Daily I am visited by agents in the company who are looking for educated answers, facts and figures, and sound advice they can share with their seller clients. Their sellers anxiously ask what marketing tool, new website or magic pill will cause the home to sell? Unfortunately our industry has been amazingly lax in tracking results and sharing the data with our clients. In a market environment such as the one we are experiencing, we must act and behave like a Fortune 500 Company. Have we adequately analyzed our businesses? Have we identified buyer behaviors and trends? Are we target marketing based upon the knowledge we collected from our analyses? Or, are we simply rushing to tell our seller clients that they must reduce their price...yet again. In a vacation/resort market such as ours, few sellers are really pressed to sell, and even fewer buyers must buy. However, the types of buyers we attracted in droves in 2005..the ones who entered into frenzied bidding wars for the properties of their dreams...they are still out there. They may all be taking a collective "deep breath", but they will be back. For the seller who does not have to sell...this is not the time to panic, and probably not the time to reduce the price, rather it may be the time to sit back and hold tight! We assure our seller's that we'll let them know, before the media does, that the pendulum has swung and that it is once again a more balanced market place...one in which a seller can expect a greater return on their asset. What say you?
June,
I would agree that we have to do so much more than just continuously ask our client for price reductions. I believe that we must do our homework before we ever begin marketing the home, consult with our clients and then come out of the shoot with the property priced right and in the market. So many want to throw the net out and see what they can catch. Well as you made mention about the market in 2005, you might have felt good about doing so. However in a shifting market that is favoring the buyer, a seller has a limited opportunity to get his or her home sold, or else it becomes stale or if you will, undesirable. I believe that in the market we are currently in, price is 80% of the marketing, and very good consulting, customer service and aggressive internet marketing will indeed assist in getting the job done.
Chad Lariscy
I must disagree with Vincent. A low enough price is sure to sell any home, but there are markets for an overpriced home. In the hey day, we were selling properties at 20% above market value. Buyers were falling over themselves to beat out any other offer. They were even willing to pay the the 20% difference upfront just to get the house. So you must consider that all markets are local and what works in one market may not work in the other.
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