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.

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.”

A Difficult Position

I find myself in a difficult position as a Listing Agent. For the first time I find a reluctance on my part to confront the realities of the Market head on. I gather my data, call for feedback, say I’m going to call my Sellers today to discuss where we are and I don’t make the call. Not today. I will make it Tomorrow. I will but not today. I have a generous amount of advertising out on each Listing. I have scheduled my open houses on a repeating basis. I uploaded all my listings on to all my internet portals. I keep track of all the inquiries, feedback, competing listings. So it’s not the fact that I’m not doing my work. I’m even having creative meetings with a few Marketing Directors to figure out if there is a selling angle that I haven’t considered. But I don’t have that offer in my hand. I didn’t get that appointment scheduled this weekend. And I know the Seller is getting anxious. I know the house is priced right because I’ve previewed every house in that price range. Well, almost every house (I’m not Superman.) I can’t keep coming up with reasons for not having that offer yet that is not a cliché. Short of having SpongeBoB Squarepants standing in the front yard waving a For Sale sign…There is a clarion call to return to basics. The first basic principle is Patience. Also, perhaps the hardest one to practice. If your are doing everything right and doing it everyday then the house should sell. It should. Absolutely. However, I did put in my order for a dozen statues of St joseph, just in case.