We Thought You Only Handled Short Sales!

I have a copywriting client in California who is a top short sale agent - and he's thinking the same thing. I believe we'll be adding more equity sales information to his site in the near future.

I think that you got caught with your pants down here & should have not pulled back toward all the regular sellers.  Possibly those sites will just be a bit more dusty than the others but still valuable.  You should consider it a niche market for your area.

That would be funny if not so sad.  I guess it is a reminder that we always have to be in the clients face with what we do and what we can do.

Bryant, I made the decision to go after luxury listings and am focusing my marketing in that direction.  It has already made a difference as I just landed my first $2 million listing.  Go after the equity listings if your market is changing.

Bryant, you certainly have gotten great comments out of this post and they are all well deserved.  It makes sense to start segmenting your business so that it's apparent you a proficient in ALL kinds of sales.

Hi Bryant, clearly you are doing an excellent job of carving out your niche, however it may be time to start marketing to the mainstream for a while.

Keeping pace with shifting trends in any industry is at best a challenge and something no business person should lose site of no matter what their niche. Great advice.

Hi Bryant, it is funny how labels stick.  We do less than 10% short sales but our office thinks that is all we do.  We used to do ~80%.

Bryant- This is the one thing that we learned the hard way years ago working for re/max. When we started our own brokerage we figured out that we did not want to be the run of the mill agent and we did not want to work on weekends. We decided to do land assemblages, package them up for big developers like Pulte homes and Centex homes. That was during the boom. We did not sell one residential property. While everyone and their mother was getting a real estate license and anyone could put up a sign and have multiple offers- we felt that was not where we wanted to be. We did so well and worked only 5 days a week. Then we did a huge redevelopment project of an entire area of a city until the developer got  shut down by the Florida Supreme court over eminent domain. 

Then Nestor said the market was going to bust. He said that the developers were going to bail on their deals and go bankrupt and so we had to figure out another market to get into. Since we already knew short sales from the 90's, he said, let's do short sales. 

Last year, he said, time to start looking for the next market coming down the pipeline. We still do short sales but our focus is again on luxury and equestrian. We are always looking for the next niche that will be phasing in. When you do that, you are ready to take advantage of a market way before it gets saturated. 

Statistically distressed sales still represent almost 26% of the totla market. But as bulk sales increase the number of REO and short sales will decrease. Good time to be a well rounded agent with great fundamentals.

Bryant, I am in a similar position.  My NJ market area features some very distressed housing tracts.  I truly hope for the sake of everyone involved that I am " behind the curve" in focusing on short sales and foreclosures, but the statistics in my area tell me that distressed sales will be a part of our everyday vernacular for years to come.

I lost one because he said he thought I was just working foreclosures.  It sold because he took less than he paid for it when I sold it to him.  Needless to say, he also lost a friend.

BB - always thinking about that.  With niche websites and marketing you always have to be thinking beyond.  

Bryant:

Most sales in my community are equity sales, very few short sales.  The market is coming back.  I actually decided that short sales were not for me.  Even thought they were few, I continued to sell equity sales during the worst time.

Love comment #8 in response to comment #6, sounds like you have a pretty stable foundation with the variety of SS, equity and buyer sides.  But, yes, equity sales will begin to appear more frequently in the next few years as buyers form 2008 and later begin to sell and move up or down in the market.

This is exactly something we have in ecnountered.  My husband does a lot of short sales and our website its geared toward that, and I work with a lot of buyers.  I've actually lost several equity sale listings to past clients that I remained friends with and kept in great contact with because they thought I was "just a buyers agent" and that John was "just a short sale agent."  Ooops.  That's a big problem.  We're working on it too. -Kasey

A normal sale would be pertty darn easy now, wouldn't it!