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Reject THROW-UP listings. Do it "RIGHT," Not "RIGHT NOW!"

Ever heard the phrase "Hurry up and wait"?

How about the bastard cousin: "If you hurry up, expect to wait."? Not as catchy?

Anyhow, the fastest way to sell a house is to slooooooow doooooooown and do it right from the beginning. A rushed job will NET you less and take 3 times longer to sell.

A month ago I was contacted by a seller that wanted their house on the MLS tomorrow!

In one day! Could I have done it? Could I have thrown it up on the MLS? Sure, but it would look like throw up, and that doesn't sell... slowly. And no you can't just put it up quickly and make it better later (I'll explain later). So, I had to send her elsewhere...

Time and time again, the seller wants to have it sold yesterday. I don't blame you! The process is pretty stressful, and the faster you can unload the property, the better, right? Here is where the counterintuitive part kicks in... you sell it FASTER if you give your agent, stager, and sometimes painters and photographers the proper amount of time to get everything done perfectly straight out of the gate.

Put all of your efforts behind the first weekend LAUNCH!

The best way to sell a place is to have 2 offers. Yeah, maybe a bidding war will occur, but I'm talking about getting that extra nudge to make 1 of the 2 interested parties put in an offer.

The best way to do that is to:

a) have a delicious product.

b) compress most of your efforts into the first "launch" of your product.

Microsoft doesn't release a new big software and THEN advertise slowly. They are like a fireworks display in reverse. They start with the grand finale. They have a HUGE media blitz up front. You need that for your home. (this is also one of the reasons why it hurts you to "try it" FSBO for a couple of weeks, you deflate the parade, read: Go FSBO! Save $20,000! Realtor Tells All!)

List EXACTLY on Wed night or Thursday.

If your Realtor says "so when you think you wanna have your listing thingy up?" Please fire them and go to the phonebook and pick the first alphabetically listed agent, chances are, they will be better.

Why Wed/Thur? Email alerts for new listings are automatically sent around midnight to home buyers that have signed up through various MLS searching services. If you list on Friday at noon, everyone getting alerts at work will see them on Monday. After your "weekend launch!" If you list on Monday, the lead time is too long before the exciting weekend. You might have some interested parties, but why not compress the interest to a few days and make your house seem more appealing? Also sometimes you can kill your chances for a bidding war as those fast buyers tend to give Thursday deadlines, before the weekend push. So yes, given the choice to rush a listing in on Sat, versus waiting until the following Wed, I think waiting will sell your house faster! (Ok, maybe I'm a little too into the psychological science of selling, but I have seen it work)

Here are some made up stats of mine:

80% of your visitors will see your place in the first 10 days.

At any point in time there are a certain number of buyers waiting on the sidelines for a home to go on the MLS in a certain zip code. They have MLS email alerts set up. Once it hits, that backlog of buyers will see your house within the first 10 days. These are the best buyers since they probably have been looking for a while and are ready to act on the perfect house.

After those 10 days, traffic will tank. You might first blame the agent thinking that they have slowed down their marketing efforts, but that probably isn't the case. Now you have to to wait for newcomers into the market. And the longer it sits, the higher the chances it will sit even longer!

You only get 1 chance to impress!

If you throw up the listing and it has no photos, only a couple of photos, ugly photos, unstaged photos, the potential buyers will see your place and hit the delete button. Maybe only to reconsider you again when the next alert hits, your price drop (alerts are sent out for new listings and price drops).

Sidetip: Never list "freshly painted" in your remarks.

Also people don't like places that appear fixed up just for the sale. Why would you highlight "this place used to be a dump and a rental." Instead, just let them come in and in their mind think "wow the former owner was meticulous." Which scenario gives you a better warm and fuzzy? A good agent and stager will manipulate that feeling to the seller's benefit. (all part of our master plan)

Staging takes time! (see Bidding Wars? It's The Staging Stupid!!)

While I used to think staging was swinging past Target and picking up $100 worth of junk and plastic flowers, it is so much more (and now I'm learning that there is a huge difference between a 2-day certified "stager" and a design degreed professional. It makes a difference, that difference nets you more. Blog coming soon.). Actually we recommend taking staging a step further and oftentimes undergoing light construction and repainting. Each house is different, but it takes time to do it right. Expecting designers to work their magic in one day would overflow mental institutions across America!

It takes some time to get things down right. Maybe a week, maybe two weeks or more, if we need to coordinate a team of workers to work on your house. Maybe one day there will be a drive through MLS service that can get the stager out to the house within the first hour, and the construction crew out by hour 3 and photography etc etc. (Sounds like a reality show to me: "Ready to Sell in 4 hours!")

Oh and that seller that wanted the "rush job," her place is still for sale, and she has already dropped her price $10,000.

Bottom line is, we understand that you want to sell it as fast as possible, but lets take a moment, breathe and do it RIGHT, Not RIGHT NOW! And net you more, and faster!

- Written by Frank Borges LL0SA- Broker/ Realtor FranklyRealty.com

Also sign up for this blog, it makes me look good and you won't miss anything!

ps. Please email me typos, so I can look smert.

Posted by FRANK LL0SA- Northern Virginia Broker .:. FranklyRealty.com on 07/20/2007 12:27 PM

Comments (39)

listing advice

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39 Comments on Reject THROW-UP listings. Do it "RIGHT," Not "RIGHT NOW!"

JUL

2007

I love this post! Would yo consider submitting it to The Carnival of Real Estate this week? I'm hosting it this week. Not sure I'm allowed to solicit good blog articles. You submit at CarnivalofRealEstate.com This is much better than the ones who have submitted so far.

Frank-

Thanks for the enlightening post. I do have to say that all Stagers are not created equal. Staging is not Interior Design. My education in Interior Design is helpful especially in color theory and spacial relation but my experience as a Stager is what makes me an exceptional Staging Professional. Two days, ten days, 2 years of training? Either you have the eye and talent or you don't. Time and experience hones the skills but one has to have the talent or no amount of training (degreed or otherwise) will matter. Some of the very best Stagers I know are those who have been certified in short term courses and do not have design backgrounds. Generalizations should be used carefully as the spectrum is so vast.

Agreed Trish.

2 days or 2 decades or classes, if you suck you suck. But with the ability to get certified in 2 days, it is easier for a sucky fly-by-night wanna be designer to mess things up for the good ones out there (via poorly designed houses). Agreed? And with consumers not knowing what is good and bad, it just brings everyone down.

I was just warning people that staging is becoming more and more popular, so I'm starting to see more "I'm a stager, you're a stager, we are all stagers" mentality.

Recently one of my agents gave a listing presentation and mentioned how staging is so crucial that we require it. Supposedly the last 3 presenters also had stagers! I had never seen this!

In the eyes of the client, all stagers were the same, so why not hire the cheapest for only $300.

Suddenly low priced, and possibly low quality stagers are flooding the marketplace. Of course, if you can renovate a kitchen, help put down hardwood, paint 3 rooms, and all the other stuff you do etc etc for $300, more power to you, but when design is pitched as a commodity, problems will occur and it makes all stagers look bad.

This IS a great post with great information. Nominated for a feature and rated 5. You ARE very smert, too!

Frank,

Great job putting this very practical advice together for home sellers! I also gave you a flag & a five! :)

Frank:

Excellent Points. Rated you a 5.

You have made really great points. I think that you can get the house on the MLS in one day IF you take the right amount of time taking the picks and writting the feature list but it will require some talent and time.

Frank, great post as you always!

I recently had a client booked to do full staging for, including some rental furniture. The morning I was to go for the consultation they called and tried to cancel. Turns out a 'Certified' stager talked them out of using rental furniture and told them they could do a consultation for $100.00 less then my fee. This 'Certified' stager proceeded to slam me saying I was not 'Certified'...uh, duh! Certification doesn't mean squat. Oops, she forgot to mention I am a member of CDECA (Canadian Decorators Association) with a background in DESIGN!

So I took the time to explain what 'Certification' really means for a stager: a deceptive marketing ploy to dupe unknowing consumers...blog to come on this!

Needless to say, the client went ahead with me for the consult, but were convinced by this 'Certified' stager (a member of AR!) they didn't need any rental furniture and that they could do the actual staging themselves. Guess what, they did not follow my suggestions, only a few, and are now fast becoming a stale listing.

Each time you speak up and tell the truth about real estate and staging I cheer and raise my glass - usually a cubeltini or mojihto.

I'm looking forward to your next blog post.

Cheers,

Dane

Frank, well informed blog. I am in my second year of real estate and no one has ever told me the importance of having it done right or "it will be a throw up".

Thanks

Frank,

It's a 5!! Excellent post!! I never heard the term "throw up" a listing, but everything you wrote made perfect sense. I am bookmarking this post, and will continue to read future posts.

Frank - A really great post - where have I been hiding? Nothing beats a properly staged, properly marketed home! I was actually looking for FSBO ideas and ran across your post about FSBO's, which was also GREAT and very long. It was well worth the time to read.

Now you are on my subscribed list. Off to check out more of your posts.

What I really want is my very own Frank.

I'm printing this one out and putting it with the FSBO blog that I make all my FSBO clients read.

Hi Frank! Great advice here! It's getting kind of late for me, but I did bookmark your post so I can read it later tomorrow. It's been a long day. ZZZzzzzzzzzzzz...

Frank, Great post and love your sense of humor. I hope you don't mind if I add this info to my listing presentation. I will certainly send my Virginia referrals your way. You totally get it! Thanks!

Nice work. We take our time as well. Some, but not a lot of staging in our market. Should be more, we thinks. Like the idea of listing on Wednesday. Certainly not the weekend. We become instantly livid when we see a listing that goes up with either no, or village-idiot quality photographs. Think you spelled smert correctly.

Going to subscribe, like you asked, and mark you as an associate, which I think you missed.

Thanks for doing this one!

JUL

2007

All very good points. Good post. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Frank, really apprieciated this. Will with your permission send it on to a few of the Realtors I work with. Great encouragement for we STAGERS who get negative comments from Realtors who are stuck in the dinosaur age. When a client is plunking down half a million for a family home on a small lot --- and the sturggle it is to pay that mortgage--- that house should be a "10" of course it has to be priced right in the first place.

I have heard this comment over and over again "I know it is overpriced--- but that is what the client wanted"

Where is the Realtor's back bone do they not compare similar homes and give due dilligence--- or are they so afraid they would lose the listing??

"It has to do with client confidence-" they say. --- Oh sure!!

marilynn currie from the west coast

http://www.stagingfortopdollar.ca

Frank this is the information that the realtors in my area need to hear. You're going to be linked into my next realtor staging newsletter so that maybe they'll start to get it. I am constantly telling them to "do it right" from the start and think twice about calling me when the sellers is desperate because the house has been on the market for 8 months and foreclosure is one month away. If they would just join AR AND do some reading, they would become more educated and more responsible agents.

Thanks so much for such a great blog...you get a 5 from me too!

I agree with some of the earlier comments about the clients that are really pushing to "list it immediately". Doing it right may take a little longer, but we are looking for results, right??

Hey Marilynn,

Did you edit down your initial long reply? I loved it.

Yes, my agents sometimes get push back from the sellers and they say "but they don't want it" and that for me means we haven't done our job helping them understand and talk to references that have used it. Also our company policy is for EACH home for sale to be staged, so sellers see that and they see "wow, they must be serious."

Another thing a stager should NOT ask is "what is your budget." As that assumes the seller knows what staging is and they will say the lowest number possible. Instead, the stager should come in and give a few options, and showing the value of the higher options. Maybe I'll do another post to combat the "let the buyer get a credit to upgrade" or the "why not let them pick the granite"

As for the example of the Realtor that would rather drop prices $20k to sell fast, that is the basis for my blog. Sucky Realtors. Make sure to add to my blog www.RealtorsThatDontSuck.com

Only stagers can vote people on!

- Written by Frank Borges LL0SA

Blog.FranklyRealty.com Featured in BusinessWeek, CNBC, WSJ etc.

Dear Anonymous, I was in Italy for a couple of weeks and I had some backlog. I'll try blogging more frequently. Especially with all the encouragement. Here is one of my photos of the trip.

Maureen Henry, glad you liked this one. The FSBO blog that she was referring to is Go FSBO! Save $20,000! Realtor Tells All! Which she was kind of enough to show to a FSBO and the FSBO sent me a Thank you a month later when it sold.

- Written by Frank Borges LL0SA

Blog.FranklyRealty.com Featured in BusinessWeek, CNBC, WSJ etc.

Nicely said Frank! Great photo of somewhere in Italy....just lovely! Regards-Kathleen

Interesting Post Frank. I think that you are way ahead of the curve on this topic than the majority of Realtors in this area. While I think most folks will agree there are benefits to a home that shows well, the problem comes up when the bill or proposal comes in. Once they realize it will cost $1,000 or even $1,500. they balk.

As with any new industry, staging is facing some challenges. We must be flexible and willing to change to get through these challenges. As you mentioned above, you thought it was running to Target and grabbing a few things. In reality, it is hours and hours of work and planning IF allowed to do the job right. While your company may choose to implement staging in one way, you are likely in the minority. I work with numerous realtors and they each work differently. For my company, we choose to service our customers by meeting the needs of our Realtors as best we can by customizing our processes to suit their needs. Implementing a rigid business process wouldn't make sense at this point for most stagers. We have some Realtors who firmly tell us what their budget is, and others who ask us to bid on a project. We work in a variety of ways and continue to evolve.

As for choosing a degreed professional over a stager who took a 2-day class....there is no degree for a stager. It sounds like you are looking for a interior decorator/designer....and the two are not the same. There are several posts here on A/R explaining the difference between staging and decorating. While I am all for formal education, I would tell folks to choose a stager based on the number of SOLD homes in their portfolio, not on how pretty the pictures look. We are not interior designers therefore should not be judged on if the color scheme was perfect. Ultimately, the question is....did the house sell, yes or no. Is the company reputable? Are they licensed and insured? Do they have repeat business?

Ok...long winded, thats my .02.

Great post.

Excellent as everything you do. I thought you just staged, very beautifully.

Hi Frank, this is an excellent post for sure. One of my closest realtor associates always claims the buyer for the house is usually one of the first people in it!

Frankly, Frank not having any mis- spellings will not make you look smart - but you did write a smart blog.

As a professional stager with training, mind you, but not with a degree in interior design I am thinking that you may want to read up a bit on the differences. I also "design" homes for people to live in and I even draw up plans for additions and the like (general contractor , too) However, you either have it in you to know how to eye up a room and fix it or you don't. I have an eye for color - am a Benjamin Moore Color consultant, do landscaping, (no degree in that either). Luckily, I'm not claiming to be able to do brain surgery or design a suspension bridge.

Training for staging is helpful , I learned about the business aspects in my classes, not furniture placement. But even when you are all trained in whatever school of choice , you need to study, study, study - keep up with the current trends and the latest color combinations. AR is that continuing education for me along with the 20 plus magazines I subscribe to and the books I buy. I memorize store inventories and also make notes to myself on ideas, reuses, etc.

You might not hire me because I am not an design degreed professional, but you should because I am really good at what I do. Oh , I take great photos with my Kodak v570 ,too & you trained me on that.

Well, darn. I wrote a blog about this exact same thing but you clearly did as better job as YOU got featured. I feel so strongly about everything you mentioned...I'm going to copy it to give to my sellers so they know it isn't just me who feels this way. Thanks!

I am finding out that more and more people that are calling themselves, Interior Designers, have far less education than I do and less experience. I am what I am, talent and professionalism have nothing to do with credentials. Should I require every Realtor that I use to have a degree in marketing or business, I think not; I trust reputation and intregrity. So what if I am an ASP, CFD and have a little degree in Science, the WHAT is the results. No one should undermind anyone in either the Real Estate nor Staging industries because you just might be working for them one day, that's my theory and I stand behind it. By the way, I carry all my "credentials" and degree with me in a career book as well as a portfolio of projects I have done or am doing. To some people it means nothing to others it shows that you a many faceted individual that keeps on the cutting edge. I don't care what business you are in, continuing education is important in any field. JMO

Great job with your advice for sellers.

Guy

JUL

2007

Right on target! It makes me crazy when realtors tell their clients "You don't need to paint (your dingy faded walls) the buyer will want to choose their own colors anyway. You don't need to recarpet, (even though it smells) if it doesnt sell we'll give a carpet allowance". What they neglect to tell their client is that they are going to lose more than 20 times the cost of these simple improvements and gain days, weeks, months on the market. I think this comes from the old school of real estate where they advised you to get the listing signed on on the market within 30 minutes of your listing presentation. Times have changed but some agents haven't. Then they whine about discount brokers stealing their business.

Hey Susan,

Good point. The local MLS here requires that you list a property within 48 hours of receiving the listing agreement. Their intent is to stop what is called "pocket listings" where the agent tries to sell it themselves or internally to their firm.

We have to amend the contract to state that the seller understands there will be a delaying in listing the property.

Frank

Gettting your listing signed at the listing appointment was the mantra of the Top Producers of yesteryear. "Better to have an ugly listing than no listing at all." Our MLS reguires that we imput our listings within 24 hours of signing and to the best of my knowledge we are not allowed to ammend that rule. Consequently those of us who put in time, effort and money to get our listing market ready are gambling. I'm going to continue to gamble because I believe that this is the most important aspect of my job description.

JUL

2007

Congrats on the Carnival of Real Estate success!!

JUL

2007

Hi Frank,
First thanks for contacting me about the referral--My first on AR! Yeah!!

I had not come in contact with you here on AR, we belong to different Groups. I must say you do a great job with your blogs. Love this one and you made some excellent points. Come visit me on my blog.

Thanks.

If I have a listing coming on the market AFTER repairs and painting are finished. I just have them pre-date it to the day we have agreed upon. I agree with you, Frank, the first showings are the best showings. A bidding war ? Haven't seen that in years !!

JUL

2007

Frank,

Excellent post which I will share with potential sellers. I certainly agree with listing on Wednesday or Thursday as well as the importance of putting the most effort in the first 10 days.

AUG

2007

Great post! I totally agree! If you are putting something into the MLS, do it right the first time!

SEP

2007

a bit late, but i had to let you know how great this post was... it was sent to me in a link from Pamela Williamson, and it's definitely getting a '5' from me!

I am a bit late too, but this is a great Blog. Don't now how I missed it. My Realtors use me as part of their listing package and "highly suggest" that I do a report for all of their clients. That way they have the time and availabilty to prepare their home properly before pictures and before their first Open. The first ten days of a listing is the most important. Do it right the first time!

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