Really Real Estate Blog

Show Your House

One of the hardest jobs an agent has is getting the buyer to make an appointment to look at houses. It can takes days even weeks of phone calls and emails to get a buyer to finally agree to free up time from their ongoing lives to actually come up and spend a morning or afternoon or sometimes an evening to look at houses. This is especially true early in the process when they are still discovering what they want. When you finally make that connection and set a date and time you can barely contain your excitement to show them houses that will get then engaged in the process and make them want to actually buy a house. You get the okay and spend the rest of the day looking for houses to show them that will wet their appetites. You make that phone call and…and…

…the seller asks if they can make the appointment for the next day instead, or maybe that afternoon instead of that morning or how about next week like it didn’t just take three weeks to get them to agree to come up Saturday morning because their kids soccer game was cancelled and they can finally make the trip up from the Bronx.

And often what is the seller’s excuse (other than medical)…the house is too messy, or they have company, or they’re going to be out anyway and they would prefer not to have to leave twice. Whatever the reason they have no idea how hard it was to get the buyer to come up at that time. Contrary to popular opinion we are at the mercy of the buyer and not the other way around.

And what is the seller’s main job…show your house. If we don’t get buyers in no matter how well priced or how pretty or wonderful the kitchen is you will not sell your house. It is an inconvenience to sell your house, embrace it. Your selling agent did their job by getting someone to want to make an appointment to see it. Your job is to show your house. It is not magic it is numbers – the more buyers who see come into your house the better chance you have of getting it SOLD.

The Art of Talking to Yourself

If you are in the real estate business long enough, you will talk to yourself. When I was a green agent (new not energy efficient) and first walked into my real estate office I noticed a lot of the agents exhibiting this very strange behavior. I was having conversation with some agents who, it turns out, weren’t talking to me. They were talking to themselves. They were actually having a discussion with themselves. I checked their ear for the cell phone Bluetooth but it wasn’t that. They were really talking to themselves. Like mental patients. But it wasn’t the new agents or the part time agents, it was the senior agents, the busy ones. So responding to idea of mimicking the habits of successful people, I started talking to myself. It was only then that I started to get busy. You get so busy that you now actually have to talk to yourself just to sort through all the random stuff floating around your brain. It works. It is fun to watch too.  

Houses in Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

Having Fun with Real Estate

Looking at houses should be fun. I know I still have fun looking at houses. I try to make sure my buyers find the process of looking for a house fun. You have time later in the process to stress out. But for now, in the looking stage, it should still be fun. And why not. I think it is a universal thrill walking into a strange house for the first time. Will I like it? Will it look like the pictures? Is the blue room really that color blue? “Look,  They have the same taste as I do” or “Oh my god, how could they live in that room?” Where should I put the new flat screen I have to buy (or rather, save up for) after I buy the house? You’re not going to like every house you walk into so it’s okay to joke around as long as the sellers aren’t home to hear you. If the Buyer enjoys the experience of looking for a house it 1.) makes your job easier and 2.) it will ease the buyers stress when they actually move forward in the process of buying a house.

Pricing Your House or Marketing Your House to Buyers

I just had an interesting discussion with a seller. He was expecting me to compare his house to others that are active on the market. He didn’t want to price his house below where similar other houses were priced. In looking over the other houses many of them were priced ‘to negotiate” and not to sell at the asking price. Most sellers believe that they should pad the asking price of their house so they have “room’ to negotiate. While that was an acceptable position in a strong sellers market I don’t think it is one for our market today. Instead, I suggested we figure out what a buyer is actually going to pay for his house, not just the special one of a kind buyer, but the average joe buyer looking in the market today. If the Buyer is going to only pay $400K for his house then we should list the house for $409K. At least we have a shot a the buyer who can afford to pay $400k for a house to find yours. If we list it for $439K or $449 we might miss that buyer completely. If we list it for $419 or $429k that $400k buyer may be looking at the top of his range and still may miss the house. You can’t take a chance anymore not having the buyer see your house because of the ‘asking price”. This way the seller is still in control. He does not have to accept a $350k offer.

Price your house to sell to a buyer not another seller.  

Ahh Lawyers

Why are lawyers getting involved with house values? I know of two deals that have gone south because the lawyer recommended to the buyer that the house they are buying, according to the lawyer, is not worth the price the buyer is paying for it. The appraisal came in at contract value. The buyers agent provided a Market Evaluation confirming the price. The lawyer, who did not have access to current comparables, who is not qualified to make a price determination, who did not show the client 50 houses in the same market area until the buyers found one that suit them, who did not invest time, money and their expertise in helping them make a decision on what to buy, convinces them that they should wait until the prices fall some more, because any house they are going to buy now is too expensive. The other line I heard was “I wouldn’t buy that house for that price, you can get a better deal.” Needless to say, the buyer who has spent all of fifteen minutes with the lawyer, listens to the lawyer and not the agent, with whom they have spent forty hours with over the last three months. I would expect this to happen with the family lawyer, or a friend of the family but both these situations occurred with a lawyer hired just for the transaction. I’m not sure how the lawyer stands to benefit from interjecting their opinion into what should be an easy and well thought out transaction but I do know if the tables were turned we, as agents, would certainly be admonished for attempting to practice law without a license.  (I know that technically, an attorney can practice real estate, but when was the last time you went out with an attorney to look at houses.)

 

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.

Maybe Some People Should Not Buy Houses

I had a Buyer Client, a single woman, who recently purchased her first house. She was a sweet woman, but was very nervous about the purchase. Every time I tried to guide her through the process, she made the assumption that somehow I was working in the Seller’s interests and not hers. Her friends and relatives had drummed it into her that the Real Estate Agent is always working for the Seller or their own pocket and she had to protect herself.  I understood where she was coming from and tried to allay her fears.

     On one house, I even stopped the inspection and got most of her money back because she could never have corrected all the problems on her budget (even though I knew I would have to show her twenty more houses before we found another one that she liked). However, on the next house, if I recommended an inspector, she made sure not to use that inspector. Same with the attorney, the mortgage person, etc. She was so sure that the septic system was in failure, that even after three septic inspections from three different septic companies certified that the system was functioning properly, she tried to get out of the contract. On the walk thru, she took a shovel out of her trunk to dig up the fields herself. I will never forget the look on the listing agent’s face as my client proceeded to dig up the yard. I still don’t know what she was expecting to find. She would call me late in the evening about a dream she just had of “doo doo” floating around her back yard.

     At the closing, their was mix up between the attorneys on a financial escrow and she yelled at me across the table that “this was all my fault” even though the attorneys on both sides assured that it was not. Through it all, I kept my cool, kept the attorneys from leaving the table, and made sure she closed on her dream house. The day after the closing it snowed. I made sure that she had someone to plow her driveway and deliver pizza to her new home. The other agents in my office thought I was nuts for continuing to communicate with my client. So was my wife. But you know, not everyone deals with the difficult process of buying or selling a house in the same way and our obligation is to the client whether or not they recognize (or appreciate) your intentions.

Sitting At An Open House

Sitting at an open house recently, I was struck by an observation of a recurring behavior of my “visitors.”  They walk into the house and seem annoyed by my very presence. They walk in as if they were expecting no one to be there so they can walk through the house unfettered, not to be bothered by a host of questions by an annoying and impertinent agent. They seem genuinely surprised when I ask them if they are already working with an agent. They seem more shocked when I ask them what price range they are looking in, as if that was a shameful secret and absolutely none of my business. (I haven’t even gotten to the Pre-Approval question yet.) When I try to ascertain what they are actually looking for in a house they look at me with great suspicion and with an eye on the escape door. I wonder what they think is my reason for being at the house. Certainly it’s not to ask questions, certainly it’s not to show them around, and most certainly it’s not to offer them any help in their search for a new home. They do take my card, however reluctantly, on the way out after forcing them to sign my login book.

            In trying to analyze this behavior, I need to figure out what the purpose of an Open House is for the visitor. I call them Visitors and not Buyers because they are not exhibiting Buyer behavior. Even though many of them are working with an agent (or say they are to avoid any solicitation by the sitting agent), why isn’t the agent accompanying them to the Open House? I find this a really curious phenomenon. I try to accompany my Buyer Clients to all the public open houses that I am aware of.  This is my naturally protective behavior of my business. So why do most visitors show up at open houses with out their agent of record. Is it because they just want to look and do not want to be sold? Is it because it gives them a chance to see the market for themselves without any professional input? Are they really just curious? Is it the desire to go to a neighbor’s house just to see how it’s decorated?

            I try to respect their position. But I still have a job to do, which is to ascertain whether they are truly a buyer for the house or potential future business. I am always astonished when the visitor is surprised when I try to do my job.

            That’s not to say that every now and then a Buyer walks in to my Open House and lets me do my job. And for those buyers I am grateful.