The tale of two builders. There is a builder in our town that built 80 to 100 homes a year during the boom. He has an excellent reputation for high end custom homes, and a lot of his employees thought that the slowdown wouldn’t affect them. Well, it has. He will probably build 10 homes in 2008. He will not build a spec home to sell on the open market. Why? Because, he feels that since he lost money on his last 4 specs, that he’ll lose money on anything else he builds.
Meanwhile, there is another builder in town that is still cranking along. He built 40-50 homes a year during the boom. This year he will probably build that same number, they just won’t sell quite as fast. How is he able to do it? He adapted to the market. Everything he builds is in a price range that sells quickly. Most of his homes are priced under $150,000 (where there is little competition) and he makes more money on that $150,000 home than do the builders building $200,000 and $300,000 homes. How can we take this story and apply it to our business?
Simple. Find the homes that are selling. Have you talked to a seller lately that told you that their home wouldn’t sell? “Homes like mine aren’t selling in today’s market,” they say. That is partially true, but there is a buyer for anything as long as it is priced competitively. For example in our MLS today a house that has been on the market for 2-3 years finally went pending. It was priced at $699,000, which is a high price for our area.
The market is tough, but homes are still selling. The number of homes selling per month in our market is back at the same level as 2002. Two agents I know had over 80 transactions that year. The thing we have to do is stop waiting for the market to change and/or improve. Try to sell homes within the current market.
Find the motivated sellers that have to sell. If a home owner “must” sell, versus “want to” sell, they will be willing to accept a reasonable price for the home. If not, they will scream, cry, whine, and complain. During the boom we could afford to list just about any property. Now we have to be more selective. Probe your buyers and sellers for motivation. Are they just another “want to” buyer or seller? Or, do they absolutely have to buy or sell their home?
Got questions about short sales? Just ask. Sign up for daily tips at
http://www.shortsaleagentadvocate.com
Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate
Comments(0)