Many years ago my Father and I stopped to buy a newspaper from one of those 'corner newspaper machines'. You know the ones, where you put in your dime and it would release the door to reveal the stack of newspapers inside.
When we got to the machine, I noticed the door was open a little, so did my Dad. Instead of getting a paper out, he shut the door and then put the dime in, opened it and got the paper. Of course, at 7 or 8 years old, my question was: "Dad, no one is watching, we could have just took the paper and kept our dime!"
To which my Dad said "Billy, what you do when no one is watching is what counts, it's the kind of person you truly are." I will never forget that and over the years have certainly shut my share of paper boxes, always remembering that day.
So how does that translate into real estate? This morning, a client asked me to show her a bank owned property in her neighborhood. I pulled up the MLS info to set up the showing. I noticed that the house is now 20 days on the market, listed with a small one-man firm here in town.
There are no remarks whatsoever, no public remarks, no showing remarks, no agent remarks. There are no room sizes either. (our market does have room sizes on nearly all of the listings). I got to thinking about that; the fact that this agent has no 'seller' here in town to monitor the marketing. No one to call up and say 'Hey Bill, you forgot to mention we have a fully fenced yard." or something to that effect.
How do you market a house... When no one is watching?
He has no one watching. I then did a little research on other bank owned properties he has for sale, and he has about a dozen. On those I found remarks... "Exempt from Seller Disclosure"... That's it! Nothing like "great ranch plan" or "across from the park" or anything to even describe the house at all.
REALLY?? REALLY?? You racked your brain on those didn't you?!? You are getting paid thousands of dollars to do this and that's the amount of effort you put forth? This really peeved me because I've listed my share of bank owned properties. I put in remarks just like any other listing, I measure the rooms, just like any other listing, as a matter of fact, I treat them 'Just like any other listing'.
And no, those clients have never asked me once to see my marketing efforts, I've taken it upon myself to keep the 'pointman' or 'pointwoman' up to date on everything... just like any other listing.
I realize that person at that institution may be dealing with dozens of properties or more and may not even bother to review anything I sent. But I surely don't take advantage of the fact that they are too busy to check on me as a license to do NO MARKETING WHATSOEVER! I can't imagine that this is the clients policy. Possibly the omission of room sizes but not the lack of any promotional or instructional remarks. In my opinion, this is most certainly caused by that horrible affliction known as... Lazy Agent Syndrome!
There are several agents in Omaha who specialize in bank owned properties and do a fine job, and of course some who do what I feel is a 'not so fine' job. But at least they write remarks, take photos, write showing instructions, have instructions on what to do when you write an offer, etc. Or at least they have an assistant or staff to do it.
How do you market a house... when no one is watching?
If you have the need for a Realtor in the Omaha, NE area; Bill Swanson has over 20 years experience with CBSHome Real Estate, an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway.
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