Archive for July, 2009
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Jul
31
Posted by Jennifer Allan
So, your house is on the market and it hasn’t sold. Bummer.
You’re probably considering reducing the price. After all, that’s what “everyone” says, isn’t it? Especially in today’s market, “the only thing that matters is price.”
Eh, I disagree. While price might be an answer, it’s almost never the only answer, or even the best one. What else might be the problem?
Well, it might be really simple. Sometimes lockboxes jam, or locks are sticky. If real estate agents and their buyers can’t get into a house, they can’t fall in love and they won’t buy it. Same goes if the seller is declining or restricting showings.
How does the property show and smell? After a few months on the market, even the most fastidious homeowners get tired of making sure their home is in show-ready condition every day.
How’s the MLS description? Is it dull (”3 bedroom/2 bath ranch in Woodbridge”) or jazzy (”Mid-Century tri-level with modern flair!”)? Does it over-promise, but under-deliver (e.g. it claims that the house has a 2car garage, which is really an oversized shed)? Are the photos in season? ARE there photos? Are the driving directions correct, if the property isn’t a slam-dunk to find?
Here’s a biggie that many people don’t consider – IS THERE A BUYER for this house? Are other similar homes selling? If so, there’s something wrong with yours. If not, there may simply not be a buyer on the planet at this time and we can’t manufacture one. Not all homes are sellable, contrary to popular opinion.
Take a really close look at what IS selling in the neighborhood or market area. Can you identify any common denominators among the selling listings versus the non-selling ones? Maybe all the sales are of 4-bedrooms and yours has 3. Maybe it’s the 2-story models that are selling and yours is a ranch. You can’t fix that, of course, but it might help you understand what’s going on.
But what if the problem isn’t simple, but is fixable?
Here’s a 15 minute clip from a training presentation I gave on this topic in New Jersey last spring that will answer that question!
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Jul
29
Posted by Jennifer Allan
Got a timely phone call from the mother of a friend of mine who has her Charming Old Denver house on the market. Been on the market awhile… like… a really long while. She’s in a panic and wants my opinion and possibly my services. Dandy.
So, I look up her listing on the MLS. Right off the bat I see half a dozen issues in her listing that are certainly hampering her chances for sale. They are:
1. Buyer agents must contact her directly for showings (that simply isn’t done here in Denver; we have showing services),
2. The photos are poor (there’s a cat on the bed in the bedroom photo)
3. The description is dull (”3 bedrooms, 2 baths, carport, blah blaaah, blaaaaaah”)
4. The main photo shows snow on the ground (it’s now what, July?),
5. The listing hasn’t been “refreshed” (a common practice here in Denver), and
6. All negotiations go thru the seller. Ugh.
No surprise, it’s listed with a MLS-only company that charged $195 for the “basic” package and $295 for the “enhanced” package. BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER, LET ME SAY THAT I AM NOT CRITICIZING the listing company.
The (non-)Seller GOT WHAT SHE PAID FOR. She wanted minimal service and she got minimal service. I doubt that she was misled into believing that for $295 she was getting anything but.
So, she asks what I charge as a real estate commission. I’m direct about such things, so I told her… 6% without an upfront marketing fee; 5.2% with an upfront marketing fee. She seemed shocked, but recovered quickly and said “Well, I guess you GET what you pay for.”
It would have been easy for me to smugly say “Yep,” but, the truth is, I don’t believe that. Because you certainly don’t always. Just ‘cause someone charges more doesn’t mean they provide more. Okay, well, probably most of us “traditional” agents provide more than the $295 company, but sometimes I wonder! Just do a search online for “bad MLS photos” and you’ll get a good taste of the abysmal service some of in my industry provide.
So, yes, I think it’s fair to say “You GOT what you paid for” (without disdain) when a seller comes to me in a panic because her $295 listing agent didn’t perform. Hey, it was worth a shot. But with me, I promise she’ll GET what she pays for.
You can read more about my real estate commission structure for Denver home-sellers here.
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Jul
29
Posted by Jennifer Allan
Back in 1997, one of my first seller clients asked me the question: “Jennifer, I assume our house will sell quickly because it’s so cute (it was), but if it doesn’t sell right away, what will you do?”
Hmmmmmmmm. Hell, I dunno. I was a green bean real estate agent; I’d only had one other listing in my career and didn’t have a clue. I came up with something that probably sounded like this: “I’ll do a broker open house, I’ll do mid-week open houses, I’ll distribute color brochures throughout the neighborhood and post an ad on the nearby college’s bulletin board.”
Lucky for me, the house did sell quickly, so I didn’t have to implement my admittedly weak Plan B.
But it’s now 13 years later and I still don’t have a good answer to the question: “What will you do in 30 days if my house hasn’t sold?” However, with 13 years of experience under my belt, I KNOW that there ISN’T a great answer to the question! Especially if the seller is expecting me to reach into some magic bag of tricks and pull out a secret marketing strategy that I reserve only for my non-selling listings!
Here’s the thing. Even if I HAD a magic bag of secret marketing tricks, why would I hold out using them until after the listing is stale? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hit the market with all guns blazing?
But the truth is, I don’t have a magic bag of tricks.
NO AMOUNT OF MARKETING CAN SELL AN UNSELLABLE HOME.
I could do broker opens every day of the week, distribute enough color brochures to kill a small forest and refresh my Craigslist ad every 21 days for the next five years and my listing will not sell if it’s not properly priced, properly prepared and properly presented!
NO AMOUNT OF MARKETING CAN SELL AN UNSELLABLE HOME!
My job as professional real estate agent in Denver is to know what it’s gonna take to get a house sold. I need to know how to price the home TO SELL; how to prepare my sellers for the reality of Being on the Market and how to help them prepare the home to evoke the most positive emotional reaction from the greatest number of potential buyers (and their agents). It needs to look good, smell good and photograph well. It needs to be easy to show without the distraction of barking dogs or a work-at-home owner. If there’s an obstacle to sale, I need to recognize it and have the balls to be frank with my seller about it (and help ‘em fix it).
That’s how I sell my listings. By working with my Charming Old Denver home-sellers to create a marketable product, not to throw time and money at advertising after the sign goes in the yard. Frankly, our MLS system is an incredibly efficient system to sell houses and there’s nothing I can do individually to out-market that MLS.
The moral of the story… when talking with a real estate agent about his or her “marketing plan” don’t be fooled by promises of fancy marketing unless the agent has a solid PRE-marketing plan!
www.CharmingOldDenver.com
