Real Estate Investing

I was giving such consideration to writing a post about cleaning your sign that I actually took photos of my sign before, during, and after a good scrubbing.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

See?  How gross!!  Anyway, while I was *thinking* about writing this, Texas Realtor Deb Brooks actually wrote the post about what your real estate sign can say about the house that’s listed,

Remember what they say about a persons home? If the yard is trashed it’s probably the same inside.

Well, your sign speaks volumes of the way you conduct your overall business. Keep them fresh…

The perfect progression is of course…FOR SALE, OPTION PENDING, PENDING AND THEN SOLD.

She is absolutely right.  If your home is on the market for sale, just as you’d keep the trash picked up and the lawn mowed, the real estate sign should also be clean.  Your agent should bring the sign already clean before it goes in your yard, but if the home is on the market for awhile, it would be okay to either spray it down yourself or ask your agent to come and clean it.  You want that sign to be a reflection of a home being properly maintained and cared for!

There’s an agent in my area who shall remain nameless.  He’s a big, popular agent.  He guarantees his listings will sell in 60 days or else.  The else is the charming part… or else what?

Or else he’ll buy them personally?  No.

Or else he’ll sell them without charging a commission?  No.

Or else he’ll just re-list them again and again so it will appear it’s only been listed for 60 days?  Bingo!

A friend of mine - before I became an agent myself - once said that she called him and learned that to list with him you were required to sign at least six listing forms.  Each form was good for 30 to 60 days.  When one listing date expired, his staff would re-input everything into the MLS thus creating a new MLS number.  We’re not supposed to do this - it’s against the MLS rules… more specifically there’s supposed to be a 10-day rest period before a home listing shows back up as a new, active listing.  Here’s what I found the other day on one home:

August 6, 2007 - 49 days
September 24, 2007 - 49 days
November 12, 2007 - 46 days
December 28, 2007 - 61 days
February 28, 2008 - 46 days
April 14, 2008 - 46 days
May 30, 2008 - 63 days
August 1, 2008 - 45 days
September 15, 2008 - 45 days
October 30, 2008 - 48 days
December 17, 2008 - 170 days (wrong picture)
June 5, 2009 - 119 days

I definitely sense a pattern that the agent is tired of the 45 days listings and is expanding them to three and four months! So this may be a boost for sellers - to give them optimal exposure because we agents do keep an eye on the hot sheets - to see what’s new on the market, what prices have come down, who’s withdrawn and expired.  Yet it’s misleading to buyers UNLESS their agent performs due diligence and looks at the full history of the house.  If I was the buyer’s agent, my thoughts would be that since it’s been on the market for 787 DAYS, they may be willing to negotiate.  OR they probably are NOT willing to negotiate!

Maybe we should just call this Reason #29 to Interview and Hire a Professional Realtor to Represent Your Best Interests.

I had the privilege this morning of listening to Steve Murray, owner of REAL Trends (a leading source of analysis and information of the residential real estate industry) and editor of LORE Magazine which features success stories about some of the top agents in the nation.  Murray said REAL Trends has been tracking and predicting real estate data for years, including the 50 percent fall in the number of units sold from the peak 2005 to 2008.

In 2005, 8.3 million homes were sold. In 2008, that number had dropped to 5.4 million units.  The amount this drop in volume cost is estimated at $1 TRILLION.  Murray said 2009 is the floor with sales expected between 4.9 and 5.4 million units. We all now know the primary cause was due to the epic fail in consumer confidence coupled with NINJA loans = No income, no jobs, no assets.  Murray believes housing sales will resume their upward track in 2010 to 2011 and that housing prices will recover as sales increase.

Meanwhile, we will continue to see strategic defaults - or people who walk away from their mortgages when they 1) can’t afford the payments on 2) a house that’s no longer worth what’s owed.  These people will simply be OUT of the housing market for several years, however we wil see a gradual increase in housing sales and values in teh next five to ten years because the nation adds 1.2 to 1.4 million new households per year.

While we look to another year of flat real estate, you’ll see the exceptional agents flourish because superior service, transparency and trust mean more now than ever before.  It is really kind of an exciting time to watch who will be thriving this time next year.  Buyers and sellers will always go to the agents with the professional dedication and commitment to continue providing professional service.