Sure times have been slow in Real Estate during the first half of 2008. I used my spare time to work on my web site Ez1Realty.net to make it one of the most informative and highest ranked sites in the Milwaukee, Waukesha area. One other area I worked to improve on was Internet Marketing. I took my listings and added them to many different sites. This can be a very expensive and time consuming process. What does one gain adding a listing to every web site you run across? Maybe a hit or two. After adding my listings to a number of sites I went back and looked at the statistics. How many potential buyers viewed the listing over one week, two weeks, a month? It took some tome to analyze these sites and find the most productive. Price is not a factor of success on the Internet. I have found that many sites charge a large amount of money to add a few bells and whistles for the listing but are not very user friendly. I have also found a number of sites that charge little or nothing but have the highest traffic numbers.
You can view a list of Internet sites that I use to sell a property by visiting my web site at the bottom of my Seller's page. http://www.ez1realty.net/home-selling-tips.html
This may have seem like a lot of time and effort on my part, but what would you expect when choosing an agent to sell your property?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
The danger of pricing too high.
This is a true story. I received a lead on a listing. The market price in the neighborhood was between $130,000 and $140,000. The Seller's father told her to put the house on the market for $200,000. The Seller wanted to list the property for that price. I showed the Seller all of the comps in the neighborhood and explained that he would be $25,000 higher than the highest priced home that was more than 600 sq ft larger with more updates. I offered to set up appointments so we could view the active listings. I finally had to tell him that I would not take the listing if we could not agree on the price. I left the home without the listing.
The next day I received a phone call from him and we agreed to list the property for $160,000. When I arrived at the home he insisted that the house should be listed at $175,000. We reached an agreement that we would list it at $175,000 for one month. If we did not get at least 4 showings he would reduce the price to $160,000.
A month went by. There were 4 people that came through the 2 open houses. All of them commented on the high price. There were zero calls on the property. I received the price reduction to $160,000. Still no calls for the next month. Two people came through two open houses. The price was reduced to $150,000. Every week I would call the Seller and update him on the new listings in the area and the few that had sold. All of the facts pointed to a list price in the 130's.
The third month went by. No one at the open houses and still no calls. By this time I could see prices dropping. I tried again to get the price in line with the market which had dropped to the low 130's. The price was reduced to $145,000. After the 4th month I lost the listing to an agent known for the, "I can get you a higher price for your home." It went on the market at $155,000 with one picture.
The house stayed on the market for the next 9 months at the same price with the single picture.
A few months later I saw the house back on the market as a foreclosure. Which makes me wonder. When I ran the title search and hold there was only a $48,000 mortgage on the home. No second mortgage.
This is an extreme example. The sale happened to be at the beginning of the downward slide on prices. The seller was not even trying to chase the market prices as they were falling but insisted that the house was much better than the others on the market. The seller never took the time to look at the other active units on the neighborhood. Trying to price a home on imagination usually does not work. In this case it cost big. Always insist on updates at least once every month. Neighborhood listings can be e-mailed. A good agent will set a seller up on an automatic e-mail system that will tell them what is happening in the neighborhood. Some of my customers know what is happening before I do because they insist on daily updates and I review my listing markets on a weekly basis. Knowing how the market is changing is one important aspect of selling a home.
The next day I received a phone call from him and we agreed to list the property for $160,000. When I arrived at the home he insisted that the house should be listed at $175,000. We reached an agreement that we would list it at $175,000 for one month. If we did not get at least 4 showings he would reduce the price to $160,000.
A month went by. There were 4 people that came through the 2 open houses. All of them commented on the high price. There were zero calls on the property. I received the price reduction to $160,000. Still no calls for the next month. Two people came through two open houses. The price was reduced to $150,000. Every week I would call the Seller and update him on the new listings in the area and the few that had sold. All of the facts pointed to a list price in the 130's.
The third month went by. No one at the open houses and still no calls. By this time I could see prices dropping. I tried again to get the price in line with the market which had dropped to the low 130's. The price was reduced to $145,000. After the 4th month I lost the listing to an agent known for the, "I can get you a higher price for your home." It went on the market at $155,000 with one picture.
The house stayed on the market for the next 9 months at the same price with the single picture.
A few months later I saw the house back on the market as a foreclosure. Which makes me wonder. When I ran the title search and hold there was only a $48,000 mortgage on the home. No second mortgage.
This is an extreme example. The sale happened to be at the beginning of the downward slide on prices. The seller was not even trying to chase the market prices as they were falling but insisted that the house was much better than the others on the market. The seller never took the time to look at the other active units on the neighborhood. Trying to price a home on imagination usually does not work. In this case it cost big. Always insist on updates at least once every month. Neighborhood listings can be e-mailed. A good agent will set a seller up on an automatic e-mail system that will tell them what is happening in the neighborhood. Some of my customers know what is happening before I do because they insist on daily updates and I review my listing markets on a weekly basis. Knowing how the market is changing is one important aspect of selling a home.
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