Being the Second Realtor of Choice Today is Usually a Good Thing!

Hello!

One of my associates sells approximately $175,000,000 worth of residential real estate per year and he visits with a consultant by the name of "Coach Ben" every month with a group of highly successful Realtors. His first clear message this year and he constantly reminds us of it is to make sure all of your listings are "saleable". If you can't talk your sellers into a price adjustment, ask them to withdraw or find another Realtor. I'm sure all of us have a handful of listings that appear impossible to sell if you are really honest with yourself. Coach Ben believes at any one time at least 20% of our listings are not saleable.

The other issue that is so important in this slow to down market is to stay in touch with sellers who have chosen another Realtor over you for their initial agreement. Usually, a good Realtor only loses out because another one comes in with a higher price which is too attractive for the seller to turn down. It's only a matter ot time until the seller decides to go in another direction and staying touch is the key to success. Guess who got the listing!

We have found it to be very inexpensive and effective to gather as many e-mail addresses as we can and every week send a flyer or what we call a "blast" to targeted groups including sellers who are not currently listing with us. Just this past week we received a call from an owner who had his home priced at $949,000 and there hadn't been any showings for months. We had originally lost the listing on price. We completed a Competitive Update for the seller at his request and convinced him the new adjusted price of $875,000 was necessary to have a chance to sell this property. Being the second choice is pretty much based on staying in touch and not showing any bitterness towards the seller's initial decision.

In another case, the same situation occurred and we dropped the price from $989,000 to $799,000 which by the way is still probably too high but we need to wait until the seller recovers from the first shot in the arm. Being the second choice also makes it easier to adjust the price because normally the seller will blame the first Realtor for the pricing problem.

 As we all know, the market sets the price not the seller nor the Realtor. Abusing a listing price always results in a sharp dropoff in activity and the word gets around quickly. Conversely, if a home is priced right most of the realtors will bring buyers and showings will increase.

Have a nice day and being second in this market can be a very good thing.