okREblog - It’s All REALative

As usual, Richard Mize hit a home run with his recent review of the Housing Tax Credit. 

Personally though, I don’t see a huge problem with the increased down payment requirements for FHA loans.  Sure it makes it tougher for those looking to jump into home-ownership, and it slows sales to some degree, but a large part of the foreclosure problem in this country is due to homeowners’ lack of vested interest in their homes, making it far too easy for them to walk away when the going gets tough.  A correction is in order, and will make a stronger market in the long run.

In addition, I have to take Yvonne Mitchell’s statement, “If you price your house just a little bit below market value, it’ll sell quickly,” to task.  Very simply put, your home’s market value is dictated by what buyers are willing to pay for it.  Therefore, if you have to price it lower to sell, then the market value has dropped. 

While I’ll argue all day against the idea that Edmond and/or Oklahoma City is in a metro-wide decline, we have to be honest that some pocket areas are experiencing a downtrend.

Yep, I admit it, I’m a tech geek.  I love using the new stuff that nobody else in my market has found yet.  No doubt it gives me an edge over my competition, but how does it benefit my clients?

I listed 3 homes in Edmond yesterday, and on the third one, I decided to put a new tool to use and see how effective it is.  I met with my clients @ 5:30 and it took about 45 minutes to complete all of the paperwork, then I placed my sign in the yard and the lockbox on the front door.  Here’s the fun part; I snapped a picture of the front of the house with my phone and posted it to the okREblog with a brief description while standing in front of the home.

5 minutes later when I got back to my laptop, I ran a quick Google search for ‘Copperfield homes for sale Edmond.’  Want to guess what was at the VERY TOP of the search results?  You guessed it; that very blog post!

OK, so maybe I’m bragging a little bit, but it’s kind of fun to leapfrog all other agents’ listings before I even pull away from the house, providing an immediate marketing advantage to my clients!

Yes, it’s an age-old question, and one that’s debated often.  I like to just throw out the facts on certain situations and let you decide for yourself.

Case in point: Seller calls me a few months ago and asks me to provide them with a CMA (comparative market analysis).  I do so, and meet with them to go over my findings.  I showed them the analysis to back up my knowledge that their home will sell for around $230,600.  I can’t guarantee that number, but my track record backs up the fact that I’m usually within $1,000 of being correct.

So, a few months go by, and they sell their home FSBO for $221,500.  Sounds like they came out pretty well, right?  They sold the house for about 96% of what I could have/would have sold it for.

Now, consider this; they paid 3% to the agent who brought the buyer.  So, in essence, they got 99% of the amount they would have fared with my services.  They did all the work and took on all the expenses of marketing, phone calls, showings, etc, and likely paid more in fees than they would have with me, because of the volume I do.

So, the question is, did they come out ahead?  What do you think?

Yep, I hear it all the time… ‘Why do I need a Realtor?’

Well, it’s one of those questions that can’t be answered in a nutshell, but the fact is, experience counts, you get what you pay for, <insert your own cliche here>.

While they are overused, these cliches do have some validity, IF you’re dealing with the right agent.  I won’t go into right vs wrong agents here, but I do like to share when I find a good example of one of the many small things that the right agent can/will do that can/will save you big bucks and/or big frustration down the road.

If you’re thinking about going it alone, I might ask ‘How many title commitments have you read in your lifetime?’ or ‘Would you have caught that?’

It’s easy when you’re thinking about selling your home to buy into all the misinformation out there about market conditions, pricing, etc.  You hear it from your neighbors, your friends, the news, etc.  After all, it’s an emotional thing… we’re all emotionally attached to our homes, so we naturally want to believe everything we hear that would lead us to believe that our home may be worth more than it really is.  It’s much easier to believe that it’s worth more, than it is to believe that it’s worth less.

Fact is though, removing your emotions and looking at your home objectively (just like every buyer will) is the biggest challenge in placing yourself in a competitive position to sell your home, rather than watching it flounder on the market for months.

Being an agent who focuses heavily on listing and marketing homes, this is something I deal with on a regular basis, of course.  Apparently I’m not the only one, as evidenced by this blog post, which makes a few of these same points in pretty straight-forward fashion.

In my ongoing efforts to analyze the psychology involved in my day-to-day business, I enjoy reading all perspectives, which brought me to this blog post by Dan Nesemeier, on VARbuzz.

So many times, the agent can be seen as the villain when a home doesn’t sell, especially if the relationship between seller and agent isn’t strong, and communication is lacking.

I posted this a couple of weeks ago to my national agents network, but thought it would be useful information for my clients also.  After all, it’s just as important for you to understand what it is that I do, and why it’s important, as it is for my colleagues to learn from it.  Enjoy!

It’s a question I see in the eyes of many clients, and even more of my peers, so it’s always fun to get a little love from those who recognize what you do right.  It was no different when my online presence was recently noticed and used as an example in an article written by Dustin Moore of a la mode, inc.

Dustin was touching on the real, tangible benefits of social networking, as in what it can do for your business.  I can personally attest to a ’smarter not harder’ result over the past year and a half since I really discovered what social networking is all about.  In 2006 I gained absolutely no (zero) new clients as a result of my online presence, but 2007 was much different.  Almost 20% of my new clients in 2007 found me directly through my social networking sites, such as ActiveRain, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my own Edmond real estate website (Yes, I built new client relationships as a direct result of each one of these sites in the last year).  This year is on track to produce an even higher percentage.

The real benefit for me, though, has been the added exposure that my clients’ homes get as a result of my diverse approach to the internet.  When I list a client’s home, I promote it on about 35 different websites.  Many of those 35 websites then feed that information out to other partner sites, so in essence my listings end up on an untold number of places on the vast WWW.  This equates to more eyeballs seeing my listings, which then equates to more showings, quicker sales, and ultimately higher sales prices.

Think of it this way; If you were searching online for information about homes for sale in Long Beach, CA, where would you start?  Would you search Google, Yahoo, Realtor.com, Remax.com, Ask.com, Trulia, Zillow, or one of the other thousands of real estate websites out there?  Good question right?  YOU might start with Realtor.com, but your neighbor might start with Zillow.  Which one’s better?  Who knows… doesn’t really matter.  Fact is, over 80% of home buyers start their search online, and each of them start in different places.

So, the question then is, do you want an agent who puts your home on the MLS and on one or two websites… or do you want an agent who gets your home into every possible corner of the internet.  Do you want to attract only buyers who look on Zillow, or do you want to attract buyers from everywhere?

I would think you’d want the agent who covers it all, so that no matter where a buyer begins searching for Edmond homes, they’ll see yours!

So anyway, back to this social networking thing; it’s nice to be recognized and all, but what this really does is drives even more traffic to my websites, which translates into more relationship building (with both peers and consumers), which then turns into better results for my clients.

By the way, I’ve also noticed a new flow of traffic from RSShugger.com lately, where I’m currently listed in the top 50 blogs.

A few years ago, the NAR published this list of ways to spruce up your home, and I figure it’s worth revisiting:

• Trim bushes so they don’t block windows and cut down on light.

• Buy a new doormat.

• Put a pot of bright flowers (or a small evergreen in winter) on your porch.

• Put new doorknobs on your doors.

• Put a fresh coating on your driveway.

• Edge the grass around walks and trees.

• Keep your garden tools out of site.

• Be sure kids put away their toys.

• Buy a new mailbox.

• Upgrade the outside lighting.

• Use warm, incandescent light bulbs for a homey feel.

• Polish or replace your house numbers.

• Clean your gutters.

• Put out potpourri or burn scented candles.

• Buy new pillows for the sofa.

• Buy a flowering plant and put it in a window you pass by frequently.

• Make a centerpiece for your table with fruit or artificial flowers.

• Replace heavy curtains with sheer ones that let in more light.

• Buy new towels.

• Put a seasonal wreath on your door.

As we all know, and I continuously state here, it’s vitally important to the sale of your home to take care of the ‘little things.’  What may seem small and trivial to you and me may just be the one thing that the buyer walking through your door has a pet peave about.  I live by the ‘EVERYTHING MATTERS’ credo when it comes to marketing a home.

I’m curious, what other ‘little things’ make a difference in the way a home appeals to you?

In this tougher, more competitive market, this is becoming a more common question.  With that in mind, I’m making it easier than ever for home owners in Edmond and NW OKC to find out what it’s really going to take to get that sometimes elusive ‘SOLD’ sign out front.

Marketing homes (and getting real results) is what I specialize in.  Why?  Because it’s what I enjoy!  It’s in my blood, and I love helping home owners feel the relief of getting their home sold.  I’m not one to brag on myself, but that’s why I’m so good at what I do… simply because I have a passion for it.

That said, my listings are currently selling in an average of 59 days on the market.  That’s in a market with an overall average of 94 days, so obviously my methods work.  Add to that every home I’ve listed in the past two years has sold… not a single expired listing.  Again, not to brag, but simply to point out that it IS possible to get real results.

OK, enough of the bragging.  I just set up a new page on the website where busy home owners, who may not have time to call me right now, can easily and quickly get me information about their home so I can get to work on implementing a plan to get it sold.  If you’re one of those home owners who’s ready to get on down the road, click here to get your Edmond home sold, and start packing those boxes!

Yesterday I posted about the ill effects of overpricing your home for sale, and I have no doubt that I could never address this topic enough. It’s an ongoing problem that we’ll never be fully rid of, but I hope that by sharing my thoughts on it, I may be able to help a few home owners and agents understand it better.

Case in point; I posted back in May about a homeowner I visited with about his expired listing in the Lone Oak Parke addition. Now for “the rest of the story.” When I initially talked to this homeowner (Mr D), his home had already been on the market for about a year, was grossly overpriced (by about $30,000 after he had already lowered the list price by more than $25K) and he wasn’t at all willing to list it for less. He, of course, had no problem finding an inexperienced agent willing to list the home for him at HIS price again. Well, that listing expired after 150 days, and he listed with yet another agent (the 8th agent willing to take the listing at HIS price).

Now jump forward another 74 days, and Mr D’s home finally closed on 12/14/07 (589 days after he first listed it) at a sales price of $249,900, according to our MLS. Back in May when we talked, I told Mr D that his home would sell for around $244,000. So, he made an extra $5,900 by dictating his price instead of listening to me, right?

Not so fast… what about his carry costs? During the time his home was on the market (and he was living 2,000 miles away paying another mortgage and set of utility bills), Mr D was paying on his $224,000 mortgage each month. He also had the pleasure of paying his electric, gas and water bills monthly. I’ve estimated these expenses (very conservatively) in the chart above.

So, let’s break this down to a net sale, rather than a gross sale. After all, what really matters is what Mr D walks away with after expenses, right? His home sat on the market for a total of about 580 days. From the time I talked to him, to the time he closed on it with his eighth agent, about 220 days had passed. Here’s the breakdown:

In summary, if his first agent had advised Mr D to price this home correctly (and he had listened), and it sold in the then average 70 DOM, he would have netted $238,808 before repairs, closing costs and agent commissions.

Let’s assume he didn’t do that, but a year later he takes my advice and prices it properly, he’d have netted $227,683 before repairs, closing costs and agent commissions ($11,125 less than the previous scenario).

But instead, he did neither, and finally accepted an offer of $249,900, which netted him $200,983 before repairs, closing costs and agent commissions ($37,825 less than if he’d priced it right from the beginning).

Did Mr D’s persistence pay off?

** I copied this post over from my old blog, because I thought it would be useful information for you.  Hope you enjoyed it!