Marketing

Why I think 3-D tours are a bad idea

by John Rice

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Yep.  I really said that.  Those Google earth type tours where you click arrows to navigate around the entire house are a bad idea.

I know they are cool.  On trend, just like Pokemon Go was last summer.  Soon, they will be as flat as the last sip of a soft drink.

Why do I think they are a bad idea?  It all boils down to the point of showing a listing online.  The goal is NOT to sell the house.  The goal of marketing a listing is to sell a SHOWING.

Pause and let that sink in.

I think we can all agree that buyers are looking at listings right now on their phone.  What are they doing?  They are deciding if they like the house enough to come see it in person.  You know what happens when they see something they don’t like?  They don’t come see it in person….I guess these 3-D tours are good for a buyer.  Saves them a lot of time when they decide not to come see a house because they saw all of it and didn’t like something.  If you are the seller, does this make you feel good?  Wouldn’t you rather have a buyer come see your house in person before ruling it out based on an unflattering angle they saw on their phone?

The cold, hard truth is that these tours are the latest thing in a long line of products designed to be sold to realtors with the promise that it will help them get listings.  In the 12 years I have been a realtor, I have seen several trends come and go:  The number on the sign you call for a recorded message about the house, the Virtual Tours (which were the same pictures, just zooming in and out with music) and QR codes.  All of those were gimmicky, but did not potentially prevent a buyer from coming to see your house.

And you know what, they aren’t even really 3-D.

 

Which offer to pick when you have more than one?

by John Rice

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This is a house I put on the market late Friday evening.  I own it with a friend.  It is fixed up pretty nice, which is why we had over 25 showings scheduled.  We got 7 offers on it.  We had two more interested buyers, but when I told their agents we had multiple offers, they didn’t want to join the bidding war.

You’d think it would be an easy thing….picking which one to accept.  There is so much more to an offer than just the one with the highest sale price.

The lowest offer was way under the asking price and the buyer wanted us to pay $4200 of their closing costs.  When 4 of the 7 offers came in over the list price, that one was rejected with a good laugh.  I am glad I got it because I used it to force the next buyer into bringing their highest and best offer.

I had priced the house competitively. I knew that there was not much on the market.  I knew we had done a really good job making the house appealing.  What I didn’t know was how many buyers there would be.  You don’t know that until you list it and watch it unfold in real time.

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Most sellers would be thrilled to have offers over the list price.  While I was excited, I was also thinking about the appraisal.  Anybody doing any type of loan will need to do an appraisal.  And I wanted an offer that would result in a CLOSING!  All of the loan types the buyers were doing made me nervous about the appraisal.  Plus, most of them wanted us to pay their closing costs too.

 

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So, I really wanted a conventional loan buyer.  Since we were over the list price already, I wanted somebody who did not need us to pay any of their closing costs.  The closing cost issue was a really big deal.  Why?  because if the house only appraises for the original list price of $138,750 and the buyer needed $3000 in closing costs paid by us, we would only net $135,750.  If we have to reduce the sale price to match the appraised value, I don’t want to also deduct the buyer’s closing costs from that value too.

Fortunately the house was so nice that I knew all I had to do was wait until the right offer came in.  Once it did, we accepted it.

This is one of many things I take into consideration for my clients.  It was fun to do it for myself this time!

 

Winter really IS the best time to sell

by John Rice

There are two kinds of listing:

  1.  The listings that are so desirable based on price/condition/location that EVERY buyer currently in the market wants it.
  2. All the other listings.

If you have one of those houses that makes people hear angels sing as soon as they walk through the door, are in an extremely desirable neighborhood, have priced your house to sell, or any combination of all that, congrats, your house will sell quickly any time of the year.  You have nothing to be worried about.  Spring is good.  Summer is good.  Fall is good. And yes, winter is good too.

If your house isn’t one of those, then you need to tweak everything you can if you want the coveted “SOLD” sign in your front yard.  You have what I call the Bridesmaid house because you know that saying, right?

Every year, people ask whether they should wait to list, or take their house off the market until spring.  My answer has always been no.

Why?

Because if you have a Bridesmaid house, there is always going to be a better house on the market all other times of the year.  I see it happen all the time.  A listing that is always the buyer’s second or third choice stays a second or third choice as long as those better houses keep coming on the market in the spring, summer and fall.

In the winter, there are far fewer buyers but there are also far fewer great listings.  Winter buyers typically have to settle for what is left over from the fall.  Picture this…..you’re at a Chinese buffet for lunch.  It’s 12:55.  There is one greasy looking Crab Rangoon.  All the General Zhao’s Chicken left are those thin, hard looking pieces that you think are really cat meat.  You are the only one at the buffet and nothing looks good.  Then, somebody comes out from the kitchen with some fresh food.  Even if it is just Pork Lo Mein, you eat it because it is the best thing available.

That is how the winter market works.

So, if you are ready to sell your house now, there is no need to wait until spring.  If you have been on the market without an offer, now really is your best shot at selling.

 

When do you know you’ve found the right house?

by John Rice

“We pretty much know as soon as we walk in.”

I was covering for an agent that was on vacation this week.  This is what one of her buyers said to me when I commented that they didn’t spend much time in the first house I showed them.  I often hear this from my own buyers.

You know what this means?

A lot of people base their decision on how they feel.

I’ve always said you could find a house with all of the items on a buyer’s must have list, but they still might not buy it.

This is why that first impression when a buyer walks through the door is so important.  If your house isn’t perfect, you are better to have the the rooms a buyer sees in the first few minutes looking better than the last few rooms they see. If a buyer likes what they see at the beginning, they are more forgiving of little things they don’t like later.  It doesn’t work in reverse.

I recently sold a house in one of my favorite neighborhoods.  It sold for about $3-4k more than it should have.  Sure, the market is hot, and we did get multiple offers…..but I think we got TOP TOP dollar for it because the seller’s decor was so attractive.   They had the right colors, the right furniture and everything else just right.  The house felt good.

And I bet the two buyers who made offers the first day on the market both  knew they wanted it as soon as they walked in.

 

6 Common Seller Mistakes

by John Rice

Some things Sellers think are okay to do, but are never a good idea:

  1. Pricing with a lot of wiggle room.  Sellers normally end up selling their houses for less than if they would have priced it competitively from day one.  Nobody is afraid to make a low offer on a house that has been on the market for a looooooong time.
  2. Not painting when they know the house needs paint.  Sellers say “Since I don’t want to make the wrong decision in picking a color, I just won’t paint.  The buyer might end up repainting again anyway?”  Truth is very few buyers have any vision.  If the paint is ugly and/or in poor shape, it makes the house feel bad.  Buyers don’t buy houses they don’t feel good in, unless they can get a bargain.  Plus, if your house isn’t selling, you know that your current paint color isn’t working.
  3. ANY type of allowance.  If you write in the marketing remarks that there is a painting/carpeting/decorating allowance, it immediately tells everybody that your house has a problem.  People don’t want to buy your problem.  You know who is attracted to allowances?  Bargain shoppers who want to get your house for below it’s market value.  Also, if you build an allowance into the asking price, it means your house is competing with better houses.  I was in two houses today.  Both were the same size in the same neighborhood.  One was move in ready and gorgeous.  The other had stained up carpet.  The nice one was $204k.  The not so nice one was $214k but had a carpet allowance.  Which would you pick?  Yeah, me too!
  4. Not moving everything out.  I see this one all the time.  The seller no longer lives in the house, but some of the closets have stuff in it and the garage is full.  You are going to have to finish moving sooner or later.  Do it now so the house looks better.  People want “Move in Ready”, not “Move OUT ready” condition.
  5. Checking out.  I mean mentally.  I see a lot of sellers who have vacated their houses and never look back.  After a few weeks, the floors are dirty, there is dust everywhere, there are 3 phone books on the front stoop and mother nature begins to reclaim the once nicely mulched flower bed.  Then there are the business cards.  Many realtors leave a card on the kitchen counter……which tells the next buyer that many other buyers have looked at the house with their agent and none of them wanted it.
  6. Reducing the price too late in the game.  Many sellers decide to reduce their listing price at exactly the same time all the other sellers do.  If everybody drops their list price by $5k all in the same week, then your house is no more competitive among other listings than it was before.  The goal of a price reduction is to become more competitive.  So, if you’re going to reduce, the sooner the better.

This is just the short list, but enough to keep you from shooting yourself in the foot.