Marketing

John Rice…the house-whisperer

by John Rice

One of my favorite things to do when I list a house is to write the marketing remarks.  I usually sit down in my office with a cup of coffee and look at the pictures until something pops in my head.  I always want to use my words to describe what is unique about the house.  Every house has something that is unique, whether it is natural light, a good floor plan, location, updating……there is always something.

In the old days when the MLS was something just for realtors, you’d see remarks like:  “3/2 split ranch.  Dining room chandelier does not convey.”  You’d also see showing instructions like which door to use or to not let out the cat.  The marketing remarks section has evolved into something more for the public now.  About 15 years ago the trend was to try to get people to picture themselves in the house, so we had remarks like “Have coffee while you read the morning paper on the sun lit patio.”  or “Picture yourself having a dinner party in the formal dining room with wainscoting.”  I kind of like that better than where we are now, which is just generically describing the house or listing all the features that will be in any other house too.  Like “Great 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch with a nice kitchen in a convenient location.”  Let’s face it, the public can tell how many bedrooms and baths it has because all that info is at the top of the listing.  Why waste their time telling them what they already know?  They assume the kitchen is nice, but are going to look at the pictures to see.  Pictures are what makes people want to see a house today, so there is no need to describe the house when they can see it…..and that is why I like to use the marketing remarks to keep the public’s attention and to tell them what is special about my listing.  Here are a few I’ve done recently:

“No doubt, there are a lot of houses in this price range. The seller’s know. They
looked at all of them too before pulling the trigger on this one. Want to know
why? Well, for starters, the way the Great Room & Kitchen are combined got
them, as did all the natural light it gets. Then, the fact that it backs to some
open space made it nice because it means you don’t have a neighbor behind you
 peeking in your window or making noise….you just look out and see space. Then,
the Master Suite got them. It has a nice walk-in closet and the bath has a
double bowl vanity (Two sinks 🙂 Throw in a fireplace, a front porch, a REAL
laundry room….well, you get the point. Come check it out for yourself.”

“Of all the houses I have ever sold, this one is my favorite. Its not the kitchen
with all the granite and practically new stainless appliances. It’s not even the
 extensive updating & fresh paint it has seen. Its not the large covered
deck. It’s not even all the hardwood flooring, gorgeous landscaping or being 5
minutes to Hamburg, the Interstate, or schools. I think what does it for me with
this house is the relaxed & peaceful feel I get when I am here. I think you
will feel that too. Be sure to check out the pictures, but here are some other
unique features *Fresh paint EVERYWHERE *Updated lighting/fixtures *Stamped
concrete landscape edging *Wood Paneled Executive Home Office *Possible 5th
 bedroom or exercize room *MOVE IN READY. Seller is M-O-T-I-V-A-T-E-D
Call/e-mail/text for more info…..Thx!”

” Ever been on Nelson? It is the street where the Legacy Trail begins. This
street is right where Midland/Walton/Winchester Rd come together. Look this
place up on Google and you’ll see that it is surrounded on 2 sides by the new
Equestrian View neighborhood. Also very close to the new Wm Wells Brown
Elementary School. I think this locations rocks for this price range. This is an
ALL ELECTRIC shotgun style house with many of the windows having been replaced
with vinyl. There is a living room on the front of the house, then you walk
through a bedroom to get to the kitchen. The second bedroom area is on the back
of the house and could be a bonus area or dining room. It has recently rented
for $400 and $450 a month, so the cash flow is there!!!”

” Well…..HERE IT IS! That mid century vibe you’ve been wanting, but without
 the mid century decor that seems to haunt so many houses of this era….but
don’t worry, this one has still has the hardwood floors, cut stone fireplace,
original tile in the baths and that cool retro feel in the kitchen. Be SURE to
see the pics, but here is some more info: *Fresh paint *New Kitchen floor
 *Updated lighting *2 car garage *Corner lot *NEW water heater *1 year old roof
 *Walk-out basement *Desireable school district *Awesome neighborhood so close to
 everything & sooooo worth your time to see it. Call/text for more info :-)”

“I just love Suburban Court. It’s a dead end street with 70 houses between
Cherokee Park & Rosemont Garden. That puts it right in that sweet spot of
being just a bike ride away from downtown or UK, but also just moments from the
Suburban type retail/dining just south on Nicholasville Road…..best of the
new/old really. Plus, if you need a popular school district, you get that too
 with Glendover/Morton/Lafayette. But what about the house? Well, its got that
vibe you want in an old house, meaning original hardwood floors, craftsman style
windows, a brick fireplace, front porch & much of the original
 doors/hardware. Plus a fully fenced yard backing to much more expensive
houses-do a Bird’s Eye view to see how far away the houses behind this one are.
Could this be it? You won’t know until you see it for yourself!
 #yousnoozeyoulose”

“Bet you haven’t seen a house like this one? No joke, $5 says this one is NOTHING
like any other ranch you’ve seen in this price range. Why am I so confident?
 Well, This one has soooo much detail. Coffered ceiling in the kitchen,
 wainscotting in the dining room, built-ins around the travertine tiled
fireplace, oil rubbed bronze hardware on doors/lighting/cabinets, tall
 baseboards. The floor plan is super cool too. The position on the lot gives you
loads of light in the Great Room. Plus, you get a real laundry room-not one in a
 closet in a hall or a pass-thru to the garage….a real one! Throw in squeeky
clean move in ready condition and you’ve got your new place.”

“Wanting something with a little pizzaz? You know, a place that doesn’t just feel
like a bunch of boring boxy rooms joined together? If so, how about taking a
look at this place. Here’s a few things I think you’ll like about it: ** The way
the kitchen sink faces out towards the sun filled breakfast area and family
room. The kitchen has a cool walk-in pantry with custom shelving, tile floor
& cherry cabinets. ** The vaulted ceiling in the large family room and all
 it’s windows. ** The breakfast area has windows on two sides & opens to the
kitchen & family room. ** The dramatic 2 story foyer with tile, a beautiful
 staircase, & a waaaaay upgraded light fixture. ** The sitting area in the
HUGE master bedroom that makes a great home office. ** The custom shelving in
the master walk-in closet right off the spa-like master bath. ** The way the
driveway has been widened with pavers so you can park big vehicles easily. **
The way it looks in pictures….Take a look…then make the call.”

“Let’s talk about your wish list for a moment. Does it have BIG OPEN FLOOR PLAN
on it? What about HUGE MASTER BEDROOM with 2 large walk-in closets? If we’re
good so far, let me tell you a bit more about this place before you look at the
pictures. My fave thing about this house is that it backs to a tree line, which
makes for a very PRIVATE back yard. On the other side of the tree line is
Jacobson Park. Yep. All 216 acres of it right there for you to enjoy all the
time and you don’t have to mow it 😉 Plus it is near the end of the cul-de-sac
and doesn’t have a house on one side. Want to hear more? * LOTS OF FRESH,
NEUTRAL PAINT *Fireplace *9 foot ceilings downstairs *Front Porch * Open Living
Space Upstairs *Close to Hamburg & I-75 *Fenced Yard *Look at the pictures
so you can keep going with this list. Call/text/e-mail agent for more info &
quick response :-)”

“So…You’ve probably noticed that most of the houses in this price range have
teeny tiny yards and are so close to each other that the sun never shines
between them. Right? But you’re also a person of taste who appreciates things
like granite counter tops, stainless appliances, and tile flooring, right? Well,
there is no need to compromise here! It has about a 1/4 acre lot with a
gorgeously flat backyard and is recently updated!! Now, be sure to look at the
pictures, but here is a partial list of what all this house offers: **FABULOUSLY
relaxing screened in patio **Recently updated granite, tile, carpet, fixtures,
 kitchen cabinet uplighting, water heater & stainless appliances ** Large
Upstairs laundry room ** Dunbar School district **This house has bigger living,
dining & secondary bedrooms than you typically see. I think this is an
awesome, relaxing place to be & has a really livable floor plan.
CALL/E-MAIL/TEXT for more info……..THANKS!”

 

How to turn $1000 into $5000

by John Rice

 

This bath looks pretty nice, huh?  Would you believe that just a week before this picture was taken it was probably the WORST feature of this house?  It looked like a worn out 1997 Parade of New Homes bathroom.  I can talk about this bathroom like this because this is my old house.  Thought it might be a good example of how you can often spend a little money addressing the worst features and turn it around.

So, here is where my $1000 went:

1.  The ugly and rusty builder grade light was replaced with this oil rubbed bronze one from Lowe’s for $110 and 15 minutes of my time.

2.  The very worn out white and green vinyl floor was ripped up and replaced with ceramic tile for $600.  These tiles were only 57 cents each, but laying them diagonally gave it some pizzazz.

3.  The whole room and pickled vanity were painted for about $200.

4.  The cheap gold hardware on the cabinets were replaced with oil rubbed bronze ones for about $25.

The tub, shower door, faucets, big ol’ plate glass mirrors and the rest are all original stuff.  I wanted to replace the plate glass mirrors with two individual framed mirrors, but I didn’t want to risk slicing an artery since I was doing all the work alone.

As you can see, I don’t even think I spent $1000 to turn this bathroom into one that is nicer than most in my old neighborhood.  Did you catch that?  “Nicer than most.”  That is all you need to do.  Sure, I could have dropped $15k in this bathroom and made it over the top and EVERYBODY would have loved it.  I could have, but didn’t because I wouldn’t have gotten a return on it in a neighborhood where few houses have been updated at all.  See, when a buyer or tenant is shopping, they will always pick the best one they can.  All you have to do to get them to pick your place is to study their choices and make it just a little better……one up the competition.

When you do something like this, you not only make it easier for a buyer or tenant to say yes to your place, you also increase the odds of MORE people saying yes to it.  More people saying yes is called Demand, and economics tells us that more demand means getting a better price.

Have a house that isn’t selling?  Create more demand by doing a few minor things like this.  You’ll be amazed at how the public responds.  I am renting this house out, and 3 of the 5 people who looked at it wanted it before I signed a lease.

What lobsters can teach you about real estate

by John Rice

Let’s face it.  There are basically 4 types of listings that all houses fall into:

1)  The house nobody really wants that is overpriced.

2)  The house nobody really wants that is priced right.

3)  The house everybody wants that is overpriced.

4)  The house everybody wants that is priced right.

Simply put, there are good and bad houses, with good and bad prices.

In any market and during any time of the year, the #4 houses will always sell fast.  The #1 house will not.  You can turn a #1 house into a #2 house just as easily as you can turn a #3 house into a #4 house with a price reduction.  Sorry if you feel like you’re ordering for the office at McDonald’s with all the numbers here.

A lot of sellers have a house that isn’t all that appealing and they want crazy high money for it.  I try to avoid those listings because I am not good at magic.  I am only good at being a realtor.

So, how does all this relate to the market?  Let me say this first.  The market is always changing, just like the prices of anything…..stocks, oil, lobsters.  It is all supply and demand.  Here it is August 28th.  We are on the downhill side of this year’s market.  Most of the buyers have bought and most of the good new listings have sold.  The buyers that are out there now don’t have as many terrific houses to see, so I am watching the ones that didn’t cut it in the spring/summer start to move now.  Many were either loser houses or ones that needed price reductions.   I checked the activity from the past week this morning.  I noticed that 3 of the 4 pendings sales in the $300-400k range were houses that I have either shown or looked at for myself earlier in the year.  Reason these finally sold is because there isn’t much that really screams AWESOME right now in that range.  Think of it this way.  It is 8:PM Friday night at a seafood place.  There is a 100 gallon tank with only 3 lobsters.  You pick the best of the three, knowing that if you got there at 5:30 you could have got a better one.

The only chance for that poor #1 or #2 house is to sell when that lobster tank is mostly empty.  That is from now until the grass starts to grow next year.  Once the grass starts to grow, the buyers come out.  A couple weeks later, all the listings start hitting the market and the cycle begins again.

 

No showings? Showings, but no offers? Here’s why

by John Rice

Since I’ve got a bunch of listings now, I thought it would be a good time to do a post about what you can deduce from your showings.

Sooooooo…….

IF you aren’t getting any showings:  More than likely your price is too high.  It could also be your realtor, but as much as I hate to confess this, a house that is priced well seems to sell even if the agent is lame at presenting it online.  If all the data on the listing is correct (schools, size, neighborhood, zip code, etc) more than likely you aren’t getting showings because buyers and agents can tell just from what they see online that the price is too high.  Now, if you have a gazillion dollar house or something very unusual like a 3000 square foot tree house on 10 acres in the middle of downtown, you aren’t going to get many showings anyway since the buyers for those properties are few and far between.

IF you get showings, but no offers:  This is a little more tricky.  Let’s assume that the house is presented accurately online……meaning no creative tricks like hiding the fact that the house backs up to a McDonald’s drive-thru, or that there is a toilet in the middle of the dining room.  If there are no shenanigans, that means the buyers and agents feel that the house is probably priced realistically from what they see online, but the house doesn’t meet their expectations once they get there.  It’s usually something they didn’t expect like the floor plan or the condition of the house.  This is where you have to listen to the feedback.  I know this sucks to hear for a seller, but if 7 out of 10 buyers didn’t like the house due to pink carpet in the bedrooms or the like, you are going to have to address that or wait around for a pink carpet lover to show up…..and in all my experience, I have not met that buyer yet.  You need to change what you can to make it palatable for the buyers, even if you don’t understand it nor agree with it.  Yes, carpet is easy to change for the buyer, but few will do it, and it is just as easy for you.  Yes, you don’t know what color a buyer will want, but we know it ISN’T pink, so that’s a start.  If the feedback is something you can’t change, like a steep driveway, your only option is to reduce your price to the point where a buyer gets more excited about the price than they are disappointed in the slope.

Bottom line is that you want to make adjustments to make your house one of the best ones on the market.  A buyer will always pick the best house they can get, may as well be your’s.

Stating the obvious ISN’T marketing

by John Rice

You’ve been there.  You’re looking at houses online and the picture looks good to you, so you start to read the marketing remarks about the house…..only the realtors chose to tell you that “NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY.  RATES ARE HISTORICALLY LOW”, but they don’t really tell you much about the house somebody is paying them to sell.  It’s like the message is that you should buy ANY house, not just the house you are looking at.   I’ve always thought it was pretty stupid to waste the short amount of attention you have from a consumer with that stuff.   I mean, think about it.  Anybody reading the marketing remarks about a house, either in print or online, has probably ALREADY DECIDED THEY WANT TO BUY A HOUSE!!!  They’ve come to a website or picked up a flyer to do what?  Look at houses or try to figure out IF they are going to become buyers or not?  Same thing with the old “YOU CAN OWN CHEAPER THAN YOUR RENT”.  Any renter looking at houses doesn’t need to be told this, they already know it.

It isn’t just in this industry either.  Back when I was younger, I had a lawn maintenance company.  That was before the internet and advertising in the phone book was the thing to do.  I would see ads where lawn companies were trying to convince people of all the benefits of having them mow their lawns.  I used the attention I had from consumers looking at my ad to convince them I could do a great job, that I had insurance (something most didn’t at the time) and that I had happy customers.  My thoughts were that if somebody had picked up a phone book, gone to the “L” pages and looked up either lawn care or landscaping, then they had already decided to let somebody else do the work for them.  At that point the goal became to convince them that I was a better choice than the guys who were telling them they should make a decision that had already been made.

Just my 2 cents for the day.