In the Bay Area this year, we experienced a shift in the market. But it wasn't as bad as everyone portrayed it to be. Everyone in my office or agents would talk about how bad the market was. I believe it all starts with your mindset. My team and I had multiple listings that we decided to put on the market during the holidays.
- One home was out of our area in Tracy, CA where there is an abundance of inventory with 750+ homes on the market and in my seller's neighborhood, there alone was 30+ homes in one subdivision. The average DOM was 52 days and only 12% of homes went pending in the previous month in the city of Tracy at the time of our listing presentation. My seller was extremely nervous because he evicted the tenants and it took 2 months to get his property in "saleable" condition and that brought us into the November. This was their investment that they did not like the fact of paying 2 mortgages.
- The other was a luxury home in Union City (East Bay Area) that had more than 12 active listings in this gated community of 353 homes. In the past 5 years, there has never been that much inventory. The most would be 3 or 4. In addition, nothing had gone pending in 3 months. There are homes that are still on the market now and have been listed since March of this year. My sellers had decided to purchase property out of state in Texas. Since their house was not going to be ready until May 2007. They had no rush to sell now. While other agents told them to hold off and wait until January 2007, I told them there is no better time than to sell now. Don't wait until January because you will have more competition which could me less money.
Everyday I had a mindset that we are in the best time to sell this whole year. I am no longer reading or hearing about a real estate bubble. It's definitely been quiet in our local newspapers. I also know that November and December are my busiest months. I feel it's your time as agents to capitalize on little inventory and competition with less agents working because of the holidays. So what I did for these two homes became an example in our office/market center. I gave an extra incentive of .25% to the selling agent if they could get in escrow before Christmas and after Christmas it would be taken away just like an expiration date. So they were both offered 3.25% to sell these homes and I educated my sellers on having their home "show ready." I told my sellers that offering more commission would get more showings on your home and it would be less than a price reduction. It will net you more money in the end.
Both these homes received multiple offers and sold over asking. The first one sold for $7K over asking in less than 14 days and the second one sold and closed escrow in 16 days and became the highest comparable in 2006 in this gated community. The homes had minimum upgrades compared to the other active listings. Both agents were so pleasant to work with because I'm sure it was a great bonus during the holidays. My sellers were completely satisfied that one seller offered me a bonus as well and for me to be paid more than the buyer's agent due to the marketing strategy behind it.
Always look for unique ways to bring you different results!
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