Are You Getting the Pciture?

The first visual impression can set the tone for the best lasting impression. If you've ever heard that buying and selling real estate can be an emotional process, you heard right. Don't under estimate the positive influence on both sides of the transaction that a great set of photos can provide. Both buyers and sellers benefit from the best marketing tool in real estate. Uplifting images can create interest, instill pride, and set apart one listing from the rest.
Buyers are sifting through listings waiting for that special home to jump out and grap them. Then a series of photos or a virtual tour can capture their interest and take them on that joy ride through their potentially new home without ever leaving their seat. Then they convince their buyer's agent they have got the see this house, and the positive momentum builds from there as the buyers are wanting to relive that joy ride in person. As the home lives up to the initial impression, an offer can become imminent.
Sellers are becoming more aware of this aspect of marketing and are selecting their real estate agent based on the ability to deliver quality photographs of their most important financial asset. They understand the advantage and leverage in the transaction of the buyer viewing their property in the best light. With the photographic standard set, the seller's pride in homeownership and desire to maintain their home for each buyer showing can also help keep the positive vibe flowing.
When these two mindsets are headed in the right direction, good things can happen. Getting the transaction started with this kind of mometum the odds of two satisfied clients is a lasting impression.
Are You Getting the Picture?

Remember when web-design was not a prerequiste to become a Realtor?

While buyers seem to prefer internet home-buying research (stats say) over the tanigble hardcopy, listing agents are left holding the proverbial "technology bag," fighting to be viewed. What does it take to be seen?
We've moved, rather speedily it seems, from media-ready photos to slide shows to virtual tours to, the latest and, incedentally, the most expensive method of home-viewing, video tours. Certainly a good video tour can eliminate the looky-loos, but doesn't it diminish the Realtor's ability to find the home with the just-right-fit?
Siddling right up to the technology counter are our bloggers and weekly/daily website updaters-enewsletter sender-outers, and buyer drip campaingers. Helpful to the agent, certainly- chock full of tips and hints, friendly advice and back-patters. Does anyone else feel as though they're engaged in an intimate relationship with their ISP?
Craigslist, a venerable listing mecca... YouTube, Metacafe, so on and so on.
Even the local papers have caught on, selling ebanners and esidebars.                                          

Does this mean I need an ecar filled with egas to take me to the estore?                                   

Progression is good- I like efax and estamps...a lot. But I decided to become a Realtor, not a digital virtual tour guide, not a daily blogger, not a Craigslist junkie. Not an web whiz. Yet, it seems, real estate agents are destined to become as well-versed in technology as, well, someone really good at computer stuff.
Ugh.

Buyers Where Are You????

Reality Bites... or at least stings a whole lot.

My dearest Upstate, facts are facts and it's time to face them. Whilst we've worked diligently convincing our sellers, buyers, neighbors and Belk department store clerk that the area market is holding its own, it seems Lady Market has her own agenda.  And, much to the chagrin of this English major, the fanciest rhetoric scales not the stanch wall of non-existent buyerdom.

We're not yet Florida, or Vegas or Southern California or slews of other droopy real estate markets- thanks be to God. And though we're not yet belly-sliding through the barren real estate desert searching, desperately, for the buyer-laden oasis, we are rather thirsty and maybe a little hungry. Does the air seem dry to you?

I have it on good authority- someone said the market is down 25% from last year. I'm unwilling to believe it's been that drastically affected. Still, there are, like, five zillion homes for sale in Thornblade and half of Providence is listed.

Maybe the media hype's got something to do with the lack of buyers buying- Perhaps we, as Real Estate Activists, can make a deal with the Media... my prized green beach cruiser (complete with Chihuahua-toting basket and bell... ring,ring) for your Silence?       

Using creative wording to support ads

A simple, even well-photographed picture of a home conveys to the viewer just that- brick and mortar, roof and windows. Without attached language, we'd miss saleable points like, "built-in stainless grill, ideal for lip-smacking, sticky-fingered ribs" and "Earth-friendly Brazilian bamboo floors." We'd never know about the "triple-stacked custom 4" crown moulding" or the "blown-glass powder room sink imported from Spain."  Not every home can boast "green" features or pricey upgrades- nonetheless, all homes CAN invoke an overall feeling. With creative language use, we can appeal emotionally to poential buyers.

For example, car salesmen don't advertise minivans with screaming carseat-bound kids. Instead, they use muscle-chested, polo-shirted, smiley men navigating cheerfully around a sunny moutain road- hot mom as co-pilot and fresh-faced tweens sweetly engrossed in a game of Go-Fish buckled safety in back. The painted picture envokes, emotionally, a supremely more cheerful, buyer-friendly response than, say, your average Kool-Aid stained, sticker-laiden, McDonald's wrapper-strewn minivan backseat. 

Similarly, we can paint pictures for our listings. Highlight features with pizazz, creatively word strong points. Determine the overall feel of the property and develop the word-picture that will support it. This way, when Mrs. Buyer decides to search for potential nests, she may connect emotionally, as well as visually, to the ad.   

Now is THE TIME to buy

Heard the saying, get while the getting's good? Enter Good, stage left...and right.

Here in the perpetually gorgeous Upstate, Lady Real Estate-Agency disclosure and lockbox key in hand-has bestowed upon us a plethora of outstanding property ripe for the picking.

Has the market adjusted? Absolutely, the state isn't economy proof.  But there are still heaps of bargains to be had and oodles of money still to be made.

Remember- the housing woes of slow-growth areas like manufacturing giant Michigan, and Rhode Island don't apply as astringently to South Carolina- ranked 9^th by Time Magazine in population growth from July 2006 to July 2007.  Instead, the invasion of thousands of transplants to the Carolinas and Georgia has adjusted the Upstate market from the dismal national standard into something far less depressed. Think tropical depression as opposed to Category 5 Hurricane. And by the way, we expect 32,000 new transplants to the state this year.

Case in point-market research from November 2007 to January 2008, show the average time on market for an Upstate home hovers somewhere close to the 85 day mark. Properties in specific price points even move as quickly as 70 days.  Just a couple of states south in Naples, Florida, the average time on market is 215 days-more than half a year! The irrefutable facts-in-numbers are enough to sway the opinion of the most relentless housing market naysayers.

So breathe easy Upstate. Ready your contract-signing pens and let the buying begin. With rates at historic lows and sweet properties aggressively priced, now, like few times in the recent past, is the time to buy and sell.

206 Whitten Street, Easley SC

206 Whitten St, Easley

REDUCED, REDUCED, REDUCED...

Greener Real Estate

  I wandered the halls looking for it- up and down, up and down- still it remained elusive. I searched underneath coutertops and inside cabinets. I crawled on my hands and knees peering under desks. Nothin'.

  Baffled and bewildered, I finally asked someone, "Where IS the recycling bin?"  

  Maybe it's the former Californian in me, but shouldn't Realtors be protective of the land we are trying to sell? Particularly since we are HUGE consumers paper products, fuel and styrofoam coffee cups (or Red Bull cans)?

  Back West where rolling blackouts, water conservation and Green living are natural states of existance, recycling is part of life.  In a neighborhood of 50 homes, 1/4 might utilize some form of alternative energy- to heat their pool, to run their home, power their cars. Hoot the Don't Pollute Owl and Smokey the Bear tag- teamed school assemblies and public broadcast networks ingraining in the impressionable the importance of preservation.

  It's been awhile since my last assembly- is Hoot still around?

  It comes down to accountability. Individually, we can do our part with paper-saving avenues like e-fax or filling out contracts electronically. And though we are all slaves to the roadway by trade, ethanol-fuel or hybrid vehicles not only allow for bank account breathing room, but better breathing alltogether.

  So maybe we can't all rush out and buy a Prius or construct giant windmills in our backyards- but we can do something. Empty out a box and fill it with unwanted paper. Have McDonalds use your go-mug for coffee.

  We all have a vested interest in the planet...Realtors especially.

Commercial Opportunity

619 GENTRY MEMORIAL HWY, EASLEY

 New Point of Sale strip center only 16 months old! Leased. 3.41 acres are reserved for 50,000 mini storage level. Newest strip center in Pickens County. Great expansion opportunity into rear of mini storage. Area is well known with Mr. Dipps as one of the leases.

7.86 AC

27,000 + Traffic Count

$1,790,000

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For more details... 

Call Eddie or Haley 864-561-0200, 864-513-1553

California Leftovers...

I'd left them in the dust, but not intentionally. My former California home held tight to my California family- a bond, it seems, that was held together by Easy Livin' and fair home prices. Fast forward to now... they scramble to update bathrooms, prune palms and generally prepare for the area's limpy market, making finite plans to relocate to "greener" ie: "affordable" grasses.

The temptation to preview suitable homes for my West Coast, soon to be East Coast, family can be likend to the pull of a cool blue pool on a blazing hot day... But I will practice patience- Homes back home linger on the market longer than a checkout line at Lowes on a warm, spring day.