Really Real Estate....................... Blog

Graduation

My daughter graduated Cornell last weekend. Needless to say it was a milestone, forcing me to take 2 full days off from Real Estate in the middle of my Spring Market. As my daughters name was being called, my wife and I beaming with pride, my cell starts to ring. Do I answer it or do I watch my daughter get her diploma? That I have to grapple with the question is what worries me. The phone call is not a matter of life and death (I hope). The client can always leave a message on my voice mail. Yet I am so conditioned to answer my cell, capture that potential business that I have to check myself on one of the most wonderful days a parent can experience. My wife slaps me back into reality by quipping, ‘I hope you’re not going to answer that because if you do you’ll be spending the rest of the day by yourself.” I did not answer the call. Instead, I watched Sydney get her diploma, cheering like a proud parent. Yeah Sydney.

Interior Design

I am encouraging my fellow agents to take an interior design class. Especially the men. It can be a little daunting for us guys to discuss with a client where the furniture goes and what color the room should be but I have found it to be extremely helpful in closing the deal. It is just as important as talking about the condition of the heating system or the roof. Maybe more so. The first thing I do with a client when they walk into a house is figure out where the Flat Screen TV goes. That usually gets the husband interested. (Even if they don’t have one you know they are thinking about buying one.) Most older homes aren’t designed to accommodate a Flat Screen so it’s not always obvious where it goes. Next, one of them (usually the wife) is ripping out a wall here and there so I go over where I think a wall can be eliminated and say something like, “You know if you took this wall down…”  In a Raised Ranch it’s the wall separating the Kitchen from the Dining Room. That gets a common response, “I was just think that.”  That puts you on the same page as the client. Now they’re beginning to see the house with possibilities not just as it is. “If you painted this room this color…” And then we discuss colors. I have a subscription to Architectural Digest just so I can know what the latest colors are as well as kitchen designs. (Because you know they buyer has been looking at home magazines for months before they went out to look at their first house.) Do the buyers already have a dining room set or a bedroom set that has to be accommodated? Once you have their furniture in place it makes it that much easier to have them imagine themselves living in a new space.

The FSBO

Today I went to see a For Sale By Owner (FSBO). As a Buyer’s Agent I like to know what is on the market even if it’s not part of the MLS. I try to get the homeowner to agree to an imbedded commission so I don’t have to collect a commission directly from the buyer. An imbedded commission is where the commission is included in the offer to purchase. The seller will then direct the commission to my office at closing.

I meet the Seller at the house. She is already annoyed with me just because I’m an agent. The house is not in the best shape. I start to ask her a few basic questions:

Are the taxes without STAR?

“I don’t know” is her response.

Does the finished basement have a Certificate of Occupancy?

“I don’t know” again is her response.

Do you know how many bedrooms are listed on the property card?

Another “I don’t know”

Do you know how old the roof is?

“No”

Now I can tell she was really starting to get annoyed.

It wasn’t my intention to put her in that state. These are just some of the questions that buyers ask and the seller should be prepared for. I started to suggest to her that maybe she should go to the town hall and pull her property card when I found myself standing outside the front door as she was waving goodbye. I can still hear her cautioning me: “This is the way I bought it and this is the way I’m going to sell it.”