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

Don't Let The Market Bully You

Buyers are now acting like the school yard Bully; waiting for you at just the right moment and then Bam you’re on your ass, taking change out of your pocket to pay for lunch. I’m going to pay you so much less for your house just to see you cry.

The Bully is doing it just because he can.

The mortgage companies are bullying the Buyers. Bam I want an extra percent just to lend you money.

The Sellers are bullying the agents. Bam, give me an open house every weekend, work twice as hard and then I’ll pay you less commission.

The Brokers are bullying the agents. Bam pay me for the advertising I use to do for free or maybe I just won’t advertise at all.

The agents are bullying…Is there anyone out there left that we can bully?

Ten Bright Spots In A Down Market

Ten Bright Spots in a Down Market

1. The seller, who last year hated your guts because you negotiated  a low offer on his house now thinks you’re a genius
2. The Buyer who you just completed negotiations on a house for and were able to get the house for 50,000 less than asking, also thinks you’re a genius.
3. If you had more than one closing this month, your broker knows your name and is offering to take you to lunch.
4. It is easier to ask for a price reduction than ever before.
5. There are fewer phone calls that you have to return.
6. Now with the price of gas over $4.00 a gallon you have less driving to do.
7. It is easier to schedule vacation time (provided you have the money for a vacation).
8. You now recognize all the agents who attend your open houses since they are the only ones left in the business.
9. You have your pick of uptime (floortime). 
10. You can finally write that novel you’ve always wanted to write.

Appraisals

In this market, appraisals are king. They rule. And need to be respected. Case in point: I went on a Market Evaluation for a potential seller. Based on my analysis, I suggested they list their property at $429,000. At that time a comparable property had just been reduced to $425,000 after being on the market at a higher price. My client thought their property had more value (with less square ft) and wanted to price it $479,000. I talked them down to $449,000 and lectured them on the possibility that if they find a buyer at that price and the comparable property sells at their asking price, there is going to be an issue with the appraisal. That sale will have a negative impact on the appraisal and will have a negative impact on the transaction. Whenever I’ve had this discussion, the reaction is the same, ‘Let’s deal with that when the time comes.” Well, the time came. The comparable property sold below asking and we put a deal together on their property near the asking price. The appraisal came in well below our accepted offer. Ultimately, our selling price had to be adjusted downward to fall in line with the appraisal. I had to remind my client’s of our prior discussion because sellers’ tend to hold the agent irrationally responsible for issues and market forces not in their control. No one was happy but the Buyer. And everyone had to work very hard to keep the deal from falling apart. As I said, appraisals are King and need to be respected.

Miles Traveled

This blog should have been written last April. As an Independent Contractor, I am able to write off my mileage as a business expense. So every year I log my miles. I usually don’t pay much attention to miles traveled in the pursuit of my clients’ satisfaction but with gas prices this high I didn’t have much of a choice. There is was glaring at me: 24,000 some odd miles traveled. Where? Where did I go? Did I drive to California and back? I never left the area. This is tweentyfourthousandmiles traveled showing people houses. This is insane. In this age of internet this and internet that tell me there isn’t a better way of putting together a home buyer with a house instead of traveling from house to house to house to house---I must have shown over a thousand houses last year. This is my own fault. I tell my buyer clients that the only way you can really tell if the house is for you is to go and walk in and experience the space. Each house breathes differently, feels different. So until we can create a full 3D total interactive experience, it’s going to be more miles on my car before we find our way home.

Writers' Block

I have started this blog 138 times so far in the past month.  My intention when beginning my blogging adventure was to write at least three times a week. I didn’t think it would be that hard. I compiled a list of over two hundred topics so I wouldn’t run out of ideas and wham, here I am two months without an entry. Writer’s block is a bitch. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about or the time. I would have the fantasy of writing. I knew what I was going to write about but every time I sat down to write….a dizzy sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. And yet everyday, the same thought, “Oh, that should go in my blog.” Could it be the state of the market that is making me so anxious? Or just insecurity? Ultimately it doesn’t matter. The only way to dissolve a writer’s block is to write. So here I am writing. Again. Sorry for the long absence.

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.”

Surprise, Surprise

I’m showing a Vacant House. I have a family with me. A wife and husband, a couple of kids. The kids are running through the empty bedrooms. The wife is chasing after them. Suddenly, the wife comes running up to me clutching her kids in her arms.

“We have to leave”

“What’s the matter,” I ask

“We have to leave the house now”

"What’s wrong?”

“There’s a skunk in the closet”

“A skunk, are you sure it’s not a cat or something”

“It’s a skunk and it hissed at me and I’m out of here”

And so was I

I shut the bedroom door, locking the skunk in the room and call the listing agent.

“Hi, this is Barry Malawer from Century 21 Mulvey, I’m showing your house”

“Great, do you have an offer for me?”

“Well, no not exactly, there’s a skunk in the master closet”

“Haha, your kidding me”

“No, really, there’s a skunk in the closet”

“Are you sure it’s not a cat”

“Yes, I suggest you call animal control”

“Well, there is no animal control there”

“You need to have someone get rid of the skunk”

“Can’t you shoo it out of the house?”

“You’re kidding me, you want me to do it. I’m just calling you out of professional courtsey to let you know you have a skunk in the house. Right now he’s trapped in the bedroom, do you want me to leave the door open?”

“So do you think you’re clients might be interested in buying the house?”

“Not with the skunk in it?”

“Well, I guess I'll have to take care of it”

“Yes, I would imagine so, Good Luck”

I bet you the skunk is still sitting in the house.

Surprise

My usual routine when showing a house: I ring the doorbell; wait a few seconds, then I knock loudly on the door in case the doorbell was not working; take the key, open the door, poke my head in calling out loudly, “Hello…Hello, Barry Malawer from Century 21 Mulvey, Hello…” Then I walk in and proceed to show the house. So two weekends ago I do just that. I’m now showing the house to my clients and get to the Master Bedroom, open the door and this guy is lying buck naked on the bed snoring so loudly it hurts my ears. It sounds like a chain saw. And this is what is going through my mind: If I wake him now, he will be so startled by the fact that strange people are standing in his bedroom that he could take out a gun and shoot us, maybe he'll just charge at us, rampaging about being in his house, or just yell at us and I would now have to explain to him that I am a Real Estate agent and made an appointment to show his house, blah, blah, blah. Or, I could shut the door and continue to show the rest of the house, quietly, hoping he doesn’t wake up. Or, we could just leave the house and see it again another time. Or, we could quietly leave the house and never come back. Just then, the phone rings. We stop dead in our tracks, hold our breath and wai. He stops snoring then, rolls over and --------- continues to snore. We decided to tip toe out of the room, close the door and save the house for another day.