Buyers can sometimes get tunnel vision and only choose their selections based on what they think is important. Good agents add to what the buyer already thinks is important and can share information about listings that perhaps a picture doesn’t show. Walking through a house takes under 15 minutes yet can prove to be very worthwhile.

Meet your lender and get pre-approved. It’s important to learn about your lender’s institution and what you can expect from them as well as looking at different loan options. Getting pre-approved is more than pre-qualified in that it involves the lenders actually making a decision based on your income, credit, and debt ratio. If you’re ever in competition with another buyer for a property this can only make things look better for you in the eyes of a seller.

Don’t back down from competition. Depending on your market, you may find yourself in a competitive situation with another buyer for a property. Don’t let this turn you off. Think of it as a positive-you’re trying to buy something other people want. This will likely be the case when you are the seller. If you take the “if it were meant to be, it’ll happen” attitude it probably won’t happen.

Once you zero in, move quickly. Sometimes it takes people a while before they get to the point of knowing what they want to buy. Our advice: once you get to this point, move quickly and make your offer. Don’t wait three days until you can meet with your agent because that’s when it’s convenient. Things can and often do happen and if you’re looking at a particular property and liking it, chances are someone else is doing the same.

Understand your market. Consumers usually want to take the market as a whole and make a determination whether it’s more buyer or seller friendly. The correct answer is: it depends. Tell us more about where you’re looking and in what price range and we’ll tell you if it’s a seller or buyer’s market. It’s not an across the board type of thing.

Check the scratch and dent. Most people pass on a house because others have passed on the same house. This is common and in most cases there are specific reasons to do so which involve incurable issues. But if research shows a property has no real significant flaws and is only still out there for sale because of price or cosmetic blemishes-which can be corrected, then perhaps there’s an opportunity for a real bargain here. We’ve seen it many times.

Have a B-Plan. Things can and do come up that prevent a sale from closing and sometimes this happens at the worst possible time. Good agents go a long way to preventing this but even the best can’t prevent a train wreck and sometimes it’s just no one’s fault. Having an alternative plan can ease your stress should you get caught in this situation. This can also reduce the chance of any last minute negotiating outside your comfort zone just because it’s more convenient to do so.

“Upon obtaining a buyer, Chad displayed skill and tact in getting the buyer and myself to keep the deal alive, in getting cool heads to prevail, reminding us of the big picture and not letting little, petty issues sour the deal.”

Luis and Pamela Madero

What Our Sellers Can Expect

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Understanding real value

In many cases, the square footage of a home isn’t the only indicator of value. Supply/demand, quality of construction, amenities, function, and site all affect value. Understanding how these factors can influence a property either positively or negatively is absolutely imperative in order to realize the highest and most probable price for your home. We are able to talk to sellers in an in-depth manner about these different components as well as how their home compares to other similar homes that have recently sold.

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Understanding Your Market

Knowing the type of market you’re in is also important to realizing the highest price for your home. Our sellers are brought up to speed on things like: other comparable homes available for sale and how they compare, supply vs demand, when to change the price and when to leave it alone, and whether or not it’s the right time to be selling in the first place. We don’t believe in a “what fits for one fits for all approach” by telling every seller we come in contact with that now is the best time. We determine this by talking to them about their goals first and understanding what’s going on in their market.

Creative and detailed negotiating skills

What sets agents apart is the advice they provide. That’s worth saying again “what sets agents apart is the advice they provide”. Sometimes transactions are very black and white and involve no real elaborate or creative tweaking to the wording of contracts. But sometimes they’re not. We believe in boldly and aggressively representing our client’s interest. This involves more than simply filling in the blanks on a generic contract. We can recommend courses of action and phrases to insert into any offer that are both protective and positive. Understanding things like the market, your options and negotiating strategies, your contractual rights and responsibilities, and how your liability can change from one buyer to the next are all important in order to make the best decisions.

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Advocacy for You Only

Best Seller Tips

Interview your listing agent. There’s only one question you need to ask, “can you provide me with references”. That’s it. If you get this part right everything else falls into place.

Start at a realistic price. The problem with starting too high is that you’ll likely miss your market. You may think “well, the buyer can make an offer”. But this doesn’t typically happen at an early stage in the listing period because the buyer assumes this early on the seller won’t take their price so what’s the point.

Make it easy to show. Sometimes, agents don’t know that we’re going to be needing an appointment until right before the requested time. Buyers assume you’re always ready so try not to put any restrictions on showings. It will cost you showings for sure if you do.

Stick to one agent even if it doesn’t sell. In most cases, but not all, it’s not the agent’s fault that the house didn’t sell. All we can do is try to get people there, we cannot make them buy. If they’re coming and not buying, they’re seeing something that prevents them from buying. If they’re not coming at all, maybe there’s an agent problem or possibly a market problem. Talk to your competition to tell.

Never reject an offer. This is unfortunate but sometimes sellers get bad advice and reject an offer. The best advice is to never tell someone what you won’t do, tell them what you will do and give them some sort of a window rather than just shutting down communication. You’d be surprised how often it is that you may want that offer back on the table.

Always be gone for the showing. Buyers can’t talk openly or critically about your home with you standing right there listening to them. Even if you walk outside, the buyer feels hurried and is not likely to stay that long taking in everything your house has to offer.

Forget about what you cannot control. Price and condition are the two main things within your control. Forget about everything else.

Don’t think that the smell of baked cookies will sell your home. A well-priced home in good condition that has a fair amount of people looking at it is going to sell. Relax…