Business comes and goes with the tide, or so it seems, and with it are opportunities that can make for a great sale or a poor sale. Unlike the tide, as business owners and auctioneers, we don’t necessarily flow as well as the tide, which makes us need to set and achieve goals. Have you ever walked into the door and said to yourself that something could go better? What would it take for a much better execution? We should have better communications when the phone rings in order to make the person on the other end of the phone confident in us.

This is where S.M.A.R.T comes in. What is S.M.A.R.T? Well, S.M.A.R.T. is a methodology that has been used for several years to clearly define and focus on what we are going to do. S.M.A.R.T stands for:

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attainable

R = Realistic

T = Timely

This is probably not new to many of you in that you have a thought process in which S.M.A.R.T. is incorporated. However, for our junior members, we want you to understand that when qualifying your clients, you want to ensure that you have an idea of how to put it all together. In many of our encounters with clients, we most commonly go through the process of qualifying several variables in order to achieve what will be a situation where our seller is happy, the buyer is happy and we are happy. This could be based on several things, such as volume, price points, your third eye, or the hair on the back of your neck.

It does not matter if you are a Real Estate Broker, Agent or Auctioneer, when a client comes to us, we use this very methodology to determine if we can deliver on what they need – here’s how: Sue Doe calls your firm stating that she would like to auction her real estate and all of the personal property inside. She only has six weeks to sell the house. She understands Absolute Auctions and wants to do so. Using S.M.A.R.T:

S – The house would need to sell at auction with the personal property.

M - How would you measure the success of this particular sale? What goals would you have to check on as this goes through the vetting process?

A – Is a six week sale possible? If not, can you negotiate something further out?

R – Is her expectation of the Auction Method of Marketing Reasonable? It may be that she has seen many advertisements proclaiming that the auction method of marketing is the fastest!

T – Is her request Timely? Can you schedule such sale with all of the principals involved? Your auctioneer, staff, etc?

I understand that this is a poor example, however when you think of it, somewhere there is a Broker or Auctioneer who had this situation come up and had to turn the client down.

In either case, you never want to paint yourself into a corner that leads to a lawsuit, so make sure you are operating smart, and using S.M.A.R.T to ensure your goals and your clients goals are met.

The pictures in your listing are not telling a story – and it costs your clients money!

I just got off the phone with a potential client who was telling me that she has not been able to get her house sold at all. She was telling me the whole story, and I picked up on some very disturbing news.

Real Estate Agents were not bringing her the leads. In fact, when looking up the property, I found out why there are not that many leads for the seller.

All the pictures (15) except four were of the neighborhood, not the property. The three pictures were: A picture of the side of the house, the flower pots out back, the bedroom, and kitchen. All of the rest of the pictures were of the pool, the swing sets, the street, and everything else other than the home.

While I am sure that a neighborhood is a great idea to attempt to sell a property, I am just wondering if this is how you tell the story of a home in a community. Many of our clients refuse to even attempt to deal with a home where there are Home Owners Association Fees. The reason is that many folks do not find that they add value to the community any longer.

But to get back on track, I want to ask everyone – when you sit down and tell a story to your children, or you are telling your friends of a situation that turned out to be funny – do you just bullet the points and then laugh? I don’t think so.

When we tell stories we build up the story until the point where there is a lesson learned, or all in all everyone breaks out into laughter. This house, according to the listing, did not have a story. The neighborhood had the story, but the home did not.

If we are to sell homes to people, we have to understand that we have to make them fall in love with the home, not the neighborhood. The story should put the buyer in the home during celebrations, during quiet times, and gives them the feeling that they are indeed, at home.

The neighborhood, comes as the “Oh – By The Way,” side story.

Today, I read a very interesting article by Steve Cook that he wrote on July 30th. It was titled "On the Foreclosure Front, It's Woodshedding Time."  I don't normally watch Real Estate Insight and Intelligence but this particular article published at http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com caught my attention.  Not because the introduction was extraordinarily accurate, but because the intent of the article was to point out that what the mortgage companies have been doing - the government is well aware, and now since the politicians feel the heat, Washington wants to take the companies to the woodshed.

An excerpt from the article tickled me:  'So what was the meeting like?  “There was a sense of urgency,” Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Mortgage, told Ruth Simon of the Wall Street Journal.  Urgency?  I'll bet.  Ouch, woodshed time.'

Being an auctioneer, I can say that the article was very articulate in what needs to be done.    The article went on saying: "Reports from Tuesday's meetings suggest that loan servicers have been hampered with trying to make a brand new program fraught with administrative issues work on a large scale very quickly.  They discussed the need for standardized forms and to figure out a way to modify primary and secondary loans simultaneously, even though the two loans have different terms and are held by two different lenders."

Not that I am down on the mortgage companies, because I think that there has been blame to pass out all around, but you would think that the nearly 4,000 year old method of auction marketing would come into play.  Why?  You ask?  

The biggest complaint is standardization.  Auctioning a house all follows the Uniform Commercial Code.  The U.C.C is very specific about how to handle items that are in foreclosure or that have a lien attached to them.  So who cares if it has a first or second mortgage?  If you have an auction method of satisfying both, you need not have to do much more than sign the paperwork.

I think some of the problem is that we see too many people backward negotiating prices and want to cover their interests when the interests have evaporated.  Perhaps it is a sign that they were in the same delusional state as the homeowner when they thought the price of their real estate, already overly inflated, was going to go up further.

But, you ask, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?  As folks with fiduciary duty, we can offer them auctions as a way of getting out of their current circumstance and put them into a better circumstance.

 Think about integrity when we offer them list and sit for 8 months versus selling the house in whatever market they are in less than 30 days.  Think about selling the house to settle the debit in a short sale versus having a house worth 30-50% less that does not sell at all, forcing your client into foreclosure.

Is it worth the cost of foreclosure to the 30% of Americans?  Each time there is a foreclosure, just remember folks - it costs you future business.

Today, I read a very interesting article by Steve Cook that he wrote on July 30th. It was titled "On the Foreclosure Front, It's Woodshedding Time."  I don't normally watch Real Estate Insight and Intelligence but this particular article published at http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com caught my attention.  Not because the introduction was extraordinarily accurate, but because the intent of the article was to point out that what the mortgage companies have been doing - the government is well aware, and now since the politicians feel the heat, Washington wants to take the companies to the woodshed.

An excerpt from the article tickled me:  'So what was the meeting like?  “There was a sense of urgency,” Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Mortgage, told Ruth Simon of the Wall Street Journal.  Urgency?  I'll bet.  Ouch, woodshed time.'

Being an auctioneer, I can say that the article was very articulate in what needs to be done.    The article went on saying: "Reports from Tuesday's meetings suggest that loan servicers have been hampered with trying to make a brand new program fraught with administrative issues work on a large scale very quickly.  They discussed the need for standardized forms and to figure out a way to modify primary and secondary loans simultaneously, even though the two loans have different terms and are held by two different lenders."

Not that I am down on the mortgage companies, because I think that there has been blame to pass out all around, but you would think that the nearly 4,000 year old method of auction marketing would come into play.  Why?  You ask?  

The biggest complaint is standardization.  Auctioning a house all follows the Uniform Commercial Code.  The U.C.C is very specific about how to handle items that are in foreclosure or that have a lien attached to them.  So who cares if it has a first or second mortgage?  If you have an auction method of satisfying both, you need not have to do much more than sign the paperwork.

I think some of the problem is that we see too many people backward negotiating prices and want to cover their interests when the interests have evaporated.  Perhaps it is a sign that they were in the same delusional state as the homeowner when they thought the price of their real estate, already overly inflated, was going to go up further.

But, you ask, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?  As folks with fiduciary duty, we can offer them auctions as a way of getting out of their current circumstance and put them into a better circumstance.

 Think about integrity when we offer them list and sit for 8 months versus selling the house in whatever market they are in less than 30 days.  Think about selling the house to settle the debit in a short sale versus having a house worth 30-50% less that does not sell at all, forcing your client into foreclosure.

Is it worth the cost of foreclosure to the 30% of Americans?  Each time there is a foreclosure, just remember folks - it costs you future business.

The most significant growth (in auctioneering) was seen in residential real estate, which grew by 12.5 percent in 2006, generating $16 billion. Last year, residential real estate auctions generated $14.2 billion. Residential real estate auctions are the fastest growing sector of the industry and are increasingly being accepted as mainstream with the general public.

If your not using the auction method, you could be missing out on your piece of the pie!