I did an Open House today, and several agents came in. One of them was rather new to the business and we got talking.

The home I had open is very nice. Nicely upgraded, well maintained, and in a very good neighborhood. What's better...it's even priced right. This one new agent remarked that he would like to have a few new listings. In my area, the listings are everywhere and things are selling very slowly. So his comment made me wonder why he didn't have a listing. We all have listings.

I asked him about this, and why he didn't have many (or any) listings. That's when he told me that he had plenty, it's just that none are selling. Hmmmm.

Since this was a Sunday afternoon, and he was at my open house, I asked him why he wasn't holding one of his listings open. "Open houses don't sell houses" he told me. While he is statistically right, my opinion is that anything I can do to increase exposure is what I will do.

I then proceeded to ask him some other questions. Basic things:

Do you have virtual tours on his listings. "No, they are too expensive."

Have you advertised them in the paper or home seller magazines? "No, that's not where the buyer's come from."

Have you farmed your area with information about your listings? "No, what does it provide to tell a neighbor about another neighbors home?"

If you've got listings, what makes you think another one will make a difference? "It's all in the numbers. The more I have, the better chance I have that one will sell." 

What have you done to market your listings? "Well, they've been in the MLS for weeks now...with pictures." 

This Q & A session went on for several minutes, and each response from him was negative. Now I was intrigued, and puzzled. I sat him down and asked him if I could be direct with him. He agreed. It was obvious to me that this gentleman didn't know what he needed to do to sell a home. It turns out that he started in this business a few years ago when the market was different. At that time, you hung a sign in the yard, drove to the office to pick up offers, drove back to the client to present, and then drove back to escrow to open! (that's tounge in cheek, but you get the idea). I then shared that while everything is moving slowly you must do everything in your power to get a listing sold. And, it's not a numbers game, it's a relationship game. I gave him a sample of all the advertising and marketing I do, which can be quite expensive, but is the cost of doing business. I told him that the market was different than when he started (which he knew), and that you must work the market you are in. He stayed and watched as I worked the clients that came into my listing. I also turned him to AR and asked him if I could share this story with the AR community. Yeah, he just didn't want his name used, which is fine.

By the time I was done, he had a new lease on things. I think this is true for a lot of us. We tend to get lured into the idea that our listings will sell if we just sit back and wait. But, this is not the case and we all know it at some deep level. It takes a lot of work, money and networking to get our job done during this slow market. Part of the truth of this business is that it takes more money to sell a home in times when we have less money to work with. Now, what was that about a rainy day?