The REALTOR Myth Busting Episode & Vegas, baby! Are you going to Inman?
Joe and Abby bust some typical seller and REALTOR myths and shed some light on the property description cliches we're all over. HOAs are where it's at for buyers right now. Charles Manson murder mansion hits the market for $1.98M. And its Inman Connect time, are you going?
Closingtimepodcast.com for the latest news from the real estate world, helpful tips for buyers, sellers and other agents, and all of our previous podcast episodes. Keep up with us on Facebook and Instagram. We also offer home video tours, Realtor branding videos, ariel shots, live streams, and more.. closingtimepodcast.com and click on the CMG Real Estate Link.
The success of HGTV and the plethora of online information has shifted the ground rules of real estate sales
Three fundamental changes
These three changes have altered the home buying and selling landscape forever.
Change 1: The advent of HGTV
Buyers spend countless hours watching HGTV and have developed extremely refined tastes. They know what they want and when they look at homes for sale. They are looking for properties that look similar to what they have seen and liked on TV.
Change 2: The advent of mobile devices and HD internet connectivity
Buyers used to have to visit a home to add or remove it from their shortlist. No longer the case, today’s sellers have between seven and 10 seconds to sell their home, and those seconds are on a mobile device anywhere on the planet — not in any home for sale.
Change 3: The advent of internet real estate sites
Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia and a host of broker-owned sites have populated the internet with user-friendly websites that provide property data, historical facts, HD pictures, automated valuations, neighborhood and school info, and more.
They have completely removed the need for buyers to visit in person to determine if they like a home. Once a buyer has shortlisted available inventory, they only visit the select few they like.
Five seller myths
With this in mind, here are the top five seller beliefs that are no longer true:
1. I do not need to have the listing agent visit until my home is ready.
Wrong. In reality, the sooner the agent can get in, the better. Sellers, assuming the old rules still apply, might spend money on things that could harm a home’s potential and, conversely, fail to spend money where it matters.
Agents can not only help sellers maximize their potential, but they can also connect them with the trades and other professionals required to do it right.
2. I do not need to upgrade the property for sale.
Since increasing numbers of buyers are looking for move-in ready homes, the more a seller does to get the house to that level, the higher the returns. In an upmarket, sellers can reap a $2-$3 dollar return for every dollar spent.
In a declining market, they may not get 100 percent back, but they will get a sale. I frequently hear sellers ask, “Why should I upgrade? Won’t the new buyers come in and rip out all the stuff I just put in?”
That is not the right question. A better question is, “What can I do to make my online pictures sizzle to get the highest number of buyers through the front door regardless of what a buyer does once they own the home?”
If a seller can invest $1,000 on carpets and in the process, make $3,000, does it matter what the new owner does once they move in?
3. I need to open houses to sell my home.
The myth here is that buyers need to visit your home in person to decide whether they like it or not. In the new reality, buyers are visiting because they have already seen the house online and decided it was worth seeing in person.
Open houses make it easier for buyers who are already going to visit actually to get in. They also make it easy for the neighbors to come through — which is good because they frequently know someone looking to move into the area.
4. I need many open house signs at multiple vital intersections.
Wrong again. Savvy listing agents put out tons of signs because they are free advertising. Buyers who have seen the home online do not need directional signs to find the apartment. With open houses dates and times syndicating to all the major web portals, buyers use the GPS feature in their phones.
As for the neighbors, they will not come because you posted signs at far away intersections. To get them, you want signs close to the open house.
5. If buyers want my house, they will pay more than market value.
Buyers are not running charities. Due to online AVMs (automated valuation models — think Zestimate), buyers know when a property is overpriced and generally stay away, assuming the seller is unrealistic.
While pricing strategies vary from region to region, most agents know to recommend that sellers price listings close to market realities. As more listings come onto the market, buyers have more choices and migrate toward those they believe represent ethical values.
Sellers who insist they must net a specific amount, which in turn pushes the price too high, are only kidding themselves.
For sellers who have not sold a home in recent years, the new rules can be a shock. Ironically, since most sellers are also looking to buy a replacement home, all I usually have to do to change their thinking is to ask them how they are personally searching for homes in their new location.
They walk me through their process, and suddenly, in most cases, they get it.
Hiding flaws behind flowery copy does nothing but waste the buyer's and their agent’s time
1. ‘This one won’t last!’
I get it. The listing agent is trying to convey that they’ve got a hot property that some fortunate buyer will surely snap up in a matter of days, if not hours.
The problem with “This one won’t last!” is agents tend never to revisit their listing descriptions. When your market has an average days-on-market of 30 days, seeing “This one won’t last!” on a listing entering its eighth month on the market will either make a buyer laugh out loud or think, “Hmmm, it did last, so there must be something wrong with it.”
2 ‘Needs TLC’ or its partner in crime, ‘the handyman special.’
In other words, the home is disrepair, outdated, or has some other issue that needs to be fixed. By leaving those issues to the buyer’s imagination, you might very well be causing buyers to skip right over your listing and move on to the next one.
3. ‘Cozy’ or ‘quaint.’
This is fluffy marketing-speak. What you’re trying to do is cover up the fact that the home is small. Guess what? Any potential buyer who walks through the front door will swiftly figure out that the home is small. You can’t hide that fact behind cozy or quaint.
4. ‘Better than new’
No, it’s not better than new. Even if the home has been demolished and rebuilt from the foundation, it’s not better than new. It’s new. Well, it’s a new home on an old foundation. But you get the point.
“Better than new!” is one of those phrases that makes buyers ask, “What does that even mean?”
5. ‘Good bones’
Even more confusing to consumers. If a buyer isn’t an investor, a flipper or a builder, they won’t have a clue that’s supposed to mean the foundation and framing are solid and in good shape. Of course what the buyer also won’t know is that the home’s “bones” are about the only thing that’s good about the listing.
6. ‘Too much to list!’
Your listing is just so full of goodness and wonders that there’s too much to fit in the description?
What a load of hooey! Most MLSs these days allow hundreds and hundreds of characters in the description. And of course there’s all that other info, such as beds, baths, square footage, year built, type of roof — the list goes on and on. 7. ‘Show and sell’
Thanks for the suggestion! And here I was, hoping to spend my time showing a property that my buyer won’t buy. Show and sell makes a lot more sense than saying, “Show, but don’t worry about selling.”
8. ‘Priced to sell’
I kid you not, I once had a buyer ask, “Should we only consider homes that are priced to sell?”
With a confused tilt of my head, followed by “huh?” The client slid some listings across the table and said, “Four of these say, ‘priced to sell,’ but the other three do not. Should we even bother looking at the ones that are not priced to sell?”
9. ‘Updated’
Everyone wants shiny new things. No one is ever going to buy a home marketed with something like “built in 1965, never updated.” (Wait, that would be “needs TLC!” Or “good bones!”)
Define “updated.” Does a new fridge, the cheapest one the seller could find, constitute an “updated kitchen”? I once showed a home with an “updated roof.” When the buyers and I saw it, the first thing we did was look at the roof and its shingles that were beginning to curl.
10. Anything that is somewhere else in the property listing
As mentioned earlier, the listing displays of today show a tremendous amount of information. There is no need to repeat that information in the listing description. Use the descriptive space for info not included elsewhere.
11. ANYTHING — AND EVERYTHING — IN ALL CAPS
PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THE KITTENS ON THE INTERNET, STOP WRITING LISTING DESCRIPTIONS IN ALL CAPS!
It’s hard to read, and it LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE SCREAMING AT PEOPLE.
Kentwood Real Estate’s Team Denver Homes deleted a promotional video in which its agents rap about luxury homes they’ve sold in a parody of the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” theme song — amid strong criticism about it being pro-gentrification.
The video, which the team posted on YouTube and its website, features several of its agents dancing and rapping the famous theme song. They wear neon 1980s-style clothes while rapping about selling high-end properties.
The video started garnering criticism almost immediately after it was posted on YouTube on Wednesday. One of the commenters called it “an ad for gentrification” while local podcaster and anti-gentrification activist Bree Davies called the agents “real estate colonialists in neon ski attire” on Twitter.
Denver Homes partner Mor Zucker told 9News.com that she didn’t see anything wrong with what they put up and that, even though their team has no staff members who are people of color, she has friends who are.
- Twofold, a provider of ergonomic and adaptable furniture that can enhance the flexibility and utilization of space
- Biproxi, a transaction platform designed to serve commercial real estate brokers, buyers, sellers and tenants.
- Lulafit, an amenity-management firm that provides on-demand wellness and fitness services
- Trove, a short-term rental management service designed to help landlords maximize revenue
- Coeo, a listing service for office, industrial, meeting and flex spaces
- SRE Simple, a commercial real estate lending platform
REACH Commercial will provide class members with mentorship, education, networking opportunities and access to a panel of more than 50,000 industry professionals who can provide feedback.
The startups “have demonstrated solid business models, executable business plans and significant potential to influence our nation’s economy,” according to NAR.
New US Census data shows that homes in homeowner's associations are taking up a larger share of new construction and new sales than ever before
According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 840,000 single family homes completed in 2018. Of those homes, 64 percent, or about 535,000, were part of an HOA. That compares to only 306,000 new, single-family homes that weren’t part of HOAs.
Census data on the number of homes sold is even more lopsided: Americans bought 472,000 newly constructed HOA homes in 2018, but only 145,000 without HOAs.
Those numbers represent a remarkable trend in U.S. housing. In 2009, just a decade ago, developers finished 279,000 non-HOA homes but only 241,000 homes with HOAs. HOA and non-HOA construction remained roughly comparable for the next several years until, in 2011, it flipped in favor of the homeowner’s associations.
Ever since, new HOA homes have been taking up a larger and larger share of the overall new single-family housing stock.
The Census data doesn’t offer explanations for why builders and buyers have both increasingly favored HOA developments over the last decade.
If you’re thinking about becoming an agent, have a clear view of what it’s like, so you can start out on the right foot
1. Making a big income is very easy with little work and time involved
Although being a real estate professional is not hard if you love it, and you certainly can make a big income. But like all businesses, there is much to learn and do, and selling real estate is very time-intensive.
2. You need the looks and personality of a major movie star
These nice attributes certainly won’t hurt you and your bottom line, but the most successful real estate professionals are the ones who know the business inside and out, prepare and take great care of their customers.
3. You have to be a technology expert
Although you don’t have to be an IT expert as many top producers are not, the better you are with technology, the easier it will be to run your business.
Boost your brand, efficiency and productivity with one platform
With that said, know that you can always hire an assistant. Being a people expert is much more important.
4. It takes a long time to make some income
The agents who come in and take advantage of all the training they can and work hard doing the right things when it comes to prospecting really shorten the time it takes to make money. They do well sooner rather than later.
5. The hours you put in will be less than a regular job
The agents who believe this probably are not making a lot of money. Although you don’t have to work 24/7, you do have to put in hours that would probably exceed a regular job, especially in the beginning.
The freedom that being a real estate agent gives you makes it much easier to take than more traditional employment.
6. I can do real estate part-time
Although you can do real estate part-time, you won’t be very effective. To make any significant income and to assist your buyers and sellers correctly, it will be very difficult to do real estate on a part-time basis.
7. People will be flocking to me to sell their homes, and people will be giving me leads all day long
To make a steady income in real estate, like any sales job, you will have to spend a good part of your day doing various prospecting activities to bring customers to your business. Not much business will drop into your lap.
8. I don’t need any training or support — I got this
Regardless of your background or the personal skills that you bring to the table, to get your business up and running fast, to stay out of legal trouble and to stay in this business long term, someone will have to show you how.
The cost of not getting any training when you start usually results in a quick end to your real estate career, usually because you could not generate enough income.
9. You need to know a lot of people to be successful
Knowing many people who you can contact and try to assist with their real estate needs is nice and will make things easier for you, but your work ethic and the success of your prospecting activities will bring customers to your business.
10. All brokerages are the same, so I can hang my license anywhere
Brokerage models vary tremendously, and where you choose to hang your license may decide if you are successful long term or not in the business.
For example, training and support are very important to a successful real estate career, but some brokerage models may offer very little of it, if any, and some may build their entire model around it.
The great thing about real estate is that all types of people and personalities can be successful. The key is to have a clear view of what it’s really like to be a real estate agent and to start out the correct way with full training and support so that you can do all the right things and have continued success for years to come.
The agents who come in and take advantage of all the training they can and work hard doing the right things when it comes to prospecting really shorten the time it takes to make money. They do well sooner rather than later.
August marks the 50th anniversary of the shocking 1969 murders of Leno and Rosermary LaBianca inside the home
The villa where the followers of Charles Manson murdered Leno and Rosermary LaBianca in 1969 has hit the market for $1.98 million in Los Angeles.
Listed on Redfin, the home on 3311 Waverly Drive is described as a “classic 1920’s Los Feliz gated single story home” with “breathtaking views” and a “prime location.” But the description leaves out one key detail: On August 10, 1969, four Charlie Manson followers bound and stabbed the LaBiancas to death inside the property.
The murder, which took place just a day after members of the Manson cult killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate, would send the residents of Los Angeles into a spiral of terror that is still memorialized in film and studied by crime experts. Manson, who picked the Los Feliz house randomly to instruct his followers how future murders should be carried out, was eventually sentenced to life in prison and died in 2017.
Closingtimepodcast.com for the latest news from the real estate world, helpful tips for buyers, sellers and other agents, and all of our previous podcast episodes. Keep up with us on Facebook and Instagram. We also offer home video tours, Realtor branding videos, ariel shots, live streams and more.. closingtimepodcast.com and click on the CMG Real Estate Link..
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