I was totally LOL when I checked my e-mail this morning.  I had been “Invited” to attend a conference that promised, for a mere $35, to tell me the secret of what buyers want out of their realtor today.  It was funny to me because 1)  You would think ANY realtor should already know that, and 2) because what a buyer (and seller) want hasn’t changed to make it any different “Today” that yesterday.

I don’t know what this conference will teach agents, but here is what I would expound on it I were the keynote speaker:

1)  You must care about your clients.  That is something that can’t be taught, and can’t be easily faked.  If you don’t really care about them, then you should get out of the business.  In fact, if you don’t care, you’ll probably go out of business!

2)  You must know the market and your town like the back of your hand.  Otherwise, what good are you.  You may be able to fool somebody once, but they aren’t going to send their friends and family to you.  People come to you because you (should) have knowledge that they don’t.  My dad told me when I was a kid that to be successful in business you have to do something that the customer doesn’t know how to do, doesn’t want to do, or doesn’t have time to do.

3)  The client wants you to make it all about them, and that’s the way it should be.  You’re only there because of them.  Your interests ARE their interests.

4)  The client wants your attention………..WHEN THEY WANT IT.  I got a call from a nice, but busy agent last night.  He wanted to show a listing of mine that had been pending for over a week and had closed about 3 hours earlier.  I really felt sorry for the buyer because his agent is running about a week behind, scheduling listings that his client obviously wanted to see a week ago.  This means quickly responding to calls, e-mails, texts too.

5)  The client wants your patience.  This is a huge decision to them.  One that they will have to live with long after you cash the commission check.  They don’t want to feel rushed, or that you think they are being too picky.

I could go on for a lot longer.  Basically I would say that there is no new gimmick out there that can replace being an honest, knowledgeable, caring local expert.  I would tell them to view the transaction from the clients standpoint, rather than their own.   I would tell them to hone their knowledge of their market rather than taking the responsibility to remind everybody of day light savings.  I would tell them that substance is more important than style.

I’d tell them all that, but I think a lot of agents would want their $35 back!

What do you think??

That is a question that I have been asked a lot lately.  I guess I could spout sales figures, average days on market, average sale price, compare this YTD to 2009 YTD,  and other numbers.  It sure would make me look smart I guess.  But I won’t because I don’t think that tells us the story behind the numbers, which is far more interesting, relevant and important.

See, the average days on market really tell us just that.  The houses that have sold very quickly or took forever to sell have a lot of say over what that number will be.  The same thing with the number of sales.  It is us realtors that find the number of sales important.   Buyer’s and seller’s really care about if the market is balanced or not.  For example, if there is one house for sale and there is only one buyer, that is a balanced market……Of course it means that there are a lot of Realtors submitting resumes all over town,  but the market would be balanced.  Again, the same thing with average sale price.  It has come down in the past few years not really because of depreciation, but because the more expensive houses that previously brought the average number up weren’t selling that well.

So, how is the market?  Again, that depends on who you ask.  I had my best year EVER last year, and my phone is ringing.  To me it looks great!!  To the agent that spent most of last year sending people post cards to remember to set their clock either backwards of forwards, they would say it is bad.

So, “Is he ever going to answer the dang question?” is what you must be thinking.  Okay, here goes:  If you are a seller who is willing to work to make your house look attractive, and are realistic about the price, congrats, it is a good market for you.  If you are a seller that doesn’t want to put any effort into selling your house and are pretty inflexible, then I predict the sign in your front yard will rust away before you get a contract.  For buyer’s, you have less selection than you have had in the past several years, but you weren’t really going to buy those houses that were over-priced and didn’t show well anyway, so the fact that there are less of them really doesn’t matter to you I guess.

I think we are going to see a good year.  People with jobs are now acclimated to the economy.  Living in a sour economy is just normal now.  The shock has worn off as long as you have a job.  Life goes on and part of grown up life is buying and selling houses.

Also, people just aren’t looking at their home as an ATM machine any more either.  People are viewing their home as, well, their home.  Because of that, buyers are really conservative with the amount they offer.  NOBODY is willing to over pay.  The old school boom mentality was “So what if I over-paid by $10,000 in a bidding war, I’ll get that back in appreciation within the next year.”  I still think people are willing to pay full “Retail” for a house, but they definitely want to make sure they pay no more than that.  (That makes it good for me because smart people have started viewing the Realtor’s wisdom as critical again, after years of viewing us mainly has somebody who opens the door and cashes checks.)

Here is another fact that holds true across all price ranges:  The best houses in every price range have always and will always sell quickly and for top dollar.  As long as their IS a market, the best house will always be the one that sells.

So, how is the market?  It is cautious.  It is alive and well.  It is pretty balanced up to about the $250k point.  Lexington is a town with 2 strong markets:  The people buying/selling houses in the under $150k range, and those moving up to the $200-250k range.  And most of all, the market is realistic these days, which to me is a good sign of it’s health.

Alright!  I got the latest Rector-Hayden Report today.  I have been curious to see the stats from last month.  I know I was busy, but I wanted to see if everybody else was too.  Much to my surprise, there hasn’t been much of a change for Lex over the past month.  That is not a bad thing.  Being stable in a bad economy with increasing unemployment shows how resilient Lex really is!

The Lex market is pretty balanced up to about $250,000.  Over that, there are many more houses that buyers.  It looks like the surrounding counties are not doing as well as Lex.  Last year, people quit considering a cheaper house just outside Lex when gas it $4/gallon.  Even though it is much cheaper now, it looks like the sting is still there.  I can’t say that I blame anybody.  Who wants to save maybe $100-150 a month on a mortgage and spend more than that on gas.

I still think real estate is a good investment.  You get to USE real estate.  That is what I like.  I paid $220k for my house about a year and a half ago.  It is worth that still, maybe a little more if I were to time listing it when there wasn’t much competition in my area.  All the while I have been living in it.  I think that is pretty sweet.  If you want to get technical about it, even if I sold my house for the same price, I would be getting MORE for it.  How?  Well, while I have been living here, I have been using it up.  Furnaces, carpet, appliances, etc, all have a lifespan.  I have used part of that life span.  If I sold for the same price I would have gotten appreciation since I wouldn’t have to pay back the use.  Anyway, I guess that is another blog topic!

Here is a temp link to this month’s Rector-Hayden Report:  http://info.rhr.com/RH_Report/Report_Pages.php?Agent_ID=70294