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home selling: Mr. Seller...Let the Buyer's Agent Sell Your House - 10/04/09 06:43 PM
Scenario:  Mr. Seller is very eager to sell his house.  He just "happens to be home" when a lot of the buyers and their agents pop by for a visit. Mt. Seller likes to be the tour guide highlighting all the parts of the house he [the Seller] likes about his house. Mr. Seller also likes to talk money.
Yes, that's right.  Stuff like "I can do this with closing help or I can do that with less closing help or....."  Get the point?
So I get the call from the agent with a low ball offer.  I present to the … (12 comments)

home selling: Second Guessing the Price - 08/16/09 07:12 AM
Every now and then I'll encounter a home seller that when they say "I want to sell this house." they really mean it. They listen to my rationale for recommending a price. They look at the comparable sales. They make a decision to price the home so it will attract the largest number of potential buyers through the front door and provide an offer that will end with the sale of the house.
A lot of the time, I encounter home sellers who will say "I want to sell this house." and what they really mean (but don't say out loud) … (5 comments)

home selling: Managing Expectations - 08/01/09 02:56 PM
In the last couple of days there have been rumblings about "the bottom" and even a cover story in Newsweek entitled The Recession is Over * (note: the asterisk).  If you watch CNBC at all and you happen to catch a little of it before you tuned in Oprah on Friday you would have heard all manner of people getting all giddy about the stock market rally, and, most notably, about the fact that the economy didn't shrink as much as expected.
That bears repeating -- the economy did not shrink as much as expected. It did not grow/expand. It just … (9 comments)

home selling: HAP may not be short for HAPPY - 06/06/09 06:57 AM
I recently started working with a couple who have been long time clients and great referrers of other clients.  In fact, of my entire list of clients I have helped over the past 10 years these folks get the #1 spot for number of times they have used me personally combined with the number of people they have referred to me that actually bought a home and gotten to settlement.
These are the types of clients I live for!
They're in the military.  At least, the wife is. Now they need to move, again, because she's being deployed to another duty … (10 comments)

home selling: Buyers Kicking Tires - 03/09/09 09:37 AM
In an article in the Real Estate Section of The Washington Post, a guy is described as having really, really researched the market for a long period of time.  He had spreadsheets and visited a lot of open houses, etc.  He and his lady friend eventually decided to buy a house!  Wooooo! Hoooo!
This reminds me of a recent experience where a couple contacted me through my REALTOR.com listing. They liked the house, it had a Virtual Tour so they had and idea what it looked like on the inside and they wanted to see it. 
Since I'm the Seller's rep, … (15 comments)

home selling: Home Sellers and the Code of Ethics - 03/08/09 07:36 PM
Now, everyone knows that professional Realtors cannot lie about a house.  Sure, we can make it sound pretty attractive when, in fact, it's not all that pretty. We can say "some TLC needed" when you really need FHA 203(k) and a good contractor but we really can't lie.  It's against our Code of Ethics.
Home sellers, on the other hand, are not bound by the Code of Ethics.  They are bound by their own, personal moral and ethical code of behavior. That might be stricter or quite a bit more, er, flexible.  Or, as some would say, "situational".  In the case … (13 comments)

home selling: When do you say "Stop!" - 10/27/08 07:40 AM
I was reading a recent Lenn Harley blog post, "A New Paradigm fo Buyer's Agents, Taking Control of Your Business" and I really couldn't agree more.
My rational, intellectual mind is nodding "yes, yes, yes" all the way through.
But then the emotional side kicks in.
Business is down. Suppose this buyer really buyers something (let's assume we've qualified him/her for a mortgage).  What about "building relationships" in order to build a referral base?  Is it possible this buyer will actually buy?
To be sure, I've heard variations on Lenn's theme before: "15 and farewell" from a manager that says if … (10 comments)

home selling: From One End of the Spectrum to the Other - 06/14/08 06:49 PM
A month or so ago I was referred to a client from a Realtor colleague in Houston to sell the childhood home in College Park, MD.  I visited the house, spoke with the Persoal Rep. for the Estate and got the Listing Agreement with the house priced to sell.  Long story short, the offers came in, the Personal Rep picked one, we worked through to settlement and everyone -- Sellers, Buyers, Realtors -- were all happy campers.
Here's why, in retrospect, I think it happened like it did: the Seller had been messing around with the house for a year.  They … (3 comments)

home selling: Yours, Trulia - 10/05/07 11:29 AM
I recently became aware of Trulia -- a real estate website geared mostly to consumers -- and was amazed at some of the postings by my fellow real estate professionals.
Trulia allows consumers to ask questions of one sort or another and this one question posted in a zip code I have a listing in wondered if this was a good time to sell.  Imagine my surprise when 4 out of the 5 responses by "Real Estate Pros" (as defined by Trulia) to the consumers quesitons were not to sell if he [the Seller] didin't have to.
There is no question that it … (2 comments)