Category Archive: ‘Tips, Advice & Links’

Real Estate ADD

The iPhone 7 is out!  Smart phones and other mobile devices now dominate the landscape, and are practically part of the family.  Thankfully, they don’t need their own bedroom and bath!

Most people scroll so quickly that they only take split-seconds to decide which homes to consider.  Having limited inventory might be a good thing!

The first impression of the home needs to be incredible just to capture their attention for a few seconds.

Home Selling in the Mobile-Device Era

1.  Staging – The photos are already small enough on these phones – they become much more appealing with the right decor.  Once the buyers arrive for their minutes-long tour, it’s easier for them to visualize too.
2.  Pro Photos Only – Buyers are frustrated enough, and they won’t tolerate poor-quality photos. It’s too easy for them to keep swiping.
3.  Colors need to be current.  In the minds of fast-moving buyers, out-of-style colors = fixer.
4.  Powerful Remarks – Listings with the usual mumbo-jumbo in the remarks won’t get read.
5.  Responding to Inquires – Zillow recommends that agents respond to inquiries within five minutes – otherwise, consumers will forget the property!
6.  Comps – Buyers are moving (too) fast, and there aren’t as many sales so it’s tougher to track the values easily.  Give them a hand – list the comps in the remarks!
7.  Sell with Less – Don’t include 25 photos of beddings and local attractions.
8.  Old Listings are Toast – Buyers ignore old listings – they want new meat.

This is the era of sensory overload.  There are so many advertising images coming at us every second that our go-to is to ignore first.  But those clear, clean, sleek, easy-to-read listings with great photos and an attractive price still have a good chance of selling!

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Avoiding the BOM

When thinking about selling your home, do you have concerns that a sale could blow out and leave you hanging?  Have you heard stories from others like that?

It is a real concern.  If a deal blows out, the sellers have to go through the hassle of showing the house again, and the listing agent has to find a way to re-ignite the urgency.

What are reasons for a cancellation?

1. Buyer didn’t like being worked over by the seller and listing agent during the negotiations, and is looking for any reason to cancel.
2.  The house is in worse condition than expected.
3.  Sellers won’t do enough to satisfy the buyers’ request for repairs.
4.  HOA docs reveal conditions that are overly-restrictive.
5.  The buyers’ family squashes the deal.

Our contracts create a legally-binding agreement, and the sellers are locked in – you can’t cancel.  Wouldn’t you want to do as much as possible to lock in the buyer before signing?

There are two easy things for sellers and listing agents to do to drastically cut down the chances of a sale cancelling:

1. Have buyers also qualify with your lender of choice.  Deals can cancel later from lending factors that were unknown in the beginning, but typically those were unknown because the lender was inexperienced and didn’t see them coming.
2. I love the new practice of sellers providing a pre-listing home inspection report.  Include the HOA docs, termite, and title report too – up front!

About the only thing left is the appraisal, but because you had an attractive price from the beginning, the value shouldn’t be too hard to substantiate.

I just had one where the inspector drove up in a $500 car, spent seven hours doing his inspection, and finally produced his written report a week later!  Of course, he says the house is falling down!

This sale hasn’t cancelled yet – we are busy on supplying our own reports and demonstrations to offset the inspector’s findings.  I should have gotten my own report in the beginning!

We’ve been doing it backwards all these years – supplying the due-diligence materilas from the start is a great way to avoid cancellations!