Some Agents Just Keep Bidding UP

Some agents get the listing by inflating the value of your house.

Or they may simply go along with “your” unrealistic price without objection. This is what’s known in the trade as “buying the listing.” The agent figures that you’ll eventually give up and give in and place a real price on your property. If you let this happen, it’s really your own fault.

Don’t be fooled! You need for your agent to be straight with you from the beginning. This means you should receive from every agent you interview a “supportable” opinion of value based on recently sold properties in your neighborhood; exactly what you would demand if you were a buyer. An honest agent will give you a “range” in which your house should sell.

If you price your house too aggressively high it will take longer to sell and you will probably will receive less in the end. If you take too long to reduce your price, your house can get stigmatized with prospective buyers wondering what’s wrong because your house has been on the market for so long.

In the end, ready, willing and able buyers  determine value … not sellers and not real estate agents. And sometimes it isn’t even the buyer who determines the price, but rather the mortgage company’s appraiser, who can come in and find a value for the property that is significantly different than the contract price.

Rather than pick an agent based on which one promises you the highest price, why not look at the agent’s marketing plan.  You want an agent who understands and “gets” your house.  I talk to my sellers about how I plan to tell the story of their home and to communicate that story to prospective buyers.  I believe that each property has special qualities that make it appealing to buyers.  In the case of a condo that I sold recently along Connecticut Avenue, the story was the old world elegance of the building and the condo itself. The website that I hosted for the property, www.2737devonshireplacenw.com, brought out that feeling in buyers and it sold within three days with a full price offer.  

Does the agent plan to make a video tour of your home?  We all are so conditioned to twenty second sound bites and visual stimulation! It only makes sense to put together a video tour of your home in order to hook buyers into the emotions of your home.

Don’t sell your home to the highest bidding realtor – Your home and you deserve better than that!

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A recent survey by the National Association Realtors showed some surprising results in the attitude of recent homebuyers.

An eight-page questionnaire was sent out to over 100,000 consumers who had purchased a home between July 2008 and Jun 2009.  They were asked to rank the usefulness of certain information sources typically used by Realtors® to market homes.  When asked which information sources they found to be useful consumers ranked as follows: 

 Real estate agents 81%

The Internet 77%

Yard signs 42%

Open houses came out low in the ranks with 10% of buyers finding them to be very useful and 25% said that they were somewhat useful. 

But where are buyers actually finding the homes that they eventually buy? 

• 36% found their homes on the Internet
• 36% discovered the home from a real estate agent
• 12% from yard signs

 Only 4% of buyers said they found their homes via newspapers, home books, magazines and television.  

Many realtors still find open houses to be a good way to meet the public as well as an effective way to expose homes to buyers.  But according to this latest survey – consumers, apparently, do not agree.

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Jaguar Convertible or Jeep

I never got the Jaguar although I drove a Jeep for years, and since they both start with a “J” it seemed that I was almost there. I did end up selling million dollar houses, but that was after the market had tanked in 1989 and 1990, and I was selling them for $400,000 instead.  I didn’t develop a taste for bonbons though, but two out of three isn’t bad. 

I also discovered that there is a lot more to being a Realtor than just driving around in a pretty car and popping bonbons.  Some days my family doesn’t even have an idea of how I spent the day.  So…. I decided to start this diary to explain what a realtor does all day and to review how I spent the day.  I hope for you, the reader, it will be interesting and informative. For me, it should be a kind of accountability.  

With that sense of optimism, here it goes!

TODAY, October 27, 2009, is probably not a representative day to start a diary.  This morning I took my dog to the vet at Friendship Animal Hospital for a monthly shot because he has Addison’s Disease.  Who knew that standard poodles are predisposed to Addison’s? Fortunately the vet at Friendship over a year ago knew that.  Now we go to the vet every month which he loves because he gets treats there non-stop so he doesn’t misbehave, bark, or lunge at other dogs.

Poirot and my daughter, Lise Courtney

After the trip to the vet, I stopped at my office at Coldwell Banker on Wisconsin Avenue.  We are remodeling our office, which promises to be a new and incredibly exciting space. No more cubicles! They have been replaced with a lounge, zebra striped chairs, sofas, a coffee bar, and communal work tables.  Our manager, Darrin Friedman, promises that this will be Kinko’s meets Starbucks.  Since we have been living in chaos for the last two weeks, we will be happy to see the end results. 

I wanted to check my office, which was being painted “Hawaiian Blue” this morning.  Thanks to a suggestion by Bronwyn Mathis, my assistant, the two end walls were painted with white board or dry erase so that we can keep track of listings and sales in progress, make sure we are in contact with our clients on a regular basis, and monitor all appointments on a massive calendar.  Happily, the color is exactly what I wanted and the white board paint works.  (The outer office has a big blackboard for writing notes to each other, but I really prefer our white board! No chalk dust and it is so much brighter!)

My office is childishly signficant to me. Even though I was consistently a significant contributor to the bottom line of my previous real estate company- always in the top five in production and sales- I never had my own office.  Now that I am at Coldwell Banker, I have my own office, an assistant and a buyer’s agent.  As a team we are so much more productive – exponentially so – than I was as a single agent in my old company.  The happy Hawaiian blue walls and white board establish the style that I want the office and my team to project – warm, comfortable, welcoming, peaceful, and very productive.  With the white board, we will always be able to monitor productivity and the  positive direction in which we are moving.

Once I was wowed by how great my office was looking, I went to Herndon, Virginia with my buyer’s agent, Janet Rushford, to attend part of the REBarCampDC.   It is hard to explain exactly what REBarCamps are - a collection of realtors and vendors who believe that technology can make a signficant contribution to the real estate industry.  Janet and I attended a presentation on the use of video tours in real estate.  The consensus of the group was that video tours should be no longer than 3 minutes, although a second  and longer video tour can be posted along side the shorter one for anyone who is very interested in the listing or neighborhood.

Several people there reminded me of some tax attorneys I have known because of their delight in debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The people at REBarCamp sidetracked the presentation to a discussion of whether agents can post videos on line of other agents’ listings. I think that the end conclusion was that it depends on state law, and the NAR code.  It seemed to me that it is inappropriate for an agent to post another agent’s listing on the Internet without getting the listing agent’s consent.  Generally an agent is delighted to have another agent include photos and information about the listing on that agent’s website or blog, as long as the listing agent is clearly identified.  I still am not sure why we wasted five minutes in such a non-issue.

After this angels on the head of a pin discussion, Janet and I decided that the office was looking even better than before as a destination, so we left before the next presentation on the use of statistics in marketing. After a quick stop by the office to watch the paint dry, I pulled my laptop out of my bag to settle in for some real work.

Much of my day is spent in responding to emails and reaching out to new clients.  Today we received several inquiries from Homegain buyers and sellers which had to be answered with offers of our services, including a set of properties available that match the buyer’s criteria or a description of our marketing plan for the seller’s property.  Inquiries from buyers visiting my website www.homesinchevychasebethesda.com require that we set up a search for those buyers with daily notifications of new listings. 

A current client needed the name of a handyman, while a new contact that I hope will turn into a client needed a painter.  I shared the name of my handyman, Mike Sanepour, with first client, and called my painter, Pete, to make sure he was taking new business. 

In the meantime, Bronwyn  scheduled a house inspection for tomorrow and tried to track down a missing electrical permit.

Now it is 10 oclock  and I have finished studying high school chemistry for a test tomorrow that I fortunately will not be taking. I am going to end this first day’s effort so that I can respond to some more buyers on HomeGain. Hopefully there will be more business for me tomorrow!

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