It’s no surprise that this is nowhere close to a Seller’s Market! Even with the downturn on the real estate market, life does continue to go on. There are countless homeowners who have transferred out of state or have decided to take advantage of the market to purchase another home only to leave their current home vacant while it sits on the market waiting for the right buyer. Those sellers need to take a close look at their home owner’s insurance policy!
Most homeowners policies are written for owner occupant so there are often exclusions to include property abandonment and/or neglect. This includes homes that have been unoccupied for a specific number of consecutive days. Typically insurance considers a “vacant home” as one where the owner is not staying in the home and has removed his personal belongings. An “unoccupied” home is one where the home owner is not staying in the home however personal belongings still remain.
Vacant and unoccupied homes face a much greater risk of damage than an occupied home. Not only are break-ins more common (Recently I had one Hiram listing broken into and thieves stole the POOL TABLE!), theft of systems such as the AC compressor and/or copper piping but also property liability. It is very important for the homeowner to contact their insurance company to discuss proper coverage if the property is to be vacant.
Occasionally I get a call from a seller looking to sell their property however said property is currently occupied with tenants or a future ex. No matter whether it is a normal resale or distressed short sale, I have a strict no tenant policy in place. This means if you have a home you want to sell and someone other than the owner is occupying it, call me when they move out!
Let’s face it, I am an aggressive Realtor. My combination of traditional and online marketing blitz is really unparalleled which results in showing traffic and offers. It is a frustrating experience to get the momentum ball rolling only to have it crash at the front door of an uncooperative tenant.
If I have learned one thing in real estate over the years, that lesson is that exes and tenants really do not care about a seller selling their house. Sorry but it is true. I have had sellers tell me that tenants have promised, even in writing, that they will comply with all showings with 24 hours advance notice however what I have experienced is nothing less than the opposite. House is left unkept ranging from as little as unmade beds and dirty dishes to hoarder type filth. Tenants avoid phone calls, refuse to open the door, sometimes even abusive to the agents calling. Once I had a tenant add an extra lock so even though the key in the lockbox opened 2 locks, the tenant installed a third so we could not enter.
Let’s face it, if the house sells that means one thing to the tenant or ex wife/husband – It is time to move out in 30 days or less! The longer they can prolong the expense of movers and finding a new place to live then they will! There is no motivation for them to keep the house spotless much less sell the house. I have even had buyers avoid looking at tenant occupied homes in fear of facing the eviction process in the event they do not move in time. The only instance where tenants occupying the property is a plus is for investor purchases but the pool of landlord investors has dwindled in this market.
I am positive that there are wonderful tenants out there who do comply with showings however it is my personal choice that I do not take those listings. Good luck and let me know when the property is vacant!
I love marketing real estate. I am always on the prowl looking for new and exciting ways to market my listings to the masses and while my 21st century marketing blitz is on the cutting edge for local realtors, there is one basic step that will always remain CRUCIAL when selling real estate. The most basic marketing concept that (in my opinion) separates the amazing Realtors from the lackluster and differentiates the homes that sell from the homes that sit stagnant on the market. PHOTOGRAPHS!
No matter how high my website is ranked in the search engines or how many e-flyers I send out per month, nothing sells a house more than photos! With that being said, I am still shocked at the quality that are uploaded into the MLS on a daily basis. Let’s not even talk about the listings that completely lack a photo in the first place (gasp!), or properties that only host one exterior shot but what about the photos of dirty kitchens, unmade master beds, blurry or crooked shots, low res with the date burnt into the image. Not only do I want all rooms cleaned for photos, I even remove the little things that clutter a photo like refrigerator magnets or TV remotes.
I take property photography seriously! Unlike most Realtors using a point and click pocket camera, I use a professional digital SLR camera for my shots complete with wide angle lens. I normally average between 150-400 photos (depending on size of property) and then spend hours going through them to select the absolute best for cleanup and/or slight photoshop. Nothing but the best for my Georgia sellers!
Not long ago I was in a listing appointment when the potential sellers asked if a reduced commission could be negotiated if they used me on their subsequent home purchase. I am always happy to accommodate clients who are selling a home to buy another so I responded with “yes, what area are you looking in”?
Alpharetta.
I paused for a moment and spoke with honesty. “I am always happy to assist you wherever you purchase. While I am familiar somewhat with Alpharetta and North Fulton county (I have taken quite a few clients there), I feel compelled to tell you that I am not the subject matter expert there as I am here in Cobb, East Paulding and North Douglas counties. Obviously I can take you to see the listings and be your expert negotiator however if you are looking for someone who specializes specifically in that area, I may not be the fit for you. You will not hurt my feelings at all. I feel confident I can sell your home here in Mableton, why don’t you think about it and once your home goes under contract, we can discuss then.”
I am pleased to report I did land the listing, a stucco beauty loaded with upgrades just waiting for the perfect Mableton home buyer.
While I do have multiple buyers agents on staff who handle different areas in and around metro Atlanta GA, as a listing agent I specialize in the selling homes in the following real estate areas:
Acworth, Austell, Dallas, Douglasville, Hiram, Kennesaw, Lithia Springs, Mableton, Marietta, Powder Springs, Roswell, Smyrna, Villa Rica and Vinings.
You have been out scouring the area you want to be in, walked through dozens of homes in search of the right one. Finally you find it, your dream home! You submit an offer and are looking forward to an acceptance or a counteroffer but instead you are hit with a “Multiple Bid Scenario – Please submit Best and Final Offer”.
What?!?
What this means is that other buyers have stumbled across your prized home and fell in love just like you did! Sometimes it is a foreclosure property, sometimes a short sale and sometimes it is a regular resale listing. Many buyers become very stressed out asking me how to handle it and my answer is always the same. “Best and Final” is actually what it means. The seller is looking for your absolute best and final offer, there will be no counteroffer, the seller will move forward with the best net offer on the table by the offer deadline. The offers of others will always be held confidential (sometimes so will the number of offers on the table).
In these scenerios it is crucial to know the comps of other properties in the neighborhood. In the event of a foreclosure, the property could be priced well below fair market value and the bidding could significantly increase the final sales price. For instance, not long ago a foreclosure hit my client’s radar hours priced at $114,000. After reviewing the comps I found that sales in that Powder Springs subdivision ranged from $189,000 – $260,000 and this particular foreclosure was the largest floorplan in the subdivision. We submitted an offer for $135,000 which was $21,000 OVER ASKING PRICE. Unfortunately we lost the bidding war. We found out later that the property sold for $164,000 – Fifty thousand over asking price. While that is not the norm, it is an example of how important comps are when bidding.
Normally, as detailed in a previous blog “The Skinny on Foreclosure Bidding”, multiple bid scenerios usually result in a final sales price at or above list price. With that being said, how do you know which number makes best sense for you?
I always tell my client to think about the number that they can sleep well at night knowing that they wouldn’t have paid 1 penny more for in the event they lost it. Nothing worse than a client coming back to me and saying “I know I bid $150,000 but I really would have gone up to $154,900”. In best and final scenarios, your absolute highest bid is what you should submit. If your submit best and final is truly that, there is nothing more you can do. Good Luck out there!
Does Big Brokerage Branding Matter to the Consumer?
Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs asking this very question. To those unfamiliar with the terminology of what I am asking I can simply re-ask as Does it matter to the consumer which company the agent works for: Re/Max, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams or a local mom & pop shop (ABC Realty)? Tons of blogs and video rantings offer different opinions. I will give you mine.
When I came into real estate, I spent my first few years at a local boutique brokerage. Was I successful? Absolutely! Do I think I had to work twice as hard for that level of success with a no name brand? You betcha!
I really enjoy the listing (seller) side of real estate. Therefore I can speak from experience that the first few years at the small time brokerage I spent half my listing presentation strictly on why I could sell their homes just as fast and efficient as those “big name agents”. While I remained the #1 agent in my office for those years, I did encounter two issues that tell me that Branding DOES matter to the consumer:
1. No matter how hard I tried, I could not break the $225,000 housing barrier (meaning sellers with homes valued over $225,000 did not trust my “no name brokerage” with the sale of their home). My first listing call after joining ReMax was for a $450,000 home.
2. While a 75-80% success rate in obtaining the listings I competed for is impressive, since joining ReMax my conversion rating is now over 95%
Let me ask you a simple question. When you go to the grocery store and cruise down the aisles, do you pick up Coke or RC Cola? Kraft Mac & Cheese or the store brand? As a society we tend to put more trust in the brands that we see advertised, hence the “as seen on TV” verbiage on packages as if the simple fact the product was on television gives it more credibility.
Now from this point on the following is my personal opinion and in no way defines all agents but what I feel is a good summary. I may ruffle a few feathers, but oh well – here goes! Not only do I think that consumers like recognizable branding, I also believe that the type of brokerage can define the high/low level of agent production. Do you know that in metro Atlanta, 90% of ALL real estate is sold by the top 10% of agents in town? What that also means is that 90% of licensed agents in Atlanta and suburbs combined only close 10% of all local sales. What most consumers do not know is that different brokerages offer different programs for their agents. Let’s take the no name small brokerage which I will refer to as ABC Realty compared to the powerhouse that I work for which is ReMax.
*ABC Realty spends nothing on advertising which means that the average home buyer or seller will not see their TV ads, drive past their billboards or not find their ABC Realty website anywhere near the first few top pages of Internet search engines. Most of their agents are low to medium producers, they sell a couple houses a year usually from friends or family. Most of these agents are part time and use real estate to supplement their income. The broker does not require expensive desk fees and instead just charges a minimal “transaction fee” for every home they close. Let’s take an average of $69 a month in desk fees and $350 for every deal they close. What this means is that if a couple months go by without selling a house the agent is out a couple bucks for desk fees and that is it. On the other end of the spectrum, if the agent is a top producer and close 10 deals in May at $350 per transaction, they just paid $3500 to work there one month. While there is nothing wrong with working real estate part time (I could only dream of that thing called “free time”) why would a top producer pay so much to work there? There are exceptions to this rule, specifically if a top producing agent leaves their big name to start their own smaller brokerage but once again, still lacks the above mentioned branding. The last tidbit to mention is that most smaller brokerages are not members of their local Board of Realtors. This means that they are not governed by a Code of Ethics and cannot use the term “Realtor”.
*To work at ReMax, it is what I consider “advanced Realtor-ship”. Not many newly licensed real estate agents sign up with ReMax, typically they start out somewhere else and graduate to ReMax once they have proven themselves successful in the game. ReMax charges a large monthly desk fee that is payable whether you close a deal or not. That desk fees helps pay for the TV ads between your favorite shows, the dozens of billboards you pass on your way to work, top search engine placement when you type in Google keywords such as “Marietta GA Real Estate”. What this means is that if a couple months go by without selling a house at ReMax, the agent is out several thousand dollars. In other words, you have to be a top producer to remain at ReMax. ReMax (as well as the other big name brokerages) are all members of their local Board of Realtors which means continued training, Realtor title and following the strict Code of Ethics. Violations can include reprimands, fines and being kicked out of their local board (which means they would have to leave their big brokerage and join a firm that isn’t a member of a Board).
