advice for sellers: Local is as local does – are agents overdoing it with the “local expert” mantra?
- 11/12/11 06:01 AM
This is a tough topic for me to address objectively. However, I have seen many blogs recently from agents touting their expertise as “local experts”. Meanwhile, I’m also seeing quite a number of other agents bragging about the number of listings that they have. Most of these agents can not possibly accumulate the raw numbers by being local. Many of these agents have listings that are scattered far and wide – sometimes in more than one state or at least in several counties.
Real estate agents that expand their territories generally have more transactions under their belts: When you … (61 comments)
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advice for sellers: Is it time to downsize to a smaller home?
- 09/23/11 04:57 PM
Westchester Homes have always been expensive. They are expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. Taxes are high here and any home that is less than an hour to midtown Manhattan by Metro-North is going to be expensive. As I say to buyers, who think the housing recession means that they can buy a palace for pennies – there is no free lunch. But for those would-be sellers who have been hunkering down – hoping that the housing recession would pass and the market would roar back to 2006 levels – it may be time to consider downsizing.
In the … (3 comments)
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advice for sellers: Why does it cost so $#%!ing much to sell a home – Part 1 – Too Many Passive Hands in the Cookie Jar….
- 07/11/11 06:55 PM
People often ask me that question – albeit without the profanity – though in the back of my mind they are just trying to be polite…but that’s what they are thinking!
There has recently been a “round robin” of postings on Active Rain about compensation for agents, rebates and the (fading) rebate market.
The Round Robin of Posts on agent compensation: 1.The series started with a posting about Zip Realty ending its rebate system. The Zip Realty model was based on the idea that there was plenty of fat in the commission pie and that through a more “efficient … (15 comments)
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advice for sellers: Gathering vs disseminating – Information is only as useful as the ability to interpret it.
- 03/13/11 07:41 PM
This post was heavily influenced by Leslie Ebersole’s “How many showings is ‘too many’? How much info is ‘too much’? If you haven’t read it, you should.
Amassing Information or drawing conclusions? Many buyers – particularly younger buyers – are obsessed with amassing as much information as they can before making a decision to purchase a home. I sometimes call the “paralysis by analysis.” Granted, consumers have vast amounts of data at their fingertips – but that does not mean that have the capacity to correctly interpret what they have.
As a former scientist, I was always on guard against … (24 comments)
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advice for sellers: Why can’t we just lower the price later….???
- 02/11/11 02:05 PM
Many sellers who are barely breaking even or are under water are desperate for every penny they can get out of their home. For many their home was their nest egg and now rising taxes and financial hardship are forcing them to sell at the depths of the biggest housing recession since the Great Depression.
The question goes something like this:
“We need to get “X” out of our home in order to move on with our lives. You say it is worth 20% less. Why can’t we try it at the price we need and if it doesn’t … (20 comments)
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advice for sellers: Why does it cost so #$%!ing much to sell a home?
- 02/11/11 04:53 AM
First - this post is dedicated to Jennifer Allen and Mollie Wasserman who conducted an outstanding seminar yesterday. They were addressing an issue that I have been meaning to discuss for some time.. But I just hadn't gotten around to putting it in writing.
This is an issue that is brought up by sellers all the time. Usually the question is asked far more politely…and goes something like this:
“I know you work hard at what you do, but these are hard times and I am barely breaking even. Is there anything you can do about the commission?”
Sometimes … (8 comments)
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advice for sellers: Know Thy Neighborhood – It really does matter
- 08/24/10 06:57 PM
Just the other day I was pulling comps for a seller in a specific neighborhood. Normally, this shouldn’t be like pulling teeth, but a trend that I have been noticing has been accelerating. Half of the listings in this neighborhood failed to mention the name neighborhood in either agent remarks or pubic description. This forced me to search by zip code. Since the neighborhood in question straddled two zip codes – I ended up digging through mountains of actives and solds – not to mention contracts/pendings as well as expireds.
So I have to ask the moronic question … (135 comments)
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advice for sellers: To stage or not to stage….
- 01/19/10 08:13 PM
Back in the bull market days of 2005-2006 the notion of needing to “stage” your home for a faster sale was nearly laughable. But home sales in the Westchester market are not what they once were. As most seller’s are painfully aware – this is not 2006. There is ample inventory on the market, prices are down and buyers are increasingly picky. Things once deemed insignificant now become major stumbling blocks to a successful sale.
Increasingly, listing agents, myself included, are encouraging sellers to stage their homes prior to putting them on the market. That includes, but is not limited to … (3 comments)
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advice for sellers: Defining “success” in the real estate – or how not to choose a real estate agent
- 11/22/09 01:13 AM
In surfing the net, I discovered an on-line version of an article by Ben Brody and Laura Gurfein that appeared in last months Westchester Magazine about the county’s “top” Realtors. The subtitle declared “In good times or bad, whether buying or selling, these are the agents you want on your side.”
Now, I have nothing against the Realtors who were chosen as the finest agents in Westchester NY real estate. None at all. it was fascinating to see how the authors chose to define “success.” They used a simple unbiased metric – the bottom line. They defined success in terms of … (70 comments)
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advice for sellers: This Brokerage Has 750 Listings…..So they must be the best! (Part 1)
- 10/30/09 05:54 PM
Does size really matter? Do the number of listings or the size of the brokerage have anything to do with the ability of the agent to market and sell a home successfully? Is it the brokerage or the agent that is the determining factor?
What Does the Brokerage Bring to the Table? One of the biggest issues I encounter on listing presentations are questions regarding the brokerage itself. Most questions revolve around marketing. What does the brokerage do in terms of marketing for the listing?
I think that most sellers assume that since the brokerage is “big” and has capital behind it, … (120 comments)
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advice for sellers: White Plains NY - Housing and Market Statistics for First Quarter 2009
- 05/05/09 05:56 PM
White Plains real estate defied gravity for three years. For a while - quite a while - it looked as if the housing recession would pass White Plains by with nary a flicker in the prices. The stock market crash on Wall Street shook the system up and prices have started to come down. Even before the crash, single family homes had started to decline in price. But Coop and condo sales remained stubbornly high. The only major sign of trouble was decreased sales volume, but as long as inventories remained low - with few people selling - higher prices were … (2 comments)
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advice for sellers: Freaky Friday - It’s all about your point of view….
- 04/10/09 09:40 PM
This Freaky Friday is really being penned on Saturday, but I hope most people won’t mind.
Below is a very funny clip from one of my favorite shows - “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. In this clip Stewart talks about how many republicans are outraged by the Obama administration and its policies. ” A road to tyranny” and ” Facism is coming.” were used to describe the new Administration’s policies. Stewart points out in his own way that its all about your point of view and reminds viewers that many democrats felt the same way about the previous 8 years.
… (4 comments)
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advice for sellers: Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow NY, Housing and Market Statistics for Fourth Quarter 2008
- 03/04/09 05:55 PM
Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow have been in the midst of a buyer’s market for some time. This has been particularly true of the single-family home market in the area. The higher tax rates that some of the river towns deal with put this particular market into bearish mode rather early in the correction when compared to other areas of Westchester.
One of the symptoms of a buyer’s market is low volume. Volume was way down on the cooperative market. So much so that there weren’t enough sales to run pricing statistics with any accuracy - which is why they are omitted. … (2 comments)
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advice for sellers: Larchmont NY, Housing and Market Statistics for Fourth Quarter 2008
- 02/28/09 06:06 PM
Larchmont is one of the few areas that has, in some sectors, escaped the worst of the bear housing market - at least for the time being. Single family homes in Larchmont have been particularly resilient. Cooperatives have undergone a mild price correction, but compared to other parts of Westchester, Larchmont is on firmer footing.
Cooperatives: Sales prices are down about 10% from the previous year with an average price coming in at $241,000. That’s down from the third quarter, but the small number of actual transactions makes drawing conclusions tricky. There’s about 6 months of inventory on the market, but … (2 comments)
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advice for sellers: Mirror, mirror on the wall…who’s the fairest listing agent of all…Part 2
- 02/08/09 02:28 PM
In my previous blog on choosing a listing agent, I explained why agents sell homes - not brokerages. If that’s the case, then the issue uppermost in most seller’s minds should be:
How do I choose a good listing agent? How do you find an agent who is worth their weight in gold rather than straw?
Here are some tips on what to look for and what to avoid:
What to avoid in a real estate agent:
Avoid an agent who relies too heavily on brokerage marketing and keeps saying “my brokerage this” and “my brokerage that.” Chances are they … (3 comments)
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advice for sellers: Mirror, mirror on the wall…who’s the fairest listing agent of all…Part 1:
- 02/08/09 02:12 PM
In these difficult and challenging times, it is very difficult for the potential seller to cut through all the “noise” and “hype” about listing agents and what individual brokerages bring to the table. In an industry that desperately needs more transparency, there is probably more hocus pocus floating around than ever before. Tales about how agent “X” can sell your home for more than agent “Y” in less time abound and have become the stuff of legend. Apparently agent “X” has that secret potion that moves homes – and what’s more, he’s got the sales figures to prove it! Big … (2 comments)
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advice for sellers: Scripters vs. the Scripted
- 09/19/08 10:29 PM
OK, so this idea was stolen from Jennifer Allen and Karen Rice. I only lift things from the very best! Recently Jennifer wrote about how she felt after she had been pitched to with a script. Karen Rice later described going to a “free” REALTOR.com technology tools seminar. She may have gotten a free meal, but she paid for it with a long hard sales pitch that went on endlessly and offered little of practical value. For the most part, I readily agree – most of us like to feel that we are too important for a script or “pat” dialogue. … (17 comments)
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advice for sellers: Buyers need to be able to SEE your home in order to make an offer on it!
- 08/24/08 07:01 AM
When you sell your home, what is it that you need above all else? BUYERS! You need as many qualified buyers as you can get and you need them badly. You don’t want just one – you want as many as you can cram through your door. The more buyers, the more offers. The more offers, the higher the price. Buyers are pure gold these days but, they can be elusive and slippery. So how does a seller attract the elusive, fleeting buyer?The first vital step is getting buyers through the door to actually view your home. After all, there won’t … (25 comments)
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advice for sellers: Yet Another Article on the FSBO Fantasy…..
- 06/21/08 04:57 PM
The New York Times has a new article on selling by owner in its real estate section that I found particularly noteworthy. “The Lure of Cutting the Middleman” by Elsa Brenner talks of how more and more sellers who bought during the boom feel that they should cut the middleman (Realtor) out of the deal in order to preserve more cash from the sale of their home. Studies by NAR have shown that selling by owner actually puts less money in the seller’s pocket not more. Studies Northwestern University an the University of Wisconsin dispute NAR’s results. I was dubious about … (10 comments)
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advice for sellers: Flat-Fee Listings: How Well Do They Stack Up Against Full Service? One Example...
- 06/16/08 07:27 PM
Over the past few weeks I have been noticing an up-tick in flat-fee listings on our local MLS. An argument could always be made during a boom that a one-armed blind monkey with a sign in the ground could sell a house. So going FSBO (for sale by owner) in that type of market has some merit provided the seller has a full understanding of the responsibilities, liabilities and TIME involved. However, I have always wondered how well such systems really work for sellers in a challenging market. After all, it’s very tempting for a seller to want to pocket that … (15 comments)
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