Listing Agent Number 2?

It saddens me as a successful full time real estate professional to go on listing appointment's these days. I sit across from a seller that called for obvious reasons, to list their home and the conversation often goes the same way.

FIRST AGENT APPOINTMENT

Realtor: Mr Seller, based on the comparable sold properties, the active listings, what is currently under contract as it relates to your home including all the wonderful features, lot location and condition here is the range your home will sell in________.

Seller: Well I was hoping to get ________ because we we need _______ to buy our other house. Or we need it to pay off some debt so we can do _______________.

Realtor: I understand your position, however with the amount of inventory that consumers have to choose from along with the amount of information that is available to them buyers are very savvy. It's important to you as a seller to come out strong in every area to get the highest price. That means condition as well as your list price. Consumers will recognize a good opportunity when they see it. You could even have multiple buyers interested.

What you don't want to do is chase the market down. What I mean is, if you start too high you will lose your best market time, your first months. By the time you lower the price to where you should have been in the first place, the market may have moved below that based on newer information. That being said a month after listing the home with no offers, having made another mortgage payment we may need to adjust the price to lower than suggested in the beginning and now you listing is a month old.

Seller: I hear you, but we really aren't talking that much and buyers will want to negotiate. They can always make an offer. Besides I need that room to come down. I can't sell below________.

Realtor: It's your home and your money we can list were you want to, you just need to understand the consequences of this strategy. If we do not get an offer on your home, which is the equivalent of someone being emotionally engaged in purchasing your home, we cannot even begin negotiations. An experienced agent will be a trusted counselor as well as a skilled negotiator. These are must have qualities in the Realtor you decide to hire. Meaning putting your best foot forward in the beginning, then have a skilled experienced agent that can handle the negotiations once an offer comes in equals selling your home. It's about more than, "Do you do open houses?" The only reason I am passionate about this is I have watched several home owners lose money over a strategy that will not work in this market. Unfortunately you will find an agent that will do whatever you tell them.

Seller: Thank you so much we are going to talk about it tonight and let you know tomorrow.

Realtor: (in mind) They have an agent already that gave them a warm fuzzy about a higher price!

DIDN'T SELL, SECOND LISTING AGENT APPOINTMENT

Seller: Thanks for coming over so fast. Our listing just expired yesterday and we really need to get our house sold fast. I don't know why we didn't call you in the first place.

Realtor: Well, tell me what happened? What went wrong?

Seller: Well, when we listed our house we started out just a little higher than maybe we should have. But we needed the money to buy our next house. Now it doesn't matter anymore. Prices have dropped so much on our house that it's not even an option. At this point we just need to get out. The payments too high and we are just going to rent.

Realtor: (in my mind) I'm thinking I just walked in and get the listing, The other agent did all the work and did not even get the chance for the right price. At the same time this was so unnecessary. OUT LOUD: Let me show you how we market a home, go over the comparable's and our service then we can get started.

What's the point?

Is it better to be agent number 2? Well for the agent but never for the consumer or the market. The agent will have a motivated seller which equals a sellable home. At the same time if they would have listened to reason in the beginning they would have made more money and the comps would look better. Everyone has to remember that in most markets we are still declining. If you haven't noticed where are the 5 million foreclosures? They sure aren't "For Sale". It appears that the banks are trickling them into the market. Until all that inventory is liquidated and working Americans own them, the housing market will not be stabilized. That among other factors. It's not all doom and gloom but unrealistic sellers participate in driving down the market. Not sure what the answer is.

I will be listing agent number 2, but I much prefer to be agent number 1. It's better for everyone. market time, sold price and seller net. It's a win win!

Kim Knapp
Team Knapp 904-334-7426
follow me
http://twitter.com/jaxsecretagent

Is this a Team Sport?

Some of you may not know it but Real Estate is a team sport. Let me stop there.

I have to extend love and appreciation to all me friends in the business who are some of the best team mates I have ever know. Thank you!

Begin again. Have you ever had a transaction with an agent that was more interested in being some undefined hero that they lost the house for their buyer or mismanaged the negotiations for their seller? It's exhausting and tiresome. Those of us that pick up the slack like on any team go ahead and take one for the team and do what it takes to make it work. Why? As professionals we know real estate is about the people we serve and never about us.

What's the problem with this. One we enable folks to remain in this business (stay on the team) that are not qualified. Two, it's a disservice to the paying public.

We need each other. When we list a house we are asking the whole real estate population to work with us to get that listing sold. If we prove lazy, unresponsive, difficult, arrogant or otherwise someone they prefer not to deal with your listing may find it's way to the bottom of the pile.

Consumers this means make sure you hire a well respected professional not a smooth talking hot shot. They may both get the job done in the end but it might cost you in ways you never planned.....

ARE THEY CRAZY? Countrywide!!!

This is my last short sale in the pipeline with Countrywide.I use last in the truest sense of the word. It's the only short sale I have left with THEM and it's the LAST one I will take with them.

Their own people tell me their process are ridiculous but hey what are you going to do?
I had an approved short sale, letter in hand. However by the time the got it to me we lost the buyer. Bet you never heard that before? We immediately got a new buyer for the same offer amount less them asking for closing costs. Hmm..... higher net to the investor. I'm feeling a slam dunk here.

What I really got was "go to jail, directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $6000." "no commission for you!"In other words "that's great we will start the file over and send it back to the front lines. Are you joking me? After 8 months of working on this, 500 phone calls, who knows how many showings, and they have the nerve to act like we are overpaid. I'm thinking I'm at .89 cents an hour. Now I'm at .00.

Same offer, bigger net, start over. Are you paid to think? Does the investor audit these people? Our money is bailing them out? In the meantime there are now 2 sales that will bring this one down further and will probably blow this price out of the water by the time "Stella gets her Grove Back".

Why do we stay in this game? For the customers we serve. It sure isn't to help the banks that constantly have their hands in our wallets and their heads in the sand. Well I'm tired of looking at their rear ends. They need to be accountable. In the meantime they are bringing values down with how slow they are.

I had one home go down $70,000 over the course of all the offers before the bank finally approved. They lost $70,000 because the process is not streamlined, and people are not paid to think. Oh did I mention that was Countrywide and it took a Negotiaters Boss to step in to finally get it closed. Hello!

Help

Are you twitterpaited?

This is great info if you are interested in Twitter. Which I am embracing. Like any technology it's knowing how to use it that makes the difference. Thanks for the great pass and I appreciate to be able to pass it along.

Kim

Via Paul Chaney (Social Media Handyman):

There are two schools of thought pertaining to who to follow on Twitter. One is what I refer to as the Guy Kawasaki method which says, "forget the influentials," "defocus your efforts," and "get as many followers as you can." It's more of a mass marketing approach.

Up and until Twitter imposed limits on the number of people that I could follow in a given 24-hour period, that's pretty much the school to which I subscribed and just about anyone and everyone qualified (minus the spammers of course).

Since then, I've had to be more discerning and have actually found that to be a good thing. So, here are fifteen suggested Twitter follow dos and don'ts based on my current Twitter follow modus operandi:

Dos...

1. Focus your efforts - If you're in sales and marketing, hopefully you've outlined specific target markets based on demographic, psychographic and technographic profiles. Maybe you've even created a persona of the ideal client or customer. Find those folks and follow them.

One good way to do that is by using Twellow, which is a Twitter "yellow pages." It categorizes Twitter followers based on geography and industry and covers everything from aerospace to Web development.

For example, a search on my city, Lafayette, LA, brought five pages of returns totaling 100 people. Not a lot, but consider that a) Lafayette is a small city by comparison and b) it's in the deep south which is often the last to catch on to new trends. If you're in a more metro area, chances are your returns will be manifold times this.

What might be more relevant is search by category. For example, Bizzuka, the company I serve as marketing director, is targeting the legal industry. A search for lawyers brought over 930 returns. We are also targeting healthcare. A search returned almost 100 hospitals.

Apply that same methodology to your own situation and see what comes of it.

Twellow defaults to ranking returns based on number of followers, but you can also sort by
recent activity and/or whether the person has verified their Twellow account.

Each person listed has a profile associated with their entry which, depending on whether they've verified their account or not, could contain lots of information, including a bio, latest Twitter updates (good for knowing whether they're an active user or not), and link to their Web site or blog.

2. Follow those with real names - That's one way to know it's a genuine account. (It's always a good practice when setting up a Twitter account to use your real name.)

3. Follow those who follow you - In most cases it's a common courtesy. Chances are they're in the same industry or have some relevance to you.

4. Follow those following the people who are following you - Same rationale as #3, just once removed.

5. Follow those following the people you are following - If you've chosen to follow a particular individual for whatever reason (maybe they fit the profile mentioned in #1), there's a good likelihood at least some of the people following them would be relevant for you as well.

6. Follow those in your industry - Obviously, one of the best uses for Twitter is as a vehicle for networking, gathering feedback and getting advice. It's a great tool for meeting others in your industry or discipline.

7. Follow those you find interesting and/or entertaining - In all the mad rush to turn Twitter into a business communications and marketing tool, leave a little for pure fun. If you find someone's posts interesting, maybe they're worth following as well.

8. Follow those who use the same hashtags (ex. #nms08) to follow a conversation - Again, if they're interested in the same things as you, consider following them.

9. Follow those who @reply you - @replies can be sent into the public timeline addressed to people you're not following. If a user has addressed you in that way, might be fruitful to add them.

10. Follow those interacting with people you follow - If you see a tweet with an @reply addressing someone you're following that comes from someone you're not, they may be worth following. Check em out!

Don'ts...

11. Don't follow those with numbers behind their names - This is
a technique often used by spammers (Twammers) due to the fact that have
multiple accounts. It's a dead give-away. (One word of caution: When
setting up your Twitter handle, don't use numbers. Your real name will
do nicely.)

12. Don't follow those with no avatar - If you can't see their face, company logo or some sort of avatar, don't follow.

13. Don't follow those who only broadcast - Unless you know it's
an account set up strictly for that purpose - a news, shopping or
"tips" type account - don't follow. If they don't participate in
conversations with anyone else, they won't with you either.

14. Don't follow those who aren't active - I don't know the number or percentage, but I bet the number of people who've subscribed to Twitter and aren't actively using it is sizable. If a user is not actively maintaining the account, chances are it's dead.

15. Don't follow users based on their follower count - In social media, it's not necessarily how many eyeballs that count but who those eyeballs belong to. There are some very influential people who may not have huge numbers of followers.

There you have it - 15 tips for know who to follow and who not to. That's my list at least for now, though I'm sure I'll add to it. BTW, you can too! What criteria do you use in determining who to follow. Please share it in a comment. Thanks!

Finally, if you're not following me, please do. My Twitter handle is @pchaney.

Tell Sellers The Truth

It's a New Year time to stand tall and make a decision to tell the cold hard truth. When you walk into that listing appointment remember they asked you to come because you are a real estate professional and they are looking for guidance and solutions.

Now if your end game is merely to get your sign in the yard then you won't be in the game too long. However, if this is your career you get that it's a bigger picture. The bigger picture... your reputation, referrals, delivering on what you say! Remember you are dealing with folks biggest investment don't make it about you. Once you do you lose.

Maybe your excuse is you just can't be that hard on them, it will hurt their feelings. How would you feel if the cancer doctor felt really bad about your terminal diagnosis so he told you everything was fine come back in 6 months? Too bad you won't be showing to the appointment.
That's what many agents are doing out there with seller's finances. They are over pricing homes to get the listing meanwhile the market is passing the seller by till they are in ruin.

I'm not talking about the seller who won't listen. We all have dealt with them. I prefer to be the second listing agent on those because now they are prepared to listen and you don't have to spend my money on a house that won't sell.

If it smells, tell them, if it's cluttered tell them, if they want to overprice it for the market tell them. You don't have to be unkind you just need to be honest. Suggest an appraisal if need be. It will never be in the sellers best interest to tell them what they want to hear if it's not teh truth.

The Truth will not only set you free but take your career much further than a lie could ever take you!