IBR Realty Blog

If You Want To Sell Your House

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOrKLs0QJkA

Real estate roulette

Does this sound familiar?

You meet with a seller.
They believe their home is worth X.
You know it’s worth Y.
But you figure, hey, why complicate matters? The customer is always right. 
So you take the listing.
And figure that in a month or two the seller will come to their senses and you’ll get a price reduction.
And then you find you’re in this situation month after month.
Chasing the market
Like the Greyhound at the racetrack. The bunny always wins. 

Stop chasing the bunny. The consumer is sitting in the stands watching you run round and round. Dropping prices. A home by me is now down $70,000 in 6 months. I’m not the only one thinking that if I wait another month, it’ll drop 20 more.

Buyers aren’t budging because they are compelled not to. They are watching the market decline and it appears to them that if agents don’t know what the right prices are, how can they? Why not wait it out? And if they lose out on the home, so what, there are thousands more like on the market.

Leaders take a stand.
They stand for what they believe in.
And they don’t cave.

Try not taking the listing.
Try standing up to the seller and establishing your expertise and demonstrating that you know better and put a price on the property for which you know it will sell. Real estate sales is about selling the home, not playing roulette, right?

There are enough properties on the market. It’s flooded. Try cutting down on the supply and increase the demand. Leaders, experts and trusted advisors control their environments, not the other way around.

- Davison

Does this sound familiar?

You meet with a seller.
They believe their home is worth X.
You know it’s worth Y.
But you figure, hey, why complicate matters? The customer is always right. 
So you take the listing.
And figure that in a month or two the seller will come to their senses and you’ll get a price reduction.
And then you find you’re in this situation month after month.
Chasing the market
Like the Greyhound at the racetrack. The bunny always wins. 

Stop chasing the bunny. The consumer is sitting in the stands watching you run round and round. Dropping prices. A home by me is now down $70,000 in 6 months. I’m not the only one thinking that if I wait another month, it’ll drop 20 more.

Buyers aren’t budging because they are compelled not to. They are watching the market decline and it appears to them that if agents don’t know what the right prices are, how can they? Why not wait it out? And if they lose out on the home, so what, there are thousands more like on the market.

Leaders take a stand.
They stand for what they believe in.
And they don’t cave.

Try not taking the listing.
Try standing up to the seller and establishing your expertise and demonstrating that you know better and put a price on the property for which you know it will sell. Real estate sales is about selling the home, not playing roulette, right?

There are enough properties on the market. It’s flooded. Try cutting down on the supply and increase the demand. Leaders, experts and trusted advisors control their environments, not the other way around.

- Davison

Seller Education 101

We are in a war, my friends. I am not talking about Iraq or the War on Terror, but a marketing war. In this war, we are battling to sell homes in a sea of inventory. Sellers are not listening to us. What we need is Weapons of Mass Instruction (sorry Rush…need to borrow the line) to break through and win.

Weapon 1: The IED (Improvised Educational Device):

Most MLS systems have “dream home finders” or “Email Updates” or other such systems. They are designed to provide buyers the latest listings via e-mail. “Get the latest listings as soon as they are on the market!” is how we sell them to our buyers.
Time to improvise! Use it on your sellers! If they live in a subdivision, set this program to give them ANY home price changes, sales, expireds or withdrawals. This provides your seller a real education as to the market in their specific neighborhood.

You would be amazed at the changes that they will make when they see the guy down the street drop his price in near real time. Call it your “Competitive Market Update”

Weapon 2: Electronic Warfare and Recon
This weapon is deployed by using one of several available feedback systems using email. The difference between feedback provided via e-mail vs via phone is that the e-mail feedback goes directly to the seller from the showing agent. Unaltered marketing information that is unfiltered and unmessed with, delivered in a email at light speed.
We have used this type of system for over a year and have had pretty stellar results. Why? Because when a seller gets information directly from the showing agent, they HAVE to accept it as valid. When they hear it from you, they think that it is less reliable.

I realize that may be hard to accept. We think we have done a great job of selling them on our value, but the bottom line is that they take what we say with a grain of salt. it could NOT have been the 5 years of cat pee that turned the sellers off. No, it wasn’t that the price was 20K over the competition. COULDN’T have been! After all THEIR house is special. It was built with the heavy duty roofing nails..(grin)

While I realize that this type of weapon does not work in all environments and may not be suitable in yours…it is worth an experiment to see what results are produced. It is a war out there….soldier on!

By: Eric Blackwell, HomesInLouisville.com,

This is similar to yesterday's post in that it deals with seller's inability to grasp the concept that house prices are not what they were in the past. What I really liked about this one was Eric's idea of getting real time market changes to sellers via an automated system we typically use for buyers.

Again, work on your sellers to be realistic about market conditions. Keep them up to date about the condition of their particular area and don't be afraid to be innovative.

Kevin Sharkey

The Guy Down At The Car Wash Gets It…

There’s a lesson in all this, I promise you

In a transitional part of Atlanta, there now stands a brand spankin’ new car wash. It used to be a Burger King, but that closed years ago… and after demolition, this lot sat vacant for several years.

Fast forward a few years, and a sign went up announcing the construction of the car wash. That sign was up for at least a year in advance of the car wash actually being built… so on this busy street - there was NO question that EVERYONE in the area knew a car wash was coming.

So a few weeks ago, they opened for business - all bright and shiny - and offered a grand opening special of $5.99 to wash a car. They had a guy holding the sign out at the street to make sure everyone knew they were open and that a car wash was only $5.99.

Then, the following week, the sign guy was still out on the street - waving the public in - but this time, his sign stated “$4.99″ - instead of the previous week’s “$5.99″. Hmm… maybe they’re making it up on volume, who knows?

Another week goes by, and now the sign guy is holding a sign stating “$3.99″. Do you see a pattern here? Good. You’re paying attention. Because there is one.

The car wash still does not really have any customers that I can see. And I’d be willing to guess that the owners are starting to panic. After all, they probably spent a million dollars building this place.

So here’s my analysis and how it relates to real estate:

The car wash owners obviously realized that the market did not accept their initial price - no matter how much promotion they had done… and they responded with price adjustments.

Home sellers should take note of this market economics fundamental.

However, what the car wash owners have failed to realize is that two miles down the road is a well-established car wash that has been there for over ten years… and they have a $3.00 car wash. So - unless they add more value to their proposition - the public will continue to reject their offer.

And home sellers should not miss this message, either.

As long as your home does not compete in the marketplace, you will not get any takers. And why should you? There’s a ton of competition out there.

So it will be interesting to see what the car wash owners are going to do next. I am sure that they feel like they “need” to get a certain price (just like some home sellers) but whether or not the market agrees with that price is another thing.

So maybe the guy down at the car wash gets it…

Or maybe not.

By: Doug Quance, BrokersFirstRealty.com

A great post by today's contributor, Doug Quance. In todays' market, price and condition are the driving forces behind houses that sell. There is so much competition that buyers are demanding, and getting beautiful homes at prices less than they were a year ago.

This is a brutal reality that homeowners have to come to grips with. Our task is to get them to act accordingly if they want to sell their homes. And that is still a difficult proposition. Any thoughts on how it is done?

Kevin Sharkey