listings: "Listings Are Not Collectibles!"
- 12/26/08 12:39 PM
I'm not even sure who said this, but it stopped me in my tracks!
Every time I go into my office (the Evers Office office, not the untidy room where I blog a lot), I walk out with some words of wisdom from a colleague, and these were Wednesday's.
All but two of my listings are sold, but those two unsold ones have been around for a bit. The Patricia Kennedy Collection?
OK, I collect cows and pictures of cows. I also have a little collection of chicken pitchers. And then there is my shoe collection.
But a "Listing … (31 comments)
|
listings: Differentiating Yourself
- 09/13/08 10:58 AM
No doubt about it - when you are competing for a listing, you don't want to look like every other agent. So how can you wow them?
1. Before I go in for a major presentation, I like to know what I'm walking into. So I'll try to arrange a time prior to the big day to pop by to take a quick look at the house and drop off my pre-listing package. Even if I email them an electronic file with the information, I also drop off a hard copy of information about my background, my firm, and other stuff … (9 comments)
|
listings: Turning Up The Heat!
- 07/02/08 11:05 AM
Today, my heart really went out to one of my colleagues.She has a listing in Georgetown that requires her presence at each showing. I had some buyers flying in today from Memphis, and this pretty place is at the top of their list.Tuesday morning, I called to make the arrangements, and this normally cheerful woman did not sound happy to hear from me. The time I want to show it, she has a standing appointment for a massage and pedicure. Her assistant is taking a couple of days off. What should she do? Meet Elvis and me, of course. And she … (21 comments)
|
listings: Your Listing's Most Important Promotional Piece: Your MLS Comments!
- 05/04/08 02:10 AM
There are a lot of agents spend a fortune promoting their listings, while they pretty much ignore the most important advertising piece of all - what they write in the comments section for their local Multiple Listing Service.
So how can you maximize the chances that an agent or member of the public will look at your listing and want to show or see it? Certainly, you need a great virtual tour. And a lot of your success will depend on what you say or don't say in the comments section - your words! For example:
Whenever possible, I try to … (14 comments)
|
listings: So Here's One Good Reason To List With An Agent Who Lives Nearby!
- 04/01/08 12:27 PM
Once many years ago, I called a listing agent on my cell phone, a tiny bit huffy because the freakin door to her listing wouldn't open. She came over immediately, took the key from me, put it in the lock, turned it and the door flew open.
Huh? I had struggled for fifteen minutes. This was embarrassing, and in front of clients, too.
So, tonight, karma caught up with me!
A favorite colleague called from one of my listings insisting that the top lock must be locked, and the key for it wasn't in the lockbox. I explained that the … (23 comments)
|
listings: No Time For Blogging!
- 03/02/08 01:38 PM
I’ve found that whenever I bring stuff to do to an Open House, you know, in case there’s a little down time, down time just doesn’t happen. Today, I was ready for anything, with a really good book and my MacBook Air, and I didn’t get a chance to open either of them.So, maybe it’s just part of the psycho-physics of holding an Open. If you’re prepared to keep busy in case of a lull, will you get a mob scene?Oh, but there is one other part of the equation! I did a mailing, put a notice on Craig’s List, had … (22 comments)
|
listings: Now This Was A Challenging Listing!
- 11/09/07 01:04 AM
Yesterday, I had a first showing appointment with a new buyer. She was referred by a past client who is also the cellist in my chamber group. And she absolutely passes the fun test - which was fortunate!
She was especially interested in a neighborhood called Sligo Park Hills. It's got mostly mid-century homes, and they were in her price range.
One of the homes we put on the list had three photos posted on MRIS, and two of them were of the swimming pool in the back yard. The third showed the facade and a nicely landscaped front yard. But … (11 comments)
|
listings: Return of the Catered Brokers' Open House?
- 10/21/07 07:21 PM
Here in Washington, one barometer of the local real estate market is how far listing agents will go to get their colleagues to preview a listing.
Here's the rationale:
On Tuesday, the sort of official tour day, there might be 150 houses listed on the tour sheet. And then there are all of the condos.
So, you're planning to put your gorgeous new listing in Champagne Hills Estates on the tour list, and since it is a mansion with priceless artwork and knick knacks all over the place, you will, of course need to be there during the entire open. … (32 comments)
|
listings: ZIP YOUR LIP!
- 10/15/07 01:04 PM
I know better. But it's hard!
There's this really cute downtown condo that I have listed. And it has been on the market for almost a month with no offers.
So there is a major impediment to a quick sale - tenants. And they are moving out next weekend. But I am still wired to freak out if a listing isn't gone after two weeks. And when I'm on the freak out ledge, I have to carefully activate the old brain-to-mouth filter mechanism.
So did my seller suggest that I tell people that she is unusually anxious to sell the place?
… (17 comments)
|
listings: Is the Only Good Tenant a Gone Tenant?
- 10/09/07 04:54 AM
When a house or condo is for sale, the no-brainer answer to this one is a resounding “YES!”I have a great listing. The listing has great tenants.
They are reasonably tidy. They are reasonably cooperative about showing the place. They’ve let me hold a couple of open houses. They pay my seller an obscene amount of rent to live there. I wish they were gone!While they are the tidiest tenants I’ve encountered in many years, the only thing they’ve let me do to stage the place is to put my St. Anthony statue in the front bay window so he can … (12 comments)
|
listings: Pat's Lessons on Shameless Self-Promotion
- 10/01/07 04:58 AM
Now, I am admittedly a ham. I manage to get more than my share of media interviews, and I totally get a kick out having my little mom see my name in the paper or watch me on TV.
One of my fantasies is to get a call from the producers of Designed to Sell, my favorite HGTV program. These guys are the equivalent of EMT’s for listings that present a challenge. OK, I know the show’s a little scripted (staged, perhaps?) itself, but I imagine using the opportunity to get some great publicity for my listing, my book, and especially … (10 comments)
|
listings: So Many Birds! Just One Stone!
- 09/15/07 11:11 AM
Last night, I did something really fun, and certainly worth blogging about. Phyllis Patterson is a colleague at Coldwell Banker, and she works out of their Old Town Office in Alexandria, VA. She hired my chamber group to help “stage” a house she’s just listed for a very different kind of Open House. Here are the basics of what she did: First, it’s a beautiful home – new construction in Wellington, a neighborhood of the George Washington Memorial Parkway north of Old Town. Second, Diane Duston, who staged this home, used a minimalist approach I love. Her staging does not … (23 comments)
|
listings: The Devil Is In the Details
- 09/06/07 09:14 AM
I am in the process of listing a nice condo unit near Dupont Circle. In this part of town, an off-street parking space is worth its weight in gold - most of the time, parking is so tight that the fire hydrants are taken. So, when I prepared the market analysis, the parking arrangements made a huge difference in the price we could expect it to sell for.
My seller said that her space was a rental - that the condo association owned the four spaces in the rear of the building. Her unit would come with a rental space rather … (4 comments)
|
listings: When Staging a Listing, What's the Most Important Clutter to Remove?
- 09/03/07 04:04 AM
Yesterday, I showed a house that had just gone on the market. It had pretty wood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, a nice renovated kitchen, and a lot of stuff and clutter. There was too much furniture, the home office looked like mine, and the twenty-something daughter needed to be cleared out of her unmade bed.
But even if the best stagers on Active Rain performed their magic on this place, there was one piece of clutter that really needed to go - the seller.
He was home. He didn't leave. He followed us around turning on lights. Then, he told us … (17 comments)
|
listings: The Thrill of the Chase
- 08/28/07 04:58 PM
The other day, a favorite colleague asked me to help her price a house. She would be competing against two other top agents. She was psyched!
So we drove over to the house in a less than chic DC neighborhood. The seller had purchased it two years ago, and was a fixxer upper. It needed a whole lot of fix.
When we got there, I noted beautiful landscaping, but peeling paint on the trim. Inside, there was peeling paint, a funky kitchen, bathrooms that looked like instant athlete's foot, a 50 amp breaker box, and the list could go on … (6 comments)
|
listings: Saints Preserve Us!
- 08/25/07 01:44 AM
St Joseph is the widely recognized patron saint of real estate agents. Many of my colleagues and my own clients have planted his statue, head down, next to a For Sale sign so he will help the house sell.
Ah, but there is another saint who I’ve found to be even more helpful.
Soon after I got into real estate, my grandmother, now St. Tootsie, told me that St. Joseph is too busy. St. Anthony, she said, is our family's special saint when it comes to real estate. Now, I know he's great for finding lost car keys. I mean, jeez, he found … (27 comments)
|
listings: Do Your Virtual Tours Play That Eerie Background Music?
- 08/20/07 04:44 AM
Earlier this morning, I clicked on a colleague’s virtual tour. Like many tours these days, it had background music. Now, I am an occasional professional musician and have pretty eclectic but strong tastes. But no matter how diverse one’s musical tastes might be, my bet is that most people would find the background music on most virtual tours to be weird and distracting. Before I could focus on the photos, I had to find the sound button on my computer and turn it off. It sounded like The Twilight Zone!This is just my opinion, but I think that background music on … (15 comments)
|
listings: Motivated WHAT?
- 07/25/07 01:58 AM
This week, I’m showing a lot of houses in Arlington, Virginia - the scene of past bloody bidding wars. And I noticed something in the Multiple Listing comments that I haven’t seen in years. Many of them included the words “Motivated Sellers!” Some went even further, instructing colleagues to "Bring an offer. Bring any offer." Well, gee. One can pretty much assume that anyone who has a house or apartment for sale during the dog days of summer in the Washington, DC area is seriously interested in selling. At the same time, there are not a whole lot of buyers, … (8 comments)
|
listings: How Will They Remember Your Listing?
- 07/24/07 02:06 PM
I have some favorite clients who have been looking for something wonderful, and we’ve seen a bunch of houses. It’s gotten to the point where I look at a listing, and I’m not certain whether or not we’ve already been there. So we’ve got a system. Each house gets a nickname that helps us trigger our recollection of the place.
There was “Falling Water on Acid”, a mid-century contemporary home with no walls around the master bathroom – including the designer bidet or toilet. I don't know about you, but I've never had a husband (or other sweetie) who I'd feel … (3 comments)
|
listings: Back to Basics
- 07/11/07 01:32 PM
When I was a new agent, the market sucked.
Interest rates were creeping down from 19 to 16 percent, which had agents dancing on their desks. Many of the old timers in my new office had been living off rentals for years, and had forgotten how to fill out a sales contract. I was recruited by the office's new manager, Yolanda Mamone, who hired a bunch of other newbies who, like me, had no idea that the market sucked. Then she taught us the basics: * Get lots of listings. * Don't listen to anyone who whines. … (4 comments)
|
|
|
|
;)
;)
;)
