Day 5 - Thursday March 8, 2007
9:00am
Went to the office early to pick up the contract from last night. Sure enough it was lower than I expected or hoped. The agent submitting the contract included comparable sales from similar units however she did not include the last sale because it has not gone to settlement. Fortunately, I knew one of the agents in that transaction so I made a quick call. I didn't ask for the sales price but I did ask if it was sold for over a certain amount. If it did than it will be a comparable that will support our counter offer. Fortunately it did sell for higher. I called my client and emailed the contract to him and explained the contract and provided a net sheet showing his costs and how much it was going to cost him to sell the condo.
In this case he was actually going to have to come up with money at closing in order to settle because his condo had not appreciated since he bought it 2 years ago. So we spent about an hour or so figure out his bottom line and strategizing our counter offer.
10:00 - 12:00 Floor Shift
I spent most of the floor shift working on getting the counter offer back from my client, calling the other agent and briefly explaining our situation and letting her know we would have an answer back this afternoon. I explained that my client was going to have to come up with cash to settle and that we were working on figuring out how much he could come up with. At this time she let on that her client's best friend lives across the hall and he had seen 4 other units and he liked this one the best. I told her about the yet unsettled condo and that it was going to sell for more than the last 4 sales. The negotiations are my favorite part of selling homes and one area that I believe is overlooked in training and discounted by the public. But just one slip up or miscalculation can cost a client thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
The entire process from getting the offer, to explaining the offer to the client, to preparing the counter offer, to calling the agent and explaining the reasoning behind the counter offer and finally sending the counter offer back took about 4 hours. This part takes the longest to prepare and explain but if you do it right it makes the rest of the negotiations a lot easier.
Oh, and I also finally got a decent lead on my shift today. A couple wants to upsize their home in Leesburg. I sent her out some listings but nothing caught her eye. I will put her in a saved search file and check the neighborhood every couple of days to see if a new listings that meets her criteria comes on the market.
12:00
I finished working on the counter offer and faxed it over to the selling agent.
3:00
Emails and follow up phone calls to my listing clients and past clients.
6:00 - 7:30
Picked up listing paperwork from a relocation client I met about 3 weeks ago. I had followed up with them after the appointment and submitted the required paperwork to their relocation company. The paperwork was mainly a market analysis for their home and our marketing plan for selling it. I have done probably 20 or 30 relocations in the last 3 years so I know the routine. My meeting with the sellers took longer than usual because I explained the entire relocation process in detail. The listing goes on the market next Wednesday.
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