Category: Real Estate (page 176 of 266)

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is me in Friday’s Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
By-owner home seller is no match for a skilled listing agent

We’re about to list a home for sale in a fairly pricey neighborhood, so we are very aware of our competition.

We knew a similar home was ready to go on the market, but we were convinced it would be marketed as “for sale by owner,” so we didn’t feel threatened.

Why not? Because a by-owner seller is no match for a skilled listing agent.

I’m willing to concede that there are some unskilled listing agents, but that doesn’t matter to us. We compete against professionals, not amateurs.

In fact, the seller instead went with a limited-service listing, which is slightly — but only slightly — more likely to succeed.

By now, go-it-alone sellers are thin on the ground. You can get a true MLS listing at a range of discount prices, from $3,000 down to $99.

So why is a limited-service listing unlikely to succeed? In this market, a home must be marketed perfectly from Day 1 or it will sell slowly and at a deep discount, if at all.

Except for the MLS listing itself, the home will be offered by owner in every respect: priced wrong, prepared wrong and inaccessible to buyers and agents.

This is not a necessary consequence, but it is very common.

In the case of our newly listed competition, the home is offered at $200,000 over its market value. It will not be a threat to our listing.

But it wouldn’t be a threat even if priced right. A professional home marketer will bring too many weapons into battle for an amateur, no matter how dedicated, to compete.

Even worse, a limited-service listing shouts out a warning to buyers’ agents to stay away.

Why? Because it is being marketed by an amateur. The seller will have no one to turn to for advice, exposing the buyer’s agent to double the legal liability in the transaction.

There’s nothing wrong with negotiating the best price you can get for a full-service listing. But in our opinion, limited-service listings are a false economy in this market.

Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From Howard Brinton’s closing remarks tonight at the StarPower Conference, here are Gregg Neuman‘s Top Ten Reasons for Optimism:

• 10. 3,600 fewer agents in my market
•   9. Downward pressure on commissions is gone
•   8. Developers/builders welcoming us again
•   7. Discount brokerages vanishing
•   6. FSBOs are extinct or nearly so
•   5. Foreclosure/short sale market thriving
•   4. Great market for buyer’s agents (you can negotiate)
•   3. Declining prices opens market to more first-time buyers
•   2. Sellers willing to listen to reality
•   1. Sellers need us now and THEY know it

Realtor optimism, yes. For sellers, not so much. But it is a real improvement over crying in your beer that times are tough.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

A tuxedoed Russell Shaw holds forth at the newcomer’s reception at tonight’s opening session of the StarPower Conference. An important principle of the StarPower method is the idea that success is contagious, that highly-motivated Realtors can hoist themselves to the next level not just by learning new skills and techniques, but also by learning from and modeling the behavior of mega-producers like Russ.

I’m skeptical of anything that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but I do love the idea of learning new skills and techniques, and I deeply admire many of the people StarPower has brought to Phoenix.

As an example, we got to meet Joe and JoAnn Calloway tonight. In Phoenix, they’re famous as Those Calloways, another team, like Russell’s, that does hundreds of millions of dollars in business every year. As much as Russ is big, blustering and brash, the Calloways are small, gentle and very quiet. You would never, ever peg them as Realtors, yet they completely dominate some of the richest zip codes in Scottsdale.

Immediately to Russell’s left in the photo is Richard Pomisel, with whom I took pre-licensing more than six years ago. Do the math: A class of around 30 students. Many didn’t pass the school test. More didn’t pass the state test. Still more didn’t get licensed. The failure rate for new licensees is 85% in the first year, very high thereafter. And yet two people out of one pre-licensing class are still working.

I don’t want to oversell StarPower. This is very much old-school real estate. Even where they think they’re being hi-tech, they talk about things like “stealth” web sites, marketing-by-trickery. But the bulk of the curriculum is a devout belief in the power of business-like systems for organizing and growing a real estate practice. Cathy and I have taken a divide-and-conquer approach to the classes to bring home the most new information.

I don’t know if success is contagious, and I don’t have much truck for mumbo-jumbo. But I will tell you one “law of attraction” that never fails: Nothing brings out immediate real estate needs like a real estate class. StarPower runs all day Thursday, Friday Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is me from last Friday’s Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
What makes a home sell? Marketing, preparation — and especially price

I looked at houses with a long-time client last week. We shopped ten houses, of which two were actually in turn-key condition. Two others were fix-ups in every way but price. Three of the homes had front-yard landscaping so overgrown they were virtually inaccessible. And the prices were all over the map.

The resale market is not as dire as it is portrayed to be, but it’s not great, either. There are a lot more homes for sale than there are qualified buyers. For a home to sell in this market, it has to be priced right, perfectly prepared and properly presented to the marketplace. Miss on any one of those factors — especially price — and the buyers will take the home up the street instead.

Consider the Terracina floorplan at Ashton Ranch in Surprise. I’ve sold several these, and I really like them. They’re bright and spacious, with wide-open sightlines. Without pools, there are seven of these available right now. Two are priced at $199,000, then they shoot up all the way to $231,900.

The two lower priced homes will probably sell first, even if the others have better landscaping and better interior amenities. Only one of these models sold in June, for $200,000.

A few miles east, at the Sundial subdivision in El Mirage, there are 25 units of the 1,238sf Zocalo floorplan available. Prices run from $166,900 to $213,900, a huge spread.

Three of these homes sold in June, and it would be reasonable to argue that the market value of this model is $185,000. The problem with that is that ten of the 25 listings are offered below that price — and they’re still not selling.

In any subdivision, I would have to look at the listings house-by-house to tell you which ones will sell soonest, and for how much. But it’s a certainty that if a home is not marketed properly, is not cleaned and repaired to show-room condition, and, especially, is not priced aggressively to the current market, it will not Read more