• 1,800 sq. ft., 2 bath, 3 bdrm 2 story "New Siding & Roof" - MLS® $119,900 - Reduced!
De Soto, Jefferson County - Charming 2 Story Home Close to Town; This Completely Updated Home is Just Waiting for You to Move In! Some of the Numerous Updates Include: New Roof, Dual Air Conditioning, Dual Heating, Windows, Laminate Flooring, Vinyl Siding, Gutters. The Large Elegant Living Room has 10 Ft. Ceilings and a Spindled Staircase. Also on the Main Floor is a Family Room/Den with Built-in Bookshelves, a Large Formal Dining Room, a Completely Updated Kitchen with Custom Cabinets, a Full Bath Room and Main Floor Laundry! Up the Staircase is a Beautiful Landing Area and 3 Bedrooms! The Master Suite Features a Large Walk-in Closet, a Bonus Room Perfect For a Home Office, Nursery, or Sitting Room, and a Full Master Bath with Whirlpool Tub, Separate Shower and Skylight. The Home also Features a Detached 2 Story Garage. This 800 sq Ft Garage Perfect for a Workshop & Extra Storage. All of this Plus a Large Above Ground Pool, Perfect for these Hot Summer Days! What Are You Waiting For? Make Your Appointment Now!
We have had some beautiful weather the last week and the buyers are out. One of my listings received two offers yesterday, one for $20,000 under asking price and one for $50,000 under asking price. Does this bother me, not in the slightest! At least they liked it enough to make an offer. Many sellers get upset at low price offers but at least these people thought enough about the home to make an offer. That is better than all the people that looked at the home and did not make an offer. This also allows us to present a counter offer and to possibly address some issues about the home that the buyers are not happy with.
Of course we would rather have a full price offer, but sometimes other options can be worked out. One of my sellers accepted a lower offer than they had planned on, but the sold the home "as is" no repairs, no inspections. This was much easier for the seller ( a single woman) and to her, it was worth accepting a little less money.
I have had a couple of foreclosure listings this year, and oddly enough the offers on these homes have not been as low as on my owner occupied properties. I guess this could be because the bank has no emotional attachment to the home and is more likely not to over price a property.
Low offers can also be used to stimulate more offers on a property. When I get notice that an offer is coming in on one of my listings, I send out an email to all of the agents who have previously shown the home. They can then contact their buyers, and since human psychology alway seems to make us want what we can not have, it tends to stimulate more offers.
When you have to be somewhere at a certain time or else it will reflect poorly on you, such as a job interview or when I go on a listing presentation you hate to hit road construction that can delay you for sometimes up to an hour. I my line of work that will usualy cost me the listing. A great way to stay informed of all of the current road constrution is to check conditions on the internet.
The Missouri Department of Transportation runs a website that show all of the road construction in the state of Missouri so that you can plan an alternate route or else make sure you give yourself enough extra time to make your appointment. You can view the site here: http://www.modot.org/workzonemap/
For information on the latest work being done on US 40 / I-64, you can visit http://www.thenewi64.org/
For detailed information on up coming projects in the St. Louis and Jefferson County area you can view http://www.modot.org/stlouis/ . I know learned about some up coming road improvements (that could help property values) that I was unaware of from this site.
Brookview Heights, Imperial - Back on the Market! This is the home you have been waiting for! Huge Atrium Ranch with all of the extras! From the minute you enter this incredible 2245 sq ft. home you will know it is the one for you. Real wood flooring in the entryway leads you to the Huge Great Room with a back wall of beautiful windows. An elegant fireplace is the focal point of the room and Cathedral ceilings span the length of the Great Room, Kitchen and Breakfast room. The atrium windows give you a great view of the vinyl fenced backyard and the woods beyond. The kitchen features upgraded 42 cabinets, lots of countertop space and a breakfast bar. A formal dining room is off of the kitchen with an elegant arched window. These windows have been tinted at a cost of $800 extra. The Master Bedroom Suite has double doors leading into it, a coffered ceiling, walk-in closet, and deluxe master bath. The basement is just waiting to be finished, with a 9 ft pour, full sized windows, roughed-in bath, and a walk out to a concrete porch.
Maxville, Arnold - Back on the Market! Incredible 1900+ sq ft Fully Updated Home. This Beautiful Home Features a Huge Great Room, with Vaulted Ceiling, Bay Windows, Wood burning Fireplace and Wet Bar. There is New Carpeting Throughout the Home and New Ceramic Tile in the Kitchen and Dining Room. The Kitchen was Updated 2 years ago with New Countertops, Breakfast Bar, Cooktop and Oven. The Large Entryway (13x10) has Double Doors leading into it and an Italian Quarry Floor. The Large Master Bedroom has a full bath and sliding doors leading out to a nice 10x12 deck. There is a concrete Patio off of the Great Room and a relatively flat, fenced back yard. The Garage is Oversized with a storage location, Utility Room, and room for a work bench. The Furnace and High Efficiency Air Conditioner are just 3 years old. This Home is in a Great Location, just minutes from shopping and I-55.
As an Agent for Coldwell Banker Gundaker one of our major points of differentiation has been the large amount of print advertising that we have each week. We have had major advertising in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. A double page spread of color homes ads in the middle of the real estate section of the Sunday paper, the back page on the real estate section had color pictures of our more expensive listings, and the front 2 pages had a list of all of our open houses for that day.
Unfortunately due to the continued rising costs of the advertising, even as the circulation numbers go down and recent unfounded and biased attacks against full service real estate companies by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Coldwell Banker Gundaker has decided to greatly reduce the advertising. No more lists of all the open houses, ads only 3 weeks a month, and most ads Black and White instead of color.
One of the explanations given to the agents about this reduction is that 80% of advertising budget was going to print advertising, a medium that is producing less and less results compared to internet advertising. I do have to agree, I usually had a home listed in the coor post ad every week and I almost never received a call from this ad. On the other hand, I receive lots of calls from my listings on the internet.
The main purpose for the Ads in my opinion was to show them to sellers and make them feel good. This is with out a doubt what I used the color Ads for. My sellers loved to see them and they felt that they were getting a service that other companies in our area did not offer. I will greatly miss these ads and I feel that it will hurt my listing presentation, but I do understand why our industry is moving away from these incredibly expensive print ads that are exposed to less and less people, and are less and less effective.
As I mentioned in an earlier post to my blog, I am completely new at blogging - reading and writing. In fact I sometimes do not like to read other peoples blogs because they look so much better than mine. They have pictures, well thought out articles, better formating, better grammar.
What I am trying to do is inform the buying and selling public on my opinion of what issues they face in the South St. Louis / Jefferson County Missouri housing marketplace. However I doubt that any of them are reading this. I greatly appreciate the comments that I have gotten from other agents, but am I posting in the wrong place? I write my posts here on Activerain and then I also post them to my website.
I have not read all of the helpful advice offered here because I feel that if I over analyse the process, then I won't do it. As I get more comfortable writing these I will keep exploring your helpful posts. So for now, I just come on here and write what is on my mind, and I try to tie it to what I deal with every day, selling real estate.
I have been telling people wanting to sell their home themselves about craigslist for the last three years. At that time it was unknown by most of the people who I talked with in the St Louis / Jefferson County Area. I had lots of people thank me very much and go on to use it to buy and sell lots of things. I also advertised all of my listings on the St. Louis Housing section of Craigslist.
Now three years later almost everyone around here knows about craigslist, but when I advertise my listings they are quickly flagged down and removed. It seems that there is a group on Craigslist that has a great dislike for Real Estate Agents. I am sure that it is only a few people trolling the message boards, but they are very loud and vocal in their dislike. They spread lots of false information about how rich real estate agents are, and how useless we are.
Now I have nothing against people trying to sell their home themselves. Sure I would like to get the listing and sell their home, that is how I feed my family, but I have found that the best way to do business is to be helpful to people. As I stated earlier, I told FSBOs to post on Craigslist, I tell people that they might want to try putting a For Sale By Owner sign in their yard for a couple weeks and see what happens. If the home sells, good for them, maybe they will tell someone that I was helpful to them. If it does not sell, maybe they will remember my help and let me show them my listing presentation.
It seems that a vocal minority out there have nothing but bad things to say about realtors, and I am sure that there are a few that do give us a bad name. But most all of the agents I know will do anything they have to make their clients happy. If we do not provide good service to our clients we will not reap the referrals that keep us in business. Okay, I am sorry to use my blog to complain and defend my profession but I get a great satisfaction out of what I do, and I truly believe that I am helping people. Yes, I make some money in the process, but I guarantee you it is not a lot after I split it with my broker and pay for my advertising, my website, my 800#, my phone, my wireless data service, my online contact manager, my coaching/marketing group, the MLS, gas, etc.
I made a lot more in my previous professions, but I truly love what I do. I implore the public to please not listen to all of these hate filled trolls. We are Realtors, we follow a code of ethics and we try our best to help people fulfill the American dream of owning their own home.
I wanted to take a moment to thank John Politte from Arnold Air Inc. for helping me to get my closing done on time today.
One of my listings accepted a contract that featured a very quick closing (less than 2 weeks). Thank left us with lots to do, and not much time to get it done in. Our sales contract requires the seller provides a clear gas inspection, Fire Dept inspection and municipal inspection at time of closing. The Fire Dept Inspection, repairs and re-inspection was handled very quickly. Unfortunately the gas company was not as accommodating and we did not get are gas inspection until the day before closing. I was out and was not able to pick up the inspection from the home until around 10pm that night.
When I picked up the gas inspection report I was very surprised to see that it had not passed the inspection since it was a relatively new home. This left me in quite a bind since the buyer was closing at 2pm the next day (It had been at 9am but thankfully was pushed back by the lender). Now I know that I could have wrote up an addendum promising to get the repairs done after closing, but I was determined to get it done before.
I made multiple calls first thing in the morning and left a lot of messages. Thankfully I was able to get a hold of John at Arnold Air and he said he could go right out to the home. I hoped in the car and went to meet him there. He arrived promptly and took a look at the situation. John gave me a quote that seemed very fair and told me he could go buy the materials and be back in a half hour to get it fixed. Sure enough, he was right back and fixed the problem. The time it took him to give me the quote, go buy the materials, and perform the repair - 50 minutes! That was incredible!
Everything was taken care of with hours to spare and the home closed with no problems. Here is a link to Arnold Air's website www.arnoldairinc.com . A big thank you to Tina and US Title also, for always doing such a great job with my closings.
At our office meeting on Tuesday we had a visit from Gordon Gundaker, the man who started our company. He told the same stories that he always tells, year after year. The interesting thing was the page of statistics that they handed out during the meeting.
In January of this year, our office sold 67 homes. January of last year had only 43 homes sold. In fact the amount of homes we sold this January is more than were sold during any month of last year. The highest amount last year was 66 homes sold in April. We also listed 56 homes in the month of January compared to 28 listings in January 2006. Once again that is higher than any month last year, the highest last year was 52 homes listed in August of 2006.
In February of this year we sold 60 homes, compared to 38 homes sold January 2006.
I think the large increase in sales is due to all of the people who held off buying in the fall. Most of that was caused due to the media reporting how bad the market was. It became a self fulfilling prophecy. This year has been my best start in the six years I have been selling real estate, and I am expecting it to stay that way.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
MLS® $119,900 - Reduced! 
When you have to be somewhere at a certain time or else it will reflect poorly on you, such as a job interview or when I go on a listing presentation you hate to hit road construction that can delay you for sometimes up to an hour. I my line of work that will usualy cost me the listing. A great way to stay informed of all of the current road constrution is to check conditions on the internet.
For information on the latest work being done on US 40 / I-64, you can visit 
As an Agent for Coldwell Banker Gundaker one of our major points of differentiation has been the large amount of print advertising that we have each week. We have had major advertising in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. A double page spread of color homes ads in the middle of the real estate section of the Sunday paper, the back page on the real estate section had color pictures of our more expensive listings, and the front 2 pages had a list of all of our open houses for that day. 
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