Jul
30
Monday Mashup: Productivity, Listings and Eeyore
Filed Under Real Estate Listing Tips, Time Management | Leave a Comment
Michael Wright, Executive Editor of Agent Inner Circle, shares an ingenious listing agreement submitted by reader David Rake to close more listings. See the agreement that gets the whole family involved in selling the property.
One reader claimed that giving up prospects is an insane idea in the current falling market. I disagree. But you be the judge.
Time management professional Dr. Donald E. Wetmore shares five techniques to recapture a wasted hour or two every week.
In the March 1, 2006 article “Automating Showing Feedback” Michael Russer (aka Mr. Internet) demonstrated “a far better way to get valuable comments from showing agents without wasting time on the phone or cranking out reports.”
In May of this year we showed you how to automate showing feedback for free.
The Future of Real Estateblogger Joel Burelsom explains “anyone who gets into blogging quickly finds out - Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are an indispensable way to keep on top of a tidal wave of information that exists out there.” But far from just simply keeping tabs on the industry, he shares five ways you can expand your blog habit, take it to the next level, better your day and improve your productivity .
All you can really expect when using Microsoft’s new Vista operating platform is an incremental improvement in productivity. Or so says David Berlind. In the meantime, stick with XP until 2009. Or 2014. Or buy that Mac.
And finally, Lifehacker Dustin Mix shares six ideas on how to kill that vile and despicable enemy of productivity: Eeyore.
Jul
27
How to Open the Vault of Anyone’s Mind
Filed Under Networking, Real Estate Listing Tips | 4 Comments
You ever been to a networking event trying to engage a prospect event and when that person takes their eyeglasses off and sets them on the table?
Do you realize what that means?
How about when you are at a listing appointment and the seller leans forward and puts his chin in his hand?
Do you know what that means?
Ever see a master locksmith at work? It looks like magic, doesn’t it? He plays with the lock, listens, hears things you don’t see, feels things you don’t feel. And opens the lock. Effortlessly.
Master communicators are the same way. They see things, hear things, feel things that helps them unlock the combination to anyone’s mind. And if you do that elegantly and attentively, you can do the same.
According to NLP techniques like I’ve discussed in the past, body language, eye movement and voice tonality give us cues about people’s thoughts, mental strategies and desires.
Did you know visual people speak in quick bursts, usually high-pitched, nasal or strained. Did you know feelers speak in low, deep and slow speech? Did you know an even, clear speaker is someone who responds to audio clues?
Auditory people tend to respond to you when you speak slowly, more rhythmic and measured. Words mean a lot to them. They respond to things like “That sounds right to me” or ” I can hear what you’re saying” or “Everything clicks.”
Visual people see the world in pictures. And because they are trying to keep up with the pictures in their mind, they speak rapidly. They don’t care how they get it out. They appreciate visual metaphors. Explanations on how things look to a person, patterns and whether something looks bright or dark.
A person who feels, or is kinesthetic, tend to speak even slower than audio people. They respond to voices that are deep. They appreciate hearing metaphors like “grasping for something concrete.” Things are “heavy” and “intense” and they need to “get in touch” with things. They say things like ” I’m reaching for an answer, but I haven’t got a hold of it yet.”
Body language also gives us clues about a person.
When a person breathes high in their chest, their visual. Even breathing in the whole chest, audio. Deep breathing low in the stomach means they are feelers, kinesthetic.
You can also read skin tone and head position.
Visual thinkers tend to have paler faces. A flushed face indicates a feeler. When someone’s head is up, they are thinking visually. If it is cocked or balanced, he’s audio. If the head is down or relaxed, he’s a feeler.
Eye movement is another indicator of how a person thinks.
Someone looking down and to the right is typically a feeler. Audio people tend to look straight to the right with half a smile or to the left with a full smile or down to the left with a frown. Visual’s do it a little bit differently. They may look directly at you and smile, eyes wide. Or up to the left with a smirk.
When speaking to a prospect, observe their voices, their pacing, their tonality, skin color, head position and eye movement. Use the technique of complimenting or grab and pass to break the ice. Then ask general, open-ended questions to get them to talk about themselves.
If you can get them to talk about themselves, you will have no problem figuring out whether they are audio, visual or kinesthetic. And when you figure this out, start to respond in like manner. If you do this, people will start to like you and open up even further and your next step (getting permission to give them something of value) is an easy step away.
So even with minimal communication you can get a clear unmistakable cue about how a person’s mind works and what sort of messages he uses and, most importantly, responds to.
[By the way: when someone takes off their eyeglasses and sets them on the table means they have stopped listening to you. You need to stop and listen to them to find out what you need to do to get them back on track. But if someone leans forward and puts their chin in their palm means they want to hear more.]
I know this may be a lot to process, but take it one step at a time and practice. And let me know if these things work for you. Or if you have something else I missed. I’m always very interested in hearing from you.
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Jul
26
Why Go Short Sale If the Seller Makes* Zero Money?
Filed Under Real Estate Listing Tips | 7 Comments
Okay, if a seller doesn’t make money but 13 other people do* (see note at bottom) on a short sale, where’s the benefit to the seller?
Short sales happen when a lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed against the home because there is not enough equity to sell and pay all costs of sale.
Not all lenders will negotiate a short sale, and that is why a real estate agent or a lawyer can be a tremendous help by contacting the lender’s loss mitigation department to find out.
A seller can’t just wake up one morning and decide they’re going to sell their home at a loss by asking for a short sale. Typically, lenders won’t even consider a short sale if payments are current. Lenders will be more agreeable to negotiation if your payments are in arrears. Plus, if the seller has cash assets, the lender might try to tap those accounts. Doing a short sale is not for the faint of heart.
The only reason to do a short sale is if the seller’s credit is at risk.
How is the seller’s credit affected?
According to David Steep, division manager at Vitek Mortgage, sellers will take a bigger hit on their credit report by going through foreclosure or giving the lender a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
The affect of a short sale on a seller’s credit report is much less damaging. The ding on credit will show up as a pre-foreclosure in redemption status, Steep says.
Also, a seller who wants to buy another home after foreclosure will end up waiting about 36 months before a lender will offer any kind of interest rate that makes sense.
The good news for short sale sellers is the wait is much shorter before buying another home: about 18 months at a good interest rate.
If you’re going after seller’s trying to decide whether to let a home go through foreclosure versus attempting a short sale, salvaging their credit is the main advantage to doing a short sale.
*Note: In a recent post Ruby Zuniga commented: “I believe that this [preforeclosures aren't selling] is going on everywhere. I’m in the Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside County Area. I have a listing in the S.B County and a listing in the L.A county. The Homes pre-foreclosures are not moving? Why? Agents don’t want to waste their time. They will rather take buyers to a Normal Home where their commission is guaranteed.”
Is this the case? I mean, if an agent helps his client buy a preforeclosure home, won’t he get a commission? Why isn’t it guaranteed? Granted, the agents may take a hit on the commission because the lender will insist on a fee reduction, but the bottom line is the agents and their brokers get paid for selling the property. I’m very curious.
Jul
25
Imagine this:
Let’s say that you have sold your client’s house, and the buyers agent asks you if his clients could move some of their furniture into the garage three days before closing. Although you wouldn’t want to let them move into the house before closing, you see an advantage in letting them use the garage. It will get them emotionally involved and far less likely to create problems for you at closing. So you’re almost eager to make the concession, but…
Before you do anything, remember this: no matter how small the concession someone is asking you for, always ask for something in return.
Say to them, “Let me check with the family and see how they feel about that, but let me ask you this: If we do that for you, what will you do for us?”
Roger Dawson calls asking for something in return the Trade-Off Gambit.
One of three things is going to happen when you ask for something in return:
1. You might just get something.
2. By asking for something in return, you elevate the value of the concession. When you’re negotiating, why give anything away? Always make the big deal out of it. You may need that later.
3. It stops the grinding away process. This is the key reason why you should always use the Trade-Off Gambit. If they know that every time they ask you for something, you’re going to ask for something in return, then it stops them constantly coming back for more.
In addition to using the Trade-Off Gambit, as I said in a previous In The Zone article, “lean on the Higher Authority to deflect pressure from yourself. Continue to position
yourself as on the other person’s side and any negative emotion will be directed away from you.”
Jul
24
The Art of Persuasion: 10 Essential Tricks Every Agent Should Know
Filed Under Persuasion, Real Estate Sales Tips | Leave a Comment
Amazing, isn’t it?
How when you listen to one of the selling masters you say to yourself “Why didn’t I think of that? It seems so obvious…so easy.”
The masters always seem to come up with the perfect phrase…a few
words…sometimes even just one word…that grabs you by the lapels and drags you into their presentation.
The perfect words make you want to buy whatever they’re selling before they’ve even mentioned a product.
It’s the Art of Persuasion. Right?
But let me assure you right now that it’s less of an art and more of a
science.
The Art of Persuasion is something you can learn. And the good news is the fundamental building block to any good persuasive presentation is simply building rapport.
As the motivational trainer Peter Lowe says, “The three keys to
persuasion are: Establish rapport, Establish rapport, Establish rapport.”
And to build that rapport, you need to cultivate behaviors that will make people trust you and make them feel it’s in their best interest to
follow your lead.
Here, are some ideas, big and small, for making yourself more persuasive:
1. Before a presentation, ask yourself “What do I really want?” Ask
soul-searching questions to understand your true motivation: family,
money, fame, power. You’re looking for what makes you tick, what
drives you.
2. Develop the knack for making the other person feel like the center of the universe.
3. Be quick to compliment.
4. Train yourself to remember other people’s names. One of the best ways: when you shake hands with a new person, note the color of his or her eyes. That forces you to make eye contact and, after a while, will also send a signal to your brain to store that person’s name in your long-term memory. Also use the name soon afterwards, and you’ll have a lock on it.
5. Empower others. Follow the maxims of legendary 3M leader William McKnight: “Listen to anybody with an idea. Encourage experimental doodling. If you put fences around people, you get sheep; give people the room they need.”
6. Try to arouse positive emotion.
7. Take a clue from your audience–whether it’s a single seller or a family of buyers. Really make an effort to communicate in a manner that matches your message to the receiver.
8. Hone your sense of humor.
9. Practice being a better questioner. Follow up by asking, “How does that make you feel?” or “Have you ever experienced anything else like that?” or “How could that be handled differently in the future?” or “I wonder what lessons we can take from that?”
And finally…
10. Keep your perspective. Remember: Even though you’re passionate about your point of view, lighten up. Tomorrow’s another day-and another opportunity to persuade.
Jul
23
The Most Common Cause for Preforeclosure Failure
Filed Under Real Estate Listing Tips, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas | 5 Comments
The 2007 List Issue printed by REALTOR magazine had this to say about pre-foreclosures:
If keeping the home isn’t an option, alternatives include Sale. The lender will usually agree to a specific amount of time to find a purchaser and pay off the total amount owed. The borrower will be expected to obtain the services of a real estate professional to market the property aggressively.
This is pre-foreclosure sale, short payoff or short sale.
If the property’s sales value isn’t enough to pay the loan in full, the lender might accept less than the full amount owed to cut its losses. This option can also include a period of time to allow the borrower’s real estate professional to find a qualified buyer. A pre-foreclosure sale could provide additional funds to pay other lien holders and a few moving costs, which in turn helps out a struggling human being.
But short selling appointments have to be handled very carefully. Once you’ve made contact, be mindful of these next steps. And keep in mind, as Thomas Lucierwarns, don’t contact pre-foreclosures in person.
“When on a listing appointment the agent first suspects a preforeclosure scenario, and quite possibly an indicated short sale scenario… it is essential to provide the homeowner accurate information and quickly displace and reign in the seller’s unrealistic expectations with cold hard facts,” says David Petrovick.
The agent’s task is to tell the seller what it needs to hear, not necessarily what it wants to hear. This is Honesty.
At this critical moment, however, as psychology has it, the seller will hear what it wants to hear, and remember what it wants to remember. Most sellers are in denial up to even the 11th hour. So, Petrovick points out, great care and attention must be paid to detail, both in the collection of information from the seller, and in providing information to the seller. Only this way can you avoid making mistakes like overfixing the home or misinterpreting the value of the home or giving the seller’s false hope.
Otherwise you could fail.
Though some may be put off by the predatory stereotype of the coldhearted foreclosure vulture, the reality is far from heartless.
Bankrate.com, quoting Thomas Lucier, says it best:
“Bad things happen to good people. A lot of times, things happen to people that are completely out of their control. I’ve seen it happen, especially with medical bills or companies like Enron that run off with their pension.”
Jul
20
Ralph Roberts reports that in order to survive the slump compete on quality service, reputation and know how–not price.
Stefan Swanepoel gives us a short history of the housing bubble, the effects of bubble trouble and asks the question: what lessons have or will you learn from this current market?
The National Association of Realtors expects home prices to recover in 2008 with existing-home sales picking up late this year and new-home sales rising early next year.
Here’s proof that everyone will eventually be able to search for listings by brandusing Google. Joel Burlesom explains the findings he stumbled upon.
And if you haven’t heard, there is a new exist strategy for struggling homeowners–short selling. It may be difficult to convince a lender to go this route, but here are 7-steps on how to do a short sale if you want to give it a shot.
Jul
20
After 40 years as a student of real estate negotiations, Bob Russ has learned that success in a slowing real estate market requires paying greater attention to negotiation skills and summarizes how to unlock the door to successful negotiations in six keys.
One of the programmers responsible for building the original versions of the browser you now know as “Internet Explorer,” Eric Sink, says “Negotiating from a position of real need is a bad, bad situation.” A buyer’s market could throw you in a position of bad need. So be cautious.
In a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge article, James K. Sebenius describes a better way to negotiate by using a tool called “backward mapping.” Preparation is the theme here.
Marcie Geffner gives us six tips and suggestions to turn negotiation into agreement. Priceless tips on how to move to that coveted “Yes.”
And broker Elizabeth Weintraub shares her ideas on how to write a successful purchase offer in a buyer’s market and then explains what a real estate counter offeris and why sellers and home-buyers bicker back and forth.
Jul
19
According to the blog tracking site Technorati, everyday an estimated 1750,000 blogs go online. That’s almost 2 blogs created every second of every day.
The question is: should you jump on the bandwagon?
Peter Alexander at Entrepreneur.com things you should…if for no other reason than to take advantage of an effective marketing tool. Peter points out that in a recent survey by research firm MarketingSherpa, blogs were voted the No. 4 tool for generating sales leads.
So, starting a blog doesn’t sound like a bad idea, does it? Okay, well, what exactly should you blog about?
The Technology Evangelist recommends “real estate agents should blog about things like market reports, updates on local developments, real estate finance and opinions on other local real estate news.”
But it’s got to be stuff that would set you apart from other agents in your market. Then the leads might roll in…
By proving your expertise on a blog, you’ll get more phone calls from highly qualified buyers and sellers. You’ll get more referrals from agents who get to know and trust you through your blog. Furthermore, you might even get media mentions from local reports who know they can turn to you for a quote when writing on a subject you’ve carved out as your own.
Yet, before starting a blog, you have to figure out what it will be known for.
For example, our real estate marketing Blog is founded on providing real estate agents tips, ideas and strategies on the four profit-pillars of real estate: prospecting, negotiating, listing and selling. These are the only areas an agent makes money in real estate and it’s why you should read this blog. It’s our cornerstone content.
What is cornerstone content?
Chris Garrett asks “Is there anything that you could point to that your blog really owns?”
“It could be a single post, a series of posts, an over-arching ‘message’. This is cornerstone content. Over the course of time, the post, series or “message” is added to and referred to repeatedly over time, increasing the original value and relevance and also keeping content fresh. And while the main benefit is branding and educational value, there are other benefits as well.”
Brian Clark, the Copyblogger, says,
“And when approached in a strategic fashion, this content can rank very well in the search engines. The key is creating compelling content that’s worth linking to, and then finding a way to get the word out.”
But as you might imagine, writing good content is hard and time-consuming.
However, the web usability guru, Jakob Neilson, writes a compelling argument on why you should make the effort. In a nutshell, you should write content rich articles to avoid commodity status. Otherwise, you’ll get lost in the garbage and your effort will be wasted. So if you are going to do it, then it’s worth the time to do it right. In depth content is value added content that demonstrates authority, gets people to trust you and link to you and helps you rank in the search engines.
So tell me: if you don’t have a blog, are you considering starting one now? If so, when? If not, why not? Looking forward to hearing from you!
Subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog today!
Jul
18
Avoid an Expired Home–and Damaged Reputation–with These 4 Textbook Steps
Filed Under Real Estate Listing Tips | Leave a Comment
“The number one complaint I hear from expired listings is the lack of communication from the agent who listed the property.”
This was a comment we received back in 2005 from an agent who specialized in expired listings. It intrigued us.
Interested in learning more, as we’ve mentioned before, back in early 2006 we ran a survey on expired listings.
One of the questions we asked 406 real estate agents was “How many listings have expired in your career?” The average answer was six. With an agent being in the business for an average 11 years, we concluded that a typical client had a listing expire approximately every other year.
It is interesting to note that the average number of homes expired didn’t present a huge impact on an agent’s income. In fact, it would be safe to say that from a purely financial stand point, losing an expired doesn’t mean you are going to eat from the horse’s trough.
However, there’s something else about an expired. Something more damaging. Once your home expires, it will take a ton of time, money, and effort to repair the damage to your reputation.
Following you’ll find four key steps to help you avoid an expired home so you can earn a commission and keep your reputation in one piece.
1. CONSTANT communication
Staying in touch with the seller is the most popular method to keeping a home from expiring. According to Greg Herder, protecting your reputation from expired homes is all about setting expectations. Some agents insist it is important to express concerns and show what they’ve been doing to market the home. Furthermore, educating the seller up front as to price and condition is also important.
But stay in front of the seller with updates and feedback. Stay in contact with the seller, do not be afraid to call them, even if it’s just to say there has been no activity on their home that week. This also improves their confidence in you.
2. SCHEDULE price reductions
Here is a solid piece of advice: learn to write in the original listing that if the house doesn’t have a contract within the first 30 days then the price needs to be adjusted. Make sure you tell your sellers that a price reduction can trigger multiple offers. There might be buyers waiting in the wings for the home to hit a certain price.
Sacramento Broker Elizabeth Weitraub says that figuring price reductions requires you know when the time is right to reduce the price.
If the seller won’t reduce the price, and it is overpriced, then don’t take the listing to begin with. A key fundamental to real estate is to know the market and price accordingly. And yes, be tough with the seller on price up front.
3. TOUGH with seller on price
I think it is paramount to avoid the temptation to allow the seller to have control and set the price…but equally important is that an agent should never prostitute themselves by reducing their commission and having the notion that they can just stick a sign on the lawn and POOF, a sale.
Certainly we heard that an agent must not sweet talk the seller at every opportunity (they must exercise Howard Briton’s Tough Love scripts), so it’s apparent that everyone should start with the unblemished truth about the property, the price and the market.
And that starts with tough communication.
4. INNOVATE with technology and marketing
Jim Crawford tells us that houses sitting on the market are no surprise to other agents. They know the listing agent is asleep at the wheel. They’re missing even the basics of marketing a home.
Once you’ve got the marketing down, use innovative technology to maintain constant communication between you and your client. If you do this, your time, stress and pitfalls in the business will be cut in half, enabling you to list and sell even more.
More importantly, Michael J. Russer says you need an automated mechanism that allows you to communicate with your client the various methods that you are using to sell their home. In other words, you want them to see you working hard to sell their home.
However, if this can be accomplished without you really working any harder (in fact cutting out traditional manual tasks, like fishing for feedback from stodgy, “it’s all about me” agents or even removing the gut-wrenching difficult task of telling the seller, who doesn’t want to hear from you to begin with, that their “crusty, shag carpet has to go”) then you are in a better position.
And what would be sublime is if you could do it for free.
Any other interesting steps I’ve missed? Drop them in the comments.